Archive - October 2003

This morning as I was about to get out of the car at school, my mom noticed I didn't have my ID badge on. I panicked and decided I would wear my house key around my neck and have it tucked in my shirt; hopefully no one would notice. Luckily my mom wasn't in a hurry to get to work, so we went back home and got the ID. I came back to school about 20 minutes late, but I didn't really miss anything important. I was hoping that they would check for ID badges today, so my efforts wouldn't be in vain. Anyway, when I sat down and told the guy next to me (hi Curtis!) what had happened, he told me I could have just gone to the office and asked for a new badge. Oh well. At least I got out of class with an excused tardy. (Oh, and they did happen to have an ID badge sweep today.)

I found out that there isn't really a mid-term exam in one of my classes. We're working on group projects, and our mid-term is just to present our report. That's one less exam to study for, but it doesn't make me feel much better. My algebra exam is tomorrow, and I'm pretty sure an A is out of reach. Try as I might, I just can't do the stuff that they tought. And if I can, it's usually wrong anyway.

Halloween is Friday and I haven't even thought about what I'm going to do. I don't want to have to stay home and give out candy like I've done in some years past. I'll probably hang out with my friend who lives nearby. I have no idea what I could wear, though.

Please, please post a message in the discussion board! It's being overrun by my weird sister and her weird friend, and they're using fake names to express their obsession over The Lord of the Rings, Pirates of the Carribbean, and goodness knows what else. Don't be afraid to go to the board and ask me a question or comment on a post; I try to apply my amazing sense of humor in everything I do.

Mid-term exams are Wednesday and Thursday. I really, really need to study, which is something I don't do very well. Usually I'm lucky enough to remember everything I need to know for a test, without studying. Not the case for exams. I usually cram and panic, and that's what I'm going to do over the next few days.

The other day I was so bored that I worked on a Christmas layout for The World of Stuff. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people who put up Christmas decorations the day after Halloween. I was just really bored! Any road, don't expect too much of a change. It'll be the basically the same layout, but with some Christmassy stuff thrown in. I think I'll put it up around the first or second week of December. Depends on how Christmassy I'm feeling.

Hate those annoying motivational posters that tell you to work your hardest even though you're too lazy to? Despair, Inc. sells demotivational posters "increasing success by lowering expectations." Check them out and prepare to laugh.

Daylight Saving Time ended in the United States this morning. We all got extra sleep but didn't immediately realize it. It's a good exercise to figure out how to adjust all your different clocks. I have four (plus a watch) in my room. It's going to be weird having the sun beat me to school. I think Daylight Saving Time (often called Daylight Savings Time, which is incorrect and doesn't make sense) is rather nice. Normally, the sun sets too early. DST is a nice way to enjoy the sunlight and save energy - millions of barrels of oil a year (which probably isn't a lot). On the other hand, it also causes more road accidents by people who didn't get enough sleep.

Yesterday I went to the mall with my sister and a few of our friends. For the heck of it, we weighed ourselves on one of those ripoff scales outside a nutrition store. It said that a person of my gender, age, height, build, etc. has an ideal weight of 117 to 129 lbs. Needless to say, the scale said I was overweight. No, I'm not going to tell you how much I weigh. But I'm learning in school how to stay healthy and manage one's weight and such. I really should exercise and eat healthy (healthily?), but there are a few big obstacles standing in my way. No, I'm not going to tell you what they are.

At a bookstore in the mall, I decided to buy "The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide", which combines all five installments of the "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" trilogy (plus a bonus story) into one book. I read the first book last year and decided finally to read them all. I'm not really into science fiction, but I am into a good laugh, and the late Douglas Adams could really provide that with the "Hitchhiker's" books.

Last night the Florida Marlins beat the New York Yankees to win baseball's World Series, misleadingly named because only American and a few Canadian teams compete. I should be happy and excited, but I'm suprised to find that I don't really care. I am interested in seeing how the rest of South Florida reacts, though.

My friend... uh, I'll call him Bob... is always getting beaten up by his cousin... Bill. Bill always seems to get away with beating up Bob, but if Bob lays a finger on Bill he gets in huge trouble. To vent this anger, Bob usually punches me, or wads my homework into a ball, or stuff like that. He knows I won't punch him back, and if I do, it doesn't hurt him.

Yesterday after a meeting of my church's youth group, I lost my balance. Don't ask me how. I rolled over backwards and somehow landed on my head, hurting my neck, shoulders, and upper back. I remained on the ground, asking for help to get up, until Bob delivered his classic lines, namely, "Come on, you wimp!" and "It couldn't have hurt that much!" He reluctantly helped me up. Nobody seemed to care that I had a hard time standing upright and walking. Later, Bob found a baton that someone else had left. He came up behind me and held it around (but not exactly touching) my neck. The fall had made me especially paranoid; I thought he was going to pull on it and hurt my back, so I grabbed it and chased him, trying to hit him. As I was running, my mom yelled louder than I had ever heard her yell in my life. My mom said that it had to be Bob's fault because I would never do anything like that. Bob's aunt (Bill's mom) said she was going to talk to Bob. I decided I was feeling good enough to go into work today, but I left a little early to go to the doctor. My back, neck, and shoulders are mostly better now. I really hope I haven't caused Bob a hard time; he's my only real friend at school, and I've known him for a long time. I'm going to call him and apologize.

Thursday's Homecoming Week event was tug of war. I didn't watch, but from what I heard, it was seniors vs. everybody, and the seniors won. It was also Spirit Day, so my sister wore a shirt from another school's homecoming that she went to recently. No perky seniors bugged me. Homecoming Week concluded thus.

Tonight I'm ducking out on my school's homecoming game to see my friend play in his school's band. It's an away game for them and they won't be doing the halftime show, he tells me, but I'm going to hear them anyway. He says their band has 50 people and is considered tiny. My school band has 20 or 30!

For those of you who don't know, the U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, which prints U.S. paper money, has released a redesigned $20 bill. (Those of you who thought that the Mint prints paper money, go to the board and write "I will learn more about my government" 50 times.) The other day I got my first "NexGen" $20 bill. It's basically the same as the last redesign of the $20 bill, except it has more pointless security features, lots of eagles, and a green-fading-to-peach-fading-back-to-green background color. Also, Andrew Jackson has been freed from his oval. I think it's a pretty good (but not perfect) design. It's definitely a step in the right direction. For more information about the new $20 bill, check out The New Color of Money.

Yesterday's Homecoming Week event was Dance Dance Revolution. A PlayStation was hooked up in the cafeteria and the game was projected onto a large screen. The PlayStation's always there anyway; there are some people who play Madden NFL 2004 (also projected onto the screen) during lunch. I usually eat lunch outside, so I didn't see who won the Dance Dance Revolution competition. I don't care anyway.

Yesterday was the second day of Homecoming Week. I think the announcement called it "Tacky Tuesday," but I heard people referring to it as "Wacky Tacky Day," like at my old school. There was some pretty weird stuff. My sister saw a someone walking on stilts. I saw a guy carrying around a huge Yahoo! search box made of cardboard. A kid in one of my classes had a shirt decorated with the logo of Off! bug spray. He said he got it at Kmart.

The dunking booth was still outside the cafeteria, and the willing victim was none other than the principal himself. As my friends don't like him very much, I thought they'd love to hear that I dunked him into a tub of water. Each throw was 25¢; I spent $2.50 and 11 throws (they gave me a free throw for being a "frequent customer") trying to dunk him, but to no avail. I'm not known for my athletic ability. On the seventh or eighth throw, he just jumped in for some reason - I think to make me feel better about missing every shot. It only made me want to dunk him more. Hopefully he'll be there again tomorrow; I need to get the anger out.

Yesterday I got my school picture back. You can't really see it here, but in the big prints my goofy fake smile makes me look like a six-year-old. (At least it's not the terribly forced attempt of a smile you'd find in most other pictures of me.) The little gap between my front teeth is also particularly evident.

Homecoming week began yesterday, with Twin Day. I didn't see a single set of people intentionally wearing the same thing. During lunch was the toilet paper wrap. One of the teachers asked for two freshmen, two sophomores, two juniors, and two seniors to participate. One person wrapped toilet paper around the other, and the pair that finished first won for their class. The sophomores won this event; the freshmen were really slow. There was also a dunking booth outside the cafeteria. The guy in the booth was wearing a New York Yankees hat and shirt and was spraying people with a hose to get them mad and pay to try to dunk him. My sister said that while he was busy spraying her, a guy came around the other side and pushed the button to dunk him.

Suprisingly, I haven't yet been confronted by perky seniors trying to make me participate in whatever activities they need people for. It won't be long, though.

Well, this week is Homecoming Week at school. That means stuff like kickball, tug of war, pie-eating contests, and the like - you know, dumb stuff that I hate being forced to do. I bet anything that some bouncy senior is going to see me moping around at lunch and pressure me into doing whatever activity happens to be going on. But dumb stuff will not be limited to the activities; everyone's going to dress dumbly too. Today will be Twin Day (and I guarantee everyone will say "Why didn't you wear the same thing as your twin sister?"), and then Tacky Tuesday, and then something else, and something else. Last year my old school had a Wacky Tacky Day. That was actually sort of fun... I guess it was because I knew everybody there and they all knew me.

Today my dad and I went out down to Dania Beach, where I had seen a speed limit sign in km/h a few months ago. I was going to get the picture to use on the upcoming WoS page "The Metric System: Ten Times Better or Inching Toward a Metric America." After much searching for the sign, no dice. It's likely that either a) we were looking in the wrong place because my memory was playing tricks on me, or 2) it was taken down. What a shame. If you want to see rare shots of metric signs in the U.S., the U.S. Metric Association (USMA) has a gallery of such examples submitted by several individuals (and I was hoping to be among them).

Last night I dreamed I was walking down a sidewalk when, suddenly, everything went black. The next thing I knew, I was standing nearby these people overhearing how I died. A bomb dug underground had exploded under my feet, and I was decapitated in the blast. Needless to say, I woke up abruptly. Not a good way to start the morning.

I just got back from a local playhouse's version of West Side Story, with my friend in the lead role of Tony. He's been acting for a few years now, and he's pretty good. In fact, he goes to a school for the arts in West Palm Beach, which is really far away. I didn't know he could sing until tonight; it turns out he has a really good singing voice.

If you're in need of something to pass the time, check out Sign Builder 2.0, where you can make your own professional-looking warning signs (complete with those little pictograms that often have obscure meanings) on the web. The variety of Sign Builders includes Safety Sign Builder, Safety Sign Builder Lite (no pictograms), ANSI Sign Builder, Hazmat Sign Builder, and Lockout Tag Builder. (You need Adobe Acrobat Reader for the signs to display correctly.) There's no end to the funny stuff you can do with the pictograms. Take this sign, for example, which I made using Safety Sign Builder.

When production for The Brendan Leonard Show was winding down in August, Brendan and three of his friends decided to pursue a movie career. So they filmed a demo reel explaining to L.A. producers who he is. The 4.5 minute video is presented in the form of a chase scene, one of The Brendan Leonard Show's trademarks. If you never got a chance to see the show, check out the video to see the kind of brilliant humor that you missed. (You must have QuickTime installed on your computer to view the video.) Also be sure to check out brendanleonardshow.com, which is now the official site of The Brendan Leonard Show.

The song used in the video is called, ironically, "Runaround," and it's by a band called Arlo. It's a song that sounds like one they would use on the show. (It might have actually been on the show; I don't know for sure.) Even though I'm not big on the particular genre of rock, it's a great song. You can listen to the whole song at the web site of Sub Pop Records, Arlo's label.

Having examined a few songs of the "I-guess-you-would-just-call-it-rock" genre, I've noticed that the sound that seems to make every song tick is the double-tracked distorted electric guitars, with one in the left stereo channel, and one in the right. I figured it would be interesting to try that in a more primitive but effective way by spitting the signal from a guitar and sending it to two different amps. The amps could have different effects or the same settings to get a surround effect. My dad, a technical wizard, says it's possible, and he's seeing if he has a Y-connector that will do the job. I know this idea has probably been used over and over again by you guitar professionals out there, but give me a break! :)

Daily hits to The World of Stuff have been falling like a brick. I think it's because I haven't been posting every single day like I did in August and some of September. I guess that means that there are actually regular readers of the site besides people I know. I think that's pretty cool, except for the fact that they're not coming back as much now...

Billy, a guy in one of my classes, has an awesome blog which can be at falling-apart.net. That reminds me: another classmate's blog, thedecemberplan.org, is back up, and with a new layout. I'm going to add both of these links to the new "People I know who aren't my friends" section of the Links page.

Our own Florida Marlins are on their way to the World Series - again! I'm not much of a baseball fan (or a fan of any sport for that matter), but it's cool when your area team gets national attention. The Marlins beat the Chicago Cubs for the National League Championship four games to three. Those poor Cubs haven't won the NL Championship since 1945 and the World Series since 1908.

When the Marlins made their miraculous World Series win in 1997, all of South Florida was celebrating. At only four years old, the team became the youngest ever to win the Series (a record that was broken again a few years later). I was in third grade then, and at my old school they took some pictures with of the whole school behind a banner saying "Florida Marlins." Some of the kids made a human logo with the letters FM (I think I was in the logo, but it's impossible to tell from the picture). The photos were printed in that year's yearbook.

I still haven't made any real friends at school. I have a very strict definition of "friend," though. To me, a friend is fun to be around, someone you know well, someone with some of the same interests as you, and someone you can talk about a lot of stuff with. You could say I have a few semi-friends, though - people I sit next to and the like. And I hang out with my friend Nick and his friend Bryce from the band. I think I might be able to be friends with Bryce. He seems like a funny guy.

I can't believe my sister was worried about not being able to make friends. She's the kind of person who is friends with half the people she knows and hates the other half. (I believe this type of person is called a "girl.") Sometimes she'll see someone go by and say, "Hi, so-and-so!" or "Did you study for that test today, such-and-such?" As for me, I don't talk to anybody. She says I should talk to people more instead of expecting them to talk to me. In my defense, I did talk to someone once, but he never said anything to me again, even though I have three out of four classes with him. It's going to be hard, hard, hard to make friends this late in the game.

I'm sure we've all heard the old saying, "It takes x muscles to frown and only y muscles to smile! Why waste energy?" Considering the number of times I've heard this before, I highly, highly doubt that it's true. If you define smiling as lifting the lips to bend upward and frowning as the opposite, then we as humans frown by default. Consider the average worker sitting in a cubicle as you pass by, or even yourself. As you're reading this, your face is probably in neutral, which would technically count as a frown (unless, that is, you're busting your gut laughing at my marvelous sense of humor). As for me, I don't care what anyone else says; it's much easier for me to maintain a frown than a smile.

I decided to Google it and find out. I went through the first five pages of the search results and found 32 references to the smiling/frowning/muscles conspiracy. Of these, 12 said that it takes 62 muscles to frown and 26 to smile. 10 pages said that it takes 43 muscles to frown and 17 to smile. Those were the two most popular versions, with some others being 87/13, 40/20, and 66/3. The lowest number in the smile department was two (as if that's actually possible), and the highest was 27. The lowest number claimed for a frown was 40, and the highest was 147 (!). Obviously, we've got some contradictions here. So until an expert in the field sorts things out, I would take this sweet little morsel of brightening-your-day-ness with a very large grain of salt.

The other day, on the way to my first period classroom, I saw last month's Sun-Sentinel article featuring me and The World of Stuff posted in the hallway. It was affixed to a posterboard that was labeled "Pompano's Finest." So... I guess that makes me Pompano's finest? It's funny that they didn't highlight my name, or my web site address, or anything. So how is the average passerby going to know which kid featured in the article goes to Pompano High?

Oddly enough, it was posted right outside my first period classroom - almost as if it was a suprise waiting to start my day. Now that I think about it, it's not that weird; one teacher who keeps copies of the newspaper in his classroom (which is just across the hall) must have put it up, having known me through my sister, who is in his class.

Coming soon to The World of Stuff: "The Metric System: Ten Times Better or Inching Toward a Metric America." (I just couldn't decide on one title!) Ten Times Better will be a rarely-updated essay, similar to Being Left-Handed, that will show Americans like myself the benefits of using the metric system in everyday life. But before I get started on the essay, I need to eat up a lot of reading material on which to base it. Right now I think I'll pull out my August 1977 National Geographic (one of the 450+ issues in my collection) which features an article on the metric system, from the days that we Americans call "when they were saying we were all going to go over to metric."

Yesterday there was a band practice at my house. Sean, the lead guitarist, and Alex, the bass guitarist, were able to make it. We actually gained proficiency in a new song! Let's see... that makes... about five songs total. Next month (probably) is the parish picnic at my local church, and I'm guessing that they're going to ask us to play there, since we did last year (and at that gig we unveiled the second song in our repertoire). I haven't heard the official word on it, though.

I just suddenly became obsessed with the metric system. So, from now on, The World of Stuff will, by default, use metric units. Whenever a metric unit is displayed, it will have a dashed blue underline, and you can hold your mouse pointer over it to see the US/Imperial/Customary/English/Inch-pound equivalent. Example: I'm something like 180 cm tall. For more information about this featurey thingy, see the About the Site page.

Some metric links:

• Full Precision English Imperial/Metric Converter
• U.S. Metric Association (USMA)
• The Metric System

Well, my first day on the job was pretty good. The folks at the office have a meeting Monday and Friday mornings. They were on a conference call to Chicago or somewhere when I came in. When the meeting ended, about 45 minutes later, the lady whose computer I'm using (I think her name is Elaine) showed me the database program and gave me some laywers' names and phone numbers to enter. When I was finished with that, she gave me long lists of accountants, doctors, and more lawyers. I almost finished the accountants when I had to leave.

My pay? For four hours I got $30 - not only did I not work the first 45 minutes, but my pay was rounded to the nearest $10. Woohoo! The great thing is that the job wasn't too terribly tedious. In fact, I liked it. And, I let Elaine or whatever her name was borrow my copy of the book The Dvorak Keyboard.

My mom used to take classified ads for the local newspaper. Once she got a call from a guy named Kermit Waters. Today, on the list of accountants' addresses and phone numbers, was none other than Kermit W. Waters, CPA. Small world, eh?

I think what somebody said during the meeting was true: the formal wear business is a great business to be in. Everybody in every industry needs to look snazzy sometimes (or all the time), and so you can go into just about any office building anywhere and find potential customers.

Since my Send a Spatula to ABC Family page got a front-page link at Brendan Leonard Online, the page has actually been getting hits, plus links in other people's blogs. I think it's an ingenious idea, and I wish I'd thought of it, but I'm glad just to keep the idea alive. We, the fans of The Brendan Leonard Show must let ABC Family know that we want the show back! As for me, I'll see if I can get a spatula tomorrow.

Well, my job at Tom James starts tomorrow. My first real job: entering stuff into a database and other computer work. I'm kind of excited. I'm going to let the people at the office borrow my copy of The Dvorak Keyboard. Hopefully they'll become interested in Dvorak and want to give it a try. I'm glad they're letting me use it on their computers.

Yesterday in Personal Fitness (it's like Gym but with a book), I was lifting weights with my legs. I strained my leg muscles and now it hurts when I sit down or get up.

I'm not in the mood to say anything else, so that's it.

I saw the new Paramount Pictures film The School of Rock twice this weekend. I have to say, it's really great. It's a laugh-a-minute, feel-good, insert-other-cliché-here type of film - probably one of the best comedies of the year. And it's definitely on my list of personal favorite films.

Dewey Finn (Jack Black) gets kicked out of his rock band, who are trying win the local Battle of the Bands competition and could do better without him. He's also getting in trouble with his roommate Ned Schneebly (Mike White), who is a substitute teacher, for not paying the rent. In need of cash, Dewey poses as Ned to get a job subbing at a prestigious prep school. After peeking into his students' music class, he realizes he should take advantage of their musical prowess and form a rock band with them in it. His goal is to take them to the Battle of the Bands competition he wanted to be in.

Go see it! Take the kids! Jack Black is hilarious. The School of Rock hardly deserves the PG-13 certification it got here in the U.S. (For the record, Canada gave it PG.) With just a few minor changes and edits, it could be rated PG here too.

Official site: http://www.schoolofrockmovie.com

What do you call a soft drink? Soda? Pop? Soda pop? Coke, unconditionally? Cola? Or just plain "soft drink"? The Pop vs. Soda Page documents which regions of the United States say which term most often. Their findings: "pop" mainly in the Midwest; "soda" in the Midwest (but not as much as pop) and the East Coast; "Coke" (no matter what the brand is) mainly in the South, but also in the Northeast and also part of the Midwest. It appears that the West Coast uses all three terms more or less equally. Check out the site for detailed statistics and pretty maps.

I disagree with them on one front, however: people who say "pop" are not cooler than people who say "soda"! Soda is better! :)

World of Stuff wallpaper, banners, and buttons are finally here! They come in two themes (WoS Classic and Got Stuff?) and a variety of sizes (wallpaper: 800x600 and 1024x768; buttons: 50x50 and 88x31; banners: 234x60 and 468x60). Now you can link to this site with (a degree of) style. Check them out at the new Downloads and Banners page! Also, look for more themes to appear in the future.

Tomorrow there's no school because of Yom Kippur, but they don't want to say that. That means I can put off my homework even later! I put the "pro" in "procrastinator."

What does your name mean?... What's that? You don't know? Well, look it up at Behind the Name and find out! They most likely have your name there, even if it's a weird one. Here's what they have to say about my name:

Very interesting. They also have a really cool Random Name Generator. You can select names of any language or nationality and the page will serve you a random sampling. The only thing is that you can only choose from first names. However, this Random Name Generator displays first and last names. But on that site, you can only choose from names from the 1990 US Census; you can't choose names by language or ethnicity like the other generator. Oh well, I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too.

The last episode of The Brendan Leonard Show was indeed aired Friday, as I said earlier. ABC Family Channel isn't even going to play any more reruns. To protest this, I think all BLS fans should send ABC Family a spatula.

Today I stuffed envelopes at my friend's dad's print shop. They had a mass mailing of about 14,000 pieces to get done. I stuffed about 4,500 envelopes and sealed a few. My friend Mike, whose dad runs the shop, stuffed over 3,000, and his cousin Nick (who is also my friend) stuffed over 5,000. Needless to say, we were all tired when we had to leave. But at least I got some good money for it.

Today I started teaching my friend's sister to play the guitar. She's doing well and has a will to learn. It brought back some memories of first learning the guitar, over two years ago. I'd like to see her get to be as good as I am someday. :) That would be really cool.

The other day, my mom and I checked out the Tom James office (Tom James of Florida, to be exact) where I'm going to be working. It's a nice, cozy little place in an industrial park. Mr. Rose, who is the boss there, told me that my main job will be to enter customer information into their database that they're building. They had 2,000 clients to add and had only entered 500, he said. I'll also probably end up doing odd jobs around the office. Mr. Rose says eventually he wants me to design a site for them. I'll be working 4 hours a week (Fridays only, as I have no school that day) for $7 an hour. He mentioned on the phone today something about an application; I guess this job isn't going to be under the table, as they say.

The subject of the Dvorak keyboard inevitably came up. I explained that I won't need to bring a separate keyboard - all I need to do is change the settings on whatever computer I'm using, and just change them back when I'm done. I think I'll be using a laptop most of the time. I'll have to get used to the flat keys and the weird mouse thing that you control with your finger.

Well, the homecoming dance is coming up, but I have no idea when. That doesn't bother me much, as I'm not going. Because, that's why! Okay, actually, I have a few reasons (too expensive, no one to go with, etc.) but none that would really hold up in water. I guess I'm just too hesitant to go. My church's newly reformed youth group is having a dance Friday, though. I'm definitely going to that.

Speaking of dances, my sister is going to the homecoming dance... at another school. Cardinal Gibbons High, the school that most of my former classmates are going to, is having their homecoming on October 12. I think the main reason she wants to go is that the theme is "Pirates of the Caribbean," and she's completely obsessed with that movie. (Our own school's theme will be "Cloud Nine," or, for those who don't believe in heaven, "Stars and Moons." I'm sure they could have thought of something better than that.)

Coming soon to The World of Stuff: The WoS wallpaper I promised (finally)! Also, the Minor Scale Chart Thingy will get its own link on the side menu.