Collegiate spam

Today is the day that the sophomores take the FCAT Writing test. Since I took it last year, I get to remain in my first hour class for twice as long. And that class is — you (might have) guessed it — Programming II. So here I am, blogging in Programming class, like in the old days. (Don’t worry, we’re not doing anything, and I’ve finished what we had been doing anyway.)

Speaking of tests, the results of my more recent PSAT have been made available to colleges. For the past couple of weeks I’ve been getting mail and e-mail from some colleges, most of which are apparently two-bit, no-name businesses that are struggling to make money. I’ve heard of a few seemingly better ones, though. For example, I got an e-mail from Rutgers, which is apparently prestigious. (As a side note, my friend’s dad, an influential urban planner, teaches there. Well, he used to, at least. I don’t know if he does now.) And yesterday I got a large amount of material from Ohio State (though I originally played that one down, having confused it with Kent State). No, it isn’t really spam and junk mail because I chose allowed colleges to see the score I got on the test. And besides, it’s a good thing. Maybe once I’ve decided what I want to do with my life, choosing a college will be easy. Maybe.

It’s been nearly a year since I made a documentary-type thing out of the 24-hour fast I went on with my old church’s youth group. Since the movie, “One Day in the Desert,” is now “out of print” (I took the file down from the site), I figured it would be fun to re-release it with a director’s commentary and deleted scenes. It would also help me get across my point that I have no animosity toward my old youth group now that I’m an atheist. For the new director’s cut, I figured I would have the same problems I had with the original version: I would have to host the video on my site (a relatively expensive course of action), and it would only be viewable on Windows (because I’m too cheap to ditch Windows Movie Maker and get real video editing software).

As I sit here in class and watch how other people are spending their free time, I see there are three main things that they’re doing. Most are playing games, listening to music, or watching videos online (or some combination of the three). And what site do they head to in order to find entertaining video? Google Video. Not only does Google Video host your videos, it also embeds them into Flash, so you don’t need a specific program like RealPlayer, QuickTime, or Windows Media Player to watch them (I think). So Google Video solves both problems. Once I’ve finished the new version of the film (including a new machine-readable transcription), which will probably be some boring weekend very soon, I’ll upload it to Google Video, and then they’ll approve it and it will be there. Yay.

Pikachu hors d’oeuvres made of cheese. I don’t know what else to say about this one.

This is a great application of science: determining the complex opening chord of the Beatles’ hit “A Hard Day’s Night.” Apparently there are two guitars, a bass guitar, and a piano involved. I wish I could get together a guitarist, a bassist, and a pianist, and we could all try it.

Two years ago: “Anyway, I can tell today is going to be a bad day.”
Also two years ago: “It actually went pretty well, in spite of the things I had worried about.”

Bowled over

Of course, today is the Super Bowl®. (Please, people, it’s not “Superbowl.” If you’re going to violate the NFL’s trademarks, at least do it right.) It’s on right now, and the Pittsburgh Steelers are pitted against the Seattle Seahawks. Everyone around here seems to be rooting for Pittsburgh, probably because everyone around here is from that general part of the country. In particular, my mom is from Pittsburgh, so we’re definitely rooting for them. My friend Nick is rooting for Seattle, and though it’s too early to tell, I might lose $3 to him. Anyway, I just want to watch the commercials and see the Rolling Stones play the halftime show.

About two years ago I posted a link to Errorwear, a site that sells t-shirts with computer and video game error messages on them. I bought the Windows 98 Blue Screen of Death t-shirt, which would garner positive reactions from everyone who saw it. Now they have a great shirt that serves as both a Windows annoyance and a potential description of the wearer: “Not Responding.” I ordered it yesterday, and I hope to receive it soon.

I started planning to write a novel, but I kind of stopped. Then I thought I’d put together a collection of poems and short stories, but I, uh, kind of stopped that. And then I got another idea for a novel. This one’s good, sort of. I set out a timetable for writing it. I’m working on a chapter on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning. (I never do anything in the morning anyway, so it’s not taking anything out of my precious time.) The next weekend, I’ll do the next chapter, and so on. But I’m sort of writing by the seat of my pants this time. I should really plan out the plot, but for now I’m letting the story take me where it will. If everything goes according to schedule, I should be done with the first draft on May 28. We’ll see if I actually keep this one up.

As for the plot, here are a few key points: Self-discovery. Making friends. Falling in love. The Second Defenestration of Prague.

The next addition to the wave of re-edited movie trailers: Brokeback to the Future (Flash, sound).

The Universal Decision Maker: “For when flipping a coin just seems so 20th century.” (For the nostalgic, check out my own site, flipacoin.net.

One year ago: “It was a really spectacular thing, being up on that trailer-turned-stage, even though there were also ‘real’ bands there to show us up.”
Two years ago: “Ever wonder how US zip codes are arranged?”

Festival

Last night I went to my old school/church’s Spring Festival — an annual fair, complete with expensive rides, dull games, and mediocre food. I’m not sure if it’s called the Spring Festival now, though. They’ve pushed it from mid-March to early February. Now the Super Bowl, which has long been a January tradition, is on the same weekend in early February. But I digress.

It was the first time I had been on the church grounds since I told my friends and family that I was an atheist, so I was kind of hesitant to go back. I enjoyed the familiarity of it all — the sights, the sounds, the smells. And, of course, my friends were there, so that was cool. No one gave me a hard time about anything, which was good.

We spent a lot of the time playing bingo indoors. Well, because I only brought $6, I couldn’t buy many of my own games, but my friends Mike and Sean treated me to some. Unfortunately, I didn’t win, but there was some other entertainment. There were a few Florida State Troopers making sure the crowd of people playing bingo didn’t get too rowdy. Actually, they kicked out a guy who seemed to be having fun in the bathroom. Those are your Florida tax dollars at work, keeping our makeshift bingo halls safe.

Anyway, I had a good time, even though I didn’t go on any of the rides. It was still fun, and it was good to see my friends. I might go later today, but because the weather is miserable and I have a lot of homework, I probably won’t. Tomorrow doesn’t look good either.

On Thursday, I did it. I was pretty nervous about it, and I even sort of felt that I shouldn’t do it, but part of me felt that I had to once I had thought of it. I couldn’t let the opportunity escape. So I pulled her out of her circle of friends and asked her to the dance. “If you’re not seeing anyone –” (at this point, her facial expression changed indescribably slightly) “– I was wondering if you would go to the dance with me…” She said that she hadn’t been planning on going, but that she would let me know. She asked for my number, and I hastily searched for a pen and paper. I found an old pencil and an old notecard. I scribbled just the number; the area code and name were understood.

I went back to my own circle of friends, aloof as usual, but leaning back against the wall. I was relieved but still nervous. When would the call come? Tonight? The weekend? Tuesday? Wednesday? More noticeably, I wasn’t happy. I would be happy when I knew for sure. Is she trying to change her plans? Is she trying to decide whether to go at all? Will she say yes? I still don’t know; I’m awaiting her call.

I expected my extended circle of friends to go Rumorsville since this took place early in the morning. But surprisingly, no one mentioned it to me, although someone mentioned it to someone sitting next to me in class as if I weren’t there. That was kind of weird. But, like I said, no one talked to me about it. So at least no one did the “Aww, how cute” thing or other assorted routines. That’s how I thought it would be because no one expects this of me, and I hardly expect it of myself. When Monday comes, the questions might as well. Hopefully by then I’ll have answers.

Double Feature Finder is a very cool site that allows you to “find local showtimes scheduled back-to-back and spend the entire day at the movies!” Just don’t sneak into movies. Nope, don’t do that.

A San Francisco indie rock group called Pants Pants Pants has re-shot two of the opening sequences of “Full House” for a music video (Flash, sound). Whatever happened to predictability?

Stream of consciousness II

I think I’ll try writing down my thoughts as they come once again, as in Stream of consciousness, a recent post of mine. There will be no backspacing of any kind while I write this, except to correct typos. (Apparently I also need to think about my sentences before writing them. That first one was horrendous.)

So it’s February, guys. Already. Tomorrow is Groundhog Day, Joyce‘s birthday, and Scotto‘s birthday, and February 2. Luke probably wouldn’t let me get away without mentioning that tomorrow is James Joyce’s birthday. Case in point: He’s been carrying around a copy of Ulysses and is planning on attending a reading of it after school tomorrow. They’ll probably use his copy, even.

This is going to be a difficult subject to discuss all in one shot, but I’ll try. I’m planning on asking out a girl to the Valentine’s Day Dance. No, she is not my secret crush (?), nor is she the lesbian, nor is she the girl I almost went out with. This is one girl that, in terms of liking, has been on my mind by far the longest. I’ve only mentioned her a scant few times in this blog over the two and a half years that I’ve known her because I couldn’t act on my feelings — she was seeing someone. I don’t know if she is now — she very well may be — but if she’s not, then I’ll tell you who she is (assuming, of course, that she accepts my offer; there are two conditions at work here: she has to be single, and she has to say yes. Otherwise, it’s a no-go, and I won’t tell. You don’t need to know about a failed crush, anyway.)

This is the way I see it: if she has a boyfriend already (which, if I haven’t mentioned it, is extremely likely), then the worst thing that can happen to me is that his opinion of me would probably drop a bit, if he knows me. On the other hand, if she is single and says yes to me, then, well, I have the world to gain. Potentially. It would be nice to act on these feelings I’ve had basically off and on for two and a half years. And maybe if she rejects me, then it can serve as some kind of closure. I guess all of you understand me when I talk about these things, as you have all done these things before. Well, the guys will understand, because they’re usually the ones who do the asking and stuff. The girls will probably laugh at how naive I am. The guys will too.

But you all have to understand that I love that feeling you get when you’re in love, sorta. I meant it when I had said I was the happiest guy in the world at one point. Another thing that makes me happy is that this site is currently the #1 result on Google for “happiest guy in the world” — without the quotes.

I wonder if this is how a lot of people write posts on LiveJournal — without thinking it through, I mean. Maybe that’s why so many LiveJournals are incomprehensibly bad. (I’m not talking about any of the nine LJs that I read regularly, of course. My friends and acquaintances all have the good sense to care about things like spelling and grammar. That’s why I like ‘em. Well, many of them do, anyway. Some of them. If you’re reading this, then probably you.)

Here’s an old (1946) documentary/propaganda-type film about despotism (Flash, sound).

How does your web site look on Apple’s Safari browser? Find out at SafariTest. This site was useful while I was redesigning The World of Stuff most recently.

One year ago: “If I were more able to express my emotions, I’d be hyperventilating or something.”