The Halo Partay

The Halo Partay was awesome! At the peak of the most people, there were 15 people playing at once. This was really cool doing large-scale 2 team wars, and we did one game that was Free-For-All Shotgun Slayer on Warlock! That was pretty intense!

It was cool, because I think I was the third best player there, and at the end of the partay, someone asked if I played on LIVE, but I said that I did, except my XBOX stopped working this month! There were other people who said they had LIVE too. I just wish that my XBOX still worked now! But, maybe it is a blessing in disguise as I won't be as tempted to get an Xbox 360 if I haven't gotten cracked-out on Halo 2. Plus that's 50 more dollars a year I won't be spending on LIVE.

There was someone there who was really very good. He said he was a level 38 on LIVE. That's cool, but I felt bad for him because he appeared that he wasn't having a good time and just going through the motions. I don't want to become like that.

I brought my own controller (I still have everything I need for live, just that my XBOX doesn't work), and the people there did something I never saw someone do before. They brought their Xbox Communicator Headsets and were able to project their voice across the house via the other TV's speakers. Turns out that when you speak, there is a very very slight latency between you speaking and your voice being sent, so the people had a lot of fun with their echos, etc.

They liked making noises... a lot of it was hilarious and chaotic. It was such an awesome experience. I've had Halo 2 partays before, but it is awesome when someone else has one and you go to theirs. You can sometimes get nervous trying to make sure everyone has a good time at a Halo 2 Partay when you're the host (they always do), but when someone else hosts one, you can just come and be a guest and they have everything taken care of.

I had a blast, and even though my Xbox doesn't work, I might have a Halo 2 partay in the future. I believe that someone who doesn't have any equipment at all can have a Halo 2 partay, if they figure out who can bring what and then who is bringing what before the event.

It. Was. Awesome.

And by the way, there's was lots of musical stuff going on with the mics at the LAN party. There was lots of beatboxing, noise-making, even Chinese Opera (like from Dynasty Warriors menu), I would imitate the Super Smash Brothers announcer when I wanted to do "free for-all!". It was lots of fun.

Going to a Halo 2 Partay Tonight!

Oh. I'm so excited! I haven't played Halo 2 for about month because my Xbox stopped working, but now I'm glad because I get to play.

I'm looking forward to surprising people with the Carbine (don't forget the one behind the box in the lower shotty room)!

I used to play on LIVE, go to the halo wiki http://www.halowiki.net and read and post tips, develop strategies, mute and boot annoying people from my party, and hold events and present short raps over LIVE about the event. That was fun! I'll miss going to Bungie dot net to see who has gotten banned and is complaining about it. To see what the latest complaining about the playlists is, but mostly to visit a couple Bungie dot net groups I was a part of.

But tonight, all that was just training. Tonight is what Halo 2's multiplayer is the very best in. That's right I'm going to a Halo 2 Xbox LAN Partay! I'm really looking forward to this, getting my victory dance ready, stretching my fingers... Back in one of the first episodes of MLG (I stopped watching because of the Boost Mobile commercials), there was a player named "Fonzi" who would warm up by playing the piano.

Well! What a coincidence! Just before the Xbox LAN Partay I have a piano lesson!

Basically, I'm primed for this Halo 2 Partay. Here's why:

1. I'm fresh because I haven't played in a long time.
2. I will enjoy myself a lot, guaranteed.
3. I've gotten quite skilled at Halo 2, which means that if someone is better than me at a LAN I can try to one-up them.
4. I play for fun and if I die it doesn't demoralize me, so my morale can really only go up.
5. Piano lesson before! Of course!

When it comes to Halo 2 Partays, here's my slogan:
"without Halo 2, it's just a party." -SDtektiv

Blogger is Good

Of course, this is coming from someone who came from trying to blog on Xanga. Not a good blogging tool! Let's look at some highlights of Blogger make it better than other competitors.

• There is no "premium" version of Blogger. This means that the features you usually have to pay to get on other platforms, such as access to one's code, are integrated into the one solid version of Blogger.
• It's free. It is a free service. What makes it better than other free services?
• There are no ads. None. Unless the user puts them in there himself! (don't do that).
• Lots of options.

Things that would make Blogger better:

• Make it easier to have a picture for your header (though you can do this if you follow a tutorial!)
• Be able to format your comments in "Peek-a-boo" format. Meaning if you click on the thing that says "comments" they just come out on the website and if you click it again they go back.

I just thought of something. In the past week I submitted a blog post to Digg, created a Technorati profile, and submitted a blog feed to Pingoat. I how someone in History would react if I said that?

"Christian" Rap

An Essay (overly-long rambling) by SDtektiv. (enjoy in portions)

As a disclaimer, I hardly know what I'm talking about here, I'm just saying things as I percieve them. I'm probably percieving them a little wrong, it can change as I get more information, but here's what I got so far:

--Part One--

Today I'm blogging about this thing called "Christian Rap." Now, hopefully by the end of today's bloggings, you will understand that calling "Christian Rap" a genre doesn't make sense, as it is diverse and pretty much the same as any other rap, except that it isn't filled with the same repetitious cuss words and stuff that the rest of them put on TV. It's the same as regular rap in every aspect except for what I just said, meaning there are the same genres within it and there are good and bad rappers.

If it were up to me, I wouldn't even have the label "Christian Rap" existing because it is misleading in that if someone hears one rap song they'll think that all "Christian Rap" songs will be like that one...

But, because it is hard to find rap that isn't loaded with junk, the label is necessary. At one time, "Christian" music and "Mainstream" music were not separated from each other, but instead they were the same. People might think that good music has disappeared, it hasn't, it's just that the cable networks and media and whatever choose not to make it public, and it is evident that people draw a lot of what they decided to listen to from a TV channel.

So, it would make sense for a Christian TV channel to have a lot of cool music, right? Nope! Instead it's mostly the same boring, gaudy sets, overly-expressive preaching. There is a place for that, but not the whole entire day please! They used to have a Youth-orientated music video show that I would tell my friends about, but now it is long gone.

Something that bothers me is when people have an assumption with art that if a Christian is producing it, it won't be as good as someone in the mainstream producing it. I disagree, both Christians and Non-Christians have been successful and not-successful. In the past, the main music artists in America were Christians, and this hasn't changed, only who the TV channels choose to put up.

---Part two---

Basically, "Christian" rappers have a lot to put up with.

First, they have to put up with the reactions they get from having this label. For example, one time I was listening to some music, Deepspace 5 to be exact, and someone said to me, "What are you listening to?" Was I about to say "Christian" Rap? No! Not because I'm ashamed of God, but because I wanted him to give the music a chance.

So, instead what I did was I handed over the CD player with my humongous headphones, and he listened to it. Of course, he had large respect for it because he didn't know it was Christian rap. As he listened, he made statements about how he was surprised that a person who looks like me would into rap, statements of other artists that is similar to it. He asked "Are they white or black?" (both). And he made recommendations for other artists I might like. But, in the middle of the song, the smile disappeared from his face, he pulled the headphones off, and handed the CD player back to me without a word.

I put the headphones on to see where he left off, and it turns it out that it was right after the first reference of respect to God in that particular song!

I think he was embarrassed that he actually enjoyed a song that had a word of respect to God in it. Don't get me wrong, I don't like listening to rap CDs with every song being 100% about God, but I don't understand why people won't give a song a chance if it has respect for God and even other people in it. It's their opinion, and... (to quote what they often say when being challenged at their music), "it's just a song!"

I've found out that I cannot present some music that I like to someone and say it is "Christian Rap," unless the person has a lot of knowledge, more than I'll ever have, and respect for rap in general. I have a better chance of saying "here's some rap that I like because it doesn't have anything bad in it." Then, when they look like they're enjoying themselves, if they haven't figured it out already I'll tell them that it is "Christian", just to see their reaction.

Second, "Christian Rappers" have to fight negative feelings from both of what they are. What I mean is that they are two things, "Christians", and "Rappers." There are actually Christians who think that putting poetry on top of a beat is a sin, and so they don't get a whole lot of support from the major Christian media, since a lot of Christian media knows that some Christians may be offended by rapping, even if it doesn't have sinful lyrics. I don't know if the last statement I just made is true, but it is my best guess.

I actually don't think that "Christian Rappers" get put down by Rappers, they might even be respected on a person-to-person basis, they just get kept secret by the Hip Hop Media. In a way, "Christian Rappers" are forced to be underground, because even if they come out with the best song ever, if they're on a "Christian Rap Label"...well, good luck getting on TV.

"Christian Rappers" really shouldn't be grouped together on a music standpoint, or separated from as a unit from the mainstream. Again, this is from a music standpoint. From a content standpoint, they just don't have raps about materialism, sex, drugs, gangs, killing... and if they do, they usually present it in a less-glamorized, more-realistic, "the consequences in my life" fashion.

I don't know, it's just my personal musical preference when it comes to the fact that I'd rather listen to someone rap about how people don't respect them just because they don't cuss enough (see Not Enough Dope (in my rhymes) by This'l) than listen to men rap about how they have lots of shiny jewelry around their neck... that's just me, apparently a lot of people like that sort of thing, I respect them. I don't understand why people are interested in hearing people talk about all their chains and cars all day, but as far as I see there are only a limited number of possibilities:

a) they actually do,
b) they don't care about the lyrics, just the music (you have to admit that it is definitely cool musically)
c) they don't know what else there is.

Third, "Christian Rappers" don't get the same criticism as other rappers. What I mean by this is rappers without that label get judged on a person to person basis. People want to judge "Christian Rap" as a whole, and you can't do that, just like you can't judge "Mainstream" or "Underground" Rap as a whole. I'm sure that there are Mainstream rappers who rap about things that I might like and don't cuss, the trouble is that I can't find them because the TV networks aren't going to play someone with respect for himself and others.

I don't see cussing as a sin, but I suppose the Musical TV networks with rap might see not-cussing as a sin, and cussing bothers me, just a personal preference, everyone else can make up their mind on that issue (but not every issue).


----Part Three---

Alright, some of you may be wondering, "You're talking a whole lot about not judging groups of rappers as a whole, but yet you seem to be judging these TV networks as a whole!" I'll give you that, but look, recently, TV networks haven't, from what I've seen, in the past four to five years, been putting even a rapper on a Christian Rap Label on TV. Alright, Grits get to be the exception. (I like Grits. the band, I haven't tried the food yet).

It seems to be a sheer coincidence to me that the time when music that respects God gets separated from the rest of the music happens to be just as Rap gets into its prime. This is what's causing people to automatically associate rap with all the bad stuff. True, some rap ventures into bad stuff that hasn't been heard in music for centuries, actually a lot (of the stuff that gets put on TV,) but a lot of it doesn't do that. It is sad that Rap and this phenomena had to occur at the same time, because now people only get the small window and now have lots of bad feelings about rap.

I bet that people would be a lot more open to rap if it didn't always come packaged with ugly lyrics inside. (I'm talking content here, not musical skill).

I leave you with a short list of good rap songs if you're curious or to get you started:
"Song Title" Artist <- (this is just the example but that would be funny if this was a real song eh?)

"Rowdy" The Ambassador
"When I flow (it's Gospel)" The Cross Movement
"Talk Music" Deepspace 5
"Here We Go" Grits
"Not Enough Dope (in my rhymes)" This'l
"Raised in Harlem" Hero! the Rock Opera
"Blazin' Mics" T-Bone
"Jesus Musik" LeCrae featuring Tripp Lee

Fortunately, some Christian bookstores have a good rap section.

Cross Movement Records

Cross Movement Records

The cool thing is that there is a music player at the top of the website, so you can listen to some of their rap and tell me that's not good. I'll let their website speak for them.

Beatmart Recordings

is a record label. That being said,
Beatmart.com takes you to Soul P's eCard, which features more partay-style Hip Hop.

Beatmart Home will take you to the home page, which usually features an up-to-date video about a rapper on the website or just the website in general. The video up there today features Soul P making a little video with homeless people. It's very good light-hearted humor.

But my favorite part of the website is Beatmart Vote because that's where unsigned artists submit their songs, and people vote on it. The ones with the most votes make it onto a yearly mixtape produced by Beatmart recordings!

Game for Youth Group New Years Partay

I'm going to a New Year's youth group party at a Church in Downtown Tacoma, in which someone was saying that they were going to have a really long game of hide-and-seek.

Now, I like sitting in a dark corner for 2 hours wondering if the game is over just as much as the next guy, but there's a game I used to play at my old Youth Group that works great in hide-and-seek-type environments. So, I've submitted it to the Youth leader in charge of the event, and I hope that he uses it because it's an awesome game.

Alright, I'll tell you about the game.

The name of the game is "Virus", formerly called Vampire.

Game takes place in nearly the entire Church. Somewhat combines elements of tag and Hide-and-Seek.

How to play:

1. All the Youth Leaders and players meet in one room at the beginning. They choose one person (student or leader) to be “the Virus” and another to be “the Cure”.
2. The players put their heads down and eyes closed and the Virus has 2 minutes to hide the Cure somewhere within the boundaries outside of the starting room.
3. After the 2 minutes are over, the remaining students’ job is to find the Cure and avoid getting tagged by the Virus.
4. Some of the remaining Youth Leaders will go to a room designated as the “Quarantine”, and some may play with the students. Whenever a student (or any other player) gets tagged by the Virus, he or she must go to the Quarantine.
5. At the Quarantine there should be two to four Youth Leaders. When someone goes to the Quarantine, they are stuck there until they complete a task given to them by one of the Youth Leaders. (The tasks can be anything like “20-push ups, teach me a hip-hop dance, do some impersonations, things of that nature.”)
6. The game is over when a student finds the Cure and brings him or to the Quarantine. He is safe from the Virus as he brings him or her to the Quarantine.

If you have any questions or comments about the game or happen to want a more full set of rules I can supply that.

Blogging is Established

You know something in the media has been well established when there are things about it in its own format. There's rappers rapping about rapping, podcasters podcasting about podcasting, books about reading, okay you get the point. Now, blogging has gotten to the point that there are blogs about blogging.

Never Delete Your Blog

I didn't know this piece of advice until I was browsing the Google Blogger Help Group (sounds like AA for Bloggers doesn't it?) I'm SDtektiv, and I'm a Blogger. Anyway the point is that someone learned the hard way that you shouldn't delete your blog. Why? Well it turns out that when he or she deleted the blog, the URL became available, and someone turned it into a SPAM blog. The word on the street is that because people visit blogs, they are valuable to spammers, they show up in Search engines which means that they can pick this up and use it to show whatever sort of filth they want to.

This is really bad, I once visited a blog because I saw a link to it from a site that I trusted, and it had porn in it. I felt betrayed, and I didn't understand what happened, but now I do. They deleted the blog and a Spammer claimed the URL.

In conclusion, if you are tempted to delete your blog or change the URL, or relocate, don't do it. You can just put a post up there that says "blog has been moved, link:", or you can delete all the posts you made and make a post like that. Just be sure to disable comments either way. Spammers like to use those too.

Sixth Months

A lot has happened since I stopped posting in this blog. I thought about deleting it but then I learned that it's really a bad idea to delete your blog because spammers will take the URL and do who-knows-what with it. I don't want a bunch of crap on a website with my username in the URL, I know that!

So here's what's happened in the last six months majorly with the blogging.

-SDtektiv's Halo 2 started up, a whole lotta postin' going on there, but then a lot of things happened and now it's just basically about whatever, I guess I'm relocating to here in a way because I thought about revamping it to become a non-themed personal blog, but instead I'm revamping "ninjaesque observative" to be my personal blog so that I can leave the last one for memories.

-REPriiSENT! newly launched this month, is a team blog that I'm a part of about the Nintendo Wii, this is the one that I'm pushing forward and putting a lot of time into.

Say no to Adsense

Look, the way I see it, Blogger gives you all these features up-front and it's free, and there's no ads. That, to me, is a profit in a way because other blogging services require you to pay money to have access to your HTML code. Sure, not everything is up-front and easy, like making a picture header for example. But by finding and following a tutorial you can add many things to your blog.

They've done a lot, I didn't even know that at one time Blogger had ads on it! It did, and now that they're gone, they're back. Why? It seems that a lot of people see ads as good for their website. I disagree. They look rather tacky and I don't know about everyone else, but I know that I don't go back to websites with a lot of Google Adbars everywhere.

I see blogging as something that should be just for fun, and that gets comprimised when there's ads. Instead of trying to attract viewers for the sake of comments, you start trying to attract viewers to make your ads worth more. All of a sudden, it turns into a job.

Why have ads when you don't have to have them?

Blog for gaming

I made a blog about my gaming on Halo 2. It is http://sdtektivh2.blogspot.com. I am mainly posting this here because I told my friend that I had posted a summary of a match, but I gave him the address to this blog instead of the gaming one. So the place is the link above. And this particular friend I'm talking about needs to teach me how to make a liquified muffin.

The LAN Partay Set-up, a Paint document

Halo 2 Xbox LIVE

Wow. It has been forever since I last posted here. I've been doing lots of fun stuff like, for example, Xbox Live! I've had Xbox Live for a few months and I have had lots of fun with it. Every few games or so you'll run into an annoying or lewd person. I simply mute these people and leave feedback. It certainly is unfortunate for people who use Xbox Live that I joined it, because I leave feedback on them :)!

I find it quite hilariously incomprehensible when after the game, the people on the other team get mad at you. It doesn't happen so often but when it does it is laughable. It doesn't make much sense to me. Why are they mad? Are they mad that I played against them? I guess they've forgotten that the experience they had in the last game depended on me being there to play against.

And what is it with those people who have a vendetta against "n00bs" (new people). They must have flunked in economics and in number-crunching or they've simply forgotten that the very thing that is keeping Xbox LIVE. . . alive is the fact that new people are joining up. The more people join, the better it is for LIVE. Not to mention that the more people there are using the service, the less time it takes for the service to match you up with other players, and therefore the more games you get to play!

What is funny to me is when people make big deals out of using certain weapons. Apparently, using a plasma pistol (a weapon that you can entirely take out someone's shields with in one shot) with any weapon, not just Battle Rifle as I thought, can be considered a "n00b combo." Some players will call a technique "cheap" basically if it makes them lose. Such as using a sword, using a grenade, using a Battle Rifle---the list goes on. This list can be compressed with the phrase "doing what you can in order to win" which I thought was the ultimate goal, besides cheating (which is pointless because cheating at the game doesn't get you anything real anyway).

These characters are funny and I'm sure everyone on live has met them at least once. The "Griefer", the "Anti-n00b", the "datsCheap", the "Cheater."

I will now state why I am so happy with Xbox LIVE, with this character I have found. The "Friend".

I am happy with my experience with LIVE so far. And the secret is the tool called... the friends list. I have met people who are very fun to play with. They realize that it is just a game, but care enough to try their hardest, and are easygoing. Some of these people I met in real life. I met some of these people on a Bungie.net fanclub-type thing called "Ickthus." It's pretty cool because it is a Christian group. It is very nice having these nice people on your list because they play often which is nice and they are nice themselves, but not nice-sessarily from the city of Nice in Europe.

These people give a great gaming experience, it is awesome to get a group of them together and fight our way through matchmaking together. It builds great fellowship and comradery. And the game is fun to play anyway!

Dear Blogger,

Feb 4, 2006

Dear Blogger,

I want you to know that I have really enjoyed using your service, but there is one thing I am concerned about.

Many people who use blogger know that if they are bored, they can simply log out and go to the main page to watch the names of blogs show up for a few seconds as they are displayed, and occaisionally click on one that looks interesting.

I think that it is cool how at the main page (www.blogger.com) it shows the names of blogs that have just been updated. Unfortunately for everyone who goes to blogger, people create blogs with unfathomably obscene titles. When these blogs get updated, just like the good blogs, the title shows up on the blogger main page right next to where every last person who uses blogger must go to sign in. I am very tired and disturbed by seeing obscene names of blogs over and over again when I go to sign in.

I encourage you to consider the innocence and loyalty of your patrons, because when those obscene things get displayed, both are damaged. Please consider whether or not we are worth enough to you to moderate what words get pushed in front of us, who only want to feel safe at least at the place where we all go for signing in.

Sincerely,

SDtektiv

I am also posting this on my blog:
http://SDtektiv.blogspot.com

Liquified Muffin

I want to learn how to make "Liquified Muffin", and so I offered this guy some good money, but he still won't respond. Please help me humbly request him to teach me how to liquify a muffin, because I know him and I know that he is smart and could teach me. Here you go: How I make stuff: Filler

And if you, the guy who I'm trying to learn from, are reading this right now, I want you to know that my heart has been softened and that even though it was tough I have found it in my heart to forgive you for not sharing your wisdom. I give you the opportunity to now share your wisdom, and you are not obligated to withold your wisdom (see the "verse of the whenever" in the upper left on this page).

Too many Standardized Tests!

The school system is out to WASL us out. They think we actually care about the WASL. By having us waste three weeks of our time every year they are motivating me to care less. Any ways, the original acronym for WASL is the: Washington Assessment of Student Learning.

Post an alternative for what the letters "WASL" should represent.

Here is a post about it on MilkmanJones's blog:
Wit, Wisdom, and Society: WASL-Palooza

Hacky Sacking

When people talk about "the simple things in life" a hacky sack must be one of the things they are talking about. I now list hacky sack...ing as one of my interests. If you think about it, it is the ultimate thing. You can take it with you anywhere in your pocket, any number of people can play it at a time, people can join in in the middle of a game, and it could go on forever.

It came in handy friday. I went over to my mom's friend's house and my friend's mom's house, for a piano lesson. After the lesson, my mom talked with her friend for a long time and it ended up being around dinnertime. A friend of my friend came over to my mom's friend's house and we all went to TGI Friday for dinner. It was a long wait, and fortunately I had my hacky sack with me, so us three (me, my friend, and my friend's friend) hacky sacked out in front of Thank God It's Friday for a while. It was a lot of fun. If I wasn't hungry, I might've actually been reluctant to have our table become available.

What's cool is that on sunny days, a group of guys will be hacky sacking in the outside lunch area. One day I joined them, and I hack with them on those days. I first got interested in buying a hacky sack when a group of people I see on every Sunday and Thursday at church were hacksacking.

Self-Proclaimed Artists' Union

A team blog was started by a group of me and my friends. My and, hopefully soon, art from my friends can be found there. So far, there is a drawing and a poem up. If you haven't yet, visit http://proclaimedartists.blogspot.com to view the new blog and watch it go from a few posts from one person to a lots of posts from many persons. Once a lot of people join, I am hoping to make it so that different members post in different fonts. With the drawings, for some reason, I can't get them to display in their real-world size. If I can figure that out, I'll be able to post some readable comics.

Nadia Van Rosendael

I had dozed off after I had gotten on the bus. I noticed that the school bus wasn't moving anymore and I looked up at the seats in front of me. I was sitting in the very back, next to the heater. There were backpacks in the seats next to and in front of me, and jackets, but no people. I looked up towards the front of the bus and saw that all the people were in the front there. A short distance ahead, I saw flashing blue and red lights. I asked a girl on the bus who had a cell phone out, "What happened?"

An aquaintance of mine's life was ended a couple of days ago when she was hit by a small van while running across a busy street to catch a different bus to school. Although Nadia and I weren't very close, I had known her since the seventh grade. She was a girl who was not afraid to speak her mind. At times, she was angry, but mostly hyper, and never boring. My school days will feel incomplete without her happy, energetic prescence. Nadia and I had lots of good times, and the memory of her will be cherished by me and many others.

A day later I visited the crash site, the corner nearest where she was hit was covered with flowers, candles, stuffed animals, and balloons. Visiting the place has helped loved ones deal with it.

A news story about it can be read here: http://www.komotv.com/news/story.asp?ID=41489 .

Blogger Shirt, Team Blog in works, WA Quarter

Yesterday, that Blogger t-shirt that I ordered came! Wow, that was quick, wasn't it? So today I wore my blogger shirt to school, where I am excited about an upcoming art show in which some of my art pieces will be displayed. It's going to be in the school library next Thursday and Friday during school hours, I believe. It's exciting knowing people will see work that you are proud of!

Speaking of art, I and some friends from school are going to start a blog about art soon. Having a place in which we post art together sounds really fun. The whole premise of this blog wasn't about art but just me observing, being way cooler than pirates, and commenting on stuff. That way I can focus on doing those things here and putting art there. Although, making art definitely involves those three things! I am really excited because I'll get to post art among my friends and it'll just be exciting to see my friends' art. Especially the friends I don't get to see very often.

They going to come out with the Washington State quarter! I read it in the article "The salmon or the whale? You pick" by Curt Woodward, in the News Tribune today. The three final possible designs they have to choose from are a fish jumping out of a body of water with Mount Rainer in the background, a fish with apples on top of an outline of Washington State, and a Native American whale spouting water. According to the article, people "will be able to lobby for their favorite in an online poll, and the commision will settle on a favorite." But, "The final decision rests with Gov. Christine Gregoire." View the three possible quarters and read the article here: http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/story/5470254p-4934688c.html!

Poking fun at Fashion

Guess what? Yesterday I ordered the blogger shirt that is brown with the orange logo on it. And now... I guess I wait. Well, to ease the wait a little bit, I drew a picture of myself wearing that shirt. Now, you can imagine with me what it will be like to don that shirt...

I'm kidding! I did order the shirt and I did draw a picture (obviously), but just because I felt like drawing something.

Yes, I know wearing a shirt with the blogger logo on it is a bit nerdy but that never stopped me before. I mean, what is worse? Wearing a shirt with "Blogger" on it that is practical, or wearing pants that are already 80% worn out in order to be "fashionable." Can you imagine how hard it was to explain to the workers in foreign countries that the silly Americans wanted their pants to have unsightly rips, paint smeared all over, and kneaded and folded 20 times with an egg-beater into a froth? "Faded." That's what the look used to be, but now they've probably opened up massive complicated superstructures dedicated to enclose a space for pulverizing those poor pants.

...Well, if it creates more jobs.

Drawing for my Profile

Today I decided to add a picture to my profile. It's a little something I drew, here it is. I think it's pretty rad, I drew so that hopefully when someone looks at my profile, it will look like the dude is reading the words of my profile. We'll see how it works.

Eloquent Hubub

I thought it would be cool to make a post about words that just sound so much like their meaning. Some words just do and so well! Like for example: "eloquent." Isn't it amusing how the very word "eloquent" sounds "eloquent"? Also:

glitch
annoy
strudel
hooplah
hubub

Well that's all I got. Go ahead and comment a word that you think sounds like its meaning (fun for all ages).

Psychological Rambling

I am glad that I made this blog because it has been really fun and good for me I think. I mean, I was able to get everything (well almost) that makes me mad out of my system. A good outlet. The only time when that can be bad is if you are actually in a good mood but then you get in a bad mood after typing something which is actually just supposed to be fun. I've only done that a few times.

What's in my heart defines what I say. You can't say something destructive if your heart wants growth it seems. I have to say though, that it is good to be thinking about things that don't make sense (see archives in the left column... thing...y), but you have to be careful not to get so into pondering about things that you become bitter about what you are thinking about and forget to feed your spirit. How bad is it when a person only feeds their mind but neglects their spirit? My experience has been that it is not a good experience and propels you into a state where your pride becomes how persuasive and eloquent you can be instead of the very reason why you wanted to try to persuade in the first place. And then, it becomes not about seeing the other person realize, but about who can win the competition of who will break the argument first. It devastates the people involved.

The Pen is Mighty :)

Yesterday, January 12, 2006, was probably the best day I have had this school year. It was so rad. Let me explain. Actually, well howsabout I just paste this letter I wrote to the administration of my school and gave a copy to the school paper:

December 15, 2005

Dear [the name of the school] Administration,

Being on time to class is a great concern of mine and my fellow students, and I am glad there is always a signal to make it clearly known it is time to start moving toward the next class...
… Except from lunch. When I am finished eating, I am left sitting there trying to figure out when I should leave. It’s a big deal knowing when to leave lunch because from there I go to a language class which is quite far from the Commons. The result is that it is not uncommon to see 3, 4, or even 5 people coming from lunch tardy to my fourth and fifth period classes.
Being tardy to any class, including from lunch, five times results in a Monday school, I suspect more tardiness results in a punishment far worse. Having a punishment for disobeying school rules is necessary, but giving students the power to obey them is needed as well.
What I suggest is that there be something to signal the end of lunch that is exclusive to the lunchroom. It could be maybe someone getting on the microphone and saying “This is the end of [insert number here] lunch.” It doesn’t matter what the signal is, but there needs to be a clear signal at the end of lunch in the Commons because the time we are supposed to leave lunch is different each day. Otherwise, my friends and I will continue to have to guess and often be wrong about what time we should leave the lunchroom.

And then it had "Sincerely" and my full name which I don't want to share because then what if I say something stupid and then become famous? It'll come back to haunt me for sure. Anyways, yesterday I got called down in the middle of my math class (of which my journalistic endevours seem to get me out of often), and I got called to the Administrator's office and I was actually kind of scared because I didn't know what the reaction was.

The reaction was a smile and a compliment on my letter. I was told that they are working with their bell company to get something better and hearable in the lunchroom! I guess letters actually do make a difference! Hopefully soon, I'll be hearing it.

Blogger vs Xanga!

I am really glad that I found Blogger. I used to be on Xanga, but there were a few things that were pretty dupid about it.

I am so glad that I have found the greatness that is Blogger. It is so great... Let us compare why Blogger is so much better than Xanga:

Reason number one:
No dumb ads that are like "Do this and get an iPod"... my response: "Why should iCare?"...
In fact, there are no ads on Blogger, except for when people choose to put them on. Xanga had ads

Reason number two:
Blogger allows direct access to your Template coding, and has help articles to help you put add-ons and hacks by putting stuff in the code. Did Xanga? no.

Resin number three:
Censorship. If I find a blog that is inappropriate I can "flag" it, and if a lot of people "flag" it, then it doesn't get deleted, it just becomes unlisted. Which means that it will still exist, but no one will find it unless they type in the address or look really hard for it. Xanga, didn't have it.

Season number four:
I have the option of making it so that people can comment, even people who aren't even signed up in Blogger. Xanga didn't have that

The only thing that Xanga had that Blogger didn't was a "Kudos" feature, but as you can see above the things that make Blogger better seriously outweigh this one feature.

I suspect that I could've made Xanga be like Blogger for me if I ordered Xanga Premium, but Blogger has all these features for free that you have to pay for on other services. It's just too cool.
It's pretty rad. Blogger hasn't made any attempt to try to get me to give them money... Maybe I'll be nerdy and buy the light-brown shirt with the blogger logo on it.

Some people might see it differently however. I saw on one blog that someone had posted that they were switching from Blogger to Xanga because they thought Xanga was better than Blogger! Pretty funny, eh?