Blast from the past

Today was “Blast from the Past Day” as part of Homecoming Week. You were to dress in the style of any period of history. Surprisingly, not many people dressed up today. But also surprisingly, I did. I went as one of those pseudo-’50s Fonzie/Grease guys. Greasers, I guess they’re called? I had never heard the term before today.

I was going to do this for Halloween, but I didn’t do anything. But when I came into school looking all “cool” and stuff, I got some compliments and stuff; it was nice. The best thing was that I have long dark hair that can actually be slicked back. But as you can see in the picture, I’m not too experienced with slicking my hair back. And as a general notice, don’t laugh. Please.

My most interesting comment came from a classmate:

Him: Who are you supposed to be, Elvis?
Me: Have you heard of the Fonz?
Him: What’s that?
Me: You know that show “Happy Days,” with the character Fonzie?
Him: No, I’ve never watched that show.

Well, I haven’t either, but who doesn’t know about the Fonz?

Unfortunately, I didn’t have the most original costume idea. In fact, I saw at least six people wearing the same thing. As we were getting out of school, I sighted two greasers standing around, so I joined them. As we talked, another walked by. As for other costumes, I think togas took a second place, because who doesn’t love the Roman Empire (or the Greeks, or whatever)? My friend Justin (the man of many voices) was supposed to a gold miner. He had the hat and the boots for it, so he went around doing a good gold miner accent.

Remember building Jenga towers? How about a Jenga Sears Tower?

If you’re designing a font and want to make the accents correct, look no further than the Diacritics Project.

Today my dad said that my great-uncle died yesterday. Uncle Johnny’s death was totally unexpected (to me). I visited him and Aunt Julie on our trip to Cleveland last year. Before that, I had seen them when we visited in 1999. Uncle Johnny was a pious man, which made him the perfect choice to be my Confirmation sponsor (by proxy). I think my dad is going to drive to his funeral — it takes two whole days to get there — but there’s already snow up there. If he goes (I think he will), it just shows how much he loved and respected his uncle.

No soap

Today was the second day of Homecoming Week. It was “Senior Citizens Day,” where you were supposed to dress up as an old person. Some people did, and it was entertaining. I saw a lot of curlers, shower caps, robes, and stuff of that ilk. Apparently old people don’t get dressed after they wake up. Others decided to dress as a member of the opposite sex. Yes, I’m talking about Jarian — the makeup was rather heavy, and he didn’t need to wear a bra. But I digress.

Early during the day, the members of the TV Production class filmed some people and their weird costumes. They used this footage to open today’s announcements. And instead of the usual stock music as a theme song, they played “Another Brick in the Wall.” Nice choice, if you ask me. Maybe we really don’t need no education.

Today in European History, while we were doing nothing, Kristen and Kelsey (the resident blondes who have recently taken to being… um… sassy?) were being their usual sassy selves. I decided to have some fun with them by pulling the old “No soap radio” joke. The idea of such a joke is to deliver a nonsensical punchline — “No soap, radio” or a variation thereof. The jokes usually involve animals in a bathtub, often penguins or polar bears. The ideal reaction is uneasy, forced laugher brought about by feigned understanding of the joke. This works best when there is pressure from others — people whom the joke-teller has previously instructed to laugh.

With this in mind, and confident that it would just confuse them, I told Brian and Dan to laugh at the punchline of the joke I was about to tell (although Brian already knew about “No soap radio”). Then I turned to Kelsey and Kristen and delivered a classic rendition:

Instead of confusion, I got anger. Kelsey yelled at me for “making fun” of her “penguin joke.” I didn’t understand. Brian asked, “How can we steal your joke if you haven’t told it to us yet?” But that didn’t deter them. Kelsey threw a bottle and an icepack at me. She and Kristen later stormed out of the classroom. I don’t know where they went.

It turned out that in their last class, they had told the following joke:

Apparently, “No soap radio” jokes are too popular to work. Note to self: Think of another nonsensical punchline.

Oh, I also found out that they (well, Kelsey at least) had thought that their “penguin joke” was tremendously funny and that they couldn’t stop laughing about it.

Become younger… kind of. Find Your Age on Other Worlds. I’m only 67 years old on Mercury but only 8 on Mars. Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto haven’t made a full revolution around the sun since I was born, so on those planets I would be less than one year old.

The Top 10 Most Ridiculous Products Of The Future. I like #4, but #1 is the best.

Homeleaving Week

Homecoming Week began today with Wacky Tacky Day. Although anything goes on such a day, I mostly see people wearing the same bright colors, clashing patterns, bathing suits over their clothes, blah blah blah. In other words, they all try to do the same thing to stand out, and it gets predictable and dull. I didn’t do anything special, but I plan to later on in the week.

As you may (not) remember, I had a hard time being convinced to take European History for this school year. The only reason I joined is that my World History teacher from last year, Mrs. Vazquez, was practically making me (she’s teaching Euro as well, so that must be part of the reason). So I finally went for Euro without a fight and I’ve got accustomed to the work. During the last quarter, I even got an A in the class and an A on the exam — unbelievable! It’s a good thing she likes me.

Then she kind of started getting weird. Last month she set up the online classroom (you know, the one I thought wouldn’t work). The reason, which she stated repeatedly, was, “In case anything ever happens to me, you’ll still be able to do all the work. The class will be able to run without me.” Last week, she dropped the bomb by saying that she “might be leaving.” During that week we had a boring substitute teacher who had taught the same class up in Virginia and missed it. Can you see what this is all adding up to?

A few days ago she sent us the e-mail stating that she would be moving. I don’t know to where or why, but I’d assume back to New York for family reasons. She hasn’t explained it, so she probably doesn’t care to. She said that this week will be her last, and from here on in, Mr. Whatever will be our teacher, but that she’ll still post lectures on the online classroom. Or something like that. I don’t know how we can have two teachers if one of them doesn’t live in the school district. I’m assuming they’ve worked something out.

This has given me time to rethink continuing the class for the rest of the year. A number of students have switched out or plan to do so at the end of the semester. I may just do the same. After all, I never wanted to be in this class at all. I got persuaded by Vazquez and look what happened — she let me down. She let all of us down because she hand-picked nearly everyone in the class. Today she said that she knew she was going to move. It was never a “might be” kind of thing — that’s why she set up the online class. She must have known before the start of the school year. And still she had us chugging along. “Napoleon by Christmas” has been her mantra for the class. Now how will it be without this kind of guidance?

I’m a bit peeved at Mrs. Vazquez. She built me up just to break me down. It must not have been her own decision to move — perhaps it was that husband guy I’ve heard murky reports about. And even though I know she’s going to miss us all, she knew that this was going to happen. European History isn’t going to be the same without the amusing lectures, the long tangents, and the incomparably loud shouting. I’m sad and angry for both her and myself. I’ll try things out with the new teacher and then reconsider whether the class is worth taking.

Apparently in the UK they use the size of Wales to measure a large area, for example: “An area of Amazon rainforest the size of Wales is cleared every year.” In the US, we usually use Texas. Wikipedia has a bit more information.

How do you paint on a computer screen using real objects as your “paint”? With the I/O Brush (direct link to large Quicktime video with infectiously snappy music).

Ubuntu Linux

Regarding my last post, I want to thank to Eric, Luke, and Daniel for recommending Ubuntu Linux. Hopefully I’ll get around to trying it soon. I want to partition my hard drive first, and then maybe get rid of Windows completely (but I’ll probably still need it, so maybe I won’t). For those of you who might know, how would I move Firefox and Thunderbird from Windows to Ubuntu with my settings, bookmarks, messages, etc. intact? I assume it’s possible. Well, it better be, because I have a lot of bookmarks in Firefox and a lot of messages in Thunderbird, and I don’t want to have to get rid of them. Oh yeah, and all the files, too. I have a lot of files. I’d like it if someone could enlighten me.

This Ask Jordon references my last post as well:

Yellow Chicken: Speaking of Elvis…do you think he faked his death?

Nah. Who’s faked their own death and gotten away with it, anyway?

See the ancestry of U.S. political figures. Many of them are rich WASPs, which is why it’s possible to trace back their history oodles of generations.

Who just blogged? Forty Faces is a site that keeps track of the 40 latest posts from the blogs it watches (103 as I write this; they include J-Walk and probably some others you’ve heard of). Each post is signified by a picture of its author. In other words, you see photos of people who have just posted on their blogs. I decided to add my site, but for the occasion, I would first take a new picture of myself for the About Me page. After I did that, I sent in the new picture and my link and got a reply within 20 minutes saying that I had been added. So hopefully when I post this, I’ll be another face in the crowd.

Linux

I’ve become interested in Linux once again. I’ve written about it before, but I have yet to adopt it as my operating system or even use it. Frankly, I’m satisfied with Windows and I don’t see a terribly compelling reason to make the switch. This subject came up when I was instant messaging my friend Luke. He pointed out that I fit into the shrinking group of people who aren’t stupid enough to mess up their system with spyware but aren’t smart enough to know why Windows is bad. That’s exactly right. I know less about how computers work than people may think. I only know how to use them.

However, I have to consider that in the future there will be new releases of Windows that will cost a lot of money. When (if) I’m on my own and I need/want a new computer, I’m not going to have a lot of money to shell out for Windows. Many Linux distributions (flavors, if you like) are free as in lunch, and all of them are free as in freedom — that is, you have the freedom to tinker with them. Plus, there’s a lot of customizability and stuff, which is cool. But the main thing I’m getting at here is that eventually I’m going to switch to Linux because of cost, and so I’d better get used to it now. Note to self: Ask Gilbert for a Knoppix CD.

Speaking of Luke, he found my web site and sent me these Ask Jordon questions:

How much chicken do you think Elvis can — _not_ could — eat in one sitting?

If he’s alive, then not very much, because he would be 70 years old. He’d be able to eat considerably less if the chicken were fried, because that’s not good for you and he’d probably have a heart attack or something. And if he really is dead, he can eat none.

Do you know where Sir Paul is burried? Most people don’t even know he’s dead.

If Paul McCartney died in 1966, then it was his replacement who was knighted in 1997. So ha. He’s alive, and Elvis is dead.

If I know Luke, he’ll comment on this post in his weird unique style.

Do sex offenders live in your neighborhood? Find out at Map Sex Offenders, which has data for 38 U.S. states. According to the site, there’s one in my neighborhood. Maybe you’d be better off not knowing.

Weird words in other languages, compiled by some guy. Take these with a grain of salt; I’ve heard that there was little fact checking involved, just scanning various dictionaries.

Literary magazine

A literary magazine is something special to me, probably because I’ve seen so few. My old school did one when I was in seventh grade, but nothing of mine was in it. (I have a copy of it somewhere, though.) Also somewhere around here is a copy of Pompano Beach High School’s 2002-2003 literary magazine. (Yes, my first year there was 2003-2004, but they were giving away copies at the 2003 open house, when I first checked the place out.)

Yesterday on the school’s morning show, I heard that Miss Turek, my English teacher from last year, was collecting written works for an upcoming literary magazine. I decided to submit a recent short story (“The Prisoners“) and poem (“A Strict Country Life“). So I went to Miss Turek and asked what the limit on short stories was (2-3 double-spaced pages) and whether I could use a pseudonym (yes). If you wrote that story and that poem, you’d want a pseudonym too. But I might just use my real name, partly because I can’t think of a good pen name. I’ll submit my works next week.

In other news, my accidental reign as #1 in the class has ended. I am now back in my place as #3 out of 237, which I’ll just as gladly take. But I should fondly remember that for about five days, I was #1 due to some kind of error.

This would be funnier if I had seen The Shining, but it’s still funny: It’s a fake preview (direct link to .mov) for the film, but it’s edited… differently. Anecdotally, Michelle wanted to show this to us while we were filming her movie, but she couldn’t find it anywhere.

Here’s a list of succession to the British throne, naming the first 887 people in the line to become king or queen. The Windsors are related to just about all of the royal families in Europe due to intermarriage back in the day. The King of Norway is #60, the King of Sweden is #182, the Queen of Denmark is #208, the former king of Greece is #421, and the Queen of the Netherlands is #421. If they weren’t Catholic, the King of Spain, the King of Belgium, and the Grand Duke of Luxembourg would also be eligible. I bet if you’re a rich WASP then you’re probably within #5,000.

Let’s not say “Wilma” anymore

I’m currently ranked number one in the class! But read on and I’ll explain it later.

I’m tired of talking about Hurricane Wilma. I realized that 9 out of my last 10 posts mention the storm, and that’s too many, especially now that it’s over with. Signs of destruction can still be seen all around, but hey, I bet you’re tired of reading about it too.

So I’ve back to the grind at school after a two-week “vacation.” The main school building (which opened in April 2004) apparently sustained no damage, but the main gymnasium (the “big gym”), which must have been built in the ’50s, apparently lost some of its roof. And, as I found out yesterday, part of it caught fire on Sunday when they were trying to repair it. And, as I found out today, part of it caught fire again last night.

We were supposed to get report cards on October 24, the day the storm hit. Instead, we’re getting them tomorrow. I checked my grades on the school board’s web site to find that they had not yet been posted. But on a whim I decided to check my class ranking. I am usually ranked #3 out of 300-something. The site now says that I am #1 out of 55. That’s obviously wrong, but I’ll enjoy it while I can. So, probably due to a computer error, I am number one in the class.

I want to wish a belated happy birthday to my friend Reid, whom I just had the fortune to see the other day.

Keeping my sideburns even is a constant problem. But now you can (apparently) get “perfect sideburns” with Prolook. It looks pretty handy, but you wouldn’t really need it unless you’re going for weird and strange styles. The bottom of the main page says, “and Sideburns make men look Bolder.” I don’t have any evidence in favor of that, but they do look cool.

Map zip code, city, and county boundaries in the United States. It’s yet another application that uses Google Maps — I mean, Google Local.

bak 2 skewl

The effects of Hurricane Wilma are still being felt. The other day they announced that we would have school on Monday. Two weeks without school means that we’re probably going to have to make up some lost days when we should be enjoying summer vacation. The “Countdown to Summer ’06″ at the bottom of the site will not take this into account until the new schedule is announced. I seem to be forgetting that it’s November. I keep thinking it’s October, probably because I haven’t needed to write the date since October 20, the last day we had school. It’s been that long.

After two weeks without school, it’s going to be hard to go back. I think I’ve almost forgotten what to do. I’m sure things will fall into place, though. One thing that might not is the No S Diet, which I adopted a week ago. By imposing a rigid limit on my portions (one plate for each meal and no snacks), I think I’ll be able to maintain a healthy weight. (I still eat sugar cereal for breakfast, but I’m focusing on the overeating right now. Anyway, it has vitamins.) Now there will be the problem will be eating a full plate’s worth of lunch at school. I’ll have to bring some food of my own. On a related note, I intend to start shovelgloving once I buy a kitchen timer and a sledgehammer.

If you remembered from last month, this past Friday there should have been an interview. I realized that it doesn’t fit the site and I don’t like doing it. So there will be no more interviews.

Twenty-one variations on the song “They’re Coming to Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!” (Free MP3s!)

Clearview is a new font for highway signs. Will it improve visibility? It must, because it’s been scientifically tested. I like the font they’ve got now, except it’s annoying seeing it slip into common usage in advertisements and stuff. This Clearview looks like Tahoma or Verdana or one of those.

It’s MySpace too

Hypocrite alert. I’ve said that LiveJournal and MySpace are not for me. But then I went and got a LiveJournal just so I could read my friends’ friends-only journals. And now, wouldn’tchaknowit, I’ve gotten a MySpace. It was some time ago, actually. October. Maybe September. I don’t remember. I guess I just felt like jumping on the bandwagon. I don’t post blog entries there and I don’t beg for comments. Also, I’m not trying to collect as many friends as I can (unlike some people); I personally know all 32 of my friends (except maybe one, but she made the friend request to me).

In addition to that social networking craze, I’ve started another spinoff on the blogging thing. I’ve started keeping a diary in Esperanto in order to get practice. I get practice reading, but I hardly ever do any writing, and so my writing sucks. Whenever I feel bored, angsty, or simply skribema, I’ll just pop open this journal book that somebody gave me for Christmas or my birthday a few years ago and I’ll be able to write. In fact, it’s already gotten me through the trauma of Hurricane Wilma. (I used to have a journal, actually, and I can’t find it, darn it. It must be somewhere. Maybe I’ll find it someday.)

Stolen from The Presurfer: Go to Google, then plug in “(your first name) needs” and see the results.

“Jordon needs parents who can help him deal with his losses.” Nope, already have them.
“Jordon needs help in learning to control his frustration.” How true…
“Jordon needs our prayers.” Not especially.
“Jordon needs to come back here tomorrow for a few more tests.” What am I being tested for?
“Jordon needs to move to France he would be more in tune with that government.” Maybe I would.
“jordon needs to return half of the land it occupies that was part of the pal mandate in the forties.” I am not a country!
“Jordon needs to mind her own business.” I am not a woman!
“Jordon needs to ditch the band, the show, and get her own record deal.” Ditto.
“Jordon needs someone to look after and love him in his old age.” And young age.
“Jordon needs to cut his hair.” I could swear this one’s about me.
“Jordon needs help to realize this ‘adventure of a lifetime’.” Ooh, where are we going?
“Jordon needs to be shot!” I could swear this one’s about me.

I can’t explain this: iiiiiiii.com (Flash, sound). That’s eight I’s in the URL if you want to tell your friends (but I counted 94 in the song).

A post-Halloween scare

So last night, as I said, I pretty much gave out candy for Halloween. The turnout wasn’t very impressive. I didn’t pay much attention to costumes (it’s hard to when all you want to do is give them candy and shut the door) but I did notice that one guy from my school. He must be a year older than me. It’s weird because I had seen him around school and at my chiropractor’s office but we had never acknowledged each other. But last night when he was at my door he asked, “Don’t I recognize you from school?” I don’t even know his name. It’s kind of weird.

At one point came this little, little girl who was dressed as a fairy-princess-whatever. She was so young that she really didn’t know what to do. (And who could blame her? The other 364 days of year people tell her not to talk to and take candy from strangers.) Her mom, who was with her, tried to get her to be responsive and said that it was her first time trick-or-treating, and this was her first house. Imagine! This lady picked my house for the very first trick-or-treating experience in her daughter’s short, short life. I was touched in a weird way. Apparently, so was the mother. She got out a camera and took a picture of her (and me, I think). She was wasting time fumbling with it and said, “Sorry, I’m being gay.” My jaw dropped and I almost would have looked like The Scream in her picture if she hadn’t taken longer still. Mommy’s little homophobe gets candy to ruin her little teeth with. Awww, how cute.

But the big scare occurred today. I thought that the troubles associated with Hurricane Wilma (including losing power) were almost over. When everybody was out of the house this afternoon, it started raining heavily. We learned from our neighborhood friend Kevin (via cell phone) that a transformer on his street blew up. Sure enough, when my dad tried to call the house, the answering machine wouldn’t pick up. There was no electricity when we arrived back home. The clock in my room indicated that the power had gone out at 3:15. We were basically screwed. We had a generator, but my dad gave it to his friend, upon which it immediately quit working. Our gas stove was at my grandmother’s house. Basically, everything was loaned out to different people because we had already gotten our electricity back. We decided to go out to dinner — it was the only choice, really. It was 6:35; we were walking out of the house and my dad shut the door when the lights came back on. That was close.

What do they call the “@” character in various languages. Read A Natural History of the @ Sign (but note: usages tend to change, and this page is dated 1997). I happen to know that in Esperanto it’s called a “heliko” (“snail”).

You’ve seen the sites claiming to sell the “best” domain names for incredible prices (incredibly high, that is). And now there’s WorstDomains.com, where you can get your hands on outbackbythedumpster.com, whatawonderfulsaltshaker.net, chimpeanshipbasebal.com, or bppbrpbrooowwwwwwwwwglgurgl.com for as low as $70 to $999. I’ve got a better idea, though. If you really want sucky domain names, buy them directly from the registrar and save yourself $60 to $989.