Halloween… e’en

Well, it’s the day before Halloween, making it just about the second most Halloweeny day of the year. It seems to have crept up on me slowly and spookily. It seems like only yesterday when it was two days before Halloween. And I just haven’t had the occasion to get into the Halloween spirit. I’m not sure if Halloween is my favorite holiday, but it’s definitely up there with Thanksgiving (food) and Christmas (presents and food). New Year’s Eve/Day is/are a/some holiday(s) that make(s) me sad.

Anyway, you may be asking what I’m doing for Halloween this year. Well, it might not be much different than last year. I might be handing out candy again, but I think I’ve secured a better gig. Several neighborhoods away, my friend Sean and his neighbors really get into the spooky holiday. Sometimes they even have a block party, but there’s always a Halloween party at Sean’s house, and he’s invited me to come over. Now, by Halloween party, I don’t mean dressing up. From what I recall, the Halloween parties at his house are simply parties that happen to occur on Halloween. Sure, the decor and the food might be Halloween-themed, but I doubt that a costume will be necessary.

Today might have been perfectly banal if it weren’t for a few incidents that I’ll summarize here:

1. I spilled green bean water on my pants
2. My graphing calculator fell out of my backpack, and someone took it
3. Since I had planned on doing my science experiment with Mrs. Zambrano in third block, I got my two English quizzes early and did them in a hurry, but when I went to Mrs. Zambrano, she said she was busy, so I went right back to class
4. We did some weird thing in Anatomy and Physiology where everybody had to ask certain people (myself included) for the answers to some test-type thing, and I had no idea what I was doing

Fortunately, everything turned out fine in the end. The giant spot on my pants dried, a guy in my class returned my calculator, I got 100s on both of the quizzes, and my Anatomy and Physiology teacher loves me. I managed to take today’s tribulations lightly.

This weekend was pretty interesting. I spent the beginning and the end of the weekend with friends. Since there was an early release on Thursday, TJ, Luke, Yamilee, I, and my sister went to Olive Garden for lunch. You should have seen the looks that all the old people there were giving us. A bunch of rowdy hooligan teenagers skipping school! You should have seen the looks on their faces because then you could have told me what they were like. I didn’t see them. We weren’t very rowdy, anyway, and we had fun talking about various things. I’d do it again the next time we get out early.

Over the weekend, Michelle invited me to a concert that she and her boyfriend had won a bunch of tickets to (even though the concert was free?). I didn’t even know who was playing — I asked her, and she told me, and I still didn’t know — but I said I would go anyway. And go I did last night. It was one of those seasonal things that the radio stations throw, so the atmosphere was pretty relaxed. The first act we heard was a quirky fellow named Landon Pigg. His music was so good that it made me depressed about how bad I am with the guitar and songwriting. Oh, and Ace Young was there. Apparently he’s from American Idol? Well, I hadn’t heard of him, but a bunch of fangirls there sure had. We stood right by the stage (there were no seats as it was in a grassy amphitheater), and it was extremely loud, but that was okay. It was still cool being so close to someone with his own Wikipedia article. I had a good time, and it was a good way to end the weekend.

Where else but Wikipedia would you find a list of films with similar themes and release dates?

Hey, look. It’s a lyrics site that’s not encumbered with tons of ads, and it’s a wiki. It’s LyricWiki.

One year ago: “I guess I can’t let myself get beaten down like last time.”
Two years ago: “Coming to the U.S. in 2006, it’s… digital television!”

Thespians

It’s been a busy week. How many times have I said that? Too many times, methinks. But it’s true. Practicing for the Christmas play and going to work have taken a big bite out of my weekend. (Sure, they only occupy Thursday nights and Fridays, but still.)

This week’s practice for the Christmas play — The Year Without a Santa Claus — was particularly enlightening because Reid’s mom was there. You know, Reid, the actor? Reid, the soon-to-be movie star? As you can probably guess, she was there to give us some pointers on our acting. (I couldn’t guess that until she actually did.) Out of all the cast, only one of us has any real experience as a thespian — although some of us have had our share of amateur performances. (Nick, Mark, and I star both in our self-produced Beowulf and in this play. Nick is also directing the play.)

One of Reid’s mom’s first bits of advice was related to singing. I’m singing in this play, and we have no microphones: a recipe for disaster? She basically told me and Mike, who do this really sappy number, to project our voices and not to be so nervous. It sounds obvious, but the way she said it helped. Of course, after the scene, when I was allowed to slink backstage, I was all nerves. Sure, I can sing with a guitar and a band. But singing onstage, along with a backing track, while acting, is another story. It’s something I’ll have to work on, but luckily, I don’t have much to sing.

After our rehearsal, which wasn’t of the entire play (it’s been two months and we’ve never even rehearsed the last scene onstage), Reid’s mom went over the notes she had taken and told us about the idea of developing our characters. The script, being rather lighthearted, is pretty threadbare, she said, and so we should each adopt a different persona to bring our respective characters to life. I guess it’s sort of how actors “channel” various people as their inspiration for roles. (Example: Johnny Depp’s Ed Wood = Ronald Reagan + Casey Kasem + the Tin Man.) As a group, we helped each other sort out the various personas that we would adopt in our performances. Somehow, I (Santa Claus) got saddled with the personality of Eeyore and Rodney Dangerfield. I wasn’t sure how that would work at first, but I think I’ve got it: he’s Eeyore when he’s depressed, and he’s Rodney Dangerfield when he’s too agitated to be simply depressed.

So I’m going to have to spend this week carving out my character and developing his mannerisms. Maybe I should spend a day in character. I don’t think I’d be able to make it without looking like a complete idiot, but Marlon Brando would be proud. Anyway, the least I could do is memorize my lines, which is something I haven’t yet done over the past two months. Time is ticking, as they say (although clocks are really the things that do the ticking).

Last night I spent some time talking to Natasha on the phone, and it was wonderful. It’s nice to hear her voice. I wish I could see her in person. Hopefully sometime.

Today, I didn’t really do anything except program in vain (curse you, GM_xmlhttpRequest) and download Firefox 2. It came out earlier this week, but I was wary of downloading it for fear that my most used extensions wouldn’t be supported. I went and checked to see which ones would be supported, and it turned out that most of them would be, so I went ahead with the download. (Firefox’s “Check for Updates” feature was saying that there were no updates, so I had to download the new version myself.) It’s not much different from 1.5.x, but the difference between 2.0 and 1.5 is 0.5. The main thing I’ve noticed (besides a few annoying things I’ve been trying to fix) is that spell checking is now included. That’s pretty good. There must be some other features that are new… well, not really. Other than that, the only new features or improvements are those that have been covered by extensions in the past. But it’s still good. It’s supposed to be more stable than 1.5, which is fine by me. And since IE 7 was officially released just a few days before Firefox 2, it looks like the Browser Wars are back in full swing, and we’ve got ringside seats.

(Just as I was writing that, I got to experience another of Firefox’s new features: restoring the browsing session after a crash. Thanks, Firefox!)

Apparently Jesus and Mary aren’t the only religious figures making appearances in unlikely places. Here are some miracle photos of Islam.

From The Smoking Gun’s gallery of concert riders, here’s Iggy Pop’s list of demands, which is probably the wackiest you’ll ever see. Apparently written by one of his roadies, it aims to entertain. Don’t forget to read the last page.

Three years ago: “Halloween is Friday and I haven’t even thought about what I’m going to do.”

This little piggy…

What a busy week it has been. To recap:

I don’t remember anything interesting that happened on Monday.

Yesterday was Tuesday. Apparently I’m not as far into the week as I thought. But since we get out for the weekend tomorrow, apparently I am as far into the week as I thought. The big thing to happen yesterday was in my Anatomy and Physiology class, where we dissected fetal pigs. Actual unborn pigs, they were. They were apparently close to being born, because they looked pretty much like piglets, except that they still had the umbilical cords and everything.

I was hesitant at first, as you might imagine, but I partnered with TJ, who was very eager to get to work. The teacher said that anyone wishing to study the health sciences in later years should get a big pig. So TJ asked for one, and this porker was, for being a fetus, pretty big. We got to cutting it right away, and though I was kind of irked at first, I decided that I could handle it. TJ was a bit encumbered by his gloves at first, so he decided that he could handle taking them off. So we cut the pig open and checked out all the internal organs.

The biggest thing I had dissected up to that time was a frog, which was fairly easy because it was small and they had color-coded the organs somehow. Doing a fetal pig wasn’t that much worse, except you had to pay attention to what organ you were poking because they were all pretty much the same dull pinkish-red color. The gallbladder was green, though.

After finding the important organs, we decided to cut out the heart and lungs to have a look. But that wasn’t enough for TJ. He wanted to check out the brain. So we cut off the pig’s head and he basically made his way to the brain while I poked around at the heart, unsure of how best to cut it (I had forgotten how the parts of the heart were situated). While I was thinking about that, I saw TJ working with his hands on the pig’s head and then I heard a cracking sound, and he had gotten to the brain. It wasn’t in good condition by that time, but TJ then set his sights to taking out one of the eyes, so he did that with a considerable amount of difficulty. (People who are afraid of having their eyes scooped out with a knife can be reassured that they are very well connected to their sockets in the first place.)

And that was dissecting a pig. Pretty fun, actually, if you can cancel out the gross factor in your mind. The teacher’s aide in the class took pictures of us doing the dirty work, and today we watched a slideshow of ourselves butchering unborn piglets. It was pretty neat.

My old friend Reid has always been into acting, and in this blog I’ve chronicled his progress on the stage. When I last saw him in July, I had heard that he had been to L.A. — Hollywood, I would assume, to try to establish himself in the biz. Then I got word that he was going to go there for a few more months. I hadn’t heard anything about what he was doing there, but yesterday I heard some good news. He’s landed a role in a movie with Mary J. Blige. Apparently this Untitled Nina Simone Project will be released by MTV Films, making it a Paramount Picture. He has three scenes, which may or may not make the final cut (though they’d probably end up on the DVD). The shoot is in New Orleans next month. In a few weeks he’ll be coming home briefly, probably for his birthday. I’ll have to wish him a happy 18th and best wishes on the movie.

Here’s a gallery of Photochroms, which were pretty much colorized photographs that appeared on postcards around the turn of the century.

It must have been hard to narrow down the list of America’s Dumbest Congressmen to only ten.

Two years ago: “Of course, nothing is guaranteed, so don’t take that statement as guaranteed.”

What’s this?

The holiday crossover classic The Nightmare Before Christmas has been re-released in theaters… in 3-D, no less. And guess who was there on opening day? That’s right: me. What can I say? First of all, the movie itself is great. Sure, it’s a little before my time — I didn’t see it right when it came out in 1993 because I was only four — but I could watch it over and over again. I got the soundtrack for Christmas last year (thanks, Kevin), and I couldn’t stop listening to it. The songs themselves are very memorable and easy to get hooked on. And of course, the stop-motion animation is really captivating, and it suits the story well.

I was really interested in seeing a 3-D movie. I’ve only seen one other movie in 3-D, and that was some kind of nature documentary in IMAX when I was little. I was also interested in seeing how they could take an existing movie and make it 3-D. Though Nightmare was originally released by Disney under its Touchstone banner (too scary for kids, they said), the 3-D version is a full-fledged Disney release, and Pixar gets a credit as well. All I can say from this is that there were some computers involved. The process of 3-D-izing the movie must have been at least as painstaking as doing the original animation itself.

The results were worth it, though. People equate 3-D movies with “things popping out at you,” but there’s nothing in the movie that really pops out of you, and it wasn’t originally made to exploit 3-D technology, so there’s none of that stereotypical stuff. What the movie has is depth. The 3-D effect comes from moving things back. So you can basically think of the movie screen as a glass box with the characters inside. Not that the whole thing didn’t impress me, of course. The 3-D effect was still impressive, and I loved it.

The picture was even more impressive than that, though. I noticed fairly quickly that the movie didn’t suffer the scratches and the occasional blotch in the upper right-hand corner that tells the projectionist that the reel is almost over. It had to have been projected digitally, which is really cool. And I’d also bet that the film was restored (or maybe it’s just been kept in good condition). Combine all those factors on the big screen, and you can bet that no movie has ever looked so good. Watching the film was almost like being on the miniature sets of the movie yourself.

In conclusion: Would I see it again? Yes. It’s worth the extra-expensive admission (because you keep the 3-D glasses, y’know). It really is worth it. Go to one of those “select theaters” and see The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3-D. Now.

Right now my dad’s at his high school reunion. He went to Pompano Beach High School just like I did, and now he and my mom (who met when they were in high school) are at some fancy hotel meeting all their old friends that they made when they were my age. It makes me wonder: who will I see at my high school reunions ten, twenty, and thirty years from now? Who will become a college professor? Who will start a commune on the Left Coast? Who will work at a convenience store? Who will become the leading poet of our time? Who will wind up in jail? Who will cure the common cold? Who will be a movie star? Who will be dead (and hence not at the reunion)? And what will I be doing? Will my old friends remember me? Will we reminisce? Will we laugh, cry? Who knows? It all lies in the future. We’ll just have to make our way there and wait.

The 7 Worst Fonts. Guess which one is at the top of the list.

For those who aren’t up to snuff on etiquette (i.e., everybody), here are some basic tips on tipping.

One year ago: “Nothing has really closed yet, but since the hurricane is so slow, everything is going to close at some point.”
Two years ago: “But these nitpickings shouldn’t get in the way of what I was originally trying to point out: my school flew a country’s flag upside-down.”
Three years ago: “Suprisingly, I haven’t yet been confronted by perky seniors trying to make me participate in whatever activities they need people for.”

Of calculus and calculations

Today was the last day of mid-term exams. I took four exams this week, and I already know how I did on three of them: on the American Government exam, I got an A (no surprise there). In English, I got an A (again, a pretty easy test). And Calculus. I was hoping to get a B on the Calculus exam because I have a B in the class and it seemed like it would be a pretty reasonable grade, right? Some parts of the test were easy, but overall, it was a killer, even though it was multiple choice. I’m surprised that I had enough time to mostly finish. I ended up having to skip some questions, and I was able to get back to some of them; on the other three, I just filled in random answers.

So yesterday I found out what my grade on the exam was. My teacher had everyone’s answer sheets there, all graded by machine. We were supposed to be on our way to our next class, but I stuck around because I really wanted to know, and I would practically die if I weren’t able to find out. He was showing some people their scores, and finally, he got to me. He told me I had a good grade. Then he got my answer sheet, with the score printed on it: 92… an A! I managed somehow to get an A on the Calculus mid-term. Sure, I still have a B in the class, and that’s a disappointment for me, but at least I got an A on the exam, if it counts for anything. Actually, I think that a good exam grade might bring up your class grade, but I can’t be certain. It couldn’t be brought up that high, anyway.

There’s only one exam I’m not sure about yet: Anatomy and Physiology. It was the last (the latter, actually) of the exams I took today, and it occupied quite a bit of my time. But I seemed to know most of the things I needed to know, and the teacher likes me, so I think that one’s going to be okay also. I’ll find out soon enough.

We started riding to and from school with Yamilée on Monday, just as we had planned. But due to this week’s wild and crazy exam schedule, we haven’t been able to get things into full swing yet. Plus, we won’t be able to get rides home with her on Wednesdays, so we’ll perhaps never really get it into full swing. Oh well. At least we don’t have to take the bus.

Yesterday, while the sophomores and juniors were taking the PSAT (another craziness factor in our exam week), the people who weren’t taking the test had to do whatever for the whole morning. In other words, we had to stay in our first period classroom for hours and hours. Luckily, my teacher had some of the school’s laptops in her classroom, so everyone (that is, all ten seniors who bothered to show up at school on time) could entertain themselves during that long, boring time. I spent much of my time Wikipedia-tripping, and I came across the article for the Doomsday method of determining the day of the week.

Now, I’ve written about a different method before, and apparently I barely managed to commit it to memory when it piqued my interest. But it was extremely hard to remember because it was just one big calculation where you have to memorize a set of arbitrary numbers that correspond with the months of the year. I was able to memorize the Doomsday method quickly, and so I was then able to find the day of the week for a given date. Of course, it wouldn’t have been enough to just memorize the algorithm for the Gregorian calendar, so I went ahead and memorized it for the Julian calendar also. (It’s actually easier.) I’ve been captivated by the whole thing since yesterday because I had previously thought that calculating the day of the week was out of my mental reach. It’s not! Plus, you can use your powers to wow your friends!

President Bush has just signed a law that effectively legalizes torture and suspends the right of habeas corpus for “unlawful enemy combatants” — any citizens that the President chooses. With elections coming up, see how your Senators voted on the bill. Keith Olbermann’s commentary (YouTube) on the new law is worth watching.

What would happen if everyone on Earth suddenly vanished without a trace? Although that’s totally impossible, of course, a new article speculates on how long it would take for all traces of today’s human civilization to be reclaimed by the earth’s natural processes.

One year ago: “This hurricane is going to ruin my plans for the weekend.”
Two years ago: “Though the last thing you want to read about here and I want to write about here is politics, this post is intended to be the first in a short series devoted to the U.S. Presidential election.”
Three years ago: “A bomb dug underground had exploded under my feet, and I was decapitated in the blast.”

Exam week

It’s exam week here at Pompano Beach High School, and that means we have two days where we just take tests and go home. Usually those two days are consecutive, but this time around, they’re Tuesday (today) and Thursday. That’s because tomorrow they have to give the PSAT for the sophomores and juniors to take. You know what that means: even more time wasted. Well, it’s wasted for us, anyway. The general consensus among the seniors is that tomorrow is a “senior skip day.” But I’m not participating. Even if I were allowed to, I wouldn’t skip. I’m sure Mr. Gates will be covering new things in Calculus, anyway, and I won’t want to miss that. Besides, I’ve never missed a day of high school, and why should I start now? (Nerd.)

But anyway, my exams for American Government and Calculus were today, so we did some reviewing in those classes yesterday. My American Government teacher just handed out a study guide with a series of numbered statements that read suspiciously like the answer key to the test. There were even some essay topics at the end. In Mr. Gates’s class, we spent most of the time going over previous homework, but toward the end of class, he asked if we wanted to know what kind of stuff would be on the test. So we asked him what would be on the test, and he said that pretty much everything we’ve studied would be on the test.

So the exams for those two classes were today. Government was a piece of cake. Calculus was a bit more challenging. I had recognized some of the problems from previous tests, but they were still somewhat hard to do. Surprisingly, I made it to the end of the test with time to spare, and I had only skipped a few questions, so I started going back to those. I left about three unanswered by the time we had to leave, so that’s not bad, overall. There is a chance I could get an A, but I’ll be happy to get a B. I have a B in the class this semester — worst grade ever — but I’m not making a fuss or anything. I’ve just got to try harder next time.

How about a quick Ask Jordon.

Alfonso: Do you think your pessimistic or cynical, or do you just like to complain about everything in your life?

If you had read maybe two posts that I’ve written, you’d know that I don’t complain about everything in my life and that I don’t like to complain about anything. I try not to be pessimistic or cynical, but I am sometimes, as we all are. At least I don’t presumptuously ask loaded questions to people I don’t know.

You know, that may be the first rude Ask Jordon question I’ve ever gotten (though I can’t be bothered to search the archives). Fortunately, the overwhelming majority of questions are either interesting or completely stupid (that is, amusing). Actually, I don’t like the stupid ones either. You know, where people ask me questions that a 4th-grader would find funny, or when people think I’m Michael Jordan or the entire country of Jordan. For the record, I am neither.

Buying something online and want to be able to visualize how big it is in real life? Sizeasy can help.

Indexed is a blog that features humorous graphs drawn on index cards.

One year ago: “Hope your grandparents didn’t want to buy your pictures.”
Three years ago: “The photos were printed in that year’s yearbook.”

Stream of consciousness III

Woke up this morning, and I had the allergy blues. It was just a little nose thing at first, but over the course of the day, it grew into a big nose thing. I think I’m allergic to dust. It abounds in my room, despite my best efforts. When I have to clean the thing, which is pretty rare of an event, I gear up big time: surgical-type mask and all. Well, I didn’t need one last time, but I would if I had to clean my room right now. I don’t want to think about having to do that.

What a weekend to waste a day, let me tell you. (Yes, I’ve been debilitated enough to do nothing except write in my blog, which requires little to no thinking.) I thought I could pounce on some calculus homework and maybe a college application, but it’ll have to wait till tomorrow. I feel like crud today. (I still say “crud” sometimes. Or “crudbuckets” if something’s really bad and there are people with fragile ears/minds around.)

The past few days haven’t been that bad, though. On Wednesday night I was talking online to Natasha, and we were talking about talking to one another on the phone. We had exchanged phone numbers some time ago, so we were talking about when would be a good time to call. I suggested the next afternoon, but apparently Natasha’s mom egged her on to call me right then and there. Luckily, she has a good long-distance plan, so that kind of thing is okay and actually encouraged.

It was nice to finally put a voice to the face I had seen. She has a nice voice. We talked for about 25 minutes on various things, but it was getting (sort of not really) late, and my sister needed to use the phone to talk to Lisa about every detail of the then-airing episode of Lost during every commercial break.

Last night, we wanted to talk again, and I wanted to be the one to do the calling for a change. (Might as well switch off, right?) I tried using Skype because it would be free to call her phone. It wasn’t until she picked up that I realized that my microphone wasn’t working and it hadn’t told me. That was kind of an embarrassment. I turned off the computer (which itself took forever because Windows needed to install some updates) and nearly killed myself to try to make sure that the microphone was plugged into the right place. It was a real hassle, but it was worth a try. Then I asked my parents if I could call Natasha. (“Who? Oh, the Canadian girl.”) They get very upset at the idea of using our long distance, it seems, so my dad tried to see what was wrong with the mike, but he was stumped.

He did, though, find a calling card for me to use. It had about two minutes left on it, so I talked to Natasha briefly and she said that she’d call me back. And that she did. Meanwhile, my dad, who will really go out of his way to help me out, got a good calling card at some store or something. I look forward to using it in the future. Anyway, on Natasha’s dollar (CDN), we talked for over an hour on various things. What things, you ask? It’s the most interesting part, after all. Actually, I don’t really know what we talked about in particular. Just things. We did compare accents. Our accents are mostly pretty similar, the only differences being in the little things like “about” (“a-boat” vs. “a-bowt”).

Random thought: It’s nice writing about Natasha because her name can be spelled entirely on the home row of the Dvorak keyboard, which I, of course, use.

And that’s that, really. I enjoyed talking to her on the phone, and I hope to do so again soon.

Like microscopic (or at least really close-up) images of everyday things? Check out the Micro Images Blog.

If you’re trying to check out the latest cool link that’s being passed around the blogosphere, and all the traffic has brought it down, you can have l8tr.org send you an e-mail when it’s back up.

Quick (or slow)! To the Stop-Every-Five-Seconds-Mobile!

It’s hard to get a ride these days. It wasn’t always that way, though. When my sister and I started high school, we struck a deal with our neighbors. We would take Katherine to school, and Katherine’s mom would take us home from school. It certainly beat riding the bus. And that’s the way it’s been almost every school day for over three years. Then, last week, Katherine’s mom said that Katherine would be driving herself to school soon, and because Katherine was no longer riding home with us these days, we really weren’t necessary and would be dumped. She said that in so many words, anyway.

So since then there’s been a frenzy to find a new ride lest we have to take the school bus. (I won’t stand for it. There are too few hours in the day as it is; I don’t need to go home from school everyday in a big, clunkety-clunk stop-every-five-seconds-mobile that high-schoolers my age shouldn’t have to ride because high-schoolers my age should be driving themselves to and from school, and those who don’t are often rejected by their peers.) A lot of people we know that live in the neighborhood have other commitments or are already always driving us places (thanks, Kevin). Luckily, my sister happened to discover that Yamilée lived nearby and that she really hates having to ride the bus to and/or from school. Sounds like a match! Starting next week, we have a new ride… except on Wednesdays. And next Tuesday and Thursday are exam days, so we get out early, and the schedule is all out of whack. Perhaps it’s more suitable to say that we have a new ride on Monday. I don’t know how the rest of next week is going to work out.

Yesterday I got my ACT results in the mail. Score: 32. Not bad if you consider that it’s out of a possible 36. Time for a pat on the back.

Let’s answer some Ask Jordon.

Rena: Have you completely given up on wheresgeorge now? :)

Sort of. I haven’t sworn the site off, but I haven’t really found much interest in it lately, either. I think it started when they switched from old-school WWWBoard message boards to complex, newfangled PHPbb-like boards. Also, I started to spend a lot of time on my own site, and besides that, it just kind of got old after five years. I may get back into full swing sometime, though.

Sydney: Do you know anything that i could demonstrate in front of my class?Like something to bake?

There’s always chili. But seriously, I don’t really know of anything that would be quick to bake and particularly interesting to a class. I guess it depends on what kind of class it is. What are you teaching? I assume it’s a home ec class (or maybe science), but you never know. Send me an e-mail or another Ask Jordon question; I’d be interested in helping you out.

The Washington Post reports on the death of cursive, brought about by the need to study “more important” things and hastened by the onset of the personal computer. It’s really a shame. I think handwriting is really nice, if you haven’t noticed by looking at this site’s header. I hope it sticks around for a while.

Nineteenth-century philosopher + unfunny comic strip = The Neitzsche Family Circus.

One year ago: “Symbolism and I don’t get along very well.”
Two years ago: “As I sang and played, the class either ignored me or just watched with amusement.”

And a homecoming queen

The homecoming dance was last night. At the homecoming game on Friday, TJ Bowman and I had secured a ride with Mike. I spent most of Saturday doing nothing in anticipation of the dance (in which I might also do nothing). The three of us decided to go out to a restaurant beforehand because we figured that there wouldn’t be anything you could make a meal of out of the dance. We went out in Mike’s Jetta and went to Ruby Tuesday, being very careful not to make a mess on our fancy clothes. Yesterday also happened to be Mike’s 18th birthday, so the least TJ and I could do was split the check (and not tip it off to the waiter, who would surely embarrass Mike with a song and a free dessert).

After stopping at a gas station for gum (gotta freshen your breath in style, you know), we made our way to Bahia Mar, right on the beach in Ft. Lauderdale. It took us a while to get there because of traffic and because it was farther away than I expected. We were about a half an hour late (it was supposed to start at 7), but there were lots of people there who were in line to present their tickets and IDs. Lisa, Kevin, and my sister were there — they had gone as a group. Andrew was wearing a dashing suit and fedora that he had also worn for Character Day. Mark, Nick, Vivy, and Julie apparently went as a group too. Ed, who loves the color orange, wore an orange suit. He’s allowed to do that because he’s Ed. You just have to know him.

And then we made our way in. The ballroom was pretty small, I guess, but the dance floor was even smaller. The theme of the dance was “A Night at The Palms.” I guess The Palms is a casino? Anyway, the decor was generally fancy. There were big tables everywhere where you could eat your little finger foods (that they were serving in another room for some reason). For the most part, they were empty, because a lot of the people were dancing. I should have known that they would play all rap/hip-hop/R&B-type stuff, deviating from this formula only to play “Electric Boogie” (a.k.a. “The Electric Slide”). Needless to say, I didn’t dance. I did socialize, though. While inside, I encountered a lot more people, including Justin, who I hung out with a bit.

Yes, it appears that I forgot the Two Rules for Enjoying Oneself at a Dance:

1. You have to be able and willing to dance.
2. You really should have a date or something.

I didn’t meet either of these requirements, so I spent much of my time sitting around and talking to TJ or watching people dance. I took some pictures, and some pictures were taken of me. Kristen and Kelsey went wild when they saw me — I guess people wouldn’t expect me to go to homecoming. At one point, Ed decided he was thirsty, so he went to some empty tables and chugged all the glasses of water. He’s allowed to do that because he’s Ed.

Over the course of the evening, some people left, including Kevin, Lisa, and my sister. As time dragged on, I wanted to go too, but Mike was having too much fun with some girl he had just met. He danced with her the whole night. Finally, around midnight, they turned on the ugly fluorescent lights, and everybody started to leave. No afterparties for us: we went right home, and that was fine with me.

So that was homecoming. It was nice to see (some of) my friends dressed all nice and everything, but I probably wouldn’t go again (unless I happened to meet either of the Two Rules). Prom, however, is a different story. I imagine that a lot of my friends will be there (am I right, guys?) And come on, you’ve got to go to your senior prom. I think it says so in the Seventeen Rules for Enjoying Oneself in High School.

Web 2.0 at its best: Movietally is social networking plus movies. You list the movies you’ve seen, and it will give you recommendations for similar movies. I’ll really have to check this site out in depth. After all, I once kept a list of movies that people recommended to me, but now I can do the same thing online. (Also: it’s in beta!)

When you just can’t pick a restaurant, there’s Lunch Slots. Just enter your US zip code, and the site will search through independent establishments and national chains to give you three random recommendations for local restaurants. You can even send an invitation to a friend via the website. (I guess that’s for like when you’re at work or something and everyone in the office is slaving away at their computer.)

Two years ago: “You’re probably wondering if I’ll be going to the Homecoming Dance, which is pretty much what this week has been leading up to. The answer is a zuquardic ‘no.’”

To a daydream believer

The last day of Homecoming Week was Thursday. The seniors were supposed to wear gold, but I didn’t have anything that was gold, so I wore a brown shirt. It soon dawned on me that brown is simply what we call dark gold. That’s what I told the many people who chastised me for not wearing my class’s color. (It seems that brown is actually dark orange, anyway, so I stand corrected.)

Yes, I could have gotten a class shirt. It was gold, and it said “W.W.S.D. What would seniors do? Get crunk!” Apparently the slogan “Kiss our class goodbye” was rejected by the administration, but because they don’t know what “crunk” means yet, they let that one pass. In fact, nobody really seems to agree on what “crunk” means or how it came about — it has to do with partying somehow — but I think it’s no coincidence that it rhymes with “drunk.”

Anyway, I’m glad I didn’t get a class shirt because they listed the seniors’ names on the back, and they grossly misspelled my name. My name is Jordon, okay? Spelling it “Jordan” is not gross. Spelling it “Ordon” is gross. Ordon Kalilich. And of course, Luke and Brian won’t let me hear the end of it. I shouldn’t have told anyone.

On Thursday afternoon we had another pep rally, where they announced the winning people of the homecoming court… except for the King and Queen, of course. That would have to wait for the homecoming game. On Thursday night, I went out with some people, and we happened to meet Brittnay, who told us who had been voted Homecoming King and Queen.

And yesterday was the homecoming football game. Well, it started with a parade in the late afternoon, and that was pretty interesting. The band was there, of course, and so were some of the clubs and things. Each being driven in an individual car were the principal, the mayor of Pompano Beach, and the county superintendent of schools. There weren’t many people there to watch the parade, but more people started coming later for the tailgate party. I also happened to notice that there was a car by the field that was painted with our opponents’ colors. Ah yes, a homecoming tradition.

That’s when I ran into Andrew and Tyler, who wanted to go to a McDonald’s a few blocks away. We did that, and then we sneaked under the bleachers so we wouldn’t have to pay for a ticket to the game. There was only one problem: we were an hour early. I got kind of bored around there, and I didn’t want to get caught sneaking in when I could have paid for a ticket, so when the football teams and the cheerleaders were warming up out there, I nonchalantly made my way back to the parking lot where everyone was.

There I saw Kelly, a girl in my English class who had run for Homecoming Queen. A few weeks before, she had asked me to vote for her, and I said I would, even though she said it was a long shot. But I didn’t vote for anyone, and I had just found out that she hadn’t won. So it was kind of saddening to see her dressed up so nice and smiling.

Eventually, the football game started. I sat with Andrew and Tyler, who said that they got caught by a teacher after I left. He asked if they were drinking, and they said no, they were just working the concession stand. So he told them to go to the stand and followed them there. Then Andrew excused himself to go to the bathroom, and Tyler, who actually used to work at the concession stand, handled things smoothly. It turned out that someone had gotten caught drinking earlier, which made the teacher suspicious.

The game was exciting at first because there was a chance that we could win. About halfway through, I looked into the distance at the car that was painted with the other school’s colors. It was upside-down now, and people were whacking at it with sledgehammers. I think they were also slashing it with knives. But the antics weren’t limited to the area outside the track. At one point, a couple guys streaked across the field, but I think they were wearing Speedos or something, so I wasn’t completely scarred. It was fun to watch all the school administrators go after them in their golf carts.

And of course, after they crowned the Homecoming King and Queen during halftime, there was no chance of our team winning. They were down by 20 then — it was 20-0. In the second half, the other team scored another 10 points, but they let us get a touchdown within the last 90 seconds of the game, so the final score was 30-6. It was the fourth time I’ve seen my school’s team play, and I have yet to see them win.

Overall, it was a fun experience. I think I said I’d never been to the homecoming game, but I remember now that I did go two years ago. One thing I haven’t done, though, is go to the homecoming dance. That’s tonight. I don’t really know what to expect, but I’ll find out soon enough.

The best of YouTube: Weatherman vs. cockroach.

Could you pass the US citizenship test? Have a look at some questions (and answers).

One year ago: “Now, I present to you the first monthly interview.”
Three years ago: “It’s a laugh-a-minute, feel-good, insert-other-cliché-here type of film – probably one of the best comedies of the year.”