Archive - November 2004

This morning during school I posted about the late Mr. Laguerre, a teacher from school. I wasn't exactly sure how he died or how other people would react. Now I'll fill you in.

In second block (after I made the previous post), the teacher explained that the autopsy hadn't yet produced a clear result, but the cause of death was probably a lung aneurysm. My sister heard this story: It was Sunday night, and Mr. Laguerre had flown home from seeing his relatives in New York for Thanksgiving. He was getting in the car with his girlfriend and when he started having trouble breathing. And I guess he just died. But the real tearjerker is in the details. He was 26 years old and was planning to propose to his girlfriend.

In Psychology, Mr. Firestone had written on the board:

The name sounded somewhat familiar; the list of stages made it obvious; the fact that my sister, who has the same class first thing in the morning, had already told me what he was going to do made it inescapably so. Mr. Firestone said that he had become good friends with Mr. Laguerre and explained Kübler-Ross's stages of death, a topic he said he never intended to cover. I think the stages are experienced by people who are dying rather than people who lose a loved one, but they seemed to make just as much sense when he presented them in the latter way.

He then went on to share his personal story about the loss of his mother to cancer when he was 12. That the 29-year-old teacher's parents and brother have all died before they should have is common knowledge among his students, as he frequently brings it up, but he had never talked about his mother's death in so much detail. It's quite a sad story, one which I don't care to elaborate upon here. He then asked us to share our stories if we needed to. Some people did. Some cried. Some didn't. Some deaths happened recently, others a long time ago. But everyone has experienced the death of a loved one. Mr. Firestone said it's part of growing up. It is.

"At some point in your life, you're going to look for meaning." The Meaning of Life Project is, well, a project that is trying to collect people's explanations of, well, the meaning of life. The best responses will be published in a paperback that is scheduled to hit the bookstores in October 2005. You can send your submission through the web site, but I don't know if they're still taking them. The current odds of being included are 10 to 20 percent.

When all the tears have been cried, a little Ask Jordon is better for you than comfort food.

Peter: On Filpacoin.net, do you own any/all those coins in reality?

I'll excuse the typo this time. :) I do own some of the coins on flipacoin.net; most of the rest come from the collection of Craig Rohrer, to whom I am eternally grateful for always being there to provide support (and coins).

Robert: Me again, so let me get this straight, for every new entry to your "blog" you make it it's own url? I'm probably off here but could you clarify that?

Continuing from yesterday... essentially, yes. Have a look at the source code if you like. The part of each URL after the # is the "id" attribute. When you link to a page and append the id with a # (as I do in the links to the posts in the archives), the browser will jump right to that section of the page rather than starting at the top. Each id needs to be unique to the page for this to work and be considered correct.

Sean: Do you like Spam? (The food)

I've never actually eaten Spam, but I might like it if I tried it (but probably not).

I'm here in Programming class, where things are awfully quiet. Though Mr. Mumtaz sometimes gives us "free days," today is not a free day per se. It's a day of mourning.

At the beginning of class Mr. Mumtaz told us to be quiet for an important announcement that the principal had. Over the PA, he said that one of our teachers, Mr. Laguerre, had died over the weekend (allegedly in a car crash, I had heard from other sources). Mr. Mumtaz has been very shaken up about this, and rightly so. Mr. Laguerre coached basketball and I think Mr. Mumtaz does soccer. Mr. Mumtaz also put up a memorial page on the school's web site for students, faculty, and friends of Mr. Laguerre to pay their respects. The comments will then be shared with Mr. Laguerre's family.

I didn't know Mr. Laguerre very well, but I did run into him a few times. All of those times were when Mr. Firestone sent me to his room, a few doors down the hallway, to get his DVD player so he could show a DVD to his next class. This occurred a few times, mainly because Firestone always chooses me to go here and do this and that. In fact, the last time I saw Mr. Laguerre was maybe last week. I was, of course, asking if Mr. Firestone could use his DVD player, and he said he was going to use it, so Firestone sent me to go down the library and get one there, but they wouldn't give me one and I came back with nothing. And that was it. I really didn't know the guy, but I'm still shocked by the loss. I guess it just shows that life can end just like that. Thinking about this makes me grateful that I woke up today, because not everyone does, and someday -- hopefully not for a long, long time -- I won't either.

I'm sure he was a good man; from what I've read on the web site, he was. So here's to you, Mr. Laguerre. You're in a better place now.

I've frequently been one to criticize the rushing in and commercialization of Christmas, and this year I've already been more annoying than ever. So today my dad gave me a good talking-to telling me not to dampen everyone's spirits because they live for this stuff and that he agreed that Christmas is overcommercialized and that the true magic of Christmas is in your heart when you do nice things like the community service project I'm helping with that involves giving basic necessities to illegal immigrants who are doing backbreaking work on farms for chump change and also that I'm entitled to my own opinions about everyone putting up all their lights and playing Christmas music when it's not even December yet but that I should keep them to myself nonetheless. So that's that and I should probably button up about this matter even on this site because everyone in my family reads it, which is quite unnerving. I'd like to be able to vent about things like that that I can't get away with saying at home.

"Meet the Bloggers," the quasi-classic article in City Link Magazine that features me and The World of Stuff is now available right here. I had stalled from putting it up for so long due to the fact that it contains words that our younger readers (i.e., those under the age of six) haven't heard and shouldn't pick up even though they inevitably will and the question is not one of "if," but "when." Or at least, it did contain such "shucky darn words" (as my freshman English teacher would say), but I asterisked them out. My fifteen minutes of fame aren't much (compared to the earlier Sun-Sentinel article) and it hardly portrays bloggers in a positive light, but it's here anyway. Without further ado, here's the article. It was published with a photo of me playing my 12-string acoustic guitar (I wrote about the photo shoot). Maybe I'll include a scan of the photo in the future; it's not bad.

Every time I look around, Ask Jordon's in my face!

Paul: Which courtesy autographs do you have?

I have Treasurer Ivy Baker Priest (pictured on my courtesy autograph page), Secretary of the Treasury Robert B. Anderson, and Kathryn O'Hay Granahan. I also have John W. Snow, but it's not a genuine autograph, as I recently discovered.

Tom: What is the best/worst part of living in Florida?

Although (because?) I'm a native Floridian, I have a bit to say on this topic. After all, I've been to other places, you know!

Let's start with the bad things. Florida is far from the Northeast and Midwest, which I think are together considered the cultural capital of the United States. In other words, that's where all the TV shows are set. And so on TV shows it's always snowing or they have mountains or it's snowing in the mountains. Florida has no snow and no mountains. It doesn't help that we're so physically far away; the Bahamas and Cuba are closer to my hometown of Deerfield Beach than Georgia, the nearest state. Also, there are a lot of old people. Not as many as you may have been led to believe, but they are out there. (They're not all bad drivers, either... I think.) Even though they say there are no seasons, it's too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter (now). But you'd probably balk at what we consider cold (and hot, for that matter; Deerfield stays cool thanks to the sea breeze). And though hurricanes are relatively uncommon, they do occur, as we all now know.

What's the best thing about living in Florida? Walt Disney World and other theme parks in the Orlando area are only a three-hour drive from Deerfield. I can't really think of anything else, actually. I'm glad it doesn't snow. I mean, I'd like to see snow (no I never have gasp gasp etc.) and maybe spend a vacation close to some, but I wouldn't want to have to live with it for half the year. The changing of the seasons and all that would only add to the feeling that time flies.

From the FYI department: did you know that works created the United States Government are not protected by copyright law? It's true -- see 17 U.S.C § 105. All such images and text are in the public domain (though the use of things like government agency logos and images of currency are regulated or prohibited). Now I am not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure that means you can do things like redistribute NOAA satellite images (as long as you remove the NOAA logo) or stuff from Library of Congress collections. It might prove useful sometime, and it's better than getting yourself beaten up over using someone's copyrighted image or text.

Ladies and gentlemen, Ask Jordon!

Yellow Chicken: Can you do another photoday-blog or post a screenshot of your computer desktop or room or something?

I don't recall ever having done a photoday-blog-type thing, and my desktop isn't very interesting. (If you're wondering, the wallpaper is a picture of a black bear that I took during my North Carolina vacation of July/August.) I'd be glad, though, to post a photo of my room. In fact, thanks for suggesting that. I put together a panorama of my room in January 2003 and had been meaning to do another with my new camera. So here's the new panorama (~116 KB), depicting my room circa this morning. I hope you enjoy it.

Robert: How did you make and organize your archives page?

Little by little. Every time I type out a post on the main page, I copy and paste it to the archive page for the current month. On the archive pages, each post has a unique ID (based on the day, hour, and minute) that, when appended to the URL of the page, creates a direct link. For example, the ID of my last post is d271829; the URL in the archives is http://www.theworldofstuff.com/archives/200411.html#d271829.

The deadline for the Everyman Photo Contest has come and gone, and here are the galleries of the nearly 2,000 photos that were submitted. All of them are by amateur photographers. These two are really good. I think the former is worth at least an honorable mention.

Speaking of which, I've crunched some numbers to find that my odds of winning a cash prize are about 1 in 44. That's significantly better than the odds of being killed by lightning (1 in 30,000), being dealt a royal flush in the first hand (1 in 649,739), dying of heart disease from eating one broiled steak a week (1 in 48,000), being killed by terrorists while traveling abroad (1 in 650,000), and dying of cancer from eating a peanut butter sandwich every day (1 in 5,000)... supposedly.

The winning photos will be announced Wednesday, December 1. Cross your fingers for me!

Hats used to be popular for men to wear; just look at old movies (or new movies that are set back in the day). In the 1960s, the hat became an endangered species, one which I actually give more sympathy to than, say, the blue whale. The hat tops off the ensemble, if you ask me. I work for a company that makes and sells suits, and they don't sell hats at all. That's kind of surprising, because there must be someone somewhere -- if even an old guy -- who just wouldn't feel complete without a hat.

The company's slogan (well, one of its slogans, I think) is "Nothing is permanent in fashion but good taste." So hats aren't good taste? Businesses like Miller Hats and hats.com would beg to differ.

The World of Stuff hasn't gotten any press recently. I've had the good fortune to be interviewed about this site for two articles in local papers: one in September 2003 and the other in April 2004. (Oh right, you knew that already because I'm still bragging about them at the top of the main page!) If requests for interviews follow any sort of pattern, then I could assume that my next article would run this month -- which obviously isn't the case, because I would have been contacted about it already. Sure, maybe I'm panicking a bit, but what happened?

Has bloggers' coverage of the recent Presidential election killed the notion of the blog as something new and exciting? Perhaps. It's becoming increasingly clear that the big-time bloggers -- don't ask me, I have no idea who they are -- are becoming worthy opponents of other media. And once you're up to that level, the little guys tugging at your heels are meaningless.

It's pessimism time!

What I'm trying to say is this: you can't be a good blogger anymore. Yes, I mean you. You there. If your dream is to be like the next CmdrTaco et al., Instapundit, Kottke, or J-Walk (hey, I am aware of a few), you can keep on dreaming for all anyone cares. Blogging was new and exciting. But the many conditions -- none of which I can tell you -- that are required for a blog to be hugely successful will never arise again. Not when everyone's fixated on the big guys and there are too many little guys already (case in point: right here).

So, you may ask, why do I do it? To give you the first answer that comes to mind, I have no idea. None whatsoever. Maybe it's just for me to establish a presence on the Internet, and then my life will somehow be more complete? Dunno. Got me. But I like it. I guess that's good enough a reason. And we all dream of having the most popular blog ever, which in reality no one can do... excuse me, I'm going to cry...

But as I was saying, if you really believe in yourself, you still won't make it there anyway. So you might as well not blog at all unless you get a kick out of the whole thing. And I guess I do, or else I wouldn't be here. Wow, I think I have just succeeded in depressing myself. Gee, thanks a lot! Now I'm going to have to go and plead strange bloggers to trade links -- something I hate to do but resort to whenever I feel inadequate. What can I say? I want the hits! It's hit envy!

How I need a special someone...

That said, Ask Jordon is back up again. So go ahead, ask me anything and I'll try to answer it. Once I stop it and start it again a few times, I'll figure out a good schedule for it.

People often find this site through weird search engine queries. (I spotlighted a few back in May.) The ones I get the biggest kick out of are the ones where the user thinks there's an actual person at the other end who gives you the search results. Usually they go like "where can i find informashun about gym socks" and things of that nature. This, of course, would return pages that contain all the words "where," "can," "I," "find," etc. The problem is especially bad with Ask Jeeves, which virtually claims that there's really an actual cartoon butler at the end. (By the way, I thought I'd noticed that Jeeves got a tan.) But anyway, yesterday someone came here using this query on Google Australia:

everything you know about space stuff find it quick im in a race

I kid you not.

By the way, the URL of the search results page has "spell=1" at the end; Google appends this when it makes a spelling suggestion and you choose to search for the spellchecked query... indicating that the person can't spell either.

TWoS can be found on the first page of the search results, which just goes to show you

The Norman Rockwell Museum. The site contains information about and works by the artist who captured American life from World War I to the Civil Rights era and beyond. Be sure to check out the Eye Opener pages.

Merry Christmas!

Oh, it's not Christmas yet? But I thought with all the Christmas music playing and the Christmas trees going up and Santa Claus in the parade on TV, it must be Christmas. Oh, I forgot, it's only Thanksgiving, which seems to exist only as the "Gateway to Christmas." But let's not forget about the origins of Thanksgiving, or, as everyone calls it, Turkey Day. I've researched this subject meticulously to present to you this factual account of the first Turkey Day.

(Here's another version of the story.)

Since Thanksgiving is actually about thanksgiving, I might as well rattle off the people, places, and things I'm thankful for. Here goes.

I am thankful for all my family, some of whom I will be spending Thanksgiving with this year;

I am thankful for all my friends, including, but not limited to: Sean, Nick, Alex, Mark, Mike, Andrew, Billy, David, Gilbert, Justin, Lauren, and Michelle;

My Psychology teacher, Mr. Firestone, is pretty cool;

I'm thankful for my mediocre health and not entirely hopeless social skills;

I'm definitely thankful that I don't have to worry about what I eat yet.

There. Now to get writing that Christmas list...

Here I am again live from Mr. Mumtaz's Programming class -- this time sans Mr. Mumtaz. We have a substitute teacher today. Since I'm here, I might as well talk a bit about programming. On Monday, Mr. Mumtaz offered a challenge for those who were done with a particular assignment. The extra assignment was to write a program that finds the square numbers between 1 and 100. To my own surprise, I got it and proceeded to write a program that lists the square numbers between any two numbers. I'm coming along quite nicely, if I do say so myself.

Speaking of math (or "maths" to the Queen's subjects), my Geometry teacher, Miss Cale, is trying to make her class fun. Since we're getting into circles and arcs and things like that, she arranged for the class to have a pizza party thing. It was pretty fun, actually, even though any party that requires measuring your slice of pizza to determine the area of the entire pizza minus the crust isn't exactly exciting in itself.

I'm having a hard time typing here. Someone at the teacher's computer is toying with mine remotely.

Anyway, this thing was held at the teacher's lounge. I was surprised that she was able to clear it out for such a long time (I think the previous class had a party there as well). It's not very interesting a place, really. There are some booths, like in the cafeteria.

Mr. King, an administrator, and Ms. Jacobson, the Health teacher, just herded a classful of kids through our room. Now he's with them outside our door and I think he's yelling at them. I wonder what they're in trouble for. Knowing those two, it could be anything.

Anyway, the booths are just like the ones in the cafeteria. There are also some tables, a microwave, and a soda machine (where the sodas are still only 50¢!). It's pretty small, really. It got kind of crowded when a whole class was in there. I'd have a hard time trying to imagine all my teachers, plus my friends' teachers, plus teachers I don't know complaining about their students like we complain about them. But I suppose they do. It's a mutual thing.

I lost the auction for my favorite substitute teacher's baseball card. No surprise there. eBay is treacherous for buyers and a godsend for sellers. I'd like to sell stuff on eBay; I can see why some people make a living off it. It's all about the impulse of spending more than you really want to by bidding higher and higher in the final minutes of the auction. Then you realize you didn't want to pay so much and possibly gawk at the enormous price you now owe. Back in the days of garage sales you didn't have other people competing with you to buy someone's junk. And you didn't have to worry about shipping. But that was then, and this is the strange, strange land that is eBay.

I was also trying to bid on a list of addresses -- mailing addresses for former US Treasurers and Secretaries of the Treasury. I collect their autographs on dollar bills (see Courtesy Autographs on US Currency for more information). Anyway, someone had this list of addresses. Actually, it wasn't just anyone, but someone in particular. This particular someone is a notaphilist who got into courtesy autographs by reading my courtesy autograph page. So instead of going through the dance steps of fulfilling an auction, I decided to buy it from him directly. A few days after sending him the money, I got the list, and boy, what a list it is. I could potentially obtain hundreds of dollars worth of profits by selling the autographs I'll obtain for a nominal amount.

There's only one problem, however: I'll need the right bills (the bill I send each person should have their signature already printed on it), and I'll need them in the right condition (anything less that Crisp Uncirculated or About Uncirculated just won't do). It's proving to be harder than I thought. The more recent ones should be easier to get, but I may have to pay a premium of four times face value for some of the older bills. If that's what I need to do, I think it'll be worthwhile to spend the money. After all, I have quite a bit.

On a related note, I found that the bill I sent to the current Secretary of the Treasury toward the beginning of this year was actually signed by a machine like this. I had noticed that his signature looked identical on every bill he had "autographed," but I could tell that my bill was signed with a marker, and it did look like the same handwriting as the signature printed on the bill. I should have known. Oh well, at least I didn't buy it for $50 on eBay like a few poor saps.

Forty-one years ago today, President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The moments surrounding the fatal gunshots may just be the most analyzed, scrutinized, examined, and generally pored over seconds in modern times. It was caught on film. There were many witnesses. The official assassin is Lee Harvey Oswald, but many people believe there were others involved, or that Oswald was not involved at all. Unfortunately, Oswald himself (right, at the microphone) was shot and killed two days later, so we may never know exactly.

If you've read any blog in, say, the past 18 hours, then you've seen this link and can skip over this paragraph and the next. But for those of you who are living under a rock, a new computer game called JFK Reloaded allows the player to play as Oswald from the infamous "sniper's nest" on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. This is the location where he allegedly was at the time of the shooting. The object of the game is to see if any player can recreate all the actual shots and wounds from Oswald's vantage point. If someone can pull it off, not only will they lend evidence to the "lone nut" theory, but they'll also win $100,000.

Before you go bonkers about this President-killing game, remember that it's all for scholarly purposes. See, this review in Slate doesn't consider it just another shoot-'em-up type game, but actually serious (and somewhat disturbing). By the way, the reviewer claims that "[a]s a physics simulation, it's remarkable."

So, what do I think about the whole thing? I'm not sure if Oswald killed Kennedy. He must have shot Tippit for a reason, but that doesn't mean he couldn't have been part of a conspiracy. The Zapruder film does seem to show that Kennedy was shot from the front or side.

Now, a smattering of JFK-assassination-related links:

The Kennedy Assassination Home Page. A good place to start.

The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza.

James R. Leavelle, the fellow tickling the ivories in the irreverent example of Photoshoppery.

Dealey Plaza Webcam.

Last night I went with my friends to Quiet Waters Skate Park. My parents wouldn't let me rollerblade or skateboard -- insurance -- but I took some pictures and videos. The night started on a bad note when my mom took me to the skate park at the time we were supposed to meet. As the shadows grew longer and longer, we realized they must not have been coming for whatever reason. We called my friend Sean's house and then stopped by, but no one was there. So we went home.

And on the way home, what should I see but my Sean's mom's van. They were stopped at my friend Mike's house -- this was a half an hour after we should have met up -- and they were still digging around for helmets and pads and things. So they got everything together and I joined them on the way back to the park.

Then there was this big thing like they weren't allowed in there even though there was some kid inside. The kid was the park manager's son or something, so he was allowed to go in there. But for us it was BMX night so we couldn't disturb the nonexistent bikers (no one goes to this skate park). At least, that's what I think the deal was. I was too busy taking pictures.

Eventually they let my friends in to skate and me to take pictures, as long as I didn't go in too far. I got some good wipeouts on video. By this time there was only one other kid there. I don't know if it was the same one as before, but he was pretty good for being so short. In fact, I think he was better than Sean, the only one of us who skateboarded.

After that, we went to Cici's Pizza for dinner. It was very crowded. Not only did we see Mike's family there, but even worse, we spotted none other than (dun dun dun) Ms. Jacobson -- the least popular teacher at school. But they were all leaving before we got our food, and we didn't see anyone else we knew. It was so amazingly crowded that we at first had to stand up to eat, but eventually the six of us (me, three of my friends, and Sean's mom and dad) found a nice table for four and we sat there. Good pizza.

Then today I went horseback riding with members of my church's youth group. We went to the Bar-B-Ranch, waaay down and far away in Davie. First they went over how to make the horse go and stop and everything like that, but I was still nervous. Some of us had gone riding before, and others hadn't; they considered this in assigning us each a horse. I had never done it before. I was actually the last person to get my horse, which didn't help my nerves. It was named Katie; everyone else thought that was so cute for some reason.

So all of us (along with some people from the ranch) went around, first trying to get the horses in a straight line, and then getting them to turn and trot and stuff like that. My horse wasn't eager to get in the lines, or I couldn't make it do that. But my friend Nick got stuck with the horse that wouldn't do anything. He was always behind everyone.

I, aware how British character actor Roy Kinnear (Help!, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) met his maker, felt very ill at ease throughout the whole thing. Several times the horse lowered its head to eat, which wasn't very good for me because I was trying to hold on to the reins. I managed not to fall off, but the last time I hurt my leg trying to hold on. Luckily, it didn't pull that one on me again. My leg still hurts and I have to walk in a strange way that I haven't mastered yet. The pain is internal, so I must have pulled a tendon or a ligament or something.

All in all, I got the horse to walk, turn sometimes, and even trot a little, and I had a reasonably satisfactory time, so it was all right. Would I do it again? Maybe. It was an interesting experience. But I'll have definitely have fun trying to go up and down the stairs at school tomorrow.

On Tuesday, during my last class, the teacher slipped me and some others a pink note. It said there was going to be pizza for the A Honor Roll students on Wednesday in the cafeteria. Compare this to my first invitation to my first A Honor Roll party, last year. Since I had a class in the gym, I didn't hear the message over the PA system, so my sister came in and pulled me out. (She had top-notch grades too.)

Wednesday's party (and I use the term "party" loosely) was not entirely dissimilar to the others I had been to. It began with the principal, Mr. Bell, going on and on and on and on about how important it is to have good grades -- nothing new there. Instead of being able to get the pizza ourselves, though, it was passed out by the people from administration. After that, there was to be the handing out of the certificates that, well, say you got good grades. It always goes like this: the administrators call you up (in alphabetical order), one of them hands you your piece of paper, and then you move on down the line, shaking hands with each one. Mr. Bell, as always, went over the four things you have to do when you accept your award thingy:

1. Maintain eye contact.
2. Smile.
3. Deliver a strong handshake.
4. Say "Thank you."

People who can coordinate these four actions simultaneously and repeatedly are not people who make the A Honor Roll.

All in all, the pizza was good (it was from my favorite place, but I can't remember what that is). There was soda too; I snagged a can of Christmas Coke. The main difference was that there was someone toward the back with a big ol' video camera, undoubtedly shooting footage for the News for You at 8:52 -- the morning TV announcements. Sure enough, on Thursday morning, I briefly saw myself in a clip. In my chair I was turned uncomfortably to the side, presumably to get a view of Mr. Bell talking. Then I laughed, presumably at something Mr. Bell said. It actually wasn't unflattering.

This week my psychology teacher, Mr. Firestone, posted these very two images outside his classroom door:

I immediately recognized the fellow on the left as Vladimir Lenin, but I was puzzled about the flower and what the whole thing might mean. So Firestone, being the nice but still pretty weird guy he is, furtively let me in on the visual joke. The flower is called the McCartney rose: thus, Lenin (Lennon) and McCartney. I never took him for a Beatles fan, but I guess he is.

To many of us at good old PBHS, Mr. McDonald is the nice old substitute teacher who lets us do anything we want in class. That's all I thought of him, too, until today.

Mr. McDonald subbed in my Programming class today, and at the computer next to me, my friend Gilbert was browsing eBay. Mr. McDonald was standing behind him, saying something like "I signed it and the value went down!" I looked to see what he was talking about. They were looking at an image of an old baseball card -- the rookie card of a young Dave McDonald.

What might be even more crazy than Mr. McDonald having been a Major League Baseball player is that no one ever bothered to tell me. I do think it's pretty cool, though. I've managed to dig up his stats and other information. I don't know much about baseball, but I've tried my best to make sense of the complicated tables and such.

Dave McDonald began playing first base for the New York Yankees in 1969. He was then traded to the Montreal Expos, for whom he didn't play during the 1970 season. After that, he was traded to the San Francisco Giants, but the Expos bought him back before the 1971 season, his final one. He hit a home run during that season, and after a total of 62 at bats, his career batting average was .145.

And that baseball card on eBay? I asked my aunt to bid on it for me because no one in my house is an eBay user. The card is autographed by him, which is pretty cool. I've found that it happens to be worth a bit because he shared it with Thurman Munson, the 1970 American League Rookie of the Year who went on to become a star player. But even if my aunt doesn't win the auction, I'd still like to buy the card somehow. I want to own a souvenir of an all-star substitute teacher.

Call me crazy, weird, dumb, a cab, or whatever you'd like, but I'd never figured this out till recently. See the logo of Amazon.com?

Now look at where the orange arrow starts, and where it ends. See? The logo implies that they have everything from A to Z! Pretty clever, eh? If you knew that already, you've got to admit it's still clever. And they really do have a ton of stuff.

Speaking of which, ever wonder what that "obidos" in every Amazon URL means? According to this blog entry, obidos is the name of their custom-made e-commerce system. It's named after the Brazilian city of Obidos, which lies on the mouth of... the Amazon.

As any self-respecting Beatles fan knows, every country had some of its own Beatles albums, which each country's record company created by mixing and matching (and remixing) songs from the most recent albums and singles. In the USA, Capitol Records was the most notorious for doing this. In fact, the first Capitol album whose title even matched a British counterpart was Help! in August 1965 -- their seventh album on Capitol since January 1964. Though the Beatles were prolific in the studio during those years, there was no way they could produce seven albums of original material.

For reasons the Beatles couldn't understand, Capitol insisted on rearranging and remixing their tracks (often adding generous amounts of reverb) for American ears. Additionally, the Beatles' early albums usually had 13 or 14 songs, which Capitol would trim to 11 or 12 to save tracks for future releases. I think the general consensus among Beatles fans is that the American albums and the remixes contained thereon are trash compared to the original British versions. So it's a good thing, a fan might say, that when the Beatles' catalog was issued on CD in 1987, it was standardized around the world -- and the LP releases did not correspond exactly to the British albums were deleted. Furthermore, the first four UK/worldwide Beatles albums are only available in mono, even though all but a handful of their songs exist in stereo.

So maybe a month ago I heard on the radio that Capitol was going to release their own Beatles albums on CD for the first time. Talk about milking the fans for money, I thought. There's no need to buy these things, I thought. They're going to be the same old mono songs, just in a different order. Why bother?

This past Sunday I was listening to Beatle Brunch, a Sunday radio show that plays nothing but -- you guessed it -- the Beatles. I like listening to the show because they play the Beatles' early pop hits in beautiful, glistening stereophonic sound as opposed to the dull mono versions on the first four CDs. The topic of this week's show was the new Capitol release, which is called The Capitol Albums Volume 1. It's a box set of the first four Capitol albums, which were released in that magical year of 1964: Meet the Beatles!, The Beatles' Second Album, Something New, and Beatles '65.

What floored me when I listened to this broadcast was that the CDs have the songs in mono... and stereo. Unbelievable. Each track is faithful to its Capitol mix (reverb and all), and that includes the wide stereo separation on many of the songs. The songs that don't exist in stereo are in fake stereo, which I'm sure is just the way they would have had it in 1964 (except with analog instead of digital equipment). They played some stereo songs on the show, and I was impressed -- they sounded just like the vinyl versions usually heard on the show (they like to spoil their listeners with stereo sound whenever possible).

Needless to say, The Capitol Albums Volume 1 is on my Christmas list that I haven't written yet but need to get around to doing. Words can't express how awesome it's going to be. But it leaves me wondering what will be on The Capitol Albums Volume 2, which I haven't heard a peep about. The remaining Capitol albums that differ from their British counterparts are as follows:

• The Early Beatles (1965): A retitled version of Please Please Me, the group's first British album -- one which Capitol had originally rejected in 1963.
• Beatles VI (1965): Believe it or not, the Beatles' sixth album on the Capitol label.
• Help! (1965): The soundtrack to the Beatles' film of the same name. The British Help!, now the standard throughout the world, contains the Beatles songs from the film plus others that were then new. The American version also has the songs from the movie but fills out the rest with instrumental bits from the score, thus guaranteeing even more songs for later albums.
• Rubber Soul (1965): Contains songs mostly from the British album of the same name (but not as many, of course).
• Yesterday... and Today (1966): This is the album that was originally released with the infamous "Butcher cover." No, the Beatles did not intend for that photo to be used as an album cover; in fact, there was no British equivalent of this album, as it mostly contained leftover songs from the British Help! and Rubber Soul, plus a couple from their forthcoming album, Revolver.
• Revolver (1966): The last album that Capitol fooled with. It has 11 songs, whereas the British version has 14.

I'm not sure which ones Capitol will choose for the next release, because several of these albums may be a bit too similar to the versions already available. But we'll have to see.

Ever wonder what the Earth might look like if you could see it from space right now? The World Sunlight Map realistically shows current areas of daylight and darkness (with city lights) along with current cloud cover around the world -- basically what you would see if you were to take the Earth right now and flatten it out. Pretty neat.

My church had its annual picnic today in honor of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, its patron saint, whose feast day is the 17th. It began as usual with the play put on by some kids about the life of St. Elizabeth, with one kid narrating. By far the best part:

Later the outdoor activities began. My friends and I played pickle with some little kids, and I managed not to get hit. When I was worn out, I went and got a burger to eat. Then when I came back they were starting a football game. I actually managed to tackle my friend (that's an accomplishment for me). Then a few of us played horseshoes, and I was the only one who got a ringer. After that, we went inside to play bingo, and after winning the first game (prize: a 10-pack of mini Butterfingers) I had to go home. Talk about a morale booster.

Much has been made of MSN's new search engine; for example, a search for "more evil than satan" brought up top competitor Google as the first result -- but no more. To help you get the very most out of this new search engine, here's a handy tutorial.

Erratum: In the Ask Jordon section of my November 9 post, I answered to Mike Freeman that I had bought a Series 1957 $1 Silver Certificate autographed by Treasurer Ivy Baker Priest for US $25. The actual amount was $30. My apologies, Mike.

It's Armistice Day, or Veterans Day here in the U.S. Today we (get a day off school to) honor those who have served in all our wars, but especially World War I. It's customary to observe a moment of silence at 11 A.M., but I forgot to. So, I'm making up for that my mentioning it here. Have you thanked a veteran today? I haven't either. But I would if I were in contact with any.

By the way, it's properly Veterans Day, not Veterans' Day (and certainly not Veteran's Day!). That's according to this page, anyway.

Today on a whim I downloaded Thunderbird, the mail client from the folks who made the Firefox browser. I realized that since I have the paid version of my web-based e-mail service, I can check my e-mail from such a program. So, once I got everything set up (which didn't take that long), all the messages in my inbox were transferred to Thunderbird. Since I couldn't get them back to the web interface, I was sort of stuck with the program. At first I fretted over this, but after I deleted and sorted the 545 messages that had been sitting in my inbox for up to 18 months, I noticed a great feature: the ability to label messages as "Important," "To Do," "Later," etc. Very handy!

As I lightened up, I took note of other features like spell checking, the nifty address book, and spam controls. I'm sure a more popular client like Outlook Express would have much the same stuff, but it feels good not to rely so heavily on a program that's so, well, Microsofty (...types Jordon in Notepad on Windows XP). I've never used a mail client before -- always web-based mail -- so a lot of these features are new to me. Another favorite of mine is actually being able to send an e-mail by clicking on an e-mail link! You really don't know what you're missing when you use web-based mail. And since I paid US $20 a year for this premium e-mail account, I might as well get my money's worth.

To my surprise, Ask Jordon has been a great success. But I've decided that if I kept it going, the focus of this blog would shift from what it is now (whatever you would call it) to a question-and-answer-type thing. Some Q&A is good sometimes, but I can't let it take over. So I've decided to give Ask Jordon a break right now, but rest assured; it'll come back sometime. I've really enjoyed what you readers have sent in! (Oh, and Tom: I had some of that chili for diner tonight, and it's still good.)

Aren't you glad you don't buy those overpriced "collectible" commemorative coins struck by private mints? I sure am. Newsday reports that a company called National Collector's Mint was claiming to sell a "legally authorized government issue silver dollar ... struck to commemorate the World Trade Center and the new Freedom Tower being erected in its place ... Most importantly, each coin has been created using .999 pure silver recovered from ground zero!" Turns out that the coin, which was valued (by the company) at US $39 and sold for (only) $19.95, is not a legally authorized government issue and is silver-plated. The value of the metal content? Less than a cent and a half.

This is a semi-milestone in the history in The World of Stuff. I didn't think I could do it, but it's being done. "Shouldn't you be at school?" you ask. After all, it is pretty early in the morning. Well, the answer is, I am.

I'm here live at PBHS -- Mr. Mumtaz's programming class, to be specific. We were learning about for loops today, but some students had to leave for a field trip thing, so he gave us free time for the rest of the block (which is pretty long). So everybody's pretty much doing their own thing. Most people are playing games or something. I actually don't have anything to say except that I'm here and PLAPS is obsolete.

But since I'm here, I might as well talk about something, so I will. I downloaded the brand new version 1.0 of the Firefox browser yesterday. It's basically the 1.0 Preview Release with a few minor alterations -- no surprise there. But it's another milestone, and dare I say a more important one. The new browser war is being waged.

On his computer, Mr. Mumtaz is playing Gerry and the Pacemakers' rendition of "You'll Never Walk Alone," I think to footage of skateboarding. Never mind, it's over.

Anyway, this final 1.0 release of Firefox represents a major step in the war against Microsoft Internet Explorer, the longtime behemoth of the browser market.

Just overheard, amid robotic buzzing and other sound effects, from the teacher's desk: "What, during free time only you can play games?"

As I was saying, Microsoft should be prepared to wage war again. Firefox is generally superior. I'll concede that it's not perfect -- for example, I'd need to use IE in making this post because Firefox has read-only access to my FTP server... or something like that. Firefox's strengths still outweigh those of IE, especially for the average user.

Now, check out this USA Today story: Firefox Ignites Demand for Alternative Browser. I can't concentrate in here.

Casablanca. The Godfather. Jaws. Citizen Kane. Titanic. Ben-Hur. The Shining. Star Wars. Gone with the Wind. Duck Soup. Psycho. The Lord of the Rings trilogy.

I have not seen any of these films.

Now, hold your horses and let me explain things.

Today in geometry class, Ms. Cale was going over conditionals: if this then that, and all that stuff. She asked the class for an example of the hypothesis -- that is, the "if" part of the statement. "If you build it..." I said to myself. So my sister, sitting nearby, decides to give that to the teacher as an example. She wrote it on the board: "If you build it, (then) they will come."

"What movie is that from?", she asked my sister.

She said "Jordon thought of it," or something like that.

"Umm, I don't know," I said.

"Isn't it from Field of Dreams?", the teacher asked.

"I've never seen it."

"You've never seen Field of Dreams?"

In my mind, balloons were rising, confetti was falling, and a tickertape parade would be on its way shortly. I had just heard the phrase "You've never seen such-and-such-a-movie?" for the one millionth time.

How do people do it? They manage to see just about every popular movie somehow or another. I usually don't go to the movies every week or catch all the hits on HBO, which I don't have. This thing about seeing every movie ever -- it's an enigma to me.

But that's all going to change. Sometime when I have a lot of time -- maybe July, maybe Christmastime, maybe this weekend -- I'm going to rent as many movies as I possibly can. Not necessarily the classics (like the ones I've mentioned above), but movies people have talked about without knowing that I haven't seen them. Recent or semi-recent memory tells me that such movies would include -- Ghostbusters, The Sixth Sense, and of course, Field of Dreams. I'll start a list and add to it each time the "Whaddaya-mean-you-haven't-seen-that-movie" count increases.

Fat-burning eggplant extract?? Sound too good/weird/dumb to be true? Well, it's not true, and here's why. The site is actually run by the FTC, and the lesson it's teaching is not to fall for such scams (as if anyone would?). Here's a list of all of their teaser pages.

Coming down from the hills, it's Ask Jordon!

Mike Freeman: I have a 1935 $1 silver certificate signed by Ivy Baker Priest in much the same condition as the one shown on your site. What was your's valued at?

I bought the bill pictured on the Courtesy Autographs on U.S. Currency page from Don C. Kelly for $25, so I'd say it's worth less than that. Mine's a Series 1957, but yours would be a '35E or '35F, I'd assume. I don't see how that would make much of a difference in the value, though, so your bill should be in the same general area.

josué garcía >chile: Do you speak spanish? Have you evar thinked of making this website into many languages?

Lo siento, pero no hablo español. I do take Spanish at school, but I don't have it this semester, so I'm a bit rusty with the little bit that I do know. I've never seriously thought of making El Mundo de las Cosas (as a Spanish-speaking friend tells me it would be), but in June 2003 I was studying Esperanto and considered doing an Esperanto-language version of the site. I would have called it La Mondo de Objektoj. The fixation with Esperanto quickly retreated, though, and it has not returned.

Tom: Do you know a good recipe for chili (no peaking on the internet : ))?

Straight from my mom's recipe box, here's my family's favorite, "Quick Chili - Rice":

Though I'm no chili connoisseur, I can attest to the fact that it's good stuff. If you're feeding, say, four people, then double everything. That's what my mom wrote on this card, anyway.

"A paradox," Wikipedia says, "is an apparently true statement or group of statements that seems to lead to a contradiction or to a situation that defies intuition." One of my favorites is the Ship of Theseus Paradox. If a ship wears down and every last part of it needs to be replaced, is it still the same ship?

I was wondering whether a program can delete itself. It doesn't seem likely that the operating system would allow this, but let's say it did. After the program deleted itself, it would no longer be running. But it might not have been done with what it was doing -- say, calling a system file -- and thus the file would be corrupted or something, probably. And anyway, I think a program would end itself with the equivalent of the command "End" or "Exit," and if it first runs the code to delete itself then it would not end/exit.

I think, instead of leaving the question open, I've proven a point. I'd never make it into philosophy.

Yesterday my sister, her friends, and I saw my friend Reid in his school's production of "Dames at Sea", a musical. He's always liked acting, and last year he started going to an art school that's so far away he has to take a train to get there. It must be worth it, because he's definitely learning. Oh, and it happened to be his birthday yesterday, too. So after the show we slipped into the greenroom (along with about a million other people) and presented him with a balloon and a card. He appreciated us coming to see him. The last play I saw him in was "West Side Story" last year. I can't wait till his film debut.

Now it's time for Axe Jordon!

Yoshiko: (1) Tell us more about PLAPS? (2) How'd you think of theworldofstuff.com?

(1) As with many useful things, PLAPS (Pretty Lame Automated Posting System) was made to fulfill a need. But first, a little background. I am lazy. You wouldn't believe how lazy I am. I am so lazy that I probably wouldn't bother to do anything that could let me be a little lazier if there was work involved in it. As a result, I don't use any sort of application to post entries to this site automatically. I sit here and type the actual code. Like, see where this paragraph is going to end? That's me typing the </p> tag to end it -- not any program.

Now, I'm so lazy that I wouldn't bother to download, install, and configure such a beast. This has never been much of a problem -- doing it "the hard way" isn't that hard. But in July and August of this year, I was going to be on vacation for a while. And I didn't want to lose reader interest. So, I devised PLAPS for "new" entries (actually written before I left on my trip) to show up on the page as time passes. (It doesn't work on the RSS feed, and I am aware of that.) The original PLAPS solution involved SSI because that's what this site was based on back then. The new site uses PHP instead, so I'd need to figure out how to do the same thing all over again, and since I won't be on vacation again for a long time, I haven't redone it yet. I'm lazy. I hope that answers your question (actually, it wasn't really a question, but I'm an easy-going kind of guy).

(2) To answer this, I'll have to stretch my arm and reach way, way back into the dark, mist-enshrouded days of, say, 2002. It was in that year that I established two separate web sites: The Dvorak Keyboard and You and flipacoin.net. I used the Angelfire web space I had been using for the web site of a comic book I used to make with my friends. And all was good.

But shortly after 2003 rolled in, I felt I needed a central home to keep things organized. The name "The World of Stuff" struck me as funny. The original focus of TWoS was just to be a common link between a whole bunch of different stuff, hence the name. So, I started work on everything (a home page, an about page, and a few other pages created especially for the site) and TWoS made its debut on the web on April 6, 2003. The main page was located at the now-former main page of the comic book site -- something my friends resented. In July 2003 I moved to a real (and real good) web hosting provider, where I've been ever since. It was then that I registered the domain theworldofstuff.com. And there you are.

Tom: Why do we drive on a parkway and park in a driveway?

I've had to grapple with the decision of answering this in a funny or boring way. So I'll try both.

Dictionary.com gives, among other definitions for "parkway," this: "a wide scenic road planted with trees." So, like, a parkway was originally a way (road) through a park. A lookup of "driveway" reveals: "a passage or way along or through which a carriage may be driven"; in other words, it doesn't have to be a place where you park, but through the evolution of our collective lexicon, that's all it's left to be.

Now my humorous side would like to butt in: I don't know, it says. Maybe it's because our frequently accursed friend, Whoever-Made-Up-the-English-Language, has a cruel sense of humor (humour?). What other explanation could there possibly be?

Now an essay by yours truly, dated May 10, 2000, titled "Why I Want to Be Drug Free." It was for DARE, and it won me the coveted DARE medallion for my class. I don't know what to make of it now, but it's an interesting look back.

It's time to hit the Ask Jordon mailbag!

charlie: Is it a nuisance having to update your website on a daily basis?

It can be, especially when I can't think of anything to write. Then, sometimes, something good hits me. For example, today I was going to ponder a thought and answer your question, but I realized that wasn't enough, so I thought I'd take a break for the day. Then when I received more Ask Jordon questions, found the above essay in my room, and discovered the forthcoming cool link, I decided to put off the musing till tomorrow and do a proper post. Usually, though, it's fun and/or easy to keep up with things. Something interesting might have happened to me during the day that I can blog about. And I usually have enough time to blog about it (assuming I don't get bogged down with homework).

Gilbert: What code did you use to do a post? I see you use html.

I'm not sure I understand your question. I do use HTML (well, XHTML actually) and nothing more. No blogging software, if that's what you mean -- just old-fashioned typing and FTPing. However, the header and footer of each page are tacked on with PHP includes; I just have the file extensions for PHP pages set to .html. But like I said, I don't know what you're talking about; we can talk about it in Programming class on Monday. (Everybody, Gilbert sits next to me in Programming.)

Scotto: What is your most pleasant memory?

Hard to say. I don't think I could narrow it down to a single one. When I was little, my grandfather would always stop by with my grandmother and they would chat with my parents. My grandfather was a carpenter; until he became ill, he was always making things. He made me puzzles, toys, and a piggy bank. On an obscure wall of the house we have a picture of the Madonna and Child that I think he painted. Even after he became sick, he often seemed cheerful. When I came over, he would get up from his chair where he spent the day and give me a hug (and sometimes a handshake, which he wasn't afraid of doing even though he had lost some of his fingers). And I remember what he smelled like. It was a pleasant smell.

Patrick Elwards: Can I sign up for your sppmail too?

Sure, that's what it's there for. For those who don't know, sppmail is my e-mail service thingy that I sort of made (with the help of ZZN).

This is actually one of the funniest sites I've seen in a long time. Crazy Kent travels America (and Canada) with his garbage can. Everywhere he goes, he has his picture taken with his head poking out of the garbage can. He's done this in over 30 states plus Washington D.C. and Ontario. And on television.

That's so cool that none of you can believe it.

Yesterday I unveiled Ask Jordon, a new idea (new to this site, anyway) where you sort of ask me a question and I answer it. Nineteen minutes after my post, the first question rolled in. Two hours and 27 minutes after that, the second one arrived. So, here's the first (and hopefully not the last) edition of Ask Jordon.

Tom (from Buffalo): Deep down don't you wish you had snow in the winter?

Do I ever. Snow is wonderful, from what I've heard. I've never seen it. I intend to someday, though, and when I do, I'll be sure frolic in it like a little kid. Actually, I'm going on a skiing trip in about two years. If I don't see snow before then, I may sustain frolic-related injuries on the slope.

Todd: What's a good email service to use that supports Outlook Express that's not Hotmail/Yahoo?

I'm sorry, but I'm hopelessly attached to web-based e-mail; I'm not about to ditch my 99% spam-free e-mail address of four and a half years. I can't make any personal recommendations; all I can suggest is to try your ISP if they offer e-mail.

You, too, can ask me anything.

That poor stick figure guy with the floating head is always caught misusing products and breaking rules only to serve as an example for the rest of us. Check out the Gallery of Stick-Figure Warning Signs.

Carbon paper is fun... if it is what I think it is. It's that pink, yellow, and white stuff they use for forms and bills, right? Well, anyway, thanks to this wonderful thing called the Internet, you can read about the Exciting History of Carbon Paper! (sadly, emphasis in original).

J-Walk Blog, by John Walkenbach (a.k.a. "J-Walk"), is a blog I keep up with. It's basically one of those blogs where there's nothing but interesting links. Well, there's also a feature called "Ask J-Walk," where readers submit questions - questions about almost anything - for J-Walk to answer. I submitted one a few days ago: "What's your secret to having a popular blog?" He answered it shortly thereafter: "Do you really think I'm going to reveal my secret? Just look at the content, the update frequency, and the layout -- maybe it will give you some clues."

The content of his site is, in a word, links. Links about everything. Funny links, weird links, links about the news, geek and tech links, political links, and, well... other links. According to traditional web design rules, links do not a site make, but blogs with nothing but links are indeed popular. I think readers submit them. I don't have enough readers to do that, and if I did, I wouldn't have time to sift through and post the links.

The site is updated very often - i.e., throughout the day. I could never do that, even if I used a blogging application.

The layout is, unlike that of this site, what you would normally expect of a blog. This site's layout looks like roadkill compared to the cool blogs that everyone likes. And yet those all have white backgrounds. I thought white was a color to avoid, so I got rid of it for this brand-new layout. Somehow I just can't envision and design a good layout.

So, instead of trying to improve this site in any of those respects, I've decided on something that will have seemed like a good idea at the time: Ask Jordon! Just ask me anything, and I'll (probably) answer it in a future post. Go ahead, what do you want to know?

Okay, I do know this is a horrible idea. In the past, little gimmicks that require user interaction have gone down as horrible failures. Case in point: the WoS Slogan Contest back in July '03. I could think of a million others. I suspect the whole problem is because I have no users (except you, of course). But we'll see if this works. If it doesn't, then at least tell a friend about this site or something. Jeez. But ask me something anyway.

I got my first report card of the year today. Straight A's in all my classes plus A's on my mid-term exams. Yay.

About a month ago I sent Google a smart-alecky response to their "Google Labs Aptitude Test," a difficult exam to see who has the immense smarts it takes to work in their Google Labs division. I colored the front of the envelope with yellow highlighter to increase the chances that they'd think I'm really weird. I popped it in the mail and that was that.

I wasn't planning on posting anything today; I figured you would have known that Bush won the election, and nothing really interesting happened to me and I have no cool links to post. So, I get home and find a package at the doorstep. It's not unusual for my sister and me to find packages, because my dad is always ordering things. But this package, upon closer examination, was addressed to me. I bet you can tell where this is going. I was puzzled until I saw that the return address was from Mountain View, California - the home of Google! They sent me free stuff for doing nothing! Even more amazingly, they spent the money to have it shipped to me, coast-to-coast, overnight!

And I was right. After much effort trying to open the package, I found all this inside:

Included in the box was a Google envelope with a Google letterhead inside. It read:

The shirt is pretty cool. I can't find it on the Google Store, so it must be either (a) out of stock, or (b) only given away to Google fans. But anyway, it has the Google logo on the front and the words "I'm Feeling Lucky" on the back. It's a shame I can't wear it, though; it's much, much too small.

I also got a can of Google Goo. I had read about this stuff. The Google Store's page on Google Goo (a US$14.50 value) says "[t]his stretchy ball of blue fun works overtime to decrease stress and stretch your creativity. It doesn't stain and it's non-toxic -- and endlessly satisfying to shape and squeeze." Besides the fact that my Google Goo is red, I don't like it too much because it's really thick and it smells like those paints that come in tubes. It's greasy too.

Probably the coolest (read: most useful) product from the bunch is the Google Light-Up Pen (US$5.95). With the press of a button, it lights up with one of seven colors. The next press of the button turns the light off, and the next changes it to another color. Batteries included! I'll probably start using it right away, seeing as I need a new pen for school.

I'd like to take this opportunity to thank the folks at Google for their coolness. Sure, the letter wasn't the kind of reply I had hoped for, but the gifts were all right (especially since there were so many of them). Thanks, Google!

So this is it, boys and girls. We are electing. I hope this will be the final post in my series on the U.S. Presidential election. (Previous installment)

To begin the end, a morsel of curiosity. My friend Reid has good reason to claim he was one of the first people to learn that George W. Bush was going to run for President. It was October 15, 1998, and Jeb Bush (W's brother and former President Bush's son) was on the campaign trail running for Governor of Florida. He visited our school, and Reid and I were part of the welcoming committee thing. Later he visited some classrooms, including ours, answering questions that we had. A reporter for the Boca Raton News included this bit in his article, published the next day:

Here's a photo from that year's yearbook. The present governor looks like he's about to sneeze, but I look a little better. That's me third from right.

On to more relevant things. Today during lunch, I wasted time to vote in a countywide mock election for kids. Aside from the President, they had just about all the other people running for state and county offices. However, the independent and third-party Presidential candidates were conspicuously absent from the ballot. I'm not sure which Presidential candidate is more popular at my school, but I saw more people today flaunting Kerry buttons/stickers/signs/bumper stickers than Bush goodies.

So, who the heck is going to win, anyway? It's still anybody's game. Though the Washington Redskins (who have "predicted" the outcome correctly since 1936) have predicted a victory for Kerry, the sales of masks (which have gotten it right since at least 1980) say that Bush will win. I wouldn't trust these indicators, too much. The mask site making the latter prediction seems to be biased, anyway. Their Bush mask has Bush all smiley and having black hair, while Kerry seems way older and is really "duuuuh"-looking.

Today electoral-vote.com, which is probably the hottest site on the Internet this week, is predicting 262 electoral votes for Kerry and 261 for Bush. Should it be right, then neither candidate will receive the required amount of votes (270) to actually win, so the newly elected House of Representatives would have to vote on the matter. In that scenario, each state would have one vote, so 26 votes/states would be needed to win. In other words, it would probably mean victory for Bush; the Republicans generally get more states.

I have a feeling Bush is going to win, but whoever does win may not reach the finish line without a fight. (After the last election in 2000, I can't imagine a Presidential race not being extremely close!) And speaking of the re-re-re-re-recount of Florida ballots in 2000, potential election problems seem to be even more numerous than back then: namely, controversy over electronic voting machines, more confusing ballots, and so forth. In fact, today a local news station stated that "Ohio could be the next Florida," and I recently read an article that said "there could be many Floridas across the country." Thanks, guys. Like we didn't get enough teasing about it last time.

That said, I hope that this will be my last post regarding the election and that we will find out who will be in the White House for the next four years very, very soon. I've been thinking about the election so much it's making my head spin, and recounts, recounts, and more recounts wouldn't help with that very much.

So, I'd like to wish best of luck to both President Bush and Senator Kerry, just to even things out a bit. (Even luck won't do any good for the other candidates.) And remember that all politicians are liars and thieves; the election is just about the one whose lies you like better. The first polls, here on the East Coast, close in about a half an hour. May the least evil man win!

My Halloween was pretty good. I went trick-or-treating with my friend Sean in his neighborhood and then came back to my own to meet up with my sister and her friends. I hardly got any stuff I liked. Strangest treat: two (!) bottles of Sunny Delight. I can't get over that.

And now, part three in a now-I-guess-it'll-be-four-part series on the Presidential election. (Previous part)

We're on the eve of election, and it's getting pretty ugly. My school has morning announcements on TV, and last Tuesday they ran a brief segment critical of Bush/supportive of Kerry. I figured immediately that they would run a pro-Bush segment the next day, and my suspicions were confirmed when they said that they would. But I'm afraid that some people didn't hear that detail, for they were too busy shouting and swearing because the school had endorsed a particular opinion - specifically, one they didn't like. So on Wednesday, the "anchors" of the "news program" apologized for being critical of the war in Iraq... and proceeded to run the anti-Kerry/pro-Bush segment as promised the day before. Those segments were probably intended to sway, please, or offend the trivial percentage of the student body that's able to vote, but running them was a horrible mistake. A school should not endorse any or either political opinion because there are not two sets of political views (yes, some people actually do vote for Nader), and it generally ticks everybody off.

If you wish bodily harm on the President, better not confide your thoughts in writing, as someone out there in cyberspace learned the hard way. An excerpt:

This has been revealed a long time ago (that is, earlier this year), but it does appear that George W. Bush and John Kerry are related - they're ninth cousins twice removed. According to this Family Tree, they have common ancestors who lived in the 16th and 17th centuries. It should come as no surprise considering that they're both from rich, influential New England families. But it's still pretty funny.

Now it's time for an analysis of the polls. Today electoral-vote.com is predicting that Kerry will receive 298 electoral votes and Bush 231. We shouldn't put too much faith in the polls, though; they can be very inaccurate. The guy behind the site (who has since revealed his identity) says that pollsters generally don't poll people who have a cell phone but no landline. These people are usually in the younger crowd, and now that someone actually bothered to poll them, we know that more of them are going for Kerry. However, younger voters historically have a low turnout rate.

Clearly this election is anybody's game. Actually, it's only Bush's and Kerry's game, and maybe Nader's if he manages to tip the scales toward Bush. Cobb and that guy whose name starts with a "B" don't count.