On this day in 1789, George Washington became the first President of the United States

Tomorrow, if things go according to plan, America is going to go for a Day Without Immigrants — well, illegal immigrants, anyway. I can’t believe the level of controversy the whole issue has been causing. Well, actually, I sort of can. The tension has been building among the Latino/Hispanic community for a while, I’d imagine. I wonder what the reaction at school will be like. Will there be some sort of protest-type activity before, during, or after school? It’s a scary but exciting thought. Will a lot of people simply not show up? I doubt it, as the only real support would come from the Latino/Hispanic population, and even within them, some (a minority) seem to have no sympathy for immigrants. I’m sure there will be a slightly smaller number of people there, though. We’ll see.

Turns out that I didn’t get together with my friends to start our new band today. Things came up for all of them (but, having no life, I had a clear schedule). That’s a shame. I hope it’s not a sign of things to come, but I’m afraid that it is. (Our old band, of which three of us were members, suffered the same problem — our last lineup, which lasted over a year, only fully assembled twice.) I figure that since we’ll really have a chance in the high school band scene, we might devote our energies to recording songs for our own amusement. To that end, I really wanted to show them my digital multitrack recorder, which has a lot of neat features, but I guess it’ll have to wait.

Read about Kurt Steiner, Guiness World Record Stone Skipper. Also check out the video of his record-breaking throw (40 skips!).

Use SpoofCard for caller ID spoofing, voice changing, and other tricks of telephony.

Two years ago: “Today’s a very special day to me. Let’s let the me of three years ago explain.”

The countdown continues

Before the end of last year’s summer vacation, I quietly placed a “Countdown to Summer ’06″ at the very bottom of every page on this site. When it started, there were 293 days to go. With the redesign of the site for the new year, I bumped the countdown up to the bottom of the sidebar. Now as the days continue to fly by and my friends are taking more notice of the countdown, I felt it was time to elevate it to the top of the sidebar. As I write this, there are only 25 calendar days (and change) left of my junior year. Pretty sad. I haven’t accomplished much, it seems. I may have done much, but I may not have accomplished much.

This summer I need to grow up and get a job once again. I don’t really need the money, but money is a nice thing to have. More than that, I need the work experience, I guess. My friend Kevin works at the local library. It sounds like a pretty cool job. He says he can just go in and out as he pleases. It’s relatively nearby, so I could walk there (which I will have to do if I get a summer job). There’s a Checkers across the street, which is quadruple (bypass) awesome. Also, I love alphabetizing things. The only thing is that he doesn’t get paid — obviously. I may just go through with it to pass the time. Colleges Like It™ when you volunteer, anyway, so it couldn’t hurt in that respect.

What would I look like as an emo-type kid? My friend Gilbert decided to do some image manipulation and find out. Here’s the before image:

And after:

Pretty scary, I know. Thanks, Jilbert.

Here’s a video of some guy juggling to Beatles songs (Flash video with sound). It’s truly impressive. Not a bad soundtrack, either.

By now you’ve probably heard the buzzword “Web 2.0.” But what does that mean, exactly? Well, here’s a comparison between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.

One year ago: “When we were done with it, I began hearing chanting from the audience: ‘Jordon! Jordon! Jordon!’”

That band thing

Back in August, my band, VRT, played its last gig. It was a tough decision to make, and I knew I’d miss having band practices on a semi-regular basis. So, Nick (guitar), Mark (drums), and I (vocals and guitar) agreed to start a new band, possibly with Mark’s sister Kim. Meanwhile, Sean (guitar) has started another band, and I don’t know what Alex (bass guitar) has been doing. While Sean’s group seems to be getting off the ground, ours doesn’t. This weekend, hopefully, we’re going to get together to determine what sort of beast will arise from the ashes of VRT. We’ve already picked a name that’s pretty cool, but we’ll probably set that back on the table as well.

Although I’d love to make music with my friends, it doesn’t seem like our new band will be much different from VRT. Specifically, I don’t know how we’ll make it anywhere if we don’t keep duct tape over the distortion buttons on our amps. Though we’d probably play some newer, heavier songs, apparently no one wants to hear a band that specializes in what you might make a stretch to call classic rock and in sleepy, cliché-filled tunes written by the lead singer.

Now’s a perfect time for a segue. Since its inception last month, I’ve been a loyal reader of the Pompano Pulse, my school’s new online equivalent of a school newspaper. This month they’ve been posting some poetry and poetry-related articles in honor of National Poetry Month (which is April, donchaknow). Since Luke and Michelle, who are writers for the Pulse, encouraged me to write an article, I did so a couple weeks ago, and it got published today. It’s called “Songs and Poetry,” and it deals with — you guessed it — the song as a form of poetry. Included are examples of my own poetic/musical output.

Is 55 M.P.H. too slow of a speed limit for a freeway? Some young persons thought so and decided to perform “an extraordinary act of civil obedience” to prove their point. See what they did to highlight the stupidity of such a low speed limit by watching A Meditation on the Speed Limit (Flash video with sound).

I found that this was a good way to spend some time thinking critically and watching my ass get kicked by a computer: it’s flashChess.

Life is short

Last week the school dedicated a memorial to Mr. Laguerre, Jonathan Krix, and Mr. Allstaedt, who all died during the last school year. Over the weekend I got word that another student died, although no one seemed to furnish more details than a name and dates. The principal confirmed it today: I think she was a senior, and she had cancer. Sorry if I sound like an insensitive clod, but I didn’t know her at all. Apparently her name was Chalon Keen.

You may think you’re desensitized to death — reading about it in the newspaper, seeing it on TV — but reevaluate your condition when someone you know or might have known dies. It really puts things into perspective for you. I don’t really have much more to say than that. I can’t think of anything deep or reflective to say, but I’m sure you can think of deep and reflective things to think, so let’s just pretend that I said them and that they’re resonating in your brain, heart, and other bodily organs.

Yesterday I finalized my schedule for next year. I decided to take AP Spanish. Why? Because I need to take more AP classes than just AP Calculus. I get a lot of flak for having taken only one AP class this year, mainly from people younger than me who are taking more AP classes than me. Well, maybe it’s not a lot of criticism, but it’s more than I can take. Anyway, I didn’t really have many other choices for AP classes, other than going for paired classes and having to take three AP classes. I might be able to handle two, but not three. On top of all that, I feel bad if I don’t take all serious, straightforward classes. People “expect” more of me, so I make myself do it. I’ve tormented myself with ten years of Spanish classes (three of them optional), so why not go for an eleventh and possibly get college credit?

Anyway, AP Spanish is paired with Spanish IV Honors, which (I’m almost certain) means that it will be a year-long class. It turns out I was able to register for Spanish IV, but I hadn’t been “approved” to take AP Spanish. So this morning I had my Spanish III teacher, Ms. Bourns, write a quick note saying that I could be in AP Spanish. Today happened to be the day when they rounded up the sluggish people to get their schedules in (something we all should have done last week). I managed to flag down a guidance counselor who could enter my schedule properly, and so it was done. I am taking AP Spanish. I am going to hate it. I am going to . But I’m going to have to get used to taking classes I don’t like and doing things I don’t want to do because the world wants me to do it. Kicking yourself around is part of Growing Up®.

Anyway, here are the classes I picked, sorted from coolest to least cool.

1. Programming III
2. English IV Honors
3. American Government Honors (that includes Economics, right?)
4. Anatomy and Physiology Honors
5. AP Calculus
6. AP Spanish

For alternates I picked TV Production I (always a good backup) and Guitar II (although I don’t think I’d do well in the class — and I would know, wouldn’t I?). So if they screw up and can’t put me in a certain class, I get a break. It all works out, you see. It sort of works out.

This sounds like a serious issue: Save the Internet. From their site:

You can also check out a handy map to see how your representatives have voted on the issue.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, here’s something trivial and weird: The Nothing for Sale Site. This guy is selling nothing… and he’s making money. Well, I guess he’s providing publicity for whoever gives him money.

One year ago: “Hey, if you’re a Skype user, let me know and maybe we can talk.”

My Day

“My Day”
By Jordon J. Kalilich

Today when I woke up, I realized that it was not going to be my day. The dog was barking! He must have been barking at something outside. But I don’t know. He’s been having a lot of fleas and stuff, so it might be making him crazy. Also, I’ve been feeling itchier than usual. Anyway, no one else was home because my dad was at work and my sister and my mom were going with the church youth group to Islands of Adventure. Since I quit going to church, I didn’t want to stick around for the fun stuff, because I didn’t want to be a hypocrite.

First, I did the usual things that I do every Saturday morning. First, I scanned for spyware. Then, I scanned for viruses. Next, I deleted some e-mails. After that, I cleared the browsers’ cache, cookies, and history. Then, I deleted some files in the Recycle Bin. Finally, I defragmented the hard disk. After going through that, I started my day by lying around and browsing the interweb, which is also what I always do all the time.

Then, after lunch (canned soup), I went to make some music in my room. I wanted to plug my keyboard into my guitar amplifier. But I couldn’t find the right cord! I looked and looked and looked, but I couldn’t find it. Later I found the adapter that I needed. It was on one of the keys of the keyboard! I was pleasantly surprised. So then I could plug in the keyboard to the amplifier and play some tunes and generally have some fun.

Next, while I was watching TV, I realized that I hadn’t picked out my schedule for next year. I went to the school board’s web site to make my selections only to find that it was apparently too late! I was so mad at myself! I was lazy, irresponsible, incompetent, sluggish, inattentive, stupid, careless, and indecisive. You don’t need to tell me that. I already know. But I figured that some other people would probably be in my same situation for various reasons. They will review my schedule on Monday, so I can just tell it to them then, hopefully.

After that, I realized that I have a big Civil War test in Mr. Weigel’s American History class on Monday. I got worried about that because it’s going to be even harder than the Revolutionary War test, which I did well on after studying really hard. But there was good news there too. I did some math on the computer and figured out that I can get as low as a 73% on the test and still have an A in the class. I’m pretty sure I can make an A or a B, so that’s good. I studied anyway, and I should study some more tomorrow.

Finally, I’m sitting here thinking about how my day has been when truthfully, not a lot has happened at all. Everybody’s away at work, or going to a theme park, or coming back from Australia (Kevin). I haven’t seen anyone all day, although I’ve talked on the phone. I’m not going out to dinner or to the movies. I only have my flea-ridden dog to keep me company. I am sad.

In conclusion, here are two links to interesting Internets web pages.

1. Before and after photos of the area immediately around the World Trade Center.
2. Google hacking tips to find whether your site’s sensitive information on the Internets can be found by others.

Also, here is a post from the archives:

One year ago: “Hummina-whaat? Did she just say I couldn’t talk to a guidance counselor?”

THE END

The exam approacheth

The AP European History exam is Friday, May 5. The big review for the test has begun. Last month I bought a review book for the test, and I plan to open it soon. I am, however, taking other steps to review. Mr. Miller, the teacher, is having a sort of review session tomorrow and next Friday, and we have to go to one of them. Seeing as my school doesn’t have classes on Fridays, this is a significant step, but the AP test demands it. How are we going to review, you ask? Well, we’re taking a practice test and going over the answers. Though it’s true that we only have to go one day or the other, I’m going both days. Yeah, I’m a loser. Quiet, you.

Here’s yet another cool Firefox extension that you’ve probably heard of. (I know I talk about Firefox extensions like the Devil from Dinosaur Comics talks about video games, but bear with me.) It’s called Forecastfox, and it allows you to view current weather conditions, a radar image, and forecasts in the status bar of the browser. It’s fully customizable: you can select how many days worth of forecasts you want, what information should be displayed, one of several icon sets, and so on. In that way, it’s sort of like WeatherBug, except that it doesn’t suck harder than a vacuum. I’ve started using Forecastfox, but it will probably take me a few days to tweak it to my liking. That’s the great thing, though: tweakability. Let’s see your WeatherBug do that. In fact, let’s see you try to uninstall WeatherBug. It doesn’t go away. Like vermin.

Maximize your return on investment at Pizza Hut by piling high the food on your buffet plate. Yes, it will probably get you kicked out, but I’m sure it would be worth it.

Wikipedia’s long list of unusual articles is the perfect starting point for any late-night Wikipedia trip.

One year ago: “Well, I think you can manage taking three AP classes if you put your mind to it. You’re a very bright student.”

Picking classes

If you don’t want to read boring and complicated rant, skip down to the part about the beach. I won’t be offended.

It’s that time of year again to choose classes, and so I have to figure out what classes I’m going to take (or have to take) for my senior year of high school. In a way, it will be the most important year because I have to make sure I have all the credits required for graduation. What’s more, I’ll be expected to take more than one AP class by various important grown-ups who expect lots of things of me. My precalculus teacher has recommended me for AP Calculus AB. Even the best students struggle in that class. I know some of them. Also, some computer has automatically recommended me for AP English Literature, but that’s a recommendation I can more easily override. I’m not seriously interested in taking any other AP classes anyway, and here’s why. First, I’ll give you some background on the school: all-magnet school, no school on Fridays, longer school day, four 110-minute blocks per day, (most) classes change mid-year. (Hey, I’m getting pretty good at that.) Take time to digest that and then consider the following.

The men and women who run this school apparently decided that we bright students need to maintain our reputation as bright students and take more AP classes. So they’re taking AP classes and pairing them off with other classes that aren’t necessarily related! In most cases, the AP classes that presently run all year will still last the whole year but only take place every other day. The irrelevant class will be held on the other days. Not only does this fly in the face of freedom of choice, but it also screws up our already abnormal schedule. So freshmen expecting to take an honors English class will have to put up with AP Human Geography. Sophomores who want to take English II Honors must take AP European History. Some AP classes, however, are related to their pairs and will still function as year-long classes. Technically, when you take AP Calculus AB, the first semester Calculus Honors, and the second semester is AP Calculus AB. I doubt that that’s going to change. I don’t want to take AP English because I don’t want to switch off between it and AP American Government. How is the teacher supposed to teach AP English, and how am I supposed to pass the exam, if we spend half as much time in class as we should?

I was actually supposed to have my classes picked out by today, but I didn’t know that until today. I did know that the deadline was drawing near, which is why I spent some time yesterday thinking about the classes I would have to take. But today in first hour when some guidance-counselor-type people came in and told us that we had to have our classes picked, I sort of panicked. After a while of helping people select their classes online, they acknowledged that I could just go to the school board web site and do it at home. Then I’d have to meet up with some guidance-counselor-type person on Monday so they could go over my selections quickly.

“Quickly” is the operative word here. A few weeks ago, when we were handed our guides to next year’s courses, we were told not to schedule appointments with the guidance counselors to discuss our course selections — or the “guidance counselors,” I should say. I’m dead serious, but no one believes me. It’s like the “guidance counselors” don’t want to guide or counsel you, even though it’s their job. Anyway, trying to talk to them is a joke. Scheduling a visit is a chore, and sitting down and discussing things is funny. They don’t try to understand you. They just want to get it over with so they can talk to the next kid and then have a smoke break or something. Allegedly.

Now those who wanted to skip that confusing rant can be reunited with the rest of us. (You didn’t miss much, guys, really.) Anyway, I had planned to go to the beach yesterday with Nacole and some other people as some sort of spring break finale. (Bowling was the introduction, you might say.) Unfortunately, nobody could go for various reasons, so it was cancelled or at least postponed. It would be nice to do some friendly thing with Nacole sometime. We have a unique relationship: I asked her out, and she said yes not thinking it was a date; confusion ensued, but it was resolved. Instead of asking her out again, I let it go for some reason. But now she has a boyfriend that she loves half to death, which is why it makes it really awkward for me to be talking about us as if there ever was an “us.” I dwell on the whole thing way, way too much. To her I’m probably just another classmate.

State Department to Americans: Don’t act like an idiot when you’re a tourist abroad. They’re giving basic rules about politeness that Americans seem to have forgotten. One such tip: “Your religion is your religion and not necessarily theirs. (Religion is usually considered deeply personal, not a subject for public discussions.)” If only the government followed its own advice. Anyway, it’s sad to see that as a whole, we Americans are as dumb, loud, and rude as we are perceived.

Make your own room-sized camera obscura.

One year ago: “Since Thursday, I’ve been thinking slightly a teeny bit more about careers, career options, colleges, curriculum, and so forth. Well, yesterday I filled out my course thingy for next year.”

Happy Eostre

You can wish me a happy Easter. Just because I don’t believe in the existence of god-men who died and came back to life doesn’t change the fact that today is Easter (in Western Christianity, at least). Many Easter traditions have much more to do with the fact that it’s spring. After all, it’s no accident that Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon of spring. When you’ve got the bunnies and the eggs and stuff, you’re just carrying down pagan traditions. Even the English word “Easter” is based on the name of Eostre, the Anglo-Saxon goddess of fertility whose feast was celebrated in early spring. If Christmas can be about “happiness” or “family” or “giving” (as the TV specials tell us), then certainly Easter can be about spring, and for me, that’s what it is. Besides that, the rest of my family is observing Easter, so that itself is a pretty good reason to join in (or, rather, to be included). So happy Easter to you (and Passover, while we’re at it). Also: today is Militiamen Day in Cuba and Queen Margrethe‘s Birthday in Denmark.

I reported a few months ago about a scandal at my old church/school. It involved the principal being fired for meddling with funds and the pastor refusing to provide evidence that she did. I didn’t take either side, though it seemed that everyone else did. Some longtime churchgoers even left because they believed that the principal was innocent. Well, it turns out that the foul play was on the side of the principal after all, and she’s issued a vague apology. It looks like she’s going to have to repay for the money she “misappropriated,” and she’ll be barred from working at schools in the archdiocese. The end.

About a year ago I mentioned that I had gotten Adblock, a Firefox extension. Since then, Adblock has largely been superseded by Adblock Plus, which I just downloaded the other day to replace the old Adblock. Adblock Plus 0.7 offers all of the features of the original Adblock: the ability to remove particular images, scripts, objects, and iframes, with options for whitelisting certain sites. You can even write regular expressions to help you out. Adblock Plus also allows you to subscribe to periodically updated lists of filters, the most popular of which is Filterset.G, which has its own updater.

Even more impressive, however, is the extent to which you can remove items from web pages. With the old Adblock I noticed that not all ads are images, scripts, iframes, or objects. Some are boxes of text and images, incorporated rather well into the contents of a web page. Some are simply text links. Thanks to the element hiding features in Adblock Plus 0.7, you can block any HTML tag based on its attributes; therefore, you can block a <div> with a particular id, a <span> with a particular class, a <table> of a particular width, or even — get this — an <a> with a particular href. Partial matches are also allowed, but not full regular expression syntax. Obviously, a knowledge of HTML comes in handy for element hiding, but I’ve found that the View Formatted Source extension makes it easy to identify certain block-type elements for removal.

Find some tips for singing the blues at BluesGuide.com.

One year ago: “Google Maps is making a splash across the Internet for the ability to view color satellite photos of lots of places.”

Constraint in writing, fun in spring

It’s past day six of my spring vacation from school, and Monday is our last day out. I don’t know why it’s not Sunday, but I’m not complaining. I must do a fun thing or two soon, though. School ruins your odds of doing a fun activity — you must do all that work, you know! I’m not worrying about that right now, for my math class and my US history class didn’t assign a lot of work for spring vacation. And in programming class, all programming activity is in our classroom. (What if a kid is a fan of Linux or Macintosh and not Windows? Plus, not all of us can own a PC. Windows costs a lot, I think.) I still must study for my important history class, though.

Today I got an invitation (from a girl I had a thing for back in August) to go to our coast, which is not at all far away, to bask in sunlight and fool around with an additional pal or two from school, such as Mark and Kim. Sounds fun, I thought, so I’m going if my mom and dad will allow it. (I still must ask and furnish particulars, but my family always allows such things. My mom and dad don’t act that prudishly.) Our plan is to savor sun, surf, and sand on Monday, so it’s a good way to finish off our spring vacation. Oh, and for what it’s worth, said girl has a guy now and is happy, but I can hang out with that quondam crush without awkward situations arising. All right! If only I could do that with all my old infatuations.

You probably didn’t think I’d fall back on a silly gimmick to do a quick post on my blog. But I always did want to approach (or pass) a limit or two — to add high standards, if you will, or to surpass what folks want to find. Thirty-six months of blogging will do that to you. By now you probably know what it is that I’m doing (or not doing) in this post as I join awkward combinations of words. If not, I’m giving this hint: it’s all about constraint, and it’s difficult.

Obtain information about odd afflictions. This list has psychological conditions such as pica (that is, consuming things that normal folks don’t classify as food), but it also has physical afflictions. Do you know what polydactylism is? Find out!

And this is a list of Things You Didn’t Know About Rock ‘N’ Roll. Its author shows a slight bias toward what radio stations usually call “classic rock,” but rock’s actual roots (think King, Fab Four, and so forth) gain spots on that list, and rightfully so.

Six and six months ago: “Thank you, logic!”
On this day in 2004: “I didn’t know what to think about that.”
Also that day: “And that’s it.”

Bigger than the Earth

Call me crazy, but I notice things. Apparently a lot of companies want you to think that they’re so great that their name is looming over the Earth in outer space. Does that sound weird? Of course it does. Am I crazy for noticing that at least four company logos incorporate the shape of Earth as you might see it from an angle in space? Perhaps. But I want to see them all sue each other over the use of the downward-curving line. That would be funny. Anyway, maybe you should see some examples to understand what I mean.

Future Publishing has the most blatantly Earth-like logo. You can see that the edge is glowing from the light of the sun. In this one, the word “Future” appears to be in front of the Earth.

This logo belongs to Rinker Materials. They want you to know that they’re way bigger than the Earth — they’re looming over it, in fact.

Here’s the logo for Drive Insurance. Compared to the other companies’ names, “Drive” isn’t very big, but it’s a wonder that it gets its own slice of Earth to peek out from.

This one belongs to Pearson Assessments and various other Pearson-type companies. They’re all bigger than the Earth.

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen other examples of larger-than-life logos, although I can’t find them right now. If I happen to find them again, I’ll be sure to post them. After all, it’s funny seeing companies rip off each others’ logos… I guess.

“Caring For Your Introvert” could quite possibly the be the best article I have ever read. If you think that people who don’t talk much and need to be alone a lot (like, say, me) are anti-social or rude, then you need to read that short article and open your eyes about personality types. Here’s an enlightening excerpt:

Here’s a very large (3 MB) and extremely complicated image made entirely in MS Paint. I guess it doesn’t have a name, but here it is. Someone must have spent a ridiculous amount of time working on it. I don’t know whether to applaud him or to cry.

One year ago: “My history teacher wants me in her AP European History class and has recommended me for it.”
Two years ago: “People are going to get trampled in there. Tomorrow I’ll report all about it.”
Three years ago: “This ‘All your base are belong to us’ sighting was sent in by an anonymous contributor browsing recent photos from the war in Iraq.”