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?

Christmas List! (Updated Dec 28 05)

Yeah! Christmas is in two days! I am excited. Here's what I remember that I asked for:

Xbox controller (for controlling the xbox)

25ft ethernet cable (for connecting multiple xboxes)

Router (for connecting multiple xboxes), in November, I had a Halo 2 partay and it was awesome! It was three teams of four people playing Halo 2 at the same time. I had lots of fun tracking down what equipment people could bring. What was the hardest piece of equipment to acquire for the partay? That's right, a router. And since I am going to be having lots of Halo 2 partays, it would make sense for me to ask for one.

Amped 2 Xbox video game (for playing on the xbox) Wow, these gifts seem to be xboxocentric eh?

A skate DVD (for me to watch and feel happy for the people who get to go outside and skateboard, but I can't, it's raining)

Some music CD's (for listening to)

And that's it, so Merry Christmas!

____________________________________________________________________


And now, it's after Christmas. And Christmas was a success. The two main things I got was a 25 ft ethernet cable and a Router! Which is rad because now I can host a Halo partay and not have to worry about tracking someone with a router down because the people I invited who had a router couldn't come or something.

I also get a second Christmas with my Dad in January, look for another update then.

Evolution

I think they should be allowed to teach the theory of intelligent design in school, because then they could let us students make up our own minds instead of showing us only one view of the origin of humanity.

What I would want is for them to show both arguments, Intelligent Design and Evolution, and then only show actual real evidence. Not just made-up stuff like "Well look, these two separate species have this in common." Well yes! Of course they have something in common. Just like two types of cars made by the same manufacturer, they are going to have things in common, which signify that they were made by the manufacturer. The fact that there is something in common in two different species suggests a creator was involved, but does not prove that evolving was involved.

Look, if the theory of Evolution was true, then by now we would be discovering millions of fossils showing a gradual change from species to species. Where are they!? For me, I need some real evidence. I'm sorry, I guess I don't have enough faith.

So why not teach a nonfraudulent comparison of Evolution and Intelligent Design? Are they afraid that we will get confused because we apparently can't make up our own minds on it for ourselves?

Phat Hair

Have you ever saw a friend somewhere and walked to up to them and said "Hi!" and then they turn to look at you and you get this feeling in your stomach when you realize that the person is someone you never met? I had that funny experience once when my mom, my older brother, and I went to the store. Me and my brother went away from my mom to get shampoo. I saw this shampoo that was yellow and had a funny name, "Phat Hair." I thought it was so funny that I took it off the shelf and I was going to show it to my mom.

I looked for my mom and saw her with her shopping cart and I walked up to her and said, "Look! It's Phat Hair." I made eye contact with the person I was speaking to and I realized that she wasn't my mom! Pretty funny huh?

And then, there are those times when you aren't sure if the person is the person you think it is so you try to get a good look at the person, but you don't want the person to know you are looking at her, so you act stealthy and if the person looks at you, pretend you weren't looking at them.

The funny thing is, is that if the person is the person you think she is, would it be possible that she is trying to get a good look at you to see if you are the person she recognizes? An ironic thought would be to think that maybe both of you are trying to recognize each other but you keep turning away from each other, making it impossible to do so. Generally, though, people will not be offended if you say something if you say, "Oh sorry, I thought you were a friend of mine."

French vs English Keyboards

I was thinking, "I wonder if French keyboards are different than English keyboards." I bet they are, because there is no easy way to put accent marks around letters using the English keyboard, and the French language has lots of accent marks all over the place.

The only way I know of that someone can put an accent mark above or below a letter is if they open up the Microsoft Word, go to the "Insert" thingy at the top (next to "File" "Edit" "View" etc). And from the dropdown from the "Insert" menu, click on "Symbol." From there, one much search from a plethora of symbols to find the item that is the right letter with the right symbol, and click on it.

You could try typing in French on a normal keyboard, it's just that after about two or so words I know that an accent mark will be necessary, and well, as you can see above, it's a lot of work. Perhaps there is an easier way. I mean, let's say I wanted to say in French "your mom." That would be "votre me`re", except that the accent mark is supposed to be above the "E"! not next to it!

My conclusion is that they must have some extra keys on their keyboards. Being that French is the number 2 most often used language on the internet, they probably got real tired of doing all that work and demanded a new keyboard the first day that the internet boomed.

"tmas"

Merry Christmas. I was thinking of a good way you could shorten "Christmas" without offending anyone but still shorten it. Think about it, no more people complaining to people advertising "Xmas Trees", when the advertiser is merely trying to save a tree by using a smaller sign. It's simple, instead of having "Xmas" they could have like "tmas", except the "t" would be more like a cross. This way, you can shorten "Christmas" and arguably use less tape or paint because a cross uses less tape or paint. An "X" is two long lines , where a cross, is one short line across one big line.

Everyone wins!

and, it's shorter than "Holiday" too

Freedom of Speech: A Poem

"Freedom of Speech!" cries out the person who wants to put more swear words on TV.
"Freedom of Speech!" cries out the valedectorian who wants to include a prayer in his speech at his graduation.
"Why!" is it that swear words can be said on TV, yet an innocent prayer at school can be censored?

Lost in confusion... Does freedom of speech apply only to those who want to move away from what is good?

"That's what the forefathers really wanted." They say

If having the ten commandments on public property is unconstitutional, then why were they allowed to put them there in the first place?

Media & Manga Theory

My theory about the media:

The media is dark and pretends that it has the answer to happiness and yet leaves you empty.
My theory about the media is that they are out to get people from a young age addicted to, well you know what. Think about it, everywhere, video games, movies, even cable TV. I used to watch AZN television but then they started showing very sexually explicit anime. Am I the only one who sees something wrong with that?

Manga. I love manga. In fact, I love to make it, and draw actual stories. I hate to buy it now. The manga industry lost my trust when they lied about what was in a particular graphic novel. To be safe, I purchased a manga that was rated "Youth: Ages 10 and up" all it said was for some violence. I really enjoyed the manga... until I got close to the end of it. I won't go into detail about it but let's just say that it was like AZN television. To show my legitimacy, the title of the Manga was "Etcetera Volume 1" published by TokyoPop.

I emailed TokyoPop about it, their slogan is something like "Leading the manga revolution." I suggested to them that they lead the manga revolution by publishing wholesome japanese manga (there's got to be some out there!) that appealed to mature aged people. To be honest, you'd have to be immature to enjoy a "mature"-rated manga. I love manga, but I can't pick one up again because I'll always have a fear of what might be lurking on the next page. I emailed them months ago, and never got a response.

Anyways, I believe that the media wants for everyone to be addicted to it's explicit material. It puts it out there, and acts like it isn't hurting anyone. It hurts me. It's targeting as young as "ages 10 and up."

Is Separation of Church and State real?

In America, we have noticed that over the past 60 years or so, the Supreme Court has made many rulings to try to eliminate all religion from the government and also from public places. But what were these rulings based on is my question? The idea of there being a wall between Church and State is not found in the Constitution. But religion is found in the Constitution.

"unalienable rights endowed upon them by their Creator"

The constitution does say that the Government can't force people to follow a specific religion, but by having prayer in schools and saying "under God" in the pledge of allegiance, is that forcing people to follow a religion? It's not. The constitution says that all people have the freedom of expressing their religion, yet teachers are required in some places to even keep it entirely secret. By saying you are a Christian or even wearing a cross, you are not forcing anyone to follow a certain religion. I thought that freedom of speech applied to everyone.