I’m going away or something

Today at school, Mark asked if I had put our Beowulf movie online yet, and I told him that I had, so I assume he went to check it out and show it to some more people during lunch. Later, our English teacher said that she had showed the video to all of her other classes. For the rest of the day, several people — including one I didn’t know — came up to me and told me how much they liked it. If you still haven’t seen it, watch it now on Google Video!

Last weekend, Nick mentioned that the youth group was starting to put on their Christmas play: a production of the Rankin/Bass classic The Year Without a Santa Claus. The first rehearsal is tonight, so I have to go to that. Yes, it’s August 31, and Christmas bells are ringing. I don’t really have a problem with doing it, though. There’s nothing really religious about it at all, anyway, but there are some rollicking good numbers. I think they’ve wanted me to participate in youth group things, so here I am.

Tomorrow morning we’re leaving for my aunt’s house. I was just there over the summer, but this time we’re going to take a tour of the University of Florida. Yes, that’s right: we’re not going to drive around and look at the pretty buildings; we’re actually going to take a real tour of the place. I think this may actually be where I want to go to college, and to anyone who says it’s not good (enough), I respectfully reply, “I’m rubber and you’re glue; whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you.” Besides, I have to apply to some colleges soon, and, well, I’ve already gone over the reasons why I should go to a fine school within my own state.

Other than that, I guess we’ll just be doing fun stuff in the small-town/rural setting of my aunt’s house. And maybe, since we’ll be in Gainesville for the college, we’ll check out some of the wonders that that urban setting has to offer. I’ll be back on Sunday. See you then, everybody.

This guy held a Paparazzi Contest in which he asked people to find him in a mall and take pictures of him as if he were a celebrity.

The popular “buffalo” nickels, issued by the US Mint from 1913 to 1937, were fairly thick and soft, which caused them to wear down easily. However, these properties also allowed their surfaces to be carved in creative ways, allowing them to be transformed into unique works of art as “hobo nickels.” Apparently, the practice of making hobo nickels continues today.

Two years ago: “I’m sort of surprised to find myself in another picture in the yearbook; you know, one of those snapshots around school that they provide silly captions for.”
Three years ago: “So, what am I going to do with this bill with an address stamped on it? Easy… send it back!”

Beowulf: The Movie

Over the weekend, I teamed up with my friends Nick, Mark, and Justin, to do a project for English class about the epic poem Beowulf. All we had to do was show that we understood a certain part of the story, namely, Beowulf’s battle with a monster named Grendel. In spite of the fact that the project would be presented on Monday, we decided to be ambitious and make a video. It started as an idea of Nick’s until I got interested and we told Justin about it. Mark isn’t in our class and wasn’t assigned the project, but he has the same teacher.

We’ve definitely been immersed in Beowulf in English class. Last Thursday we watched a cheesy video of a storyteller (or a bad actor) overdramatically delivering the account of Beowulf’s battle with Grendel. (Yes, I think I’ve mentioned that already, but it bears repeating.) We basically decided somehow that Mark would be Grendel, Nick would be Beowulf, Justin would be Hrothgar (the king who calls on Beowulf to slay Grendel), and I would be the melodramatic storyteller who saved having to film potentially difficult scenes by simply explaining what happened. I knew that Nick and Mark would be perfect as Beowulf and Grendel because they tend to roughhouse in real life. It would be like method acting or something. (Justin, Mark, and I also played Beowulf’s men.)

We were to meet at my house on Sunday afternoon, the only time we could all get together. That left me a few days to start working on the film because I would be editing it. I started with the credits, which I put at the beginning for practical reasons… and let’s just say that I owe a lot to Monty Python (YouTube link). I recorded a few scenes that didn’t require the others, and I found a site with royalty-free music to use for the movie. I wrote a brief summary of each scene; that was the script. I put the scenes in a more convenient order; that was the shooting schedule.

On Saturday night, Mark, Nick, and I attended an anniversary party for Mark’s parents. I thought that that would be a convenient time to shoot the party scene that I had planned. So I got some scenes of the three of us having fun. Filming the party scene at a real party certainly made the video look less cheesy. I planned to interweave shots of Justin presiding over the party, which would make the video look more cheesy. It all balances out, you see. Also at the party, I got a crown prop for Justin, but it broke, so the next day, my dad got another one.

Sunday was the big day. Even though we got off to a late start, we went through the scenes more quickly than I thought. I think it was good that everything was ad-libbed. The dialog sounds pretty natural. The whole thing was a lot of fun, as you’ll see. Since we got finished pretty early, Nick and Mark used my computer to do fantasy football draft picks or something like that, and after they left, Justin and I started editing the stuff we had recorded. A little while later, he left. It took me about three hours to finish the job. Saving the final file took about forty-five minutes. My dad let me use his 512 MB flash drive to take the movie to school. Mine’s only 64 MB, and the movie at its highest quality is 156 MB.

On Monday during lunch, Nick, Mark, and Justin took me to the band room so they could see the finished product in advance. It drew a small crowd which was composed of other people hanging out in the room. They really liked it, which was a good sign. Next was English, and Mark came into the class to watch. Apparently he had asked the teacher if he could because she said that we would present our project first so that Mark could see it. After having the teacher’s LCD projector and new speakers set up, we sat back and reveled in the fruit of our labor. The rest of the class loved it. Hardly anybody wanted to present their projects after they saw what we did. The teacher liked it too; she had me copy the video to her computer so that she could show her other classes. She even gave Mark extra credit, even though it wasn’t his project.

I have to thank Mark, Justin, and Nick for all the fun I had doing this project. Anyway, I think that’s all I have to say. So… Watch Beowulf: The Movie on Google Video now! This one’s really funny, I promise!

Oh, about that tropical storm… nothing much came of it. We have to go back to school tomorrow.

Here are pictures of some celebrities without makeup. You’re welcome.

One year ago: “Now, I don’t really know if this is technically a date, but I intended it to be, and I hope she knows that.”
Two years ago: “I thought it was interesting that we played this gig on August 29, the date in 1966 when the Beatles played their very last concert.”
Three years ago: “The ball kept getting stuck yesterday, and it was hard to do anything.”

Ernesto goes to Florida

Yesterday morning, out of nowhere, my mom said, “We’re under a hurricane watch.”

Ah yes, it’s that time of year again when hurricane activity is in full swing. Today, Tropical Storm Ernesto is heading toward us. As you might imagine, yesterday at school, the place was abuzz with talk of school closures and whatnot. In one of my classes, someone switched on the TV just in time for us to read, as one, the crawling text along the bottom: “‘Broward… County… schools… closed… Tuesday’!” Teachers altered their plans for tests and things. Nobody was really sure how much time we would have off, so everything was tentative.

So here I am on a Tuesday morning, not being at school. It’s not too bad yet; in fact, the weather’s pretty nice. I made ham and eggs for breakfast. One of the local TV stations is on in the other room and they’re in hurricane mode: there’s a little radar loop in the corner, announcements about shelters and closures are flying across the bottom of the screen, and they’re cutting to the weatherman every five seconds.

If you’re not familiar with the way they usually report tropical storms and hurricanes, it can be kind of frustrating. Whenever a new advisory comes in, the weather guy or gal stands up at the big map and shows you where the storm is. It’s represented by a tiny spiral shape. That actually marks the center of circulation, which may or may not be the center of the storm. They do the same thing when they show the forecast cone, which shows the storm’s possible track as a cone that widens as it gets farther away. With Ernesto, the center of circulation is way off in what seems to be the “side” of the storm. It’s as if you took a big, round hurricane and got rid of all the clouds except in one corner. That makes reading those maps tricky. There’s a much better view that shows the wind speeds around the center and shows where those areas of high wind speed are likely to go. After all, a hurricane is mainly a wind event, usually not so much of a rain event.

Anyway, I happened to glance at the TV a little while ago and I caught some “Breaking News.” They’ve made the decision that Broward County schools will be closed tomorrow as well. It’s a good thing, because even though the storm appears to be moving quickly on the radar, we haven’t seen any of it yet, and I don’t think it’s expected to go away until tomorrow morning.

So the schedule for today is to batten down the hatches, and I guess tomorrow will be the day that we’ll have to clean stuff up. We’ll probably be back in school on Thursday, but I can’t say for sure. Hopefully I’ll at least have time to do the homework that I probably should have done after school yesterday.

By the way, making the Beowulf movie over the weekend was a tremendous amount of fun, but I haven’t posted it to Google Video yet because it’ll take a really long time to upload it, and I’ll need to be on call for bringing in patio furniture, mowing the lawn (yes, I’m going to have to do that), and maybe putting up shutters. Once this whole tropical storm thing goes away, I’ll upload it and do a write-up. Or maybe I’ll upload it if I have time later today. Actually, I guess I could do it right after I post this. Yeah, that’s what I’ll do.

Now for some Ask Jordon.

Justin: If a whale and a mountain got into a fight, which would win?

In short, I think the mountain would win, no matter what. If the whale were on the mountain, it would probably die pretty quickly and then smell. If the mountain were on the whale (as in a rockslide or something) then the whale might not be fast enough to avoid getting crushed or at least bruised pretty badly. But then you might have a partially crumbled mountain and a somewhat injured whale. In that case, I’d call it a tie.

natasha: What do you think most guys prefer: blondes or brunettes? Or is that just a shallow way to choose who you think is hot?

I don’t really know if most guys prefer either. As far as I’m concerned, hair color means nothing. It might be important to some guys, but I think that a girl isn’t necessarily more or less hot because of the color of her hair. It’s really shallow to judge people by how they look. Well, even saying that they’re “hot” is pretty shallow, I think. I hope that made sense.

The latest in fake conspiracy theories: Belgium Doesn’t Exist!

Three years ago: “Well, I just got off the phone with her, and I have to say, it’s going to be a good article.”

Everyone’s favorite Old English epic

In English class we’re reading bits and pieces of everyone’s favorite Old English epic, Beowulf. The first part we read was Beowulf’s battle with Grendel, the ferocious man-eating sea monster that everyone loves to hate. On Wednesday we were assigned a project: to demonstrate our understanding of the passage in some creative way.

Nick, who sits behind me, had the idea to make a movie. I didn’t want to at first, but I kept it in the back of my mind. Yesterday in class we watched one adaptation of the epic: that is, a scene told by a storyteller in a ridiculously exaggerated style. It was pretty funny. He looked like he was going to cry. You might say it gave me some ideas.

When class was over, I talked to Nick some more about the possibility, and I realized that making a movie could be a lot of fun, even though we’d only have until Monday to do the entire thing. I figured that Justin would want to be in it too, and so we decided to do it together, along with Mark, who isn’t in our class. Apparently, due to busy schedules, the only time we’d be able to get together would be Sunday afternoon, leaving me a scant few hours to edit the video for viewing in class.

It’s going to be important to have a plot laid out. It’s going to be humorous — of course. But that still leaves a lot of possibilities that should be worked out ahead of time. With that in mind, I’ve already made the opening credit sequence. It’s a blatant homage to the credits of Monty Python and the Holy Grail (YouTube link), except without the pseudo-Swedish subtitles and seizure-inducing flashing backgrounds.

Tomorrow I’ll call Justin and get together with Nick and Mark to work out the actual plot of the movie. We have a basic framework — the original story itself — but we need to figure out how to make it funny. Right now the weather is bleak, so I’ve been shooting establishing shots of Hrothgar’s kingdom, which Grendel terrorizes for twelve years. They’ll be shown when we hear of Hrothgar’s plea to Beowulf. I don’t know how the weather will be in two days, but that doesn’t matter. If it’s sunny, we can have Beowulf say as he arrives, “I thought your kingdom was all miserable and rainy and stuff,” and Hrothgar could say, “What? That was just the weather at the moment.”

It’s going to be a busy weekend, definitely. I’ll need to have everything I need to do done by Sunday afternoon so I can devote all my energy into putting together the video. But first we need a script…

Want to get into that Linux thingy? Try the Linux Distribution Chooser. As you may recall, I was once interested in getting Ubuntu. As it turns out, the Linux Distribution Chooser recommends Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Mandriva as perfect matches for me and Linspire, Xandros, and PCLinuxOS as close ones. Now, Linux users, let the flaming begin. KDE or Gnome? Fight to the death!

One year ago: “Well, here we are, awaiting the worst of Hurricane Katrina.”

Dear Future Generations: We like Tech-no-lo-gy™…

Last week, on the first day of school, I sought to get out of my Spanish class next semester in favor of being a “tech kid” who goes around and helps teachers with their computers. This morning I got called down to have my schedule changed. I was expecting to get a hard time for trying to get out of what I think is an AP class, but the lady in the guidance office didn’t seem to care about that. She made the change without any fuss, and that was that. On the first day of the next semester, which I believe is January 9, I have to report to guidance, perhaps for a briefing.

My school is really weird, and I end up having to explain their weird policies here a million times because they’re unlike those of most schools. One thing my school does differently is that they send the yearbook to the presses during the summer. That means that it can be updated to reflect changes in students and faculty, and better yet, it covers end-of-the-year things such as spring sports, prom, and graduation. I don’t know how many schools do that, but I’d never heard of it before, so I thought it would be an important fact to know before you read about what else happened today.

As you might have guessed, I got my copy of last year’s yearbook today. I had found out yesterday that they had come in, so today I brought the receipt I had gotten back in February after shelling out more money than I care to talk about. The cover of the yearbook was pretty disappointing, I think. Three years ago, the cover was black. Two years ago, it was gray. Now, last year’s yearbook is mostly black with some gray.

Luckily, there’s a world of color inside; there are more color pages than ever this year, which is pretty cool. I mean, you don’t know what you’re missing if your yearbook is in black and white. Actually, you probably do know that you’re missing colors. On one of the first pages (which is in color), there’s a photo from an outdoor pep rally. I didn’t notice it until TJ pointed it out to me, but Luke and I are visible in the picture. (My face is partly obscured by someone else’s head.) I thought it was strange that a camera captured us sitting there right then because it wasn’t long before we meandered over to where the teachers were sitting so that we could talk to Mr. Miller.

Since the school offers just about every sport imaginable, a great deal of the pages covered sports: boys’ and girls’, varsity and junior varsity, blah blah blah. Well, I’m sure I would care if I were on the boys’ JV bowling team or something, but I’m not. I did find my picture rather easily among the listings for the juniors, though. And as I was looking in the back, I remembered that I had been invited to be in the Programming Club photo by virtue of being in one of the programming classes. Indeed, I was there, and indeed, they spelled my name wrong. I just had to see whether they spelled my name correctly with my picture. Luckily, they did.

I swear, when/if I have kids, I’m totally giving them first names that people know how to spell. Strangely, very few people have trouble spelling my tongue-twisting Slavic surname. I think it’s because they have to ask how to spell or pronounce it, but when I tell them my first name is “Jordon,” they think they already know how to spell it. People might see my name written as “Jordon,” but it usually doesn’t permeate their brains, and they end up spelling it as “Jordan” (or perhaps “Jorden” if they can’t even misspell my name right). I’ll have to make a habit of introducing myself as “Jordon with an ‘O.’” That should make me stand out in people’s minds, at least.

Oh right, the yearbook. I don’t like the overall look of it. It suffers a problem that I’ve started to see even in professional books: bad JPG compression. The table of contents page is apparently a heavily compressed JPG (or JPEG, if you like), and some of the larger photos suffer what is probably several generations of compression. If the people who design the yearbook want the photos and graphics to look good on the page, they should use a form of lossless compression like, I don’t know, PNG? Maybe? Also: a lot of pages are ugly and hard to read because the yearbook staff apparently adopted a “look at what we can do on the computer” approach to design.

My criticisms notwithstanding, the yearbook is supposed to serve as a record of the year, so future generations will be fully aware that we in the year 2006 didn’t know how to make yearbooks that weren’t tacky.

How to Get Six-Pack Abs. I’ll, uh, file that away for later, just in case I ever care about exercising sometime. Hey, it could happen.

One year ago: “But my biggest triumph would be to have it banned on the school computers, an honor that this site has not even achieved.”
Two years ago: “In fact, the seven-man outfit (including a maraca player!) has just cut a record. Where are they headed next?”
Three years ago: “What a shame that a show so good has to be so short-lived.”

It depends on what the meaning of the word “better” is

The other day I mentioned that I’ve started caring about college. Better late than never, right? Well, don’t tell me I’m late to the party just because I cringed at the word “college” until a few months ago. I’m sure there have been worse cases of procrastination throughout history. I did mention a little while back that I kind of wanted to go to the University of Florida, and I still stand by my ambivalence. Yesterday I happened to mention it in class. Andrew, sitting in front of me, said, “You can do better than that.”

Andrew is one of the smartest people I know. He’s the one of those people who knows a little bit about everything and who always answers the teacher’s questions in class. He also plays the guitar, so you can imagine that he’s a pretty cool guy all around. He once or twice told me that he wanted to study video game design at Cornell. He’s definitely the kind of guy that could make it if he wanted to go that route. But his comment stuck with me: “You can do better than that.” What’s wrong with UF, anyway? It seems to be a fine school. It’s large and it offers a lot of classes. Just because it doesn’t have a national reputation or a high ranking in a news magazine doesn’t mean anything. Just because it isn’t in New England and hasn’t been around for 300 years doesn’t make it bad.

We revisited the subject today, and he basically reaffirmed his position. I don’t really understand. I’ve been told before that I should get out of Florida, but I find myself buying into their argument less and less. I have lots of good reasons for going to UF, anyway. I think I can qualify for a free ride to any in-state public school that I get accepted to, but they haven’t started taking applications for that particular scholarship, I think. My aunt went to UF, and she still lives in that area. I’ve been up to the Gainesville area to see her lots of times, so it’s not like I’m much of a stranger. It would be to know that I’d always be able to go back home if I wanted to because it’s only a few hours away.

And I’m pretty sure I’m not the only person who could “do better.” My friend Nick says he might study at a local university for two years and then go to another one within the state. I know of an intelligent, active, friendly, religious, minority female who would be gobbled up by all the “finest” colleges in America if she applied to any of them, but she’s going to UF. Is that a waste? I don’t think so. In fact, I don’t even think it really matters where you go to college. I don’t think it’s a question that people get asked a lot. The only thing that matters to people is that you have a college degree. That’s what I’ve heard, anyway. Can anyone provide any insight?

What does your browser reveal about you? It’s a pretty good summary of the different kinds of browsers (and Internet users) there are nowadays, although the last few are pretty obscure.

One year ago: “The Second Crusade lasted from 1147 to 1149, and hopefully no one will die if they refuse to get a Mac.”
Three years ago: “The place has to be giving off bad vibes or something.”

Time to ACT

Though I’ve taken the SAT two times, that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to preparing for college, as anyone who has prepared for college can tell you. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it might be, but there are new and stranger beasts looming on the horizon. I’m talking about the ACT®, The Test You Don’t Have to Take But Really Ought To™. I don’t really know much about it except that it tests more than just reading, writing, and math. I hope I know my stuff. The Pompano Pulse is reporting that a high school student far away from here achieved perfect scores on the SAT and the ACT. Yikes.

Now that I’m a senior in high school, I not only have to keep my grades afloat, but I also have to be on the lookout for colleges. Over the past few weeks I’ve become dramatically more interested in college, perhaps only because I have to be. No matter what the reason, the fact of the matter is that I’m thinking about places to go and how to get scholarships. I’m not really thinking about what I should study. Since I’m pretty undecided, it would be good to go to a place with a lot of options. Location is also pretty important. Maybe a good motto for me to follow would be “So close, yet so far.”

As for schools, I’m actually going to go tour a few places next month. I’ve been to some colleges before, but never on an official tour or anything, so this should be interesting. And in the way of scholarships, I’ve signed up at FastWeb, a site that gives customized information on scholarships, colleges, and job offers. I’ve found quite a few scholarships that I just might apply for. There’s one that expires before the end of the month. I’d better get busy on that if I want a chance at the money.

Actually, I sort of forgot that I’ve been chosen to be a National Merit Scholarship semifinalist. Once I remembered, I did a little research to see how one becomes a National Merit Scholarship finalist because nobody ever told me how that worked. Apparently you have to do well on the SAT, but having taken it isn’t enough. You have to take it when they tell you to, and then you’ll be considered if you do well. I don’t know if I can stand taking it a third time.

So the time has come. I, Jordon, care about going to college. I think I know where I want to go, so maybe soon I’ll actually apply. It’s not too late, right?

Did you know that you can make water attracted to magnets? It’s true, apparently. Find out how (embedded QuickTime video).

The secret is out? How to Be Charming. Apparently the best place to be charming is at a party because that’s all the article seems to care about. Besides that, step one is to get your life in order, and that could be pretty tough for a lot of people.

One year ago: “I’m truly ashamed of my musical tastes.”
Three years ago: “I’ve never designed a commercial site before, so this will be interesting… not to mention a good way for me to make some money.”

Playing Gaims

These days more than ever, instant messaging has been a staple of my online presence. I’ve figured that I should be in touch with my friends no matter where I am. So, over the summer, I set AOL Instant Messenger to load when Windows starts — there would be no more of this “How come I never see you online” stuff. Besides, I had already configured Skype to load automatically, so it was only logical to do the same thing for AIM.

I also spent a lot of time talking to Luke over the summer. He wanted our conversations to be encrypted, and the most convenient way to make that happen would be for me to get an instant messaging client called Gaim and download an encryption plugin for it. Luke uses Gaim-Encryption with Gaim on Linux, which is really what Gaim is written for. I downloaded the latest Windows release (1.5.0), but I couldn’t install it. The latest beta version (2.0.0beta3), however, installed fine, and I was using Gaim in minutes.

At first I thought that Gaim wasn’t much of an improvement over AIM’s own client, but it does have quite a few nifty features that make it worth using. Most notable among these is its support for multiple clients. You may have accounts for AIM, Yahoo! Messenger, and Google Talk, but with Gaim, you can be signed into all of them at the same time and have a single buddy list. This wasn’t immediately useful because I only really use AIM for instant messaging. However, I remembered that I have a Yahoo! account that I can use with Yahoo! Messenger, so I added that as well. Now people can IM me using either of these screen names, and it will all be cohesive in Gaim.

Some of my friends have accounts on both protocols, and sometimes (if they don’t use Gaim) they may only be using one screen name and not the other. With Gaim it’s possible to group screen names under a single contact with only a few clicks. A similar and tremendously useful feature that I believe is lacking in AIM is the ability to assign aliases to yourself and your buddies. With aliases, you never have to see your or your friends’ screen names; you can see their own names (or whatever you want) in their place. Now that I’m using Gaim, I’ll never suffer that embarrassing problem of forgetting who certain people on my buddy list are. I’ll just assign them an alias whenever I add them.

The buddy list itself has a better interface than AIM’s client. (I can only make comparisons to AIM because I’ve never really used any of the other protocols that Gaim supports.) The default view shows each buddy with a large icon indicating their protocol and status, along with their buddy icon if they have one. By default, they are sorted in alphabetical order by screen name or alias, and offline buddies are not shown, but these options can be changed. Furthermore, if a buddy is away and/or idle, their away message, the amount of time they’ve been idle, or both are shown beneath the buddy’s name. You can hover over the buddy’s name to see their full away message and other details. If you have a lot of buddies online, this view may take up a lot of space, so you can uncheck “Show buddy details” for a more minimalistic look at your buddy list. With this option unchecked, you will only see names, small icons, and, if any buddies are idle, their idle times.

Of course, Gaim supports various statuses such as “away,” “idle,” and “invisible.” Another handy feature that I couldn’t seem to find in AIM’s own client is the ability to change your status to “away” after you’ve been idle a certain amount of time. I’ll never start doing something and then run back to the computer saying, “I forgot to put up an away message!” (That got to be annoying after a while.) The interface for creating an away message is a bit clunky, but that’s not really a problem for me because I only ever use the same two or three away messages. But if you’re called away from your computer in a pinch and you want people to know where you’ll be, you can set your status to “away” and type a short message in the text box that appears at the bottom of the window.

Users of any recent browser (i.e., not IE 6) may be familiar with the concept of tabbed browsing, with which you can view multiple web pages in a single window by switching between their “tabs.” With a nod to the popularity and convenience of this feature, Gaim supports tabbed chatting. If you’re chatting with a bunch of people, you can keep all of the conversations in tabs in a single window so that your desktop doesn’t get cluttered. Each tab has the screen name (or alias) of the person you’re talking to and an icon indicating that person’s protocol and status. The user’s name may change color depending on certain conditions: green if they are typing, yellow if they were typing but have stopped, and red if they have sent you an IM while a different tab was open. That way it’s possible to keep track of your conversations with several people at once.

For those used to receiving an alert whenever certain users sign on, “buddy pounces” are a powerful feature. They’re like alerts, but they’re much more customizable. They generally follow this format: If a certain user does something (signs on, goes away, comes back from idle, etc.), then do something (send a message, play a sound, show a notification, etc.). There are other options, too; for example, you can set them to recur, or they will only happen once. Buddy pounces work on a per-user basis, so I’ve set some up to display alerts whenever the people I talk to the most sign on. I also have a one-time pounce set up to open a chat window with a certain user when she comes back from away. Pretty handy stuff.

My friend Luke has apparently been using Gaim for a long time. I remember him mentioning that he archived all of his chats. It seemed pretty creepy to me. Occasionally he would even produce snippets of conversations from his “creepy archives,” which proved that they existed. However, he later explained that logging conversations is a feature of Gaim, not some vast effort that he slaves away at by himself. You can turn off logging if you want, but it’s handy to see what you’ve talked about with people in the past, especially if you forget. That can be embarrassing as well.

When you install Gaim, you can install a dictionary to be used for its spell-checking feature. I went ahead and did so because you can always uninstall it. I found the spell-checking more annoying than useful, so I disabled the option without uninstalling the dictionary in case I change my mind about it.

Gaim’s features can be enhanced with downloadable plugins. The Gaim-Encryption plugin was the reason I got Gaim in the first place, and it works just fine. I tried downloading another plugin, but it wouldn’t work. Luckily for those who have trouble installing things, there are plenty of plugins (16 to be exact) that come by default with the Windows version of Gaim 2.0.0beta3. One such plugin turns on “psychic mode,” which notifies you when someone is going to start a conversation with you before they actually send their first message. It doesn’t work when Luke IMs me (maybe because of the encryption), but it does in other cases. Another plugin includes Windows-specific options, such as loading Gaim when Windows starts and making chat windows blink when there new messages.

There’s one more thing I didn’t notice right away: unlike AIM, Gaim has no ads.

There are some disadvantages, though. Gaim is really a Linux program, and when you download the Windows build, you’ll probably need to get the version that includes extra software called GTK that powers the Linux-like GUI. I guess that’s not really an inconvenience, because then you can use some other Linux-type programs on Windows also. And even though the interface may look a bit unfamiliar, Windows users should get used to it quickly. Probably the biggest thing to get used to is that there are no “OK” or “Cancel” buttons on the windows, only a “Close” button. That means that any changes you make to the options take effect immediately, so don’t screw up.

I was a bit worried about downloading beta software, because you never know what it might do. Fortunately, because it’s open-source, there aren’t that many bugs, and the ones that do come up can get fixed relatively quickly. I’ve only encountered one bug so far: whenever I try to open the font dialog window, the program crashes. Consequently, I’ve stuck to using the default font.

Overall, Gaim has a number of useful features that make it stand out from whatever official clients you may be using. The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages, creating a better instant messaging experience. I’d recommend it to frequent instant messenger users who want more convenience and extra functionality. To download Gaim 2.0.0beta3, see this page for a list of files. Windows users should download gaim-2.0.0beta3.exe (if you already have GTK installed, download gaim-2.0.0beta3-no-gtk.exe). If you’re not big on betas, you can find the latest stable version here, but remember that it may be very different from the program I’ve just described.

Find out How to Do Nothing at Work and Get Away with It. I’ll attest that finding a hiding place is handy.

One year ago: “What if I could buy the world a Coke?”
Three years ago: “On the first day of school, none of the teachers had any idea why the students would need floppy disks, and no one even knew who put them on the list.”

School: cool?

I’m adjusting to school pretty well. One thing I forgot to mention the day before yesterday is that we have a new principal (maybe because it was inconsequential to my day?). Mr. Bell, who had been the school’s principal long before my freshman year, has retired. Over the summer, his replacement’s name surfaced: Mr. Gordon. Last week, Ms. Vazquez vouched for him but didn’t go into specifics. I thought that that was interesting because she had had a different opinion of Mr. Bell.

On the first day, Mr. Gordon appeared on the morning TV show that our school produces. (That’s right: we’re not Channel One sell-outs… yet.) He basically introduced himself to us. I have to say that he does seem more dynamic than Mr. Bell. He’s even come up with a motto for this school year: “Above and beyond.” I guess he’ll use this platitude to justify every decision he makes. He doesn’t seem that bad, though. I’ve seen him around at lunch, and supposedly he’s sat with students and chatted it up with them. Now there’s a principal who keeps it real. Most teachers and assistant principals, to say nothing of principals, look down their noses at students. (Mr. Firestone, who used to sit with me and some other people at lunch, was an exception. Unfortunately, he’s gotten a job at another school this year.)

It’s sometimes fun to see what policies are enforced at the beginning of the school year; usually, the dress code is on the administration’s collective mind for a few weeks, and then they forget that you’re showing too much skin, young lady. But this year, the big issue was the third floor of the building, particularly, an intersection in the center that involves three hallways and a wide flight of stairs. Apparently they decided that there was too much congestion in that area between classes. Possible solution: accept fewer students? No, no. Just change the traffic patterns and everything will be better, they thought.

The first day of school, the announcement came that if you’re on the east or west wing of the third floor, you can’t use the flight of stairs in the center of the building. I had to go from one wing to the other on the way to my second class, so I just ignored the policy and went ahead. Yesterday, though, they had people stopping people from going through. So in order to go across the building, I first had to go down a different flight of stairs to the second floor, go across the second floor to the middle flight of stairs, go back to the third floor from there, and continue on my merry way. Doesn’t sound too hard, right? Well, it shouldn’t be — unless everyone else is trying to do the same thing. I barely shuffled through the crowds fast enough to make it to class on time. Compounding my fear was the fact that the school has adopted a draconian late policy for this year.

Yesterday afternoon, the Pompano Pulse reported that the restriction would be lifted because it created more problems than it solved. This morning it was officially announced. That’s a big relief.

In other news, Ashley (whom I had the pleasure of meeting last week) sent me a MySpace message saying that she’s not into me and that she wasn’t showing anything to indicate such a feeling. I shouldn’t have jumped to that conclusion. I think a lesson has been learned here: No one is that into me. I shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Man… it’s really hard not to be self-deprecating when stuff like this happens to you all the time.

Tired of looking bad in pictures like me? Here are 5 Steps to Being More Photogenic.

The Fallacy Files is a good place to find flaws in the ways people present their arguments or attack their opponents’ arguments. There’s a large list of common logical fallacies, complete with examples and explanations. Unfortunately, the navigation is horrendous.

Three years ago: “I don’t think the four of us have ever practiced together.”

The beginning of the end of the beginning

“310,” I repeat to myself as I read the sheet of paper posted on the wall. “That’s where my first class will be.” Dodging the bustling crowds of students, I approach a map of the school. Room 310 — the third floor, of course. The class is supposed to be American Government and Economics, but I’m drawing a blank as to where such a class would be found. For reference, what rooms is it near?

Then it strikes me: 307. 309. I have had Spanish classes in those rooms. The French classroom is nearby. It’s the foreign language part of the school. They’re putting me in Spanish after all! How could it be? Well, it’s true that I signed up for it, but I soon realized that signing up for a hard class that I didn’t want to take was a serious mistake. When I checked my schedule online, they only gave it to me for the second semester. It would sure be easier to switch out that way.

My heart starts racing. I can hardly keep my cool, even when talking to friends. How can this be? Am I going to have Ms. Hill, my Spanish I teacher that I didn’t like very much? Will she remember me? Will she speak to me in Spanish? How will I answer? Do I remember how to conjugate the verbs? What about the stem-changing verbs? Will this class really be all year long? When will I be ready to switch out? How much pain is in store for me? These questions race through my mind as the bell rings. And off I go, up the stairs, back to the familiar hallway and around the corner…

I know that what I’m about to see could make or break my day or my year. I see Ms. Hill standing between rooms 309 and 310. I get closer to the door to 310 and read the placard next to it.

Ms. Boudinet
American Government/Economics

So began my senior year of high school this morning. Quite a fright, it was, though I had been relatively calm before that incident — no shaking or anything. Sometimes on the first day of school I shake uncontrollably, so it started out well.

Mandatory explanation of school’s schedule: four “blocks” (classes) per semester, four days of school per week (Monday-Thursday).

After getting into my first block, I heaved a tremendous sigh of relief and took pleasure in seeing so many familiar faces in the classroom. Indeed, it was good to see a lot of people I hadn’t seen for a few months (or a week). Now it’s time to make broad, sweeping generalizations about my teachers based on my first impressions of them. Yay!

Ms. Boudinet seems nice. Anything could be better than taking Spanish, after all.

For my second block, I have Mr. Gates for AP Calculus AB and BC. So I’m taking two years’ worth of high-school calculus in one year. Yay? I had Mr. Gates for Precalculus last year, and he gave the incoming calculus students some work to do over the summer, so we dived right into that.

Then I had lunch. There are enough people I know there, which is good. But they’ve raised the price of lunch from $1.50 to $2.25. Bah!

Third block: Mrs. Mackey for English IV Honors. I had heard of her, but I hadn’t heard anyone’s opinions on her because she only teaches seniors, apparently. I was worried that she might be mean because she’s old, but I was in for a surprise. She seems to be the nicest teacher on the planet. She doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. This should be a good class.

Fourth block: Dr. Singkornrat for Anatomy and Physiology Honors. I’ve never had her, but I’ve heard many, many good things about her over the years, so it didn’t faze me when she seemed to be stern.

Remember how I said I had Spanish next semester but not this semester? I need to do something about that. So after school I talked to Mr. Mumtaz about being his TA (teacher’s assistant). He said that students could only be TAs during second block, which meant that I wouldn’t be able to be one. He did have some good news, though: he said that the administration was looking for “tech kids” to go around and fix peoples’ computers during any block. I signed up for that, and I saw that Brian was the only other person who had signed up. I really don’t know computers that well, but maybe it’ll be an opportunity to learn. Anything could be better than taking Spanish, after all.

And that was my day. Not bad, really; it could have been much worse. The following days should be better as I settle into things.

The other day, I was wondering what you call someone from Edinburgh. An Edinburghite? Edinburgher? Edinburghian? Fortunately, Wikipedia has a long list of adjectival forms of place names. Even though Edinburgh isn’t on the list, there are lots of other names, if you’ve been wondering the same thing.

Watch MADtv‘s Nicole Sullivan and The Colbert Report‘s Stephen Colbert in a Sesame Street segment called “All Star Alphabet” (YouTube video). They play letters “A” and “Z,” respectively.

One year ago: “Today my band, VRT, played probably our last gig.”
Two years ago: “Gosh, I have a lot of relatives. I never realized that until now.”
Three years ago: “However, the film was stuck and everyone was asleep.”