It all started when I was five…

This post has been written in advance so I can relax while on vacation.

Some people I know talk about visiting their psychiatrist. It’s like, “Oh, I have to leave school early for a psychiatrist’s appointment,” or, “So, after running around town this weekend with my friends, I went to the psychiatrist…” or something of that nature. I mean, what’s up with that?

Okay, so I know of two people who go to see a shrink. Certainly they aren’t all the people I know, but it strikes me as odd that two seemingly normal people pay a lot of money lie on a couch and talk to some guy (or gal) about their problems and then get pills. Are they that messed up? I don’t think so. They seem like perfectly normal people. They’re just like you and me. Or are they?

Maybe it’s fashionable to have a shrink. Just like how it’s popular to have ADD (or to wear t-shirts that imply that you do). I don’t know what sort of image that would give to your friends, though, so I guess I’d have to say that people who see a psychiatrist do really have problems. But how serious must they be for you to say, “Mom or dad, I need to see a shrink,” and for your mom or dad to say, “Okay”?

I guess people would rather talk to a shrink than have to face their problems themselves. Maybe they go there to avoid their parents, who are probably the cause of a lot of their problems. And I guess it does feel good to know that there’s someone who will listen to your troubles and offer you advice (and drugs). Maybe I shouldn’t judge people who could use anything but judging. Yeah. That sounds like a good idea.

You know what would be cool to have? A Dinosaur Comics book. There’s a new book out, entitled “The Best of Dinosaur Comics: 2003-2005 A.D.” It would be pretty cool to have, but I could always read the comics for free (and in color) on the web site. Maybe if I happen to find it in a bookstore and I happen to have enough money with me, I’ll buy it. That would be cool. (Also: You know when you’ve been reading Dinosaur Comics for too long when you misread a sign saying “WOOD FENCE” as “WOOO FENCE.”)

Florence Foster Jenkins was the William Hung of her day. I wish I could be famous for having no talent. Wait…

“The greatest danger could be your stupidity.” That’s one of many strange messages found at the Weird Fortune Cookie Collection.

Two years ago: “I don’t know, but give me a few minutes and I’ll come up with a conspiracy theory.”

Tallahassee

The vacation continues. Yesterday we went east, so today we went west to Tallahassee, the capital of Florida. I’d been to a few state capitals (I think) but not my own, so it was interesting.

The drive there was really long — apparently Tallahassee is farther away from here (“here” being a spot between Mikesville and High Springs) than St. Augustine. We refrained from taking Interstates, so that was probably the reason. Anyway, after sitting in the van for approximately forever, you can imagine my surprise as we turned and found ourselves on a very long, grand avenue sloping upward to the old state capitol (and the new one behind it). The view was magnificent.

Anyway, before we did that, we went to Florida State University and drove around and looked at the place. Those buildings were terrific. They looked exactly like the ones we saw at UF. Old-style brick buildings. The terrain was much hillier, though. Tallahassee is very hilly, unlike most of Florida. After eating a late lunch, we stopped by the capitol buildings. I took quite a few photos that I hope to make into panoramas with that autostitch program.

Apparently the old capitol is a now a museum. I was surprised to find it open on a holiday, but we just walked right in. The place was surprisingly small, and the view of the dome from inside wasn’t very impressive. But it was interesting to go into the rooms and see various artifacts belonging to governors and cabinet members. One of the larger rooms was where the state’s Supreme Court met for about ten years in the early 20th century, and it was restored to make it look as such. The 19th century classical-style building really contrasts with the tall, monolithic, ’70s-style capitol that is in use today. We didn’t go into the latter building, actually. It might have been more interesting, though, if you had gone into the present capitol and bumped into your representative.

When we arrived back here, my dad decided it would be good to take my sister and me out to an old road and have us try out that driving thing. We happened to be in a rented van, so it was particularly important that we didn’t screw up. My sister went first. She drove a little, and then I went. I spent a lot more time doing it. It seemed kind of easy. (We were driving slowly along a virtually abandoned dirt-type road, though.) I pretty much took it all the way out to the end of the road. I was sort of proud of myself. It’s about time that I started driving. I should have started driving illegally two years ago. Then I could have gotten my learner’s permit 22 or 23 months ago, and I could have been a licensed driver with official ID last summer. I’m going to have to get my permit next week, after I get home. After all, I also need to get a job, and who’s going to take me if I’m an almost-17-year-old who can’t drive and has no ID? That doesn’t exactly scream “responsible” to me.

Of course, we’re all familiar with the age-old question: “What is the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?” Well, someone much nerdier than I decided to find out.

Have your portrait painted like a vintage Chinese propaganda poster!

Two years ago: “In the movie, global warming causes gigantic waves flood New York and then freeze, burying skyscrapers in ice.”

The old city

I’m here at my aunt’s house somewhere in northern Florida. We arrived last night after taking the “long way.” My family sometimes wants to take the scenic route instead of the freeway, but now I understand why we always opt for the faster way: the scenic route is slow. Slow. Sloooooow.

On the way there, we stopped by a winery because my parents are wine aficionados. None of us had ever been to one before. Lakeridge Winery was its name. It was a small winery, as you might expect a Florida winery to be. It was a little place nestled neatly among the lakes and rolling hills of the central part of the state. We pretty much watched a DVD about the place, had a peek at the grapes growing, saw some storage tanks, and had wine. Well, I didn’t have any. I had some grape juice, though. That was good stuff: no sugar added. We should have gotten some.

Anyway, we arrived at my aunt’s house all in one piece, and so we celebrated by having dinner. I went to sleep early because I hadn’t had enough sleep the night before. And then I dreamt. I’ve been interested in lucid dreaming lately, but I haven’t gotten a notebook or anything to record my dreams. (I picked a bad time to get interested in lucid dreaming, you see. We’re sort of out in the middle of nowhere, with hardly a notebook around.)

Anyway, I had a few dreams, and I remember two of them. In one, I was being tossed around by giant waves on a beach. In the other, I was looking at some maps when I discovered to my surprise that I didn’t live in Deerfield Beach, Florida, but rather, in Deerfield Beach, Florida, North Carolina. What could these dreams mean? More importantly, how could I have achieved lucidity during them and made them go the way I wanted them to go? Now that would be cool. Hey look, everybody, I have goals! Make a note of this!

We woke up this morning and headed out to St. Augustine, about two hours east of here. We started out by eating lunch at a place called A1A Aleworks, which happens to be the same place we ate lunch at when we went there about five years ago. After that we hopped on one of the many tour trams they have that circle the city. Unfortunately we didn’t spend any time at the Castillo de San Marcos or St. George Street because we had been there before. But we did spend time at Flagler College, even though we’ve been there before. It’s housed in a pretty building, so it’s worth checking out? The one thing it’s got going for it is that there are four girls for every guy.

The weather was turning sour and it was getting late, so we headed back. My dad plugged in his laptop, we ate dinner, and now I’m here. More updates (and guest posts) to follow. However, dial-up is slow. Slow. Sloooooow.

In 1983, Stanislav Petrov saved the world from mortal peril.

Airport is a short Flash animation with rather catchy music. Those of you who call things “cute” might deem it as such.

One year ago: “I’m sure she’s a Miss because I couldn’t imagine anyone marrying her.”

We’ll Meet Again

Greetings, Stuffers,

As I write this, it’s the day after school let out, though JOR-DON won’t publish it until after he leaves for his “vacation.” Jordon has asked the rest of The Five to write guest posts for some reason or another. (I’m not sure why at all: he has stacks of material ready in case of death so that none of you will figure it out for a while. Clues are included in matrices within the text.) Since I plan to refer to The Five many, many times in the future and no one will know what I’m talking about, I’m taking this opportunity to be sentimental (aw).

It was only two or three weeks ago that I announced that I was definitely not the sentimental one when we were discussing one of the many articles I’ve been meaning to write for The Pulse. So much for that.

In an extremely lucid and insightful moment – unlike any I’ve had since the one in March, which was nicely destroyed – this afternoon, I became fully aware of life, the universe and everything. More importantly, perhaps, I fully understood each of The Five, the first such understanding since I had a dream that we DO NOT SPEAK OF. We’re all essentially crazy. I’ve noted at least two main personalities for each of us.

I’ve had many requests to open the Creepy Archives to the public, so I’ll publish just two small pieces. Today, talking to JOR-DON: “I was thinking the most beautiful thoughts earlier, and I hope I can capture them for the posts.” 18 May 2006, talking to Bria N: “Gorgonzola cheese, please. Dignam isn’t dead! Well, they went to the trouble of burying him anyway! Beastly dead. Poor Ruddy. Midwives on Sandymount beach. Long live King Leopold I! Bronze from anear. Gold from afar. We’re a capital couple, Bloom and I. Theeee! Erections while being hanged? Parnell? Beastly dead!”

Introducing JOR-DON KAL-IL-ICH: His basic modes are Stuffer Jor-don, Colleges Like It™ Jor-don, and Gloomy Soul Jor-don. But we’ll talk more about JOR-DON’s psychology in my next post.

Introducing Bri7 N “BS” Stanwyck: (26 May) “Note to Archive: When a friend is trying to write a college entrance essay, don’t make fun of them for being manic-depressive.” Sometimes you deal with Arrogantly Smart BS, and sometimes you deal with Creepy Lisp BS. (09 April) “Oh. THAT bottom left corner. Well, yeah. LSD.”

Introducing Cardinal Mischka: Definitely needs to work on her speeling for AP Englis. Greatest person you’ll meet while less-than-three-ing trees, but likely to be possessed while less-than-three-ing puppies. Enough said.

Introducing Megan: Cheerful… sometimes! And don’t you know that God is Pooh Bear?

I am seriously a 25 year-old dinosaur most of the time. There’s more (Other-Guy Luke, Political Luke and Psychedelic Luke), but who needs more than DINOSAURS? That’s what I said, too.

As Jor-don was saying yesterday, we had to make projects about what we thought was seriously the sexiest decade in American History. He and Andrew used “Turn! Turn! Turn!” as their song, which was pretty OK, except that we didn’t get to see it. Today we got to talking about the Byrds, and their cover of “We’ll Meet Again,” which was strangely apt for the last day of school. The Byrds liked to end their albums on an ironic note, and what better way to be ironic than with Dr Strangelove? “We’ll Meet Again” was originally a British war song meant to boost morale.

The Five will not meet again until the Presidents’ Day-like celebration they might hold. Anyhow, today’s fit of insight somehow, um… THE END.

“Keep smiling true
Just like you always do
Till the blue skies make the dark clouds fade away
Some sunny day…”

Frank Zappa’s Playboy Interview: “Yeah. He came by my house and I was hopping around because of this splinter, so he pulled it out. Good story, huh?”

Library of the Uncanny: Robert Hunter’s collection of supernatural stories.

Super String Theory: An easy-to-understand site on String Theory that assumes you’re not a cosmologist but does not sacrifice content.

Tibetan Buddhist Internet Radio: The perfect companion for a reading of the beautiful new edition of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, the first ever complete English translation that includes color images, a history of the text, introduction by the Dalai Lama, and a glossary of terms explaining the meaning of tougher concepts.

–M. Luke Myers, POEE

Holiday

Today it’s been raining buckets, so you know what that means: It’s summer! And you know what that means: It’s time for vacations and stuff! It’s only fitting that tomorrow morning my family embarks on a vacation of all (both) of the usual places. (Which raises the question: If you always go on vacation to the same places, is it still a vacation if you go there?) Okay, we are doing a few things we’ve never done.

Tomorrow morning we’re going to head to my aunt’s house near High Springs, Florida, the little town that time forgot but then realized it had lost and, after a moment’s pause, just said, “Oh, screw it.” On the way, we’re going to a winery, because a few people in my family really, really like wine. I’ve never been to a winery. Wonder if they’ll give me a sample of their product to try. I probably wouldn’t take it, though. I want my first time to be special.

After arriving at my aunt’s place, we’ll probably go on a couple of day-long excursions, one of which will be a trip to the historic city of St. Augustine. Yes, that’s right: a historic city in Florida. You don’t see too many of those in this state. Absolutely nothing in South Florida is more than 100 years old. Virtually no one was here 100 years ago. So it’s kind of fun to go to St. Augustine, the oldest city in the U.S. of A., founded by the Spanish in 1565. I have been there before, but it’s been a long time.

Another thing we’ll probably do is go to Our State’s Capital to see Florida State University. (Now that I care slightly more about going to college, I asked if we could also swing by the University of Florida, only to receive the answer: “But we did that already!” Yes, we did it last year, but I didn’t give a crap and now I do. Well, you can’t judge a school by the way its buildings look, anyway, and that’s the only thing we did.) Anyway, if we’re going to be in Our State’s Capital, we might as well have a look at Our State’s Capitol, even though the new capitol is really ugly. Other than those two places, there really isn’t anything in the county or the surrounding areas. Not that I know of.

Anyway, after that, we’re going to my great aunt’s condo for about five days. I don’t know what I’m going to do the whole time other than going to the beach and getting sunburned from going to the beach. I’ll probably spend too much time on my dad’s laptop, in spite of the dial-up connection. We should be back on Sunday, June 4.

You know what’s cool? Lucid dreaming is cool. It’s when you know that you’re dreaming and can control what you do and what happens to you. I don’t know how I got to thinking about lucid dreaming, but I guess I remembered it from my psychology class last year. There was this one girl who did some research and wrote a paper about it. She also described a lucid dream that she had.

I might as well try it out. I’m not doing anything else while I sleep. Besides, I really like sleeping, even though I don’t get to do it as much as I’d like. Imagine how much more I’d enjoy it if I could go on cool adventures and stuff like that. Yeah. I’ll have to start keeping track of my dreams. It’ll be fun. Maybe I should start while I’m on vacation. Okay, it’s a deal. As a note to myself, here are a few resources: Wikibooks and some other site with lousy creative navigation.

Celebrities with teddy bears. It has to do with cancer.

Is it really possible for a site to get one billion visits? As of writing this, the site has 995,809,397 hits to go. The counter might be stuck, though.

One year ago: “If it was the senior prank after all, I pity them for being so unoriginal.”
Two years ago: “I think it’s better to go the safe route than eat a dish called ‘old clothes.’”
Three years ago: “Tredici is a card game I invented.”

At year’s end

At 11:55 A.M. EDT today, my junior year of high school ended.

The first exam I took today was for Precalculus. I had been studying my brains out for the past two nights. I was looking at the stuff I was supposed to study and I was like, “Whaa?” I had to refresh my memory for just about everything, but I’m glad I did. I think I did pretty well on the test. There were a few things I forgot how to do, but since it was a multiple choice test, I just plugged in the answers to see which one was right. But he always checks to make sure you’ve actually done the work, so those will be marked wrong. Oh well. The majority of the questions I answered quite easily.

After that was the last period of the school year: American History. We were supposed to get in groups and make a Windows Movie Maker video about a decade in recent history. Naturally, Andrew and I chose the 1960s. So all we really did was watch people’s videos. When it came time for Andrew and I to present ours, there was a problem: the sound didn’t work. That was pretty much an embarrassment. We took to fixing it (well, Andrew did, anyway — he did all the work), and all logical troubleshooting methods failed us: creating a new file, deleting the music and adding it back, and so on. Then he cut off the first few seconds of the music, and for some reason it worked. By that time every group had presented its video, so we just gave it to the teacher, Mr. Weigel, to watch for himself. Then, after continuing to watch Forrest Gump, it came time to stand and wait for the bell. Then it rang, and we were free to go.

Mr. Weigel shook hands and gave hugs as we filed out of the classroom. Luke and I headed directly across the hall to see Mr. Miller, who had been our European History teacher until yesterday. We wished each other a good summer and talked about what we were going to do. Mr. Miller said that he’s going to carry himself back to old Virginny and see the friends he’s got in Pennsylvania. Apparently next year he’s going to be a part-time teacher because of the new schedule. I’ll be sure to stop by his class and say hi, though. It’s a good thing he’s staying. I was afraid he wouldn’t.

So, this has been my junior year. To carry on a sort of tradition, I’d like to thank my old friends: Alberto, Andrew, Autumn, Brian, Cassie, Dan C., Ipek, Gilbert, Jarian, Jeff, Justin, Katherine, Kim, Kevin, Kristen B., Lisa, Mandi, Mark, Megan, Michelle, Mike, Nacole, Nick, Omar, Sabrina, Sacha, Sean, T.J. B., Vivian, and Yamilée. I’d also like to thank the friends I’ve made (or at least gotten to know a little better): Alexandra, Allison, Axel, Dan W., Fabiola, Gabby, Jennifer, Jonathan, Jordan, Julie M., Julie T., Kara, Kelsey, Luke, Richard, Ruan, Scott, Sivan, Susann, T.J. S., and Tyler. If I didn’t name you, don’t blame me. Blame my subconscious.

I declared my 2004-2005 school year to be “The Year,” during which I would improve my life in all kinds of ways. It ended up being my own version of the Great Leap Forward. Example: I pledged to “win the girl of my dreams.” Haha, yeah right. I was talking about a specific someone, after all. I didn’t pursue that goal until a few months ago, and that ended in disaster.

Now I only have one year left of my life as a child. And let’s face it: I have some serious catching up to do. Catching up to preparing for the rest of my life, that is. You know, all the usual things I haven’t done: gotten a new job, started learning to drive. No, seriously. I wish I had started learning right when I was able to. It’s easily the biggest mistake I’ve ever made. Think of the consequences it’ll have a year from now when I’m going to some college hardly able to drive a car.

With that in mind, I’ve decided to declare the period from May 25, 2006 to May 24, 2007 (which I believe will be graduation day) to be The Year II. I also wrote myself an abusive letter to be opened on May 25, 2007. In it I ask myself how my progress was, basically. I’m keeping it in a secure place: in my room, next to the large envelope that’s been empty for a year because I haven’t had a job. Let’s just hope that The Year II isn’t anything like the Cultural Revolution.

List of nicknames used by George W. Bush. Too weird to be false. That guy is quite the nicknamer.

Interesting Facts About Domain Names. Many statistics. Graphs included!

Two years ago: “Well, making up a country isn’t as easy as I thought it would be, especially because it has to be realistic.”

Exam time

Today was the first day of final exams and the second-to-last day of school. We had spent Monday and Tuesday pretty much preparing for exams and watching movies (Life is Beautiful in AP European History, Forrest Gump in American History).

Today I had my exams for Programming II and AP Euro. Well, for Programming, all we had to do was show the teacher our final project, which wasn’t very hard in itself. I got an A on that and an A in the class. Then we watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

For AP Euro we were to do a presentation about our final paper. We’d had to write about a topic that was contemporary and European. I decided to research religious intolerance in Europe, which is more widespread than I had thought. On Sunday, I got a posterboard and spent a few good hours drawing a map to show which countries had established churches and which had disestablished churches. The next day I had found out that on Sunday, possibly while I was drawing the map, the people of Montenegro voted to secede from Serbia. “That’s why you’ve got to draw the Balkans in pencil,” Brian quipped. Anyway, I had to present my project rather quickly, because some of the first people to present took way too much time. Michelle made a cake for the class. She also made cookies for Mr. Miller, and I have him a thank-you card that Michelle, Megan, Brian, Luke, and I signed.

It’s been quite a ride, and it must have been tough for Mr. Miller to replace Ms. Vazquez in November. Since then, we’ve really grown. I have, I think. It sounds cheesy, but I didn’t want the class to end — we were like a family. Mr. Miller has been a really cool teacher. He’s sometimes gentle, sometimes harsh, and always intelligent and thoughtful. He always knows what to say. He’s loved us and hated us, but in the end, it’s all been to achieve his goal: not only to teach us the history of Europe from 1450 to the present, but to mold us into thinking people. I don’t know what it is, but his influence has a permeating effect. And so AP European History is history. The only thing left is to find out how well I exercised my knowledge on the AP test; I’ll get the results in July. I bet Kelsey $10 that I wouldn’t get a 5 (the top score). I hope I lose.

After school I had to meet with Mr. Gates, my precalculus teacher, for information about taking calculus next year. Apparently, instead of taking AP Calculus AB, I’ll have to take the more advanced AP Calculus BC, which means I’ll need to learn the material of both classes in one year, which means that I’ll have to work in groups with people who have already taken AB, which means that I’ll be treated like an intellectual inferior, which means that I’ll be driven up the wall. Besides, I’m not invincible, people. I can’t do everything. How am I supposed to get a life when I’m taking the equivalent of two calculus classes? Next year is supposed to be the year I get a life. More on that later. If I don’t forget. I’m sure I won’t forget over the summer while I’m doing my calculus homework.

After seeing Mr. Gates, I went to see Miss Turek, my English teacher from last year. I wanted to buy a copy of the school’s literary magazine. It came out a few weeks ago and I had forgotten to buy it even though I submitted some stuff to be in it. Luckily, they only spelled my name wrong once out of three times (Jordan, Jordon, Jordon). I need to change my name to one that people can spell (Jordan). Or maybe I’ll just change the pronunciation so that people will know how to spell it. Jor-don? No, wait, Luke and Brian call me that already, and I don’t like it. To quote Luke: “AAAAAAAAAAAHHH.”

Here are some strange error messages… and they’re not all from Windows!

Here’s a picture of a train station in Chicago. It was created in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop over a period of 11 months. The size of the final file? 1.7 GB.

One year ago: “The funny thing is, I can see myself achieving this goal.”

Improbable, but not impossible

Last summer, my band, Vine Ripe Tomatoes, played its last gig, if you could call it that. Due to scheduling conflicts and personal differences, our quintet appeared as a trio; only Mark, Nick, and I were present, but we made the best of it. Though we weren’t mad at Sean or Alex, we agreed that it was time for us to go our separate ways. I think Sean had an interest in starting a ska/punk band, so once we broke up, he was able to pursue that goal. Nick, Mark, and I were immediately interested in starting a new band. It was pretty much an idea that got kicked around for months and months until finally, something happened.

Yesterday I joined Nick, Mark, and Mark’s sister Kim to start Improbable Mission. I had gotten the idea for the name from a game on “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” The name could be funny or it could be serious; it goes with anything, I think. It also doesn’t seem to suggest a particular genre of music, which is good because I think that with our diverse tastes, we wouldn’t stand up to being pigeonholed into a certain category. I had described the style of VRT as “rock variety.” That label might be the best to use for the new band, if we really needed to label it. Rock has become a very general concept.

Since this band has been a long time in the making, we had already determined that we would be called Improbable Mission and that Kim would play the bass, Mark would play the drums, and Nick and I would play the guitar. So we got right down to business practicing songs. After we jammed for a little bit, I broke out my digital multitrack recorder and we started recording ourselves practicing. In particular, we stuck to a few old standbys: “Seven Nation Army,” “Secret Agent Man,” and “Norwegian Wood.” For a change, it seems that I won’t be the only vocalist in this band; Mark and Kim each took a hand at singing “Seven Nation Army,” thanks to the miracle of overdubbing. I don’t know how we managed to go without it.

I figured it would be important to have some photos of the whole band in case we ever have things like promotion or publicity. So between recording songs and after eating dinner, we went to the nearby park, where Mark and Kim’s dad took pictures of us, including the one shown here. (Like the photo? I’m the pale, unsmiling one with the bad hair and the creepy bone structure.) We took various pictures until the sunlight (and the batteries of my camera) ran out. Later, after recording some more, Mark, Nick, and I played video games and watched a movie. By then it was late, so I left, declining an offer to spend the night. I really enjoy sleeping in my own bed.

And so, May 20, 2006, the first day of Improbable Mission, was a success. Hopefully we’ll do some live shows, make a record, or at least practice a lot and have fun.

At last, the secret to pouring ketchup out of a glass bottle is revealed.

Onomatopoeas from “Batman.” The site is in Spanish, but it doesn’t really matter. You should know what onomatopeya means.

One year ago: “There were police cars near the ticket booths and we had to wait.”
Two years ago: “And he doesn’t have a care in the world, no projects due, no parties to go to, just being with his best friends in the whole wide world, very serious about his recess games.”

Take a drive… in

Yesterday I was invited by my friend Andrew to go to the local drive-in for his birthday, like last year. Only a few other people went along. Luckily, the owner didn’t get Tasered by the police this time, so there was little to keep us from getting there early. We had some food — Fritos, chicken wings, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, shrimp, Bagel Bites — and then relaxed and watched The Da Vinci Code.

I thought I would bring a small radio to add to the sound of the movie — they broadcast it on the FM band, so you don’t need to hook some box up to your car like the Flintstones did. Anyway, it seemed that the radio, which is small, cheap, and old, couldn’t pick up the station no matter, though I fiddled with the dial quite a bit. I could still hear the movie (the car stereos were tuned in too) but not as well as I would have liked to. Come to think of it, I should have brought my portable CD player (with digital tuning) and headphones. Oh well.

Anyway, I don’t really have much to say about the movie itself. I haven’t read the book, so I can’t compare it to that. The movie was pretty engaging and enjoyable. I don’t think anybody should fuss over the ideas presented in the film. It’s just fiction, after all. In fact, it’s metafiction. If you’re that insecure about your beliefs, you should probably reevaluate them. Also: I didn’t like Tom Hanks’s hair.

Today I’m going to my friend Mark’s house so we can start that band we’ve been meaning to start. It’s about time. I just (as I was writing this) got a call from Mark saying that we’d also be doing the whole pizza/movie thing. It should be cool. If we manage to play some music, it’d be a good opportunity to use my relatively new and now totally working digital recorder.

The Lake Peigneur disaster of 1980 wreaked environmental havoc and drastically changed the ecology of that Louisiana lake. The lesson learned: don’t drill for oil in a lake that sits above a salt mine. For this item, a tip o’ the hat to Damn Interesting, a blog whose name doesn’t seem to lie. This probably won’t be the last link of theirs that I post.

According to these atheist/agnostic statistics, nearly 27,000,000 Americans don’t believe in gods. Similarly, here are a ton of maps showing the prevalence of some major religions by U.S. county.

One year ago: “I hadn’t really known her before, so we sort of met for the first time.”
Two years ago: “The upperclassman said to him, ‘Here at Harvard, we don’t end sentences with prepositions.’”

Attack of the spam

The problem of automated comment spam on this blog was solved relatively easily. However, there still lurks a greater beast: trackback spam. Unlike comment spam, I can’t seem to stop trackback spam before it starts; it’s just a matter of pinging a server, you know.

Anyway, I typically get an odd trackback spam or two, but over the past couple of days, I’ve been getting hit with dozens of them at a time. Luckily, WordPress has sent them to me for approval, so they haven’t appeared on the site. Most of them come from different IP addresses, but they’re all very similar; each attack lasts for an hour or two and promotes spammy sites of a particular theme. For example, on Wednesday afternoon I got 46 trackback spams in an hour, and all had to do with betting. Early Thursday morning, I got about 33 of them in an hour, and the keyword was insurance. After waking up today to find that the site had caught 59 trackback spams on credit cards in less than two hours, I decided that I needed to take action.

I figured that I had been too lax on comment/tracback spam in the past. My policy was this: IP addresses that spam the blog once must receive my approval for future comments or trackbacks. For repeat offenders, I would ensure than any comment containing the IP addresses concerned would be nuked immediately. Comments containing spam-like keywords would also be subject to automatic deletion. But starting today, any IP address caught spamming this blog will be blacklisted so that it can’t do it again.

Even so, it’s going to be difficult to fight these onslaughts of trackback spam if I’m not around to detect them right away. It’s like a game: They spam, I block the IP addresses and keywords. Then we repeat. But the game is easier for me to win when I’m keeping watch during the day. For example, this morning I’ve basically stopped what I’m pretty sure is a hotel-related attack. But I need to make sure that WordPress can take care of this without me having to be around. I really don’t want to disable trackbacks, because I have received some — very, very few — and if I do that, then the spammers will win! If anybody knows of a good trackback spam plugin that works with WordPress 2.0, I’d be glad to hear of it.

Yesterday there was a sort of pep rally in the school auditorium. The idea was to give a farewell to our principal, who is retiring, and to promote the football game that was last night. I guess the idea of having a football game in May was to get some practice for the team, but I can state with certainty that they lost. Anyway, we usually have pep rallies on the football field, but no one really pays attention and everyone gets sunburned from being out there. It’s really hard not to pay attention in the auditorium. In fact, it was so loud in there that I practically went deaf, and I was sitting about halfway toward the back.

Comedians: need some topical fodder for your act? Check out Wikipedia’s list of articles with the most revisions. The 10 most revised articles (probably due to vandalizing and edit wars) are George W. Bush, Wikipedia, Jesus, United States, Adolf Hitler, Hurricane Katrina, World War II, RuneScape, Michael Jackson, and John Kerry. There’s enough controversy for everyone!

Here’s an interesting article: “Prime Numbers Get Hitched.” The article explores a possible link between mathematics and quantum physics via everyone’s favorite numbers, primes.