The band's beginnings

Today's a very special day to me. Let's let the me of three years ago explain:

Well, we're nowhere near "yuge," but we're still around to this day, three years later. Through thick and thin, through name changes and lineup changes, we've managed to stick together.

Unfortunately, our current lineup is disputed, but hopefully it will consist of me (rhythm guitar), Sean (bass guitar), Nick (lead guitar), our friend Alex (various instruments), and the newest (and hotly disputed) member, good old Mark (drums). As for names, we were originally The Rowchez, as you have read. Later still, it was changed to The Moondogs but changed back to The Rowchez the next day, at my insistence. Later it was changed to The Electric Shoes, which was changed back to The Rowchez the next day as well, also at my insistence. In March 2003 we became The Atomics, and we dropped that name in November. The search for a new name just ended on April 18. Due to the dispute, I'm not going to say what it is yet.

And you know, I don't think we ever removed Mark as our official manager. But that's not much of an issue right now. When we let Mark into the band on April 18, Nick (former drummer) was made lead guitarist, and Sean (former lead guitarist) was made bassist. The issue is that Alex, our longtime bass guitarist, wants to keep his position in the band, even though Nick wants him out and thinks he's not very good. Truth be told, he isn't very good, but I'm sure he could do something else (which is why I listed him as "various instruments"). The good thing is that he would be okay with playing another instrument if it means staying in the band. He's really a good guy, and I wouldn't ever see him again if he got kicked out of the band. But convincing Nick to let Alex stay at all will be difficult, if not impossible. I hope this situation is resolved soon. Maybe we should look to the words of the Beatles: "We can work it out."

(And though this journal entry may seem to paint me as a longtime blogger, I didn't really become one until last summer. The notebook I wrote in was intended to be a journal of the band, but I only wrote one other entry, a short one, about six months later. I've actually never been much of a journal writer, but I did keep one c. 1999. I'll be darned if I know where it is, though.)

Do you hate sites that require free registration to view their content or use their services? Sure, it's better than having paid registration, but it's still annoying. At BugMeNot.com, you can plug in the URL of a site that requires free registration (for example, http://www.nytimes.com) and get a list of user names and passwords that you can log in with, thus bypassing the registration process. Not surprisingly, the New York Times's web site, notorious for its requiring of free registration, is the most requested site for logins on BugMeNot.com. The other most popular sites are those of the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, and Chicago Tribune. But not all of the "liberated" sites belong to newspapers. At press time (hehe), BugMeNot.com's tally was "725 sites liberated."

Red ensign

Last week I had dinner at The Cove Restaurant and Marina, and from my seat I had a view of the adjacent Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway and a drawbridge that spans it. At one point, heading under the drawbridge was a large sailboat flying an unusual flag. Since it was dark, I didn't get the details, but it was definitely a red ensign defaced with a green coat of arms with a tall shape.

Now that I've lost you, let me remind you that I'm something of a flag buff. Now, during the heyday of British colonialism, the royal government slapped their flag in the upper left corner of many of their colonies' flags. The rest of these flags usually consisted of a blue background and the colony's coat of arms on the right. When these colonies gained their independence (as most of them have), some decided to keep their old flags, so you can still see a lot of them today.

A general rule with flags of former British colonies is that they use different flags on sea as they do on land. (This idea is foreign to Americans; we use the same flag everywhere.) The red ensign, as the flag flown by civilian-owned vessels is usually called, is about the same as the regular flag except the background is red. So you have a red background, instead of a blue one, backing the British flag in the upper left corner and the coat of arms on the right side.

Okay, anyway, I knew that this particular flag was a red ensign because a) it was red, and 2) the Union Jack was in the corner. I just didn't recognize the coat of arms. Searching the web didn't seem to help much, but finally I came across a list of coats of arms of the countries of the world. From there I could find that the coat of arms (and the flag itself, and the boat) was from the British Virgin Islands. It turns out that the coat of arms consists of St. Ursula, the patron saint of the islands, standing around a bunch of lamps and holding one of them. The motto at the bottom is the word "Vigilate" (Latin for "Be watchful").

By the way, here's the list of the world's coats of arms if you want to take a look.

Busy weekend, busy week

My grandmother's wedding was nice. It was a beautiful, sunny day. Everything went perfectly. Surprisingly, my uncle's family didn't forget anything at my house when they left on Sunday. Even though they live in relatively nearby Tampa, I probably won't see my older cousin for the rest of the decade. She's not actually my cousin by blood; she was my uncle's wife's child from a previous marriage. Anyway, next month she's moving to Corpus Christi, Texas, to live with her biological father. The weekend pretty much ate up my free time, hence the lack of blogging.

This week doesn't look too good either. For one thing, I have to pick my classes for the next year. I think I've got most of them straight (I'll discuss my choices later) but I'm having trouble picking alternate classes in case some classes are full. I'll have to talk to my teachers about that. I also have an English essay due on Thursday. It doesn't have to be very long, but I detest writing essays. The worst part is, I can't fill them with what the teacher calls "fluff, bull, and filler" because he's no dummy. I need to do an outline on the essay, too; that's due Wednesday, so I'll have to do that soon(er) as well.

I'll go ahead and admit it. On Sunday, April 18, the band found a name. (I haven't yet updated the Name the Band page to reflect this.) We also went through a massive reorganization. The drummer moved to lead guitar, the lead guitarist moved to bass, and we got ourselves a new drummer: a good friend of ours who had been wanting to play in a band. Naturally, this didn't sit well with our incumbent bass guitarist, and we knew it wouldn't, so I finally got around to telling him today. Of course, he was very upset. Most of us (myself included) don't want to kick him out, though. So I said that maybe we could have two bass guitarists. After all, our new bass guitarist (former lead guitarist) doesn't have a bass yet, so our original bass guitarist would have the advantage there. But we'll see if the other guys agree with that. I really hope they do.

You've probably noticed that I didn't say what our new name is. Well, you'll just have to wait. Maybe if I hold this long-awaited name, the product of nearly six months and over 350 names scraped from every corner of our brains (an official count of those is pending), I'll be able to keep your readership through this boring time. Anyway, once I get things with school and the band smoothed out (which I hope to God will be very soon), I'll return to my usual format of less about me, and more fun stuff like those daily links I always seem to have.

Third time's a charm?

I have to go to a wedding rehearsal tonight because my grandmother's getting married tomorrow. I was asked to read or play my guitar or do something at the wedding, but I turned down any chance to be helpful. Actually, I just remembered I'm supposed to round up the people (like sheep or something, I guess). Darn it. I don't want to do anything but relax.

Death did not do part my grandmother's two previous marriages. Yep, you guessed it. I really hate divorce. Nothing good ever comes out of it; people think they're better off without their ex, but they might as well have stayed true to their marriage because otherwise the steam just builds up as they never see each other. And then there's all the legal rubbish that takes two years and unbelievably large buckets of money to sort out. But the only way to get rid of divorce is to get rid of marriage. Maybe we should do that.

The wedding will be held at the beach. Why must everyone insist on having some kind of "alternative ceremony"? Can't people get married in a church anymore? After all, there is a chance, being on the beach and all, of the biggest day of one's life being ruined by bad weather, seagulls, or small children. I was at a beach last month when some people were having a wedding. Meanwhile, spring breakers were shouting and having a good time as rainclouds loomed on the horizon. I sort of hope that tomorrow's wedding isn't like that.

My uncle's family is coming down from Tampa for the weekend, and they're staying at my house. Well, my cousins are, anyway. I don't know if we have enough room for my aunt and uncle, so that should be interesting. My sister and I always dread when my cousins come, but they're really not that bad. At least, I hope not. They're staying till Sunday, which seems so far away now...

Yesterday I received the forms to choose my classes for the next school year. I have no idea what my elective should be. Looking through the list, none of them seem interesting. I took an art class this year, and it was pretty cool, but I'm not into art that much. I don't want any music classes either. Music is supposed to be fun, not work. Last year my friends and their mothers were pressuring me into joining the school band. I'm sure the band isn't much fun if you can't play a band instrument, because then you have to learn it, and you have to do it right or you fail. Nevertheless, I expect that constant, repeated pressure to come back as I decide what classes to take for the next year, and I'll be prepared to take it on. In the meantime, I'll try not to mention it to people (whoops, too late, they are probably reading this). Maybe an elective like Drama, Journalism, or TV Production would be nice, except that I don't like drama, journalism, or TV production.

I also have to choose a "career plan" and an "educational plan" on this form. I forget why (it might be for a survey being conducted by the state), but they said it wasn't written in stone, and that you'd probably change your mind 500 times, and blah blah blah blah. There are 26 career plans to choose from, none of which I am really interested in. They include Administration and Sales, Business Operations, Technical, Science and Technology, Arts, and Social Services. Fun. The educational plans involve choices of colleges (there, I said the "C" word!), like whether you want to go to college in-state, out-of-state, understate, and stuff like that. But ferchrissake, I'm a high school freshman! Sure, some people my age have their entire lives planned out, including what they want to do when they grow up, but hell, I'm just trying to live my life right now!

In conclusion, I have to have my sophomore year planned by Thursday. The actions I take during this one week will affect me for a whole year; nay, the rest of my high school education; strike that, the rest of my life! Well, it's going to be a terrible year, that's for sure.

Ugh, if I ever get that angsty again, someone come over to my house and punch me.

Lockdown

There was a lockdown at my school this morning. For a few minutes, everyone was barred from leaving the classrooms, and then it was announced that everything was okay and the day continued as normal. Surprisingly, I didn't hear a single rumor about the cause of the lockdown. But a local newspaper reports:

Yeah, it's nice to be safe and all that junk, but going to that extreme is simply ridiculous.

In other news, over 70% of Britons would reveal their computer password in exchange for a chocolate bar. 34% would even give away their password without any sort of bribe. I'm not making this up.

Speaking of the UK, here's a helpful guide to Britain for Americans, featuring helpful travel tips about language, geography, transport, music, and food and drink. It's definitely worth checking out. (Insert lousy attempt at a stereotypical British phrase here.)

Outlaw captured

Last Friday a large dog came into my backyard. I'm not good with dog breeds, but it was big and brown and black. I restrained it to check its tags for a phone number. I found that his name was Outlaw, and there was indeed the owners' number. Before making the call, I lured the dog into the garage with my own dog's treats. It was difficult getting him in there; he was no dummy. But eventually I got him in, and then I called the number.

After several frantic attempts met with busy signals, an old lady who lived in a nearby apartment complex picked up. She said she didn't have a dog, and I apologized for dialing the wrong number. I went back to check the number on the dog's tag and found that I had indeed misread it. Then I dialed the right number only to receive a message that it had been disconnected and that there was no alternate number to call. I didn't know what to do, so I decided to open the garage door and keep Outlaw going on the run.

But lo and behold, on the road precisely in front of my garage was a woman in a van calling "Outlaw! Outlaw!" The dog ran not to her but to the park on the other side of the street. I walked up to the woman, who was now out of the vehicle, and tried to explain what had happened. I could hardly get a word in edgewise. There was no "Thank you so much for finding my dog. Here's your reward." She was fixed on getting the dog back into her van by calling him. All she really said to me was that he was 11 months old. Seeing that she seemed to have everything under control, I went back inside and left the dog for her to catch.

I've started working on redesigning The Official Tredici Home Page. (Surely you remember that Tredici is a card game I invented last year.) I first promised this makeover for mid-March and then early April, but I've just been shoving it along the calendar until I finally felt like starting the work a few days ago. Along with this design change, which will not be too major in physical appearance, will be a new name for the site (for any site with the words "home page" in the title should be dragged out to the street and shot). I had considered TrediciWeb, The Official Tredici, Tredici Online, and simply Tredici, but I think I'll go with Tredici: The Official Site. I don't know when I'll finish the redesign, but it should be within a few weeks. Really.

Lunch of the future (or So that's what the barcodes are for!)

The other day at school I bought lunch at my school's new Cafeteria of "Tech-no-lo-gy"™ (located in the new school building). This cafeteria, as I've been saying since before you were a regular reader, is like a food court at a shopping mall. But this cafeteria doesn't actually have restaurants per se, just different "stations," if you will, that provide a wide selection of the various daily entrees. For example, if you really like the soft tacos they used to serve maybe twice a month, you could hop over to South of the Border and get them every day. If you felt like pizza, you could hit Palm Pizzeria. If you wanted a very large sandwich, you could head to Surfside Subs. You know, stuff like that. And if you wanted to, you could even eat the same crud every day, although that would probably get boring.

When I first got my student ID badge I was puzzled as to why there was a barcode on the back and made several jokes about it, like "I think I'll buy two Jordons today." Around the same time, when punching a number on a keypad became required when buying lunch, I figured it must be so they can track what you eat - what other reasonable explanation is there? :) It turns out that the new cafeteria comes with barcode-scanning "Tech-no-lo-gy"™. You just swipe your ID badge in front of the laser beam that I don't think should be constantly shining directly toward your body, and the computer knows it's you. And I think your picture appears on the lunch lady's computer screen, but I don't know.

The cafeteria also has TV sets high up on shelves. They're not particularly big, but they do have closed captioning. They were supposed be there to bring world news into our lives (as if teenagers aren't depressed enough) because the school specializes in international affairs. Instead, only about one of the four TVs plays the news at any given time, and others show whatever the heck else is on broadcast TV before noon. On Thursday there was a lockdown at a school within the school district. (Turns out it was due to some kid bringing a toy gun. He [or she, or it] was arrested. I'm so sick of Zero Common Sense.) When the news story broke onto one of the TV stations, all of the TVs switched to Dragon Tales. My friend Evan thinks this is absolute proof that the school is conducting illegal censorship of information. I'm going to have to go with him on that one.

Also on Thursday, my Global Studies teacher, Mr. Firestone, called up someone in the office using one of the telephones that are now in every classroom. (Formerly teachers communicated with the office using the PA system, so this is a step backward in "Tech-no-lo-gy"™. And these phones are like the old ones you find in a hotel. When they ring, they actually ring.) Anyway, Mr. Firestone is a very influential teacher, so he was apparently asking if he could get the vestibules, which I mentioned the other day, renamed to reflect what they really are - bathrooms. He mentioned that it was a running joke among the students to ask, "May I go to the vestibule?" He also said that he himself thought the concept was stupid. The person on the other end evidently said that the vestibule was the term for the small partially-open room between the hallway and the bathroom, not the bathroom itself. Jumping on the chance to nitpick, Mr. Firestone said, "So if I wanted to conduct a class in the vestibule, could I?" The other person apparently took it seriously and said that that wouldn't be possible because the vestibules aren't designated for class use and something about fire codes or something like that. So Mr. Firestone tells us that, according to the building codes, all rooms, including hallways and vestibules, have to be labeled, and so they are. And that's why the bathrooms say "Vestibule" outside them.

City Link

The article about blogs for which I was interviewed and photographed was published as the cover story of the current issue of City Link Magazine, which came out today. The cover art enforces the stereotype that bloggers (and computer folks in general) lead lazy, sloppy, reckless lives and have little control over their bodily functions. The tagline, "Millions of people are spilling their guts in Weblogs [sic]. Chances are, they're even talking about you," doesn't seem to portray blogs and blogging in a positive light either. But inside, the article (titled "Meet the Bloggers") is not that bad.

City Link is the sort of publication whose content falls below the standards I set for The World of Stuff. (Let's just say that if I brought a copy to school to show my friends, I could get in trouble.) Consequently, I won't reprint the article in full, but here's my 15 seconds of fame with commentary and links inserted by me:

And that's it. The other parts of the article basically talk about other people and say that bloggers are crazy, boring, or whatever else the reader might assume. But at least they published a photo of me. It was one of the shots of me playing my guitar on my bed. That's pretty cool, but my parents really oughtn't give copies of the magazine to everyone they know. After all, like I said, City Link is a pretty sleazy weekly, and my bit isn't too impressive. I guess you can't have your cake and eat it too.

Outside my school's new building fly the flags of the United States, Florida, Mexico, Colombia (or Ecuador), the Netherlands (or Luxembourg), and Dominica (perhaps mistaken for the similarly-named Dominican Republic). A look at Dominica's flag (which you can see by clicking "Dominica") can easily tell you that some flags are truly awful. This small island of the British Commonwealth has a parrot on its flag. That just about says it right there.

Luckily, there's someone out there who's set out on doing good by assigning grades to the world's flags. Under his methodology, A, B, and C grades pass, and D and F grades fail. Things that can drag down a flag's grade are the use of images, text, maps, or bad colors. Designs that look so modern as to resemble corporate logos are frowned upon too. Other categories, both good and bad, include Simple, Too Busy, Good Colours, Bad Colours, Hideous Colours, Plagiarism, Weapons (you wouldn't believe how many countries put weapons on their flags), Bad Tricolour, Bad Shape, Good Shape, Eyewatering, Too Many Stars, Colonial Nonsense, and Makes Me Nauseous.

Of the flags of the world, Gambia, Pakistan, Japan, and Somalia have the best. The very worst, according to the critic, are the flags of Brazil, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and finally, the Northern Mariana Islands. Those last three are all U.S. dependencies and the only F grades. As for Dominica, it receives a D grade and is thus a failure. See how other countries' flags grade.

First day in the new school building

I came. I sat. I broke something.

Yesterday my school started classes at the brand new building, which I talked about the day before yesterday. When I got there yesterday morning, I found my friends playing cards inside the sparkling new cafeteria like they were doing it for the thousandth time (okay, they played cards a thousand times at the old cafeteria, but that's beside the point). They were sitting at a booth (like in a restaurant, you know) so I decided to join them. They made me some room, I sat, and bang! - the seat broke, apparently, and cacophonously to boot. I didn't see any cracking, so maybe I was just breaking it in. The other booth seats were pretty cheap and flimsy, too. Luckily, this experience did not epitomize the rest of the day's trials and tribulations.

One of the first things I noticed about the new school (besides that maybe the booths should have a seating capacity) was that the bells are shorter. At the old buildings they rang for five seconds, but here they go for only three and a half or four. I didn't know what to think about that. The hallways - eh, corridors - and classrooms aren't as small as I remembered them to be on my sneak peek of the building two weeks ago, which is good. (I haven't yet needed to find out what the bathrooms - I mean, restrooms - I mean, lavatories - oh wait, now they're vestibules - are like. I thought a vestibule was something you'd find a church. Is it?) The hallways are definitely narrower than the ones in the old school buildings, but it was reasonably easy getting through the hordes of people going every which way between bells. Most of the classrooms are smaller (only the ones that are full of "Tech-no-lo-gy"™ were designed to be roomy), but they're not painfully, unbearably, or unbreathably small. (Speaking of unbreathably, though, the dust is mostly gone, and I suppose I'll get used to the smell of paint.)

As I walked out the door of my house yesterday morning, I wondered what I was forgetting. During first period, it hit me: I forgot my lunch money, so I couldn't yet enjoy the critically acclaimed cafeteria food. Come lunchtime, I did manage, however, to have some of my friend's little peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that he made. A change of scheduling caused my lunch period to now have 50% more people, and I wasn't too thrilled about that. However, most of them decided to cram themselves indoors, so eating outside was almost as peaceful as it was back in the old days. My lunch posse agreed with me on the point that it was weird eating on a table; back at the old school, we ate lunch sitting on benches with our trays in our laps, so spaghetti day was a lot of fun. Maybe sometime I'll dine in the cafeteria to watch the TVs they have in there. (Lots of "Tech-no-lo-gy"™. What'd I tell ya?)

Oddly, my last class of the day was the only one to have our nation's flag in the room. (And I was pretty sure that, besides being the staple of any American classroom, the flag is mandated to be there by law.) But truthfully, I probably never would have noticed if it wasn't directly blocking my view of the clock. I think I figured out how to actually see through the flag to figure out what time it is. It's not easy, but through the red stripes I can see the hands.

And that was pretty much my first day at the new school building. The hours went by very slowly, but hopefully as I pick up the pace, the days'll fly by like they used to.

Well, the article about blogs in City Link Magazine is coming out today. It's about time, I say. The photos that will accompany the article were taken last month and the interview was conducted in February. I can't wait to read the article, but I'm not expecting a surge of traffic to the site as a result of it; I know better.

Want to know what a particular acronym stands for? Look it up at Acronym Finder. This site is actually pretty useful. Come on, I know you used to think "LOL" stood for "lots of luck." If you still insist that you'll never need this site, the least you could do is plug in your initials or short words or something. (American Committee Research on New York Mayors. Very clever.) One great thing about Acronym Finder is that if an acronym you know of isn't in the database, you can submit it for inclusion. Be sure to try their Buzz Phrase Generator also.

Back to (new) school

Tomorrow I go back to school, and the new, modern building full of "Tech-no-lo-gy"™ will see its first day of service. When I got a sneak peek of the building a few weeks ago, it seemed that all the "Tech-no-lo-gy"™ tried to hide one major fault: the hallways and most of the classrooms are very small. It's hard to believe that such a major neglect could slip in like that, but I believe it did. Sure, the computer, science, and art rooms are gigantic, but the other classrooms are no larger than the old ones (and in some cases, they're smaller). In the old buildings, which I assume are a pile of rubble by now, the hallways were wide and spacious, able to handle the daily hordes of students going here and there, to and fro. In the hallways in the new buildings, some people could literally touch both walls at once by just reaching their arms across. Sure, the school isn't large population-wise, but you have to give it some credit! People are going to get trampled in there. Tomorrow I'll report all about it.

Here's an interesting idea: periodic table displays featuring samples of most of the known elements (even some of the radioactive ones!). At school I learn about the elements and each one is just a name and number, a solid, liquid, or gas, metal, semimetal, or nonmetal. With these displays you can actually see what each element looks like (with the exception of hydrogen, oxygen, and probably a few others) and note its color, shape, and texture. A literal table of the elements would be an interesting bit of science to have, and it can be yours for only USD 40,000.

Peep research

In Western Christianity, tomorrow is Easter, a day of joy, celebration, and candy. And what better Easter candy is there than Marshmallow Peeps? These sweet, squishy baby birds have a devoted following. In fact, some "scientists" that perhaps like the candy chicks a little too much have tested their ability to withstand the elements. At the Peep Research web site, you can see how Peeps react to heat, cold, low pressure, various liquids (including alcohol and sulfuric acid), and cigarette smoking.

Easter is a moveable feast; its date is determined according to a complex formula. Basically put, it falls on the Sunday after the first full moon of spring. Easter hasn't fallen on the earliest possible date (March 22) since 1818 and will not again until 2285. It hasn't occurred on the latest possible date (April 25) since 1943 and will not again till 2038. It can certainly fall on April Fool's Day (April 1) and did in 1877, 1888, 1923, 1934, 1945, and 1956. The next Easter on April Fool's Day will be in 2018. (Imagine the crossover possibilities!) Here's a page with information about the frequency of the date of Easter from 1875 to 2124. During this 250-year period, the least common dates for Easter are March 22 (none) and March 24 (one year, 1940). The most are April 10 and April 17, with 11 years each.

Have a marvelous Easter!

Strange dreams

The other night I had three weird dreams.

In the first dream, I had a white vinyl LP and a record player on which to play it, which is weird because CDs had obsoleted records by the time I was born. Anyway, I think it was a Beatles record because, hey, I like the Beatles. Now I really like records because of their superior sound quality, but this record played songs of, at most, MP3 quality. (Looking back upon the dream, I must have had a bootleg or a pirate album!) The record was also strange because the banding (the quiet space between each track) was quite large. And that was the end of that dream.

Next, I was in my room and it was a complete and total wreck (if you can possibly imagine that!). I opened the door to find red paint smearing down the front. I knew somehow that this had to be the work of the punks and goths at my school. Somehow I figured that the anti-war ones were attacking me for being pro-war, and the pro-war ones were attacking me for being anti-war. I turned around and spotted a large trophy they had left in my room. I ran as fast as I could out to the garage, where my dad was doing something. I asked him if I could smash the trophy and the driveway and throw it in the street, and he said it was okay. So, I had some fun doing that, and I ran back to my room to find that it was even more wrecked. I went back to my dad and asked if he could repaint my door and keep a watch out for trouble, but the next thing I knew, I was in my bed and it was night. I decided to take things into my own hands and beat up the punks and goths while they were sleeping. I went out into the hallway and kicked the girl who sits next to me in English class in the head. Then, just for giggles, I went into the living room and emitted a loud, high-pitched shriek (which I can actually do in real life). And who should spring spazzing from slumber but my friend Nick, who is definitely not a punk or a goth. As he started jumping around and yelling, I woke up.

A little later, I went back to sleep. I dreamed that I was at school telling my sister's friend about the dream I had just had. I was pretty sure that this itself was a dream, so I asked her, "What's today's date?" She said, "We're out of school, it's spring break." I woke up again.

How would you like an e-mail address that is so long that it's incompatible with some forms and software and people have a hard time remembering it? How about yourname@abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdef-ghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzabcdefghijk.com? Yes, this site is offering free e-mail accounts with 6 MB of storage. If you really like to tick people off, get an e-mail address at abcde... whatever.

The Rapids

Yesterday I went to The Rapids Water Park (over the edge of the world in West Palm Beach) with my sister and some friends. It was my second time there; the first was in 2002, when it was the destination of an end-of-the-year class trip. During the morning we went on the large rides like the big "Green Slide", the "Yellow Slides" (the fastest and highest in the park!), and the Tubin' Tornadoes. We also relaxed (if you could call it that) in the wave pool. I didn't like it very much because frankly, I can't swim.

Later in the day, after getting some lunch (they have great hamburgers, by the way), we floated around on the Lazy River, which circles the entire park. Actually, we did that all day. We were quite lazy. Anyway, in the afternoon the water flumes were open, and my friend Nick managed to sneak onto the fastest, curviest one, the one with the 100 lb. weight limit. At the end of the day I still hadn't managed to conquer Alligator Alley, a kiddie attraction in which you have to cross a pool on a bunch of floating stuff whilst holding a net above for grip. I'm too heavy to cross without falling.

Even though I (thought I) put on enough sunscreen, I got a nasty sunburn that hurts something awful. In spite of that, I'm going to the beach with some friends tomorrow. I'll probably end up an even worse burn, but at least I'll have had fun. Hopefully.

Forty years ago today, on April 7, 1964, IBM introduced the System/360, a mainframe computer that hailed "the beginning of a new generation, not only of computers, but of their application in business, science and government," as IBM's then-Chairman Thomas Watson Jr. put it. And believe it or not, mainframes still hold 70% of the world's data, and they're still a major source of income for IBM, which just introduced a new line of them last year. Read more here.

The World of Stuff turns 1

One year ago today, The World of Stuff was launched. For those who like to take a stroll down Memory Lane, here's my original announcement on the message boards of Where's George? (a site I frequently frequent) and TWoS's very first post. So a whole year it's been. Hard to believe, isn't it? Well, to you, yes. You weren't around since the very beginning. Only I was.

At the start of last year, I had several web sites, most notably The Dvorak Keyboard and You and flipacoin.net. In February of said year, I came up with the idea of housing my several web sites under a single roof. The name of this roof, which I decided should have brown shingles, would be "The World of Stuff" as a small demonstration of my strange sense of humor. I could have named the site something descriptive like "Jordon's World of Boring Things" or maybe just "Jordon's Site." But I figured that "stuff" was the best word to describe the sites that TWoS would bring together. And it was funny.

I started work on a design, and it's basically the one you still behold to this very day. There were some changes, even before it got off the drawing board. For example, the original buttons on the sidebar looked like this:

And yes, they were all that big. They took up way too much space, both horizontally and vertically, so I made them smaller before the site's debut. The title image has been the same since it was designed, except for the special Christmas and one-year anniversary versions. The green-fading-to-white section of the sidebar was a small green tab for a long time. Then I decided that the gradient (yeah, that's the word) was way cooler, so it replaced the little tab.

In July and August of last year The World of Stuff acquired a somewhat more sophisticated look that uses some CSS. This made the blog entries look cooler with their dotted blue border (not to mention that Times New Roman was dropped in favor of the current Verdana). Still, though, the overall layout of the pages is table-based. But don't hate me for it. Table-based layouts rock. I'm sticking to the old but simple and effective way of designing web pages. Even though people have told me that they hate this layout, I'm not about to change it any time soon. I think it's just fine.

The World of Stuff was originally hosted at Angelfire, where I wiped over the site that I had made for my and my friends' comic book we made, and they weren't happy that I did that. In July I moved to this domain name, theworldofstuff.com, and a new host to boot. I'm going to give them a plug once more because I think they deserve it. With NearlyFreeSpeech.NET my web hosting costs are just pocket change a day. I should also mention that The World of Stuff was not originally ad-free, but when the big move came, the ads left. Angelfire's all right if you don't mind a bunch of companies fighting for your attention on every too, too slow page.

Keep in mind that even though TWoS is a year old, I haven't been blogging for that long. Originally, this section of the site was for me to post information about updates to the constituent pages. But gradually I became the very person I tried not to be - a blogger. I really didn't want The World of Stuff to become a blog purely because I didn't think I was interesting enough to be a blogger. But now that I've tried blogging, I know that I'm not interesting enough to be a blogger. Apparently that doesn't stop you very few regulars from coming back. Thank you very much, regulars. I love you guys.

The original pages of The World of Stuff were About Me, About the Site, All Your Base Are Belong to Us (deleted), Being Left-Handed, The Dvorak Keyboard and You, flipacoin.net, Make Your Own Spam Bait!, and Ultimate Cool Characters. Of those, About Me, About the Site, AYBABTU, BLH, and UCC debuted with TWoS itself (acronym soup, anyone?). Since April 6, 2003, new pages (both major and minor) have included The Bill Factor Project, Courtesy Autographs on US Currency, Downloads and Banners, February 29, 2004: A Photo Essay, Links, Minor Scale Chart Thing, Name the Band, The Official Tredici Home Page, and Romeo and Juliet: A Sock Puppet Adaptation. (Whew.) Clearly the site has grown by leaps and bounds.

So, it's been a whole year, and how far have I come? Not very, in some respects. The readership is still extremely low. I don't know exactly how low it is, but I would guess that it's under the oft-repeated average of 12 per blog. Maybe if you regulars all e-mailed me (cough cough, cough), I could get a good count. In some ways, I have come quite a bit, maybe. I mean, I've learned a little bit more about making web sites, and maybe my style, spelling, and grammar have improved a little too. But I doesn't really know four sure.

Either way, I've always had big dreams for TWoS. Last June I considered translating the site into the constructed language Esperanto, which I was trying to study back then. The Esperanto version, which ended up never being more than an idea, would be called "La Mondo de Objektoj" - literally, "The World of Objects"; I couldn't find a better word for "stuff"!

404: Title not found

Seeing as today is April 4, 2004, or 04-04-04, I thought it would be suitable to write a bit about 404 error messages. They are, of course, those awful messages you run into when you're searching the web for something and none of the other search results are relevant or useful, and when you find what appears to be the perfect web page about what you're looking for - bam! it hits you in the face. "Error 404: File not found." Immediately you turn back and try the other links that were just as helpful. And that's just about all most people know about 404s.

The 404 Research Lab has a lot of information about 404s, such as what the numbers mean and how to enable 404 error messages on your own site. Oh, and they also have a gallery of amusing 404s from web sites around the world.

That may leave you wondering what The World of Stuff's 404 looks like. Say no more: here it is. In spite of my best efforts, it's not particularly funny or interesting, but I guess it's helpful.

Speaking of The World of Stuff, the site turns one year old this coming week, hence the modified title image that reads "One Whole Year!" The big day is April 6.

Living Stations

Yesterday my church's youth group put on the 3rd Annual Living Stations of the Cross. It's essentially a Passion play with no dialogue. There are, however, reflections read by a priest and music. For the third time, I played the part of Simon of Cyrene, who, according to Scripture, was made to help Jesus carry his cross. Before my part, however, the leader of the youth group wanted me to play the Beatles song "Let It Be" on the guitar during the part where Jesus meets his mother, Mary. Before the show there was a fish dinner, and some of the cast was brave enough to eat the fish. It was actually good this year because it didn't taste like anything. After the show, food was served and we got to goof around and stuff. All in all, a fun time was had by all, and the serious reflection was taken seriously.

Oh man, that reminds me: I was supposed to make a web site for the youth group. A while ago. Oh well, maybe they forgot.

I've added a new page to The World of Stuff: Courtesy Autographs on US Currency. I've blogged about courtesy autographs before; they're US dollar bills that are autographed by the Treasurer or Secretary of the Treasury, and I happen to collect them.

Using a sample of text, The Gender Genie can guess whether the author is male or female with 80% accuracy. Supposedly, men use words that are more "informational," identifying and determining nouns, while women's style is considered "involved," using pronouns and writing with relationships. The algorithm behind the Gender Genie can also be used to determine fiction from nonfiction with 98% accuracy, because fiction is generally more involved while nonfiction is informational. Type 500 words or so and let the Gender Genie guess whether you're a male or a female.

Tour of the new school building

Today I took a tour of my school's new building. It's very big and nice and new and has a lot of "Tech-no-lo-gy"™. Allow me to explain in depth.

This building is adjacent to the old ones, so it was just a few steps away. The outside is rather striking; there are some tables and benches that are blue and gold (our school colors). The building itself is very, very large (three whole stories! and that's two more than any of the old buildings). It would have to be large because all the classrooms are moving inside.

Oh yeah, I went inside too. My first impression of the inside was brought to me by the stairs. They weren't quite finished and were rather rough and dusty. But farther inside, the intersections of the hallways - I mean, corridors - reminded me of a hospital I had once been in. Outside each teacher's room is a little sign with the room number and the subject in English and Braille - not at all unlike a hospital, actually. The teacher's name was also written on each sign, and that will probably come in handy someday.

The school really does have some cool "Tech-no-lo-gy"™. The computer labs have sleek black PCs with flatscreen monitors. In the library, we'll be able to check out wireless laptop computers. The school will also have a morning TV show, as many other schools do. Clearly, "Tech-no-lo-gy"™ abounds.

The cafeteria, which is on the ground floor, is quite striking. It's actually not unlike a food court in a shopping mall, with different places serving different kinds of food. It will have big-screen TVs that will play the news from various countries. (After all, the school does specialize in International Business or Whatever.) There will be tables and booths inside to eat at, but we will probably also be able to eat outside.

One thing worried me, though. On the second floor, there's a balcony where one can overlook the entrance to the school. The railing is very, very low, and I think it's quite likely that someone could get pushed (or almost pushed) off. After all, these are teenagers we're talking about. Teenagers are tall and fight a lot, which is not a good combination when you throw in the balcony.

We will be moving into the new school building on Tuesday, April 13. Since today was our last day at the old buildings, some of the students assumed that all the old buildings would be demolished over spring break. As a result, some of the existing buildings were vandalized. I personally saw a large anarchy sign drawn on the floor in one of my classrooms and the words "BLAME CANADA" scrawled over a door.

In Mr. Firestone's Global Studies class, we're studying the countries of the former Soviet Union. Yesterday he told the class that we were going to have to do yet another project, this one over spring break. We would have to pick a country from "Russia and the Eurasian republics" and plan to set up a business there, taking into account local raw materials, labor, etc., etc. Today before class, word had leaked out among a few that it was all an April Fool's joke (today is April Fool's Day, you know). Indeed, Mr. Firestone told us more information about the project: "April Fool's." I wonder if anybody had started working on it.

Speaking of which, here's a list of the Top 100 April Fool's Day Hoaxes of All Time. Coming in at number one is the BBC spaghetti harvest report of 1957. On April Fool's Day of that year, the Beeb reported that farmers in Switzerland were enjoying a bumper spaghetti crop. Allegedly, many people called in to ask how they could grow their own spaghetti trees. And you thought people were gullible these days...