Category - Programming

Yesterday this e-mail rolled into my now squeaky clean inbox.

Yes! The Dvorak Keyboard and You has been updated relatively recently, if only slightly. (See the page for information on the Dvorak keyboard.) I guess that does boost its reliability in the eyes of readers, especially because many Dvorak-related sites are old and derelict. Anyway, I replied thus:

If nobody out there in Internet-land can recommend a good Spanish Dvorak tutor, I figure I could generate lists of words and things like that. After thinking about it for a second, I've realized how it could be done. Plus, it would give me a good opportunity to exercise my Visual Basic prowess (heh, that's a good one) during a time when I've been immersing myself in JavaScript. If we go through with this, we could even post the tutorial on the web for any other Spanish speakers who want to use Dvorak(esque) layouts.

"What happens when an English phrase is translated (by computer) back and forth between 5 different languages?" So ponders Carl Tashian, the creator of Lost in Translation, an exercise in machine translation gone wrong. Just feed it some text and watch as it gets translated back and forth between various languages. Here's how it mangles this paragraph.

On a more comprehensible note, Tashian is related to Barry Tashian, a member of The Remains, a band that opened for The Beatles during their 1966 American tour, which was their final tour. Way cool.

How much do you know about major world religions, belief systems, and philosophies? Find out by reading the Big Religion Chart.

By the way, totally check out One Day in the Desert: Special Director's Cut and leave some love on its Google Video page.

One year ago: "This book has once again confirmed my suspicion that I'm a horrifyingly slow reader."
Two years ago: "Well, it's probably all right because their legal department must have given it some thought!"

Whoowee. There's nothing like a little late night programming to get the juices flowing. Well, not really. Yesterday after uploading my fourth Greasemonkey user script to userscripts.org, I decided it would be a good idea to make my own little namespace for them all. So I've created a Greasemonkey page that has links to the scripts and an explanation of what Greasemonkey and user scripts are.

All the scripts I've successfully written are really simple. But last night, I got an idea for another one that would take some effort. It would be for MySpace, and it would hide links to bulletins posted by certain friends. I spent two and a half hours working on it. After the first hour or so I got it working on the main home page, or so I thought, but I spent the rest of the time trying to get it to work in the expanded list of bulletins. I learned how to use JavaScript to remove rows from a table, but I couldn't remove the right rows. I know it sounds so simple, but it wasn't... for me. The script would remove the first bulletin successfully, but after that it might leave some that it was supposed to get rid of or vice versa. See, it would count which row the bulletin was in and then remove that row. But after that, the table would have a different number of rows, so if it kept chugging along, the numbers would be all out of whack. I tried everything I could think of to get the counter not to increment after removing a row, but the result was the same.

So, after two and a half hours, it was almost 1:30 in the morning, so I decided to hit the hay. I hadn't given up, though. I woke up a little after 7:30, probably because it was hot and bright and noisy and I was uncomfortable in bed -- not to mention that I had had unsettling dreams about my malfunctioning script. Even after a frustrating session of programming and so little sleep, I thought I could continue. I went back to the computer, which had hit a snag while shutting down and was still on. After spending some time trying different ways to fix the problem, I gave up. Then, because I was so tired, I tried to take a nap, but I never can, so I decided to tackle my problem from the opposite direction by guzzling a can of soda. Maybe I'll read this in a few months and get inspired to give the script another whack. After all, it is potentially useful. Another idea I had was to filter bulletins with certain words in their titles. That would be just as much work, if not more.

Anyway, there's a lesson to be learned here, and that lesson is this: if you try to do something, try really hard until you have no choice but to give up.

Gabbly is a pretty cool site that allows you to have a live chat with other people who are viewing any web page. Go to the site to see what I mean.

How much do you know about atheism and atheists? This YouTube video, "Atheist," challenges the popular notion that atheists are horrible people. I recommend that everyone watch it.

One year ago: "I don't know what beer tastes like."
Two years ago: "In my June 22 post, I talked about the Linux operating system and listed four reasons why I might someday switch to it."

One of the things I love about Firefox is how customizable it is. You can download all kinds of extensions that put the power of browsing into your own hands. Greasemonkey is an extension that allows you to run bits of JavaScript called user scripts to alter the appearance/functionality of web sites.

Yesterday I was trying to watch a movie trailer on IMDb when I encountered an annoying commercial that you had to watch before the trailer started. I looked at the source code of the page and wondered whether I could write a Greasemonkey user script to skip the ads. I had already authored a script to skip the full-page ads on IMDb, but it was a slightly modified version of a script by someone else. The truth is, I know very little about JavaScript, but that only drove me to work harder toward my goal: to get rid of those stupid commercials.

After becoming familiar with IMDb's code, all I pretty much did was look at various tutorials and scripts to see how to do what it was that I wanted. I noticed that if you aren't running JavaScript for some reason, IMDb will play the trailer without the ad. All I had to do, then, was get rid of the iframe containing the ad and then delete the <noscript> tags that surrounded the code for the trailer. It took me a couple of hours, but I got a working version that I posted to userscripts.org. Later I found a problem: not all of IMDb's trailers are preceded by ads, so my script was getting rid of legitimate trailers that had no commercials before them. Somehow I knew exactly how to fix that, so I quickly posted a revision. It's all good now.

Here's a link to the script's page on userscripts.org. Or, if you want, here's a direct link: IMDb No Ads Before Trailers. And to think I did this all by myself. I didn't know I had it in me. I guess some basic programming knowledge and a slightly less than foggy understanding of JavaScript can go a long way.

If you find the comics page a little stale these days, check out some cool comics mashups at BetterComix. I seriously had to keep myself from laughing out loud at some of them.

Eighty people go into a Best Buy in New York dressed in blue polo shirts and khaki pants, just like the employees. Hilarity ensues.

Two years ago: "I hate when boring adults make web pages that they say were typed by their babies or pets."

Though it's almost summer, to me it's time for spring cleaning. I've been told in very stern terms to clean my room and to have a plan for undertaking the effort. All of my various drawers are full of junk, so the excess junk is sitting on top of things, on the floor, and in the closet. I figured that my plan would be to empty out the drawers first so that I could have a place to put the other various things. Yesterday I started on the smallest drawer: the one in my desk above where the chair goes. Throwing away things, setting stuff aside to be recycled, and figuring out which things to save or give away took about an hour. I spent a lot of that time sneezing. I should probably do some more cleaning today; after all, the contents of the drawer that I haven't thrown away are now also on the floor along with a rather large garbage can.

I also decided it would be a good idea to clean out my inbox, which had 99 e-mails in it, going back 18 months. For a long time on my QWERTY/Dvorak Comparison page I requested readers to write a program that would implement my scoring system. Among my many e-mails I finally rounded up all of those programs, which had been sent to me as long ago as January 2004 and as recently as last week. So now all of those programs are available for download. I haven't run any of them except the C++ version, which is ready to go as an .exe. It's simple and quite nice. Since I posted that request for programs, I actually learned how to program, so I could probably achieve what I had in mind with Visual Basic (the only language I know that well). Nobody likes Visual Basic, though, and the resulting program would probably be big and slow.

I did a few minor things, including small additions and corrections to "Click Here" Around the World, changing some links on The Dvorak Keyboard and You, and updating Dvorak Anywhere for really the first time since I first posted the page in November 2002 (before The World of Stuff even existed). I had previously written, "For the ultimate in portability, you could save this web page on a disk and take it with you anywhere you might need it." Dated, huh? I changed "a disk" to "an external hard drive" to reflect the changing times. (Ironically, there sits before me a floppy disk I used in 2003 that was unearthed in my room yesterday.) By the way, that's the reason the design of Dvorak Anywhere remains so spare, with only one image. It's so you can save it easily.

What's next? I've also received a lot of images of coins to be included on flipacoin.net over the past two years. Luckily, I made it easy to add new coins to the site -- if I recall correctly. (Thanks, PHP!) The biggest task, then, is cropping the coin images and converting them to GIF format. (I should probably change them to PNGs, but then I'd have to do that for all of the images on the site. Ugh.) I'll fit in the coin images that are of sufficiently good quality. In fact, that site could use a little bit of a redesign as well. I think I just need to get rid of the horizontal rules and the tables.

In conclusion, now is a good time to check out the rest of the site if you didn't even know there was a rest of the site.

Tropical Depression One is now Tropical Storm Alberto (soon to be Hurricane Alberto, probably), and we're at the very edge of its grasp. It's been overcast and windy today, just like yesterday. The sky is solid gray. Luckily, there's no lightning like there was yesterday. It looks like this is going to continue for a few days at most, and by then, Alberto will have passed by.

I've commented on the signs they have in airports that prohibit "making any jokes or statements regarding bombs." Ah, First Amendment, what have they done to you? Anyway, apparently some improv comedians took note of those signs too; they reacted by dressing up like cops and keeping watch over a No Joking Zone in a public square. Amazingly, some people (hopefully only a few) bought it.

The Pak-Lite is a little LED flashlight that consists of little more than the 9-volt battery that powers it. I imagine it would be pretty handy, but with their prices ranging as high as $29.99, they seem pretty expensive for tiny flashlights. Oh well; that doesn't stop me from wanting one anyway. It is hurricane season, after all, and who knows when we may need them?

One year ago: "As we embarked, it got unbelievably rainy. It turns out that we were being hit (though not directly) by Tropical Storm/Depression Arlene."
Two years ago: "Included are lots of big words and numbers named after dead guys."

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."

It's been nearly a year since I began studying the constructed language Esperanto. So, how's that Esperanto thingy going? Last summer I studied from a book, and since then I've read some literature, magazines, and web sites while listening to videos, music, broadcasts, and podcasts in the language. Even so, I've spent little time actually writing in Esperanto and even less time speaking it (to whom am I to write or speak, after all, besides myself?). Skype might be a good way to practice those skills, but it will probably be tough to find good people to talk to if it's so hard to find people to speak to you in pretty good English. I might start in chat rooms before moving on to voice chat.

Even with this lack of practice, I can speak pretty decently, as I found out the other day in programming class when I started spouting Esperanto for no good reason that I can remember. I was just saying basic things, but Gilbert was floored by my level of fluency (if you could call it that), so that was kind of cool. I still have a long way to go. A cool thing for an Esperantist to do -- something that usually grown-up-types with money do -- is to attend an Esperanto event and speak with people from around the country or world as equals, often without even knowing where they're from. And then there's the Pasporta Servo, a guide for Esperanto-speaking travelers who want to stay at other Esperantists' homes, thereby saving money, experiencing the area like the locals do, and making friends. A good way to start at all this would be to take one of those summer courses in Vermont. Someday, perhaps.

You know what's fun? Looking up the names of your teachers at the county's Clerk of the Courts web site. Many of them are in the database, usually for petty things like traffic tickets. For example, one of my teachers is currently fighting a speeding ticket, and another got a ticket last year for making an "improper left turn." I also uncovered things I didn't want to know, such as the fact that one of my former teachers might be a felon. Still, it's an interesting use of public records. Look to see if your area court has these records on the web. Finding dirt on your friends, family, and coworkers can be fun!

There are times when I really want to use JavaScript to write Greasemonkey user scripts. I knew I should have learned it years ago.

Top 10 Movies That Went Wrong. First on the list is The Conqueror (1956), which was responsible for the deaths of its stars and much of its crew. And it wasn't even that good, supposedly. Come on... the Duke as Genghis Khan?

Worldmapper is a site with lots of cartograms. These particular cartograms are maps of the world in which the countries are resized on the basis of population or other statistics. Countries with larger populations (or whatever) appear larger on the map.

Two years ago: "What I mean is, what do you say when this mysterious guy who created everything, this guy who you talk to to receive terse but wise answers - they are similar in that sense - wants to drop by your house?"

Now that it's getting late in my junior year of high school, the questions seem to be more and more frequent: "What do you want to do?" "Where are you going to college?" And I have to find out soon. But what am I going to do? I don't know where I want to go to college, and I can't really care about that until I know what I want to spend the rest of my life doing. After all, different colleges are better in certain areas, I've been told. You wouldn't go to X University to study Y, and things of that nature.

Unfortunately, I'm going to have to make a decision about college (relatively) fast, and that means I'm going to have to make a career choice even faster. When you're under such pressure, you really shouldn't be making decisions like how you're going to fritter away eight hours five days a week for forty to fifty years. Your career and the college you go to in order to make it a reality determine just about everything you do for the rest of your life. How much money you make, where you work and live, and even whom you marry can be influenced by the experiences (and pieces of paper) you obtain in higher education.

This is where I'm stuck. How do I want to seal my fate? I'm having a tough time with it all. I hear about interesting adults who are doing whatever they're doing today because they were interested in it when they were teenagers or kids or toddlers. That kind of thing makes me sad because I don't really have much of my own interests to draw from when making a career choice. I like playing the guitar. Bzzt, sorry. I... sit around on the computer? And write things? Yes, that's true. I also enjoy computer programming. Well, I like my programming class, anyway.

But here's what's wrong with those choices. Writing is a fiendishly difficult business, one in which no one ever makes much money. I've tried writing fiction. In the past few months I've tried to write two novels and an anthology. I get a lot more practice with nonfiction, like this piece you're reading now. But how am I to make a living writing about wondering how I'm to make a living? Just because I blog doesn't mean I'd be able to write a newspaper column or anything (although that might be cool). And there's little chance I'd be able to get paid or earn my own income like some of the big-time blogger sell-outs. You know who you are!

And then there's computer programming. Some might say to me, "BUT JORDAN YOU LOVE COMPUTER PROGRAMMING WHY DONT YOU DO THAT AS A FULL TIME CAREER YOU ARE SO GOOD AT IT LOOK AT THIS HANGMAN GAME YOU MADE," but then I'd cut them off and remind them exactly how long it took to make that game (though I am proud of it). The truth is, I've gotten into programming much too late to achieve greatness. If I were to have any chance of rising above the rank of the lowly office peon, I'd have needed to begin my foray into programming at the age of, say, 11, by teaching myself, say, C. I don't know C. I'm pretty good with Visual Basic .NET, which is useless, and I can barely scrape by in PHP, which is like C but not.

I just mentioned that achieving greatness was a priority for me. By this, I mean emerging in some way as an accomplished leader figure like those who live in the history books. I don't want to be trapped in some job I hate making some inadequate amount of money. It's true that I want to do what I love, but I also want to achieve success, and I don't think that's so much to ask. I want to be the best at whatever I decide to do, maybe even if it doesn't pay a lot of money (maybe). I want to be a success in my career and in life. But before I can, I have to decide what that career will be and whether I will be able to excel in it. If I don't make it that far within the next few months, then all this pressure leads me to believe that I can only hope for a life filled with disappointment and obscurity.

Zillow.com bills itself as "Your Edge in Real Estate," and it is just that. For free, and without registering, you can find the value of virtually any home. I found out that my house is worth over $470,000. The site also has charts and graphs of each house's value over time, and disturbingly accurate facts like the date it was last sold, the year it was built, its area, and how many bedrooms and bathrooms it has.

The Ahhhhhh Page (warning: large) is a page that attempts to track the frequency of variations of the word "ahhhhhh," such as "ah," "aaaah," and "aaaahhhhhhhhh." The number of Google's search results for each variation is displayed in a large table (more like a grid) that allows you to find the frequency of a combination of a's and h's rather easily... if you wanted to know.

Today I got a large envelope in the mail from Russia. I had no idea what it was until I opened it and saw some familiar words. It contained two issues of La Ondo de Esperanto ("The Wave of Esperanto"), a magazine I had subscribed to a few months ago. I've read a little bit of it, and it seems pretty interesting. It includes news about the Esperanto movement, interviews, letters, and original fiction.

I've been studying and using Esperanto since the end of May, which, I am surprised to find out, was a whole ten months ago. Since finishing my book, Teach Yourself Esperanto, I've been continuing my education mainly by reading news sites such as Ĝangalo. I've also listened a bit to Ĉi Tie Nun, a podcast that covers weird news from around the world. Most importantly, however, I've been trying to think in the language. I constantly try to translate what I think and hear in English. I should probably try thinking straight in Esperanto, though. That will take a little more work. Also on the agenda is improving writing, speaking, and my vocabulary. Hopefully I'll be able to achieve a good level of fluency eventually.

Yesterday I had what could be the best ice cream in the world. It was a flavor called Cappuccino Fudge Blitz. I love coffee-flavored ice cream, and I love fudge, so you can just imagine the goodness. And what a blitz it was. That stuff could conquer Poland any day.

And now, three Ask Jordons.

Luke: What was on the All Your Base Are Belong to Us page? Also: do you heart library scientists?

The All Your Base Are Belong to Us page had a few images badly photoshopped to include the phrase. Also: not especially.

catherine: Do you know any single men between the ages of 18-23?

No.

ng: what is the longest word that can be typed with only 1 row

To find relevant QWERTY statistics, I did a little research and found that the longest words typed on a single row are "perpetuity," "proprietor," "repertoire," and "typewriter," all 10 letters long. I tried going through the Dvorak list manually, but it was so long that I gave up. Instead I wrote a quick (ha!) and dirty program to do all the work. It determined that "instantaneous" (13 letters) is the longest. That word also describes how long it took the program to figure out the answer. I love computers and they rule the world.

Here's a gallery of aerial photographs of Mexico City, one of the world's largest cities.

And here's how to fold paper into a secret note square. According to the page, "some people have trouble opening this type of note, so it's perfect for passing secret notes to your friends." If they can open it, that is.

One year ago: "Once you have a good set of filters, it's truly amazing to see the Internet in a whole new light -- and it's much more fun than simply avoiding sites that have annoying ads."

As of yesterday, it's now a new semester with almost all new classes. So it's time to compare my predictions from the other day with how my new classes actually are.

First block, Programming II, is taught by Mr. Mumtaz, whom I had for Programming I. We got right into things yesterday by learning basic things about databases and linking them to programs. The classroom is about half-full, and there are actually students in Programming II, III, and IV (which just goes to show that Web Design, the other option, is much more popular). Today we didn't work much because we listened to some people talk for some school "technology fair." There were a manager from BellSouth, a programmer who had started a local computer business, a professor from DeVry University, staff artists from the newspaper, a guy who designed TV spots, and a guy who worked for a security camera company. Whether their presentations in class comprised the entire technology fair remains to be seen.

Second block is still AP Euro, a class I've already had during the last semester. So, we're continuing our study of the history of Europe. Right now we're on the Industrial Revolution and how it created the gritty, impoverished working class. It kind of makes me sad thinking about all those people who suffered at the hands of the greedy bourgeois factory owners, who essentially became the new nobles. The working class themselves became the new peasants. (The old nobles and peasants just kind of faded away, I guess.) And it kind of makes me bored having to hear about obscure and not-so-obscure theorists who all wrote their own books about how they could improve the situation for the workers (or for the bourgeoisie).

Third block is Pre-Calculus. We're going over basic material right now, and though I was rusty at first, I'm glad we're going over it. I'd been told that Mr. Gates was boring, and he might just be. I guess it's hard for me to tell. The way he speaks sounds like he tries to make things interesting, but it fails on many people. If he is in fact boring, it's in an entertaining way (à la many or all of Ben Stein's acting roles).

I have B lunch, which is in the middle of third block. Yesterday I remembered what I like about B lunch: nothing. I was practically the last person to get lunch, thanks to taking the wrong way down the stairs. I fared better today, though. I've also realized that I can't really bring a healthy snack to lunch without having to carry it all the way, so I just might do without it if I can.

Anyway, back to third block. (See how annoying that is?) I guess I'll get better at math. I really need to improve in time for the SAT. Luckily, we're doing a bit of SAT practice in class, and on today's bit, I got all of the questions right. They were easier than I thought they'd be, actually.

Moving along to fourth block, I have American History Honors. The teacher, as I expected, is Mr. Weigel. It turns out that he seems to be a pretty swell guy. He's young, cool, and rather understanding on most fronts (though very tough on the ones that really matter, such as cheating). In those ways, I guess he's like the Mr. Firestone for the new generation. Today he started by asking for gossip about the other teachers and asked for our opinions on which were good and bad. Later, he was going over what it means to be American and, conversely, what it means to be un-American. To him, un-Americanness includes trying to kill the President, committing treason, being a communist, desecrating the flag, and refusing the draft. I would beg to differ on the last two points, and maybe on being a communist. But this is not a political blog, so I won't dwell on that.

All in all, this semester is off to a good start.

One Ask Jordon today.

Peter: Do you use PHP includes on your site? If so, have you ever had problems with includes withen folder directories? If so, how did you resolve this?

Yes, I use them, and the trick to fixing them relies on the issue between absolute and relative paths. If you use absolute paths, you should be able to use the same paths in any document. However, relative paths are shorter. If the page is in the main directory (which is the location of header.html), I simply refer to the file as "header.html"; in other directories, I refer to it as "../header.html" (perhaps only one leading period is necessary; it may depend on how much of a difference there is between the two directories).

Here's a large animated GIF showing the evolution of the Latin alphabet.

Here's a video that showcases computer magic (Quicktime, sound) used in commercials. If you saw a few of the finished products, you might never guess that they were created digitally. Snappy soundtrack, too.

The new semester begins tomorrow. Instead of having to put up with the usual four-day week and worry about four new classes, I only have to put up with a two-day week and worry about two new classes. That's good, but nobody seems to understand how good it is to me. Apparently I'm the only person who gets nervous about having new classes. Anyway, here's my schedule. I don't have to worry about the first two because Programming I was easy, and I've already been in AP Euro this past semester.

1. Programming II
2. AP European History
3. Pre-Calculus
4. American History Honors

Programming II is taught by Mr. Mumtaz, who also teaches Programming I. (Hi Mr. Mumtaz, if you still read this.) I had Programming I the first semester of last year, so it's been an entire year since I've had that class. I haven't touched programming much during that time, although I have installed Visual Studio .NET on my own computer and hammered out a few things. It might be hard to remember some of the syntax and stuff, but I guess there will be some sort of refresher, and I can probably get back into thinking like a programmer pretty easily.

AP Euro continues as usual. We had to read a chapter over the long weekend. I read it today. I think there's going to be a test on it tomorrow.

I'm pretty sure that for Pre-Calculus I'll have Mr. Gates, because he seems to teach all the higher-level math classes. Everyone says he's boring, but I don't know. He kind of seems that way -- I've heard him talk -- but I guess it's hard to be exciting if you're talking about math. I haven't been in a math class since the end of last semester, so I'm pretty rusty. I have a feeling I'll be really bad at first, but I shouldn't feel that way. I hope I can at least get to the level of the SAT before I take it on January 28. That's what I need to focus on.

As for American History, I'm not sure which teacher I'm going to have, but I know that Luke from AP Euro is going to be in the class. From what I understand, this American History class is kind of intensive, but if I'm doing well in AP Euro, it shouldn't be that much of a problem, I guess. Have I got a thing for history? I don't know.

In other news, I decided the other day that I should write a book. See, Luke is writing a book that connects the songs of the Grateful Dead to Eastern religion philosophy. He's using this self-publishing-type service. I figure I can probably work on a book of poems and short stories. So I've started it and I've been working on it over the past few days. I think it's going to be pretty cool... if I ever finish it. Even though I'm going to use some material I've already written, I've got a lot more to write if I want to make a sizeable book.

In 1957, a brand new Plymouth Belvedere was buried in a time capsule in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Next year, in 2007, it will be unearthed.

With Smokers Brokers, you can invest money that you otherwise would have spent on cigarettes.