Yet another post

I had said that we would have to live in an RV-type thing while the house was being retiled, but luckily, we can stay at my grandparents’ house. It’s going to be a rough week, especially because we uncharacteristically have school on Friday — it’s the last make-up day we have from Hurricane Wilma (which no one else cared about because Hurricane Katrina was still in the spotlight). After that, we have a two-day weekend, the first I’ll have had in nearly three years. Hopefully the homework load will be merciful.

The other day, Skype was giving out €0.20 worth of SkypeOut credit to each user who claimed it. Though the rates vary by country, €0.20 buys a 10-minute call to Western Europe, Canada, Australia, China, the United States, New Zealand, and some other places. I got my free credit and used it to call my home phone from my computer. Yes, I realize that’s kind of a waste of money, but I still have 9 minutes left. My dad suggested that we call a relative in New Zealand with the remaining minutes. I think I want to buy some SkypeOut credit, though. €10 would last me a lifetime. That’s worth 9 hours and 48 minutes (588 minutes) of calls to the aforementioned countries… or a 6 minute and 36 second call to Diego Garcia.

For our American History class, my friend Luke and I had to write a short skit about the Louisiana Purchase. Of course, we modeled it after none other than Dinosaur Comics. True, it was tough to act out in front of the class, but it looks great in comic form. And it’s educational! In our skit/comic, T-Rex is Thomas Jefferson, Dromiceiomimus is Charles IV of Spain, and Utahraptor is Napoleon Bonaparte.

Desktop Earth is a freeware program for Windows that generates a wallpaper image showing how the earth looks like right now. Sunlight, cloud cover, and seasonal snow can be shown. I’ve downloaded it, and so far, I like it. I had been thinking about ways to spice up my wallpaper. Plus, It should come in handy during hurricane season.

Princess Juliana International Airport, in the Dutch Caribbean territory of St. Maarten, planes have to make an extremely low approach right over a beach. Some of the pictures on that page look incredible (read: unbelievable), but my friend Kevin, an airline enthusiast, assures me that they are real. It must be a noisy beach.

New ground

On Tuesday, a teacher came up to the group I was hanging out with at lunch. He wanted to let us know that he was starting a chapter of a service club called the National Exchange Club. I thought it was a pretty interesting idea; I had just been thinking about starting or joining a club, and Colleges Like It™ when you’re in clubs. More importantly, I’ve been feeling like a lousy sluggard the past something-teen weeks because I honestly don’t do much. I figured joining this club would give me a sense of accomplishment and other nice stuff.

I decided to go to the first meeting, which was yesterday afternoon. There was a smallish group of people there, many of whom I knew. The teacher sounded like a fun guy to be around, and I sounded like I was going to have a pretty decent time doing service projects and things of that nature. He happened to mention that Exchange Club luncheons, to which our school chapter would be invited once in a while, begin with prayer. This got me a bit suspicious. He then passed out an information sheet about the National Exchange Club. Included was their “Covenant of Service,” which had been “adopted as the philosophy which characterizes an Exchangite.” It begins like this (emphasis added):

This I cannot accept. As an atheist, I accept no divine privileges, nor will I consecrate my energy to uplifting religious ideals. If those are things that characterize an Exchangite, there is no way I can be one. This club is one that promotes religion, and promoting religion flies in the face of my personally held principles. By putting religion on the same plane as good citizenship, the Exchange Club holds the regrettably widespread belief that If You’re Religious You’re Good And If You’re Not You’re Bad. Religion has given us the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the Holocaust, to name but a few atrocities. An atheist isn’t the kind of person who would slaughter his fellow men for having different imaginary friends in the sky.

Secondarily, the club urges its members to be blindly patriotic at all times. Though promoting religion is the deal-breaker, I don’t like this much either. I’ll be patriotic when I feel my country deserves it. I have right to feel patriotic whenever I want, and you can’t forget that dissent is patriotic. Needless to say, I won’t be joining the Exchange Club. A theist might ask why I’m making such a big deal out of it, but I’m sure theists wouldn’t join a club that promotes atheism, even as a secondary goal. I’m going to show everyone that you can be a good person without believing in gods.

I wish there was something I could do about this club effectively discriminating against atheists, but I think it’s been established that a private club can discriminate against whoever it wants, especially atheists — the last group that it’s socially acceptable (and often encouraged) to hate. Ironically, the day I was introduced to the Exchange Club, I had been considering starting an atheism club, so I just might go through with it eventually. Hey, I know: we could do community service projects.

My friends from the church youth group I was in before I became an atheist have called on me to participate in another improvised “Comedy Nite” like the one we had last year. I thought it would be awkward coming back to my Catholic friends as a nonbeliever, but I’ve been assured that they won’t think much of it. (My friend Mandi is still a nominal member of the group even though she has converted to Judaism.) I’m pretty sure there won’t be much religious discussion or anything, so I think it will be okay. I’ve been helping my sister organize the project. We have to have everything set up in time for the show on Sunday night, and I think we can manage like last time. In fact, I think it’ll be even better.

The $39 Experiment is exploring the question, “Can you get free stuff from companies these days?” Apparently some companies will give you free samples of their products if you but ask.

Here’s why diamonds aren’t a girl’s best friend. To summarize: you have been psychologically conditioned to want diamonds, which are essentially worthless but whose prices are kept artificially high, making miners subject to war and disease.

One year ago: “It was a good way to get out of class, that’s for sure.”
Two years ago: “It’s official: the human race as we know it is spiraling downward to an end.”

Retiling extravaganza

One day a few months ago, a bunch of tiles on the living room floor suddenly decided to separate themselves from said floor. Apparently it was due to faulty installation, but voodoo was not immediately ruled out. (Seriously, though, it was the weirdest thing that happened to me that month.) Since then we’ve taken out the tiles and covered the bare floor with a carpet, but you can still tell that there are tiles missing. It’s an awkward fix at best.

My parents decided that this would be a good opportunity to replace all the tile in the house, which they detest. The living room, family room, kitchen, hallways, laundry room, and master bedroom are going to be retiled. The other bedrooms and the bathrooms don’t have that tile, so they will not. But since so much of the house is going to be retiled, we’re going to have to lodge somewhere else for a few days. Luckily, my aunt has a friend with an RV-type thing, so we’re going to have that in the driveway.

The retiling extravaganza starts Monday the 13th and may stretch to the weekend. My Internet access might be sporadic.

I recently won the opportunity to write a guest post on Nothing Important. I’d never guest posted for anyone before, so it was pretty cool. Check it out.

Hey guys, here’s why you shouldn’t date a sporty girl: Athlete Gives Birth Just Hours After Game. She didn’t even know she was pregnant.

Also in the headlines: A college in England has a scholarship but no one to give it to. According to the bequest that provided the funds, the lucky student has to be named Peyton. Those Brits are so Pythonesque.

One year ago: “Food. We love it. We can’t live without it.”

Skype dreams and tasty treats

Today I made my first Skype call since getting back into it a few days ago. This morning, after waking up uncomfortably early, I saw a post in the Skype Me forum from a Korean girl named Tamara. According to her post, she spoke fluent English, had a variety of interests, and was interested in talking to anyone. So I figured I’d give it a whirl.

It turns out that when it’s early morning here on the east coast of the United States, it’s pretty late at night in South Korea. Nonetheless, we talked for nearly an hour about a number of things, so it was very enjoyable. She was very bright for someone of 13. (She told me she was 15 in Korean years, and that I would be 18 under their reckoning. Cool.) I hope to talk to her some more in the future.

This past week my friend Kevin’s mom came home from a business trip in the Netherlands, and she brought us back some (literally) sweet gifts. Among these was a box of 10 extra grote siroopwafelen. They’re sort of thin, waffle-like cookies that you microwave for a few seconds, after which you can savor their syrup-like filling. Wikipedia sez they’re more commonly known as stroopwafels.

Apparently Gouda’s Gilde brand stroopwafles are not imported into the United States, but they are exported to Canada. While I’m at it, here’s a Canadian site that sells them. And here’s a Dutch site, and here’s another Dutch site that sells them in bulk. Actually, here’s an American site that has them. Hooray.

The other day, my friend Brian was munching on a bag of wasabi peas in class. As you can imagine, they’re dried peas that are really spicy. I tried one, and even though I don’t really like wasabi or peas, it was good, and I want more. They should be easier to obtain, because I believe the supermarket sells them.

Of course, I’m not going to go crazy and pig out on either of these treats (if I get either of them). The No S Diet has kept my urge to snack in check. According to my pseudo-scientific approximations, I’ve lost 19 lbs. in the four months that I’ve been with it, and almost all of that was in the first two months. I’m on stage two — maintenance — that will hopefully last the rest of my life.

Graph your personal goals with Bellygraph.

Here are The World’s Best Quotes in 1-10 Words.

Two years ago: “I can see that in 50 years, if you took away everyone’s calculators and gave them pencils, they wouldn’t even know which end to write with.”

Only in dreams

Her reply to my letter came last night. Here is the gist of what she said.

I should have expected it, but somehow I didn’t. Nor did I expect a tear in each eye. And there I was, completely changed but just the same as always. I’m back at square one, which I never really left. I’m still single, but I must have learned something from this. And what does she have of mine? My phone number, all my thoughts, my music, and my (un)dying devotion. What do I have of hers? A promise that we could be friends.

In this message, she revealed something she hadn’t told me before. In her last e-mail, she had said she was getting serious with someone. In this message, she revealed that someone to be her ex-boyfriend: the guy I’ve seen her with lately. The guy I saw her with two and half years ago when I met her, and day in and day out after that. The very same hulking schlub whom I feared, whose sheer presence prevented me from telling her how I felt about her for so long.

When I read her message, I was very disappointed, to say the least. But I’m not really mad at her. I’m sad at her, if you can understand that. As you may be able to imagine, I’m a bit frustrated. Nacole effectively turned me down, and now there’s this girl, whom I thankfully haven’t been so bold as to name. Over the past two and half years, they’re the only girls I’ve really fallen for. Now both are happy with their own boyfriends, and I feel as if I have nowhere else to turn. I’m trapped.

A month ago, there was a little idea in my head to ask her to a little dance. Little did I know on Wednesday, February 1, that it would end like this. I wish February 2006 never happened. I’d rather go back to imagining naively that I still might have a chance.

Here’s a Super Mario 3 scarf.

How to tear a phone book in half with relative ease (?). As it happens, we should be getting our new phone books any day now, so I’ve called dibs on the old ones.