We’re saved! Until 222 B.C., apparently, the Roman consular year began on May 1. Then the Romans changed it to start on the Ides of March, and in 154 B.C. they switched to January 1.
Still, the early May date is good enough for us. The picture shows a much later Roman gold piece (ca. 43 B.C.) embossed with the image of a consul between two bodyguards (lictors).
Thanks to The Man For Aeiou and ZMZ for ferreting out this theme-saving information.
(Users’ Manual: Obey The Rules. Consult The Guide. Have fun!
We were planning to celebrate a different New Year every month. Unfortunately, we’ve run out of New Years. We can’t find a single calendar in which the year begins in the month that our calendar calls May. The one we were counting on, the Maori New Year (known as Matariki and connected with the rising of the Pleiades and the star Rigel), starts in June this year.
We’ve found a lot of other holidays, including the Celtic Beltane, Children’s Day in Japan, the feast of St. George (very big in Serbia, Bulgaria, and the Caucasus), Biological Diversity Day, World Turtle Day, World Schizophrenia Day, a couple of intriguing Voodoo festivals, and Towel Day (May 25, a date well known to fans of Douglas Adams and his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books). But no New Years. If you find any, please let us know. Otherwise — well, we hope you like pictures of towels.
There’s VE day. That’s pretty big–a new year of not-war across Europe? We could always invent something. This is MuseBlog, after all.
Who doesn’t like pictures of towels? (First post?)
Anyway, this morning (April 30th!) I read a rather intruguing bit of scientifc research. Apparently, nearly 80% of known species of animals with set genders (so, not worms or snails or self-reproducing species like anemones) include gay and bi members. According to the book, species having gay and bi members have an evolutionary basis, suggesting that it probably has some benefit to the species as a whole.
Personally, I like this idea, but I would like to hear what my fellow MBers think. For instance, did everyone already know and I am completely behind the times? (The book was published nine years ago.) Comments, please?
The Thai Buddhist new year is celebrated a few days after the first full moon in April. That’s all I can find.
Firstpostfirstpostfirstpost?
DRAT.
New Towel Year?
Wikipedia:
“The year used in dates during the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire was the consular year, which began on the day when consuls first entered office — probably 1 May before 222 BC”
I was going to post that, but you beat me to it. *mean face*
Thanks to both of you. You may have saved the month.
According to groundhog on another thread, it’s Matariki (Maori New Year).
Why isn’t this in the RC Bar.
I’ve checked, and Matariki is in June this year (and most years).
The Roman consular year sounds strictly administrative — not a holiday that people celebrated. Still, it’s the most likely-sounding idea I’ve heard so far.
It could be interesting, to celebrate a month of what amounts to bureaucracy. Ironically, of course. Plus, it would give us an excuse to wear togas.
Togas have a special place in my heart, as you know.
And togas make everything better. *nodnod*
I meant recent posts section. *facepalm*
Wait. It’s May already???
REVELATION
I am so busy. I have to print out posters for the band fundraiser concert, and then I have to make posters/cards for the launch. Kai’s link didn’t work for me.
It doesn’t work for me, either, but you can just go to the website, go to the products section, and find it.
Yes, search for “Space Flight Awareness”, click on “products” in the menu on the side, and it should be near the top of the page.
Has anybody else seen Google today? It’s very pretty.
I was excited to see it. It’s the Crystal Palace — the location we picked for the Museion.
Yes. It’s cool how you can use the magnifying glass and look at all the details.
I have. It’s very detailed, and I love World’s Fairs.
Err…yes. It was a picture for Labor Day, which the rest of the world excluding the United States celebrated today. There were wrenches. And factories. Nary a palace in sight, in fact.
It isn’t there when I look for it…
Never mind. I looked in the wrong place. (You know you’re addicted to HP when you immediately think, “Perhaps you are looking in the wrong places.”
Soooo I have to write a speech. A graduation speech, because my class is graduating to high school, or at least most of us. Probably. I’ll have to present this speech to my class and hope they don’t vote for me to be one of the people to give my speech at the actual ceremony thing. Furthermore, I can’t think of anything to say, and am like this close to just saying, “Hey, guys, I don’t know half of you half as well as I should like; and I like less than half of you half as well as you deserve,” and then while they’re trying to puzzle that out I’ll make good my escape.
Or, you know. Not.
I JUST WATCHED THAT MOVIE THIS WEEKEND!!! If you’re going to make your escape then, you’ll have to find other arrangements besides a ring.
Maybe I’ll just find a ring. Hey, does anybody have an evil ring I can borrow? I promise not to give it to an annoyingly interfering wizard who will give it to my nephew who will try to destroy it in a volcano.
You just need to find an old magician who can conjure up a lightning bolt to give them an explanation for you disappearance (like in the books, unless I’m mistaken).
It wants our precious, dose it? Nasty lying sneak-thief, it is. But it won’t gets it, no precious. The precious is ours. No stupid fat hobbitses will take it away this time, will they, precious?
I’m not a stupid fat hobbit!
And anyway I’d give it back when I was done.
Yes, it is, precious. All sneak-thieves are stupid fat hobbitses, even when you can’t see it. Tricksy, they are, yes precious. Can’t be trusted, oh no, precious. Tricksy sneak-thief.
:D. I’m in the middle of The Two Towers. Again.
♥
I’m going to reread the whole series this summer, and watch the movies of course.
I’m in the middle of rereading the whole series. With the soundtrack in the background, of course. I’ll probably watch the movies sometime after I’ve finished all the books.
Same here! Somehow, I’m finding time to read even though I’m really busy.
I gave that speech to someone in my youth group.
Happy first dandelion crown of the year day!
Okay, the launch will happen no earlier than the 8th, which gives us more time for OUR mission.
Here’s the link to the Space Flight Awareness posters page:
http://sfa. nasa. gov/products. cfm
STS-134 is in the top left corner. Either high res or lo res produces a good print, but high res takes longer to load.
Thanks!
I need you guys to tell me when Google looks pretty, because otherwise I won’t know.
The Drowsy Chaperone performances went beautifully. I love playing in pit orchestras and the cast was so incredibly talented. It’s such a wonderful, and I probably relate to the main character more than I should.
Science Olympiad State Tournament went excellently as well. My parter and I placed first in Fossils! As always, running around being nerds was a great way to spend a day.
Unfortunately I have three AP exams and two SAT subject tests in the next two weeks, so…
I’m finally done with my german homework mini-portfolio on Fateless (which I wisely started the evening before it was due). Words cannot express the relief I feel. Except that now we’ll probably have to see the movie… *headwall* It’s not that I didn’t like it, I’m just one of those annoying sensitive people who are emotionally gaga after a few hours of working on that sort of subject matter. I only managed to read the book when I was so depressed that I didn’t really care anymore, but now that I feel better it’s much harder. But hey, I finally finished my homework. Half-full, half-full.
The federal government isn’t going to fund SETI anymore!
Now we’ll be unprepared when the Vogons come.They’ve been going on mostly private donations since at least the 90s, I think.
We just need to dig up some dirt on a few rich people and convince them to pony up.
Or… we could start a campaign to hound Donald Trump to do something WORTHWHILE with his fortune and notoriety.
And maybe, at the same time, dissuade him from running for president?
That’s what I meant.
Wait, what?!
(I accidentally pied that, by the way).
“I know it’s not a perfect show. The spit-take scene is lame and the monkey motif is labored. But it does what a show is supposed to do. It takes you to another world. And it gives you a little tune to carry with you in your head, something to take you away from the dreary horrors of the real world. A little something for when you’re feeling blue. You know?”
The Man In The Chair and I, we feel the same way about musicals. They’re an escape. You watch and relive and listen and sing along and listen and listen and let it transport you.
He sits in his apartment, alone, listening to these records, and they’re his only happy thought in a worried, unhappy life. He’s never even seen The Drowsy Chaperone, but he lets the music and his imagination transport him, and for a brief hour or so he manages to escape it all. Then the show ends and he’s roughly thrown back into his own life. But it’s always there, and when he sings it softly to himself at the end and the characters drift back in, he stands there with a look of such pure happiness that I want to cry and hug him and hug myself and hope the show will never, ever end.
They’re beautiful things, musicals. The Man In The Chair gets that. So do I.
Watching the end of October Sky with your own father…
Last circus performance D: Just started 15 min ago. Going to miss it!
Have a test tomorrow though
Need to study study study because I am the worst at working >.<
Oh my dear God John Green is a genius. Looking for Alaska. *faints with love*
In other news, Orion and I are doing a documentary on the relationship between our school and another, far more urban school about ten minutes away from us for English. We’re conducting short interviews right now. It’s very depressing; everyone we’ve talked to just spews stereotypes about how the other school is “ghetto” and people “shoot each other up” and make almost-but-not-quite racist remarks about the proportions of African-American students at their school compared to ours. Meanwhile, when we ask the other school’s students about our school, they shrug and call us rich, spoiled, sheltered white trash. It’s pretty depressing on both ends, especially since I know kids from both schools and know none of the stereotypes are true.
The stupid Internet broke again upstairs, and my hard drive still isn’t back. Grrah.
Randomosity–I didn’t want to reply to your comment because no one would read it, so hopefully the conversation can continue here.
Re: Gay/bisexuality in other animals. Perhaps it’s nature’s way to control the population? Removing 10% of the gene pool ensures that there are enough left to reproduce but speeds up natural selection? That’s the only explanation I can think of.
Ahhh only 4 weeks of school! So crazy!
My last taekwondo testing ever was this weekend! It’s so sad. I’ve been there for 8 years and now there will be no more testings for me.
I haven’t been on in a bit because of my family’s limited Internet supply. We only get five gigabytes of uploads/downloads per month because of mobile broadband service we get.
Unfortunately, our usage doesn’t refresh until May 7, and for every megabyte we go over it costs a nickel. So me posting this probably costs about fifty cents, all included. We would get regular broadband but there is no cable the rural community we live in. The cable ends half a mile from our house and that stretch the company will not put in. So see you all again on the 7th!
Ohhhhhhhh nooooooooooooo! I could really use a Time Turner right now to get the job done! History, English, Biology, SAT, theatre; they all have projects and the Internet is set to close in one hour. Oh, Starship will help me through.
I know how you feel.
So Bin Laden’s dead. Huh.
Hopefully all the soldiers can leave Afghanistan now.
So he is. I just saw the headline.
Now what?
I heard it on MuseBlog first.
You’re welcome.
AMERICAEFF YEAH
Me too. Now I feel uninformed.
I heard it on IMDb first.
lol, me too. On the Doctor Who boards.
And it’s the 56-year anniversary of Hitler’s suicide.
Odd coincidence.
There is no coincidence! There is only hitsuzen!
That’s April 30th.
*blinkblinkblinkblinkblink*
Wow, that only took ten years. I wish they’d captured him alive, though I suppose that would have been really hard.
Singapore news won’t tell us anything. Did they kill his son, too? The New York Times site keeps fainting.
Yes, one of his sons is dead.
I freaked out when I picked up the newspaper this morning. I think I woke up the neighbors screaming “WHAT?!”
I heard a claim that no one will take over as leader of Al Qaeda because they all swore allegiance to Bin Laden, which I find completely untrue. Someone will want to take over. The war on terror is not over, but hopefully someone can come in and intervene before they find a new leader and/or attack the United States for killing their leader. I also read a lot of government statements saying that this sends a message to all terrorists that the United States will Track Them Down And Kill Them. A lot of people are really happy that Bin Laden’s dead, which seems kind of…wrong…although I understand, because I’m glad he was stopped too. “Justice has been done”, they said. I don’t remember at all what 9/11 was like so I don’t really know…It’s just judgment with God I guess.
Anyway, that’s what I think.
It’ll be interesting to hear what the “Everything Obama does is wrong” Republicans/Tea Partiers think about this.
I’m ba-ack!
Market Fair was quite good, as always. I didn’t buy anything other than a bag of parched corn (mmm) and attempted to buy earrings, but she wouldn’t let me pay for them, because “no no, I’ve known you for very long, you don’t have to pay!” In other words, she’s a very sweet lady. They’re very simple silver hoops, which I’ve wanted to get anyway, so the fair was a good place to look. I like giving business (or at least trying to give business) to friends.
Anyway, played music, talked with old friends, made new friends, sang, laughed, hugged, laughed, sang and laughed and hugged some more. Life is good.
I got another offer to play in a band that does pirate festivals. I think I might just send him an email asking whether he was serious, because playing music this summer sounds like fun to me. It’s also probably more possible this year, because I’m not sailing. So I can go sing about sailing. Awesome.
Re: Homo- and bisexuality in animals:
Yeah, this. Just before the Market Fair Mom and I had a row about whether being gay is a choice (she maintains it is, why, I cannot fathom). Anyway, after successfully defeating all of her other points, she snapped “well, I still don’t think it’s natural. There aren’t any other species that do that.”
“Actually, there are lots of other species that do….”
“Well I want a list.”
So I found some links and emailed them to her.
She hasn’t read it yet, because she was “too overwhelmed getting ready for the fair.”
We’ll see how it goes when she finally reads it….
They killed Osama Bin Laden.
“Many that live deserve death. And some die that deserve life. Can you give that to them? Then be not too eager to deal out death in the name of justice, fearing for your own safety. Even the wise cannot see all ends.”
— J.R.R. Tolkien
Well said.
Finally, some sense. Thank you, Oxlin.
I assume this is in response to the Bin Laden discussion? If so, bravo.
Oh, really? I didn’t even make that connection…
YES. THIS. What he said.
so i kind of hate posting things like this here because i hate thinking that it will be here forever but then i remember that one xckd which addressed that feeling and i think you know what whatever
i know that probably this will be mostly passed over but to anyone who does read it, thank you
i feel like for possibly the first time in my life i actually believe in myself. i’m not even going to qualify that sentence as lame (well, okay) because it’s true. but i feel like the downside of this is that it pretty much means that i don’t really have friends now. part of the reason i’m posting this here is because i often feel like you all know me better and care more than anyone else. but why not? i think we’re all pretty similar in the ways that count and even if i snark or am flippant i would do anything to help you all out. i don’t know. i just feel like this is the only place where anyone will hear me.
i was looking for the words to try to explain it on the last thread but i just don’t know. it’s like how the shadow lifts as faramir and eowyn watch from minas tirith (only here can i use that reference and be understood).
i’m trying and failing at making this succinct…
i think i’ve always tried to mold myself to other people’s plans, or tried to make these assumptions of permanence but now i’m not going to cleave to those promises because they’re not mine. i can’t live someone else’s life. and i don’t make any apologies for that, not anymore. i declare an independent state of me…something i’ve delayed because i don’t want this to change, or i don’t want to upset that person, whatever. i don’t want to sound resentful because holding grudges is useless, in the same way it’s useless to live for anyone except yourself. (the people who we love and who love us– on a different plane altogether, that’s not what i’m trying to say)
i mean i feel like, yes, it is vaguely terrifying to go at life by yourself, but i don’t feel really afraid of that. or i’m not afraid of admitting it’s just me in this. i’m kind of looking forward to it. i have a lot of big plans for myself, guys.
there’s this lyric from a song that goes “wanted to cry but you can’t when you’re laughing”. that’s how i feel. i feel sad but i also feel really free. i’m not sure what the point of all of this is, and i’m probably not saying it right. a lot of it probably doesn’t make sense because i am really tired right now… but “i just had to tell someone who knows me,” that’s the other quote. it’s not like i have some great truth to impart because legit i got nothing…but it’s okay. that’s okay.
anyway what i want to say to everyone is that i think you are all the greatest. don’t argue grammatical/logical possibility, you are all the greatest. i mean it. it’s easy to forget that, but don’t. cause i’m not going to.i feel extremely grateful to have this community that i can turn to without any fear of embarrassment or being ignored. it’s all just love, guys. and you know, if you need someone to talk to, or feel like no one cares, or you’re really just kind of bored tbh i have something to tell you: i am here. i am here. i am here.
Aw. ^^ You make me feel loved too Axa!
*hugs* Whatever your plans are, we’ve got your back. And know that you mean as much to each of us as we do to you. Enjoy life, eh? And take us along for the ride.
YES Axa, you are wonderful.
I love you SO MUCH. *infinite hugs*
You’re a very big part of us, therefore you’re the greatest too. ♥
*positivity*
*Hugs* I think you are very excellent too!
I am here to listen to you.
thank you guys!
MUCH LOVE ♥
Bin Laden is dead!
I love the fact that a great mastermind behind the 9/11 attack is dead, but at the same time I think its a bit weird that people are celebrating that a man was killed.
I think it’s a blow against Al-Quaeda, but we still have a long way to go before we can claim victory.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. Justice should be served, but does it really warrant violence of this kind?
I’m relieved and happy that such an evil man is off of this earth. But now, I’m also really scared of terrorist retribution. I somehow doubt that they’ll just take this blow lying down.
You said it, Koko’s Apprentice.
agrrrfishi – Exactly.
Well, I have really good news and really bad news, though despite my usual customs this time the bad news is dependent on the good, which I shall give first.
The good news is that my mother and I are moving back to California this summer.
The bad news is that my father is not.
He wants to work with his graduate students until the end of their PhD’s, and he can’t get an academic job in Silicon Valley.
In case you’re wondering, I’m deliberately excluding any emotion from this post. I am just too tangled and confused and conflicted to figure out what I think.
Will he be joining you in California once his students have their degrees?
Yep. One more year.
Yayness! It’s bad your father isn’t coming to California, but I suppose it could be worse than a year.
Why is it that any given comment of Piggy’s has more likes than most comments by anyone else? No offense to Piggy, of course, as he is the most awesome person on the planet.
Also, I’d like to apologize to everyone WE’RE IN SPACE for anything that I might have done WE’RE IN SPACE to offend them recently. I mean, I WE’RE IN SPACE probably said some things that may have WE’RE IN SPACE caused people trouble, and I’m sincerely WE’RE IN SPACE sorry.
Maybe I’ll try making that a new meme? At least on the MuseBlog.
This is the most disjointed post I’ve written in a very long time. It feels good.
I don’t think that I’M IN SPACE would ever work as a meme.
Why not? Because it’s slightly spoilery?
Well, we are, technically, in space. We’re on a planet that’s going through space.
Uh, why are you “WE’RE IN SPACE”ing every five words, and what on earth is a “meme”?
I think We’re In Space is from Portal 2. I actually thought meme was a person who used the internet a lot…?
meme (meem): noun. A cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes. Origin: 1976, coined by Richard Dawkins.
I often wonder the same thing. My most inane comments garner a large number of pies, and the comments I consider to be quite worthwhile are largely ignored.
I agree with Enc–it just doesn’t have the right form for a meme. It’s too generic.
Largely ignored, or widely argued with.
Good point. Ah well…I tried. Barely.
Many writers have felt the same way about their works. Mark Twain thought his best book was Joan of Arc, which nobody reads anymore. Ditto Tolstoy and Resurrection.
And Tolkien and the Silmarillion.
Indeed. I was so excited when that finally came out, and so disappointed when it kept putting me to sleep.
It’s my favorite of his (possibly my favorite ever), but it’s taking me a really long time to read. I’m actually taking a break this month becaus e I’m entering a sort of Book Count/contest thing, and I want to read as many as possible.
Really? I loved the Silmarillion, and it makes watching the movies and reading the books so much more fun.
I studied it dutifully, and it did provide a lot of useful background information. But parts of it were about as exciting as memorizing tables of oxidation states in chemistry class.
Yes. ‘Tis quite interesting, except in the parts you skip.
Yeah. I’ll get around to reading it some day out of obligation more than anything else. i want to know the stories it holds but I haven’t ever been able to get into it.
When I read the Silm for the first time, I was really happy that for the first time I finally had an answer for when people asked my favourite book.
There’s some really good stuff in it, but I found that I generally had to make myself keep going. I’m not really sure why, looking back.
Maybe I should reread it once I’m done with the trilogy.
Interestingly, I had absolutely no problem with Unfinished Tales. I never read all of it, but I was fascinated by what I did read.
It’s the one-liners that get pied, generally.
Ba-dum chh.
Ewwww… GROSS! GROSS! GROSS!
My dog threw up on the rug in our guest room and I had to get the corners loose, carry it down the stairs, get it outside, scrape off the barf with a dustpan, douse the rug in soapy, scalding water, spray our entire apartment with Lysol and open all the windows.
YUCKO!
Aww…Poor Kai.
This is why I have a cat. Hairballs are so much neater.
Hope your dog’s ok.
Oh, she’s fine. Fine enough to race around, bark up a storm, and otherwise harass innocent passerby.
Yeah. I had an emotional breakdown last week, which had me ranting about how caking much I hate this state, and how I want to go home, how I don’t want to spend the summer here, and how I don’t ever want to live here, etc….All triggered by the fact that I had a tick crawling on me. :/ Sounds kinda ridiculous in retrospect, but….Yeah. I do not like ticks, that was my first experience with a tick, and it was even latched on, just crawling, but still…..
*sigh* I kinda feel sorry for Alan, he’s probably going to have to deal with me in tears a LOT this summer. Have I mentioned? I got a job about an hour from where he lives, so I’m going to be living with him and his parents this summer, in their spare bedroom…..The poor boy is going to be stuck comforting me everytime I break down over the summer, which will probably be a lot…..
Anyway. I’ve got a paper I really ought to be working on writing at the moment, so……Yeah. I’ll probably go watch an episode of Supernatural, instead. I’ve only watched 3 seasons over the past month. ((It’s Alan’s favorite show, so he introduced me to it, as I did him to Doctor Who and Torchwood, etc))
Wait, you’re done with undergrad already? Are you going to grad a year early or did you start in 2007? I’m confused now.
Good luck with this summer!
I’m starting grad (vet school) a year early. I only did (will have done) three years of undergrad, I’m not completing my biosci degree.
Thanks!
Its our schools spirit week and we do a bunch of crazy things. today was story book character day, and Mago Berry was N from pokemon white/black I was me ( I forgot it was spirit week)
To Mago Berry: BEST. COSTUME IDEA. EVER.
On the whole Bin Laden thing:
For every Bin Laden killed, there are hundreds waiting to take his place.
Does this make sense?
THE CONCERT IS TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 8D 8D 8D
SFTDP: Sorry… those 8D’s were supposed to be an HTML code, but I did the wrong combiation.
Anywyay…
THE CONCERT IS TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *wide-eyed emoticon* *wide-eyed emoticon* *wide-eyed emoticon*
Okay, so technically there’s concerts Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, but the madness, dressing up, instrument-forgetting, frantic commutes between the band room and the auditorium, all begin TOMORROW.
This is about the third time I’ve posted about the concert. It’s probably getting old for you all and
I HAVE TWO SOLOS ON THE TENOR SAX!!!!!!!!!
One is my All-district audition, which is supposed to be played on the alto. The other is in Limbo Jazz.
If you know that Marvel Comics has a terrorist group *named* HYDRA, that statement becomes inappropriately funny.
I remember Hydra! “We serve none but the Master, as the world shall soon serve us!”
Hundreds of people with Osama Bin Laden’s determination, organizational skills, contacts, track record, and symbolic importance? I wonder. Were there hundreds of people capable of taking over for Beethoven, or Abraham Lincoln, or Steve Jobs, or George Lucas? (Or Lenin, Stalin, Pol Pot, or Hitler, if you prefer evil-genius analogies.)
There weren’t for Walt Disney, I can tell you that.
I think John Lasseter got pretty close.
True, true.
I meant, there weren’t when he died, which is why they had the whole downhill slope in the 70s before Lasseter and the other new animators came on and Eisner showed up.
But it proves Robert’s point that for ten years after the leader’s death, they went downhill before being able to recover.
I concur. For as horrible a person as he was, you have to objectively admit that Bin Laden was usually rather brilliant at what he did.
What I meant was: He has a whole terrorist group waiting, and they haven’t been killed. Not that they should be.
Still, he was more competant and therefore able to do more hypothetical fitire damage than them.
I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
Thank you.
That is exactly how I’ve been feeling for the past day.
Hmmm….perhaps I’ll use that quotation in the column I’m writing for English class, entitled, “Bin Laden’s Death: Should the world rejoice?”
I’m not actually certain if it is attributed correctly. There is an article in The Atlantic about how it may have been invented. Tolkien still said what I posted upthread, though.
The first sentence was indeed invented by someone named Jessica Dovey and then misattributed by the internet at large. The second sentence, though, is MLK.
Crickets, thank you for that information! I heard about that and I was confused, because I was sure I had heard about multiplying hate for hate and deeper darkness before.
Oxlin and Piggy: thanks for in info. I did recognize the Tolkien quotation as well. Speaking of which, I should really write that column…
Careful, though. Tolkien didn’t say it: he wrote it as dialogue for a character in one of his books. Context is important. Many fictional characters say things with which their authors personally disagree.
Point well taken. Thanks Robert!
The AP Calc test is on Wednesday.
I have a research project that has a nasty habit of not getting itself done. (It is about the history of education in England, mostly middle ages era. Any advice on sources?)
I have recently been on a stationery buying spree.
I had my hair in a dutch braid today. Dutch braid is my new favourite hairstyle. :]
I’m only going to be here for 6 more weeks!!!
If you Google ‘Google Doodles’, you can see all the designs that Google’s put up for various occasions in the past. Very interesting, very pretty.
But many of them only appeared in one or two countries. Most of them were independence days, or holidays only celebrated in certain countries, or something. Some of them I’d never heard of, and some of them I had. All of them were interesting, and all of them were pretty.
So I have a proposal. Google shows all their Doodles to everyone, all over the world, and we get a pretty picture and a short lesson in history or culture almost every day. It wouldn’t work all the time, of course. Some days, there’s two events they want to show, and they’d have to pick and choose which countries see which picture. But our lives would be a little more interesting, a little more beautiful, a little more unpredictability.
And those are things we all need more of.
Well, then the doodles would get boring, wouldn’t they? People would eventually stop looking.
Anyone else paying attention to Canada’s election today?
I heard that the Conservatives won, but I don’t know what that means.
The Conservatives, led by Stephen Harper, the incumbent Prime Minister, have gained a majority of seats in the house. The NDP (one of the two liberal parties–New Democratic Party) has now become the official opposition (Canadian elections are run sort of like British ones, they have more than two parties and an opposition) as opposed to the Liberal Party. The Bloc Quebecois has lost most of its seats, mostly to the NDP, and is now no longer an official party. My Canadian friend says the Bloc’s politics were similar to the NDP’s with the exception of wanting Quebec to become a separate state.
“Regardless of the heinousness of their crime, killing an enemy for revenge is simply wrong. Also, jumping and laughing for joy at someone’s death is likely to make you smash your knee on a table.”
-Me
Just a heads up, O classmates.
Yes, Osama Bin Laden was an evil, evil man. Yes, his committed horrible crimes against humanity. Yes, his operatives murdered thousands of Americans in cold blood. And I still don’t think he should have been killed. For one thing, does anyone really think cheering in Times Square at Bin Laden’s death is likely to curb terrorism in the future? Sheesh.
I agree, but it wasn’t just revenge; it was to prevent him from killing more people. I’d rather have one evil person die than many, many people, many of whom are not evil.
Here’s what I told everyone who came to school dressed in an American flag and made fun of me for being fairly pacifistic:
Martin Luther King said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
If there is an action that will make my town safer, that will make my nation safer, that will make my world safer, I will support that action. I will not declare that all military actions are crimes against humanity; I will not deplore the men and women in uniform who risk their lives to uphold the safety of this country.
But when a man who would have threatened that safety is killed, I will not celebrate. I will not cheer in the streets. I will not show pride for the necessity of murder.
I will cry. For the three thousand victims of 9/11. For the country America was, and the country it will be. For good guys, and bad guys, and pride and triumph and the ending of things.
And I’ll cry for Osama bin Laden, too.
Yes! That’s exactly how I feel, but to a much bigger degree. I admit I’m not nearly as affected as most people, probably because I’m fairly ignorant about world affairs, but I basically feel a much, much less major version of that.
My friend posted a statement that said something along the lines of “Osama bin Laden’s greatest victory was changing our society into one that celebrates the thought of violence.” I feel like America was pretty bellicose even before 9/11, but I do agree that the post-9/11 America is not the same one as the America I fell in love with in History class. I still love it, of course. But it’s not the same.
There’s an important thing to remember, though: you’ve lived through and personally experienced post-9/11 America. You didn’t personally experience the America in your history book. The difference between history and personal reality is too large to allow any simple comparison between the two. If someone that was your age around World War Two was somehow able to study the America of 2011, they might feel that 2011-America was much better.
That’s very true. I don’t in any way think the America of my history books was perfect, of course, given the extreme amounts of sexism/racism/homophobia/general prejudice, and our lack of experience in many fields, and such. But I do feel as if it was more idealistic, and I fell in love with a country of idealists.
Don’t get me wrong. I’d rather live now than then, because I’ve fallen in love with today’s America, too. And when I say “fell in love”, I mean what happens to me when I look at 19th-century England. (Squeeing. Fanfiction. Zeppelins.)
I can only find “rosebud2,” uncapitalized, in the Who’s Posted How Much thingy (plus various name-doodles). Does it count both rosebud2 and Rosebud2 as the same name?
I e-mailed someone who wrote a paper on tardigrades that a website said was available from him, and he gave me four papers! Yay! He also said that he’d give me information on the tardigrades in my area if I tol him my location!
Re: Bin Laden: I’m relieved, but only because it means that at least the people he would have killed in the future are now safe. I don’t believe in ‘dealing out death in the name of justice,’ but there’s a difference between that and killing one person to save the lives of many more. It’s very sad that we had to resort to it, though, and I’m also somewhat resigned.
The MuseBlog makes me feel unintelligent. I feel like I’m more of a bystander, interjecting unhelpful comments into other people’s conversations. Does anyone else ever feel like this?
Yep.
I know I don’t start conversations much, but I don’t feel unhelpful here. I hope I’m not. Anyway, I’ve never found you unhelpful, either, so don’t worry.
I did feel the same way as you in real life when I was public-schooled, though. The things I have to say just don’t seem to interest people there. It didn’t lower my self-esteem, since I wasn’t interested in much of what they had to say, either, and it was clear I just didn’t have much in common with them (not to mention the fact that they often didn’t quite understand what I was saying; even one of the more intelligent girls in my 6th grade English class literally didn’t know the word ‘relevant’), but it was annoying, and it cost me friends.
…Er? That has nothing to do with your situation; you do fit in here, and it’s entirely unrelated. Now I feel like I just did interject an unhelpful comment into someone else’s conversation. Oops. At least I answered your question! I hope you’re glad you’re not the only one, at least. If not, please don’t answer that.
…Actually, though, come to think of it, I did experience some of the feelings you mentioned when I was new here, but I think it was more worry than the real thing. I’m not used to fitting in anywhere, really, so I wasn’t sure the things I had to say were helpful. That wore off, though.
If that’s true, maybe we need to start some new types of conversations.
I felt that way too, until I realized that my opinion was clearly the most important.
Sometimes!
Quite a bit…
It doesn’t help that my mom keeps reminding me that I’m not smart enough to be an MBer, but I do have a baseline of feeling like this all the time.
She does what?!?!
Don’t listen to her at all. You are brave and clever and witty. Anyway, I always thought the basic intelligence requirement for MuseBlog was that one have enough common sense not to inject conversations with meaningless text-puke and have at least some idea of the foundations of grammar.
I thought the basic test was being smart enough to find your way here and stick around.
yes i totali agry with u i thinc thoes geyes or gurls that doo this shuld B keeped owt at al cost!
i mean twoo the ori- orag-oregin-ferst wun
Daughter dear,
don’t you dare disappear,
Those words bring sadness to my ear.
(I have no idea where that came from… O.O)
Wait, what? o,o Mum, are you okay? XD Is there some meaning to that, or is it just completely meaningless and random? I can’t understand you.
(I have decided that Piggy is “Dad” and AlpacaLips is just AlpacaLips, and bookgirl is “Mum” while my Mom is just Mom. XD)
CO- Me, brave and clever and witty? Are you sure you’re talking to the right person?
Errata- Well, even some of the people who post meaningless posts and can’t add anything stick around for quite a while, although usually they either sharpen up or just become dull background noise.
I can’t speak for Choklit, but I’d gueuss she was talking to the right person. At any rate, it’s certainly true, I probably would have said something similar if she hadn’t.
Yes, but I prefer it to feeling like it’s the other way around.
Oh, good. I’m glad to know I’m not alone.
Yes. *late comment*
This is also a late comment, but yes, I do feel that way sometimes. Everyone else’s posts sound much more worthwhile than mine. :/
*even later comment*
Yes. I keep on telling myself that I just need to sit down and type, and not worry about how the words sound, but I don’t and then I end up not coming on MB for a week and making late comments. CAse in point: this.
I’m sorry I haven’t been on lately. The internet at our house is limited, and we went over our usage this month.
Anyway, I have recently gotten the game Minecraft and have been playing it excessively, as it is an extremely amazing game. One of my friends makes amazing mods for the game that I happen to like.
I petted a kinkajou today.
44 (muelover)~ Do I feel like you’re unintelligent or unhelpful? No. Do I experience the same feelings as you describe? Yes.
We have a frog in our pond! We think en’s a he, as en is rather large. He’s quite handsome, and we’re calling him Prince Frank, Frog of the Mossy Pond, or Frank Prince, depending on how royally one wishes to address him. We’ve been hearing splloshes when we walked past the pond, but we finally saw him for the first time today. I heard a sploosh, so Mom and I went and sat by the pond to wait for him to resurface, which he did several times, and I took pictures of him. ♥
Awww.
I saw an advertisement for Portal 2 today and instantly thought of MB.
So you know those dreams you get, especially at the beginning of a semester, or around finals week, that you forgot to go to a class or test? Well, I had that today…..Except it wasn’t a dream. I somehow managed to completely space out my ornithology lecture this afternoon, even though I’ve had every single Tuesday at 2pm since start of term. But I completely forgot to go, and didn’t even remember that I forgot until 7pm. Four hours after the class ended. :/
I kinda feel really bad, because I’ve never ever forgotten to go to a class, and I’ve only once skipped a class (and that was because I had to shadow equine, which I was more concerned about than the physics lecture I skipped). I mean, it’s not like I really missed anything, in that the last few weeks I’ve not even paid attention at all during lecture, just played minesweeper for the whole hour, but I still feel really bad that I forgot, and how the cake do I just forget to go to a class?!?!?!?!
I’m very sorry. That sounds horrible. How do you know it isn’t a dream, though? I mean, I do, because I can never meta-dream, but you only have my word for it, so…
It’s not that surprising, especially when you’re under stress and/or sleep deprived. Twice I completely blanked on the fact I had an exam, once as an undergrad and once late in my grad school years. And then there was the time I missed class because I dreamed I was there….
Oh oh oh my school is making a GSA!
A few freshmen started it with my favorite teacher (bio), and I stopped in at a pre-meeting today, since they haven’t held the first meeting yet. It’s a group of only about four kids, and they told me that I need to get my boyfriend to join because “It would look good if we had a straight couple.” 
They figure that it will be hard to get males to join, so if they see us, it’ll be easier for them to join.
Woohoo! I wonder how long it will take before they do that here… but the school I’m going to in California next year has one. I think I’ll join. What exactly do you do in a GSA meeting?
Uhm, well, we don’t quite know. I think we’re going to work on raising awareness, maybe doing some rallying for gay rights, fund raisers, etc. The principal said that we can’t call it the GSA though, because she “doesn’t want anyone to feel excluded.” Uhm. What? I think we covered all groups there. Gay. Straight. I mean, it’s sort of implied that lesbians, bis, transexual/transgenders/asexuals can come too. It’s not like we’re going to bar them from joining.
You could call it “the Alliance”
Like Star Wars?
You could call it the QSA, since queer is kind of all-encompassing.
LGBTASA is kind of a mouthful.
There is absolutely no way I can keep up with the random threads, so I won’t even try. But… I’ll try for just a little while, right now.
Re: Celebration of death: I cannot deal with it. I actually had to leave the room during history class when we were watching a video and an American former soldier during WWII talked about how much the Japanese enjoyed killing them; he smilingly said that he and the other soldiers “had to learn to enjoy [killing the Japanese]; but once we did… we were really good at it!”
I understand the source of the celebration; it is not just revenge, but celebration of the lives Osama’s death seems to imply the saving of. But I have a hard time swallowing the idea of rejoice at the loss of a life. I think the not-MLK said it best with oxlin’s quote. (“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.”)
Also regarding Osama bin Laden: Just for the record, bin Laden has been a top-of-the-list wanted man since before 9/11/2001, at least since the US embassy bombings in Africa in 1998. I think.
To Choklit Orange (31): I am incredibly happy that you are going to be coming back. It seems this is something you really need, and I hope you come down seeing it that way. I hope your father returns soon!
To Axa (29): You are absolutely fantastic.
Also, a general ditto.
To muselover (44): I feel like this a lot, and part of the reason I was gone from the blog for a while is exactly this. I do not see this quality in any other MBer, though, I think. **calculating** Yup, nobody else. You’re all great.
Wait, you’vefelt like that here? But you and Pan created the MuseCasts!
Anyway, I agree, I can’t think of anyone here who seems that way.
I have a theory that, psychologically, many Americans never really graduate from high school. They grow up and find jobs and marry and have children and get old and die, and all the while they remain high school students at heart.
One consequence is that they see politics and wars and such as football games. Hearing that Navy SEALs have assassinated Osama Bin Laden is like watching their team score a touchdown. They’re not going to ponder the real meaning of the touchdown or the most decorous way to react to it; they’re going to cheer.
You don’t have to cheer along with them, but I’d resist the temptation to blame them too much for doing it. They’re just kids being kids, no matter how old they are or what they look like. Maybe you’re more mature than they are in that particular way, but wishing they would grow up isn’t going to make it happen.
(The above mini-lecture was taken verbatim from one of Muse Academy’s lessons in World Domination.)
I think it would be extremely shortsighted to call this an American phenomenon. Most every culture does this. Look at epic poetry, especially Greek and Roman stuff. It’s mostly just self-congratulation about war with some moral lessons tacked on. Or the De Bello Gallico–entirely propaganda based on how much pwnage Caesar and his army are laying down. I’d say America, from this wide perspective, is actually one of the least guilty of this mindset.
True enough. Maybe television, among other things, has made it harder to glorify war. And I don’t mean to trivialize how people feel about the September 11 attacks. To be attacked in that way, in that place, on that scale was unimaginable to most Americans until it happened. It may not be rational or humane to celebrate a revenge killing, but it’s not incomprehensible, either.
As for epics — in many ways, the Iliad really is like a description of a long football game, isn’t it? The warriors all have their distinctive personalities and fighting styles (and a surprising number of them are named, even the ones who appear on stage and immediately die in battle). Hector is the wholesome golden-boy quarterback on one team, Achilles the brilliant but egotistical star player on the other, Diomedes a good all-around but unimaginative athlete and team player (does as he’s told, gets the job done), Ajax/Aias the dumb-as-an-ox human wall. The brilliant thing about Homer is that he shows the game from both sides and makes the Trojans at least as sympathetic as the Greeks.
Interestingly enough, most of the opinions I heard expressed today were very qualified. A lot of my friends and classmates seem to have stumbled upon the same moral dilemmas as I after they got over the initial “Wow. Wow. Wow. Yay!” moment.
Thank you. I’m kind of waiting for the disillusionment to kick in, although for the moment I am happily numb.
It amazes me that people in my class aren’t affected when they hear or read things like what that soldier said. I seem to be the only one who can’t casually toss off descriptions of killing fields and concentration camps.
Don’t worry, you’re not the only one.
AP Calc (BC) exam tomorrow.
Let’s hope I come back alive.
TESS TESS SHE’S MY WIFE IF SHE CAN’T DO IT THEN
I’m getting a divorce.
Thanks, Beeds, that was really reassuing. : P
It’s out of love, my dear! ♥
“You see, Your Honor, I want to divorce my wife because we love each other so much….”
I can’t expect you to understand our deep and complex love…
IT TRANSCENDS BOUNDARIES ~*~*~*~*
obviii, my wife~~~~~
I’m taking the AP French exam next Tuesday. Normally for AP exams we are automatically excused from school that day, but guess what? Turns out Tuesday is a public holiday here, for Buddha’s birthday. So I don’t get the extra day off.
I just hope Buddha will bring me luck on his birthday. /is not Buddhist
Proxydratses. Good luck on the AP test! May your pen be ever filled with, um, luck.
I told my math teacher that Vesak Day is Buddha’s birthday. He wouldn’t believe me.
Frank, Frog Prince of Mossy Pond may, in fact, be a girl. Who here knows how to tell the difference between girl and boy frogs? No, I don’t know what kind of frog en is, besides brownish-green, adorable and could fit on the palm of my hand sized.
(Gapas, can you embed a picture of en? Here’s a link from voldynet:
If not, that’s cool too.)
♥
Robert and the Frog Prince should get married.
Sorry, I don’t date amphibians. Amniotes only.
Frank looks to me like a bullfrog. In females, the tympanic membrane (the splotch of skin behind and down from the eye) is supposed to be about the same size as the eye; in males, it’s usually bigger. From the picture, I can’t tell how big Frank’s tempanic membrane is.
Hmm, I’ve looked at all the pictures I’ve got of en, and I’m not entirely sure whether it’s bigger or not, but it certainly looks so in some of them. I haven’t heard any croaking though, except for some odd noises yesterday that, while they didn’t sound distinctly froggy, I don’t know what else they’d be. Hmmm.
If he’s an enchanted prince, you might not expect him to sound totally froggy.
I suppose you haven’t tried – no, that may not be a good idea.
I agree. What would Fiddler do with a prince?
Ooh! Froggy!
He…is…adorable. *melts*
Aww.
does everyone have the little doodad on their textbox to enlarge it or is that just firefox? i am so grateful for this you do not even know.
good luck to everyone on their APs! extra luck to anyone who, like me, always had tests on or around their birthdays.
currently plotting and scheming a way to be able to do study abroad in ireland…i’m feelin it dudes, i think it would be fun.
it is getting so hot here, 92 today! the upside is that the evenings are so nice, i walked to starbucks with my friend and then around the neighborhood
feeling unintelligent: i think because we are all intelligent, we all feel this way. i assume you are all 100% smarter than me and while this is usually true that doesn’t mean i’m dumb….DOES IT?!
i am in a great mood thanks to coffee and talking fandom with another friend. HAHAHA
I have the thingy on every text box in Chrome.
Why does this have four (and counting) pies?
I pied it because I was happy for your convenience and that Axa knows about it. I agree that it shouldn’t have more pies than her comment, though (I wasn’t the 4th to pie it).
I hadn’t pied it before, but of course now that you’ve said that I have to pie it.
Pink’d. I just had to, you see.
ZNZ, Tess- *facepalm, shakes head*
Oh, that’s what that’s for.
Argh. I heard a tune on This American Life this week that I love. Only it was only part of it. I know I’ve heard it before. If anyone else was listening, it was the only orchestral piece on the episode, which was called “Prom.” If you know what it was or where it was from, please tell me.
Ah. It was “Stairway to Heaven.” Never mind.
GAPAs – there’s been a bit of wonkyness signing into paleo accounts. It’s redirecting to musefanpage.com/blog/blog which, of course, gives a 404 error.
Also, packing is the worst. I spent all day yesterday and now I am trying to cram my sheets and leftover clothes and everything into a space that is too small. Also I have so much stuff, it’s ridiculous. Why do I need this much stuff? I don’t even wear half of my clothes.
I’ll look into it when I get a chance.
Lizzie,
How’s it working now? (Even odds are I’ve made things worse, but with luck I’ve fixed it.)
Seems to be fixed, thanks!
Happy Star Wars Day! May The Forth Be With You All!
I officially bought a “Force bar” from the vending machine at school today. It was actually a mars bar, but said “Macht” instead of mars on it, which is for “the Force” (and force or power). I have no idea how it got there or that such bars even existed. I didn’t even know that there’s a Star Wars day. Apparently, the force was with me even before I knew of it…
Yay! May the Fourth be with you also!
Thanks for reminding me, I would have totally forgotten.
I wrote that below the date in my French book.
For the first time in my life, Wikipedia has been wrong.
I feel very betrayed.
What was it wrong about?
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It said the last word of the book was “scar.” I’ve fixed it.
It’s actually “well,” isn’t it?
Yep.
SUMMER WORLD LAST DID WAKE HERMIONE WELL
Why do I know that?
What?
This is from memory, so there’ll be mistakes, but here’s the context for 1, 4, and 7:
“I’m going to have a lot of fun with Dudley this summer…”
What would come would come, and they would meet it when it did.
All was well.
Oh, those are the last words from each book? I didn’t make a connection. Here are some of 2 and 6:
“…walked through the gateway back to the Muggle world.”
“…one last [insert positive adjective] day with Ron and Hermione.
That was a rumor before the book came out.
Don’t feel betrayed. Just think of the great service you’ve performed for the Hive Mind.
WE ARE THE BORG. YOU WILL BE ASSIMILATED. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.A rumor? I thought JKR had personally said it, then changed her mind in the shower. Was that a rumor, too?
Bibliophile:
I didn’t know that she was the source. (You MBers follow these things a lot more closely than I do.) I’d certainly consider it more than a rumor if the author announced it herself.
Well, see, I don’t know that she was the source, either. I heard a rumor that that’s what she said, but I’m not certain.
SFTDP, but squee! I get to write a speech and design a memorial for Jerrie Cobb for school, even though I’m pretty sure she’s still alive!
I mean monument, not memorial. That makes much more sense when you consider that last fact, actually.
SFTTP, but never mind, it actually is a memorial. I suppose my speech will have to be a bit strange, then…
The Jerrie Cobb who was in the Mercury 13?
WICKED!
Yes, that Jerrie Cobb! I’m quite excited. I requested the book about her that Muse used from my library, and I can’t wait to read it and get started.
LUCKY! That sounds great! I used that book for research for a story I did about the Mercury 13 last year.
I just did something I can’t talk to you about. I am traumatized. O.o
Don’t worry, it was an AP test.
CAKE! CAKE, CAKITY CAKE CAKE CAAAAAKE! CAKE, CAKE, CAKE, AND CAKE!- Colin Firth, and me right now
My iPod Touch’s browser just involuntarily reloaded this page, so I lost everything I had just written about our trip. I’ll basically start from the beginning again, and add what we’ve done in Paris some other time. This is where we have gone so far:
Several places in New Zealand, including Fangorn and Emyn Muil (although the latter was too foggy to see anything)
Melbourne, Australia
A little Bangkok and mostly Chiangmai, Thailand
Addis Ababa and Awash National Park, Ethiopia
Kampala, Uganda (my favorite place so far after Thailand)
Frankfurt, Germany (after we canceled our Tanzania plans)
Rome and Silvignano, Italy
Dordogne and Paris, France
Let’s just say my next update involves my sister tripping over a barrier into a Renoir painting. (SPOILER: nothing was damaged.)
Ooh! I’ve been to Mount Doom and Ithilien, though we skipped Hobbiton because you had to pay to get in.
We were going to climb Mount Doom, but we couldn’t fit it into our schedules and my sisters whined about it. Hobbiton was closed, presumably for filming.
My grandmother just passed away. Grandpa called dad and told him, and dad called me to tell me the news, mom is running errands and I’m going to have to tell her when she gets back. God, how am I going to do this?
How can she be gone?
One minute I’m looking for my friend’s entry to the Google doodle contest and the next my grandma Dee is gone.
I’m sorry, Fiddler. As Red-tailed HAWK’s mother wrote to me on a similar occasion a few years ago, “we will hold her in the light.”
I’m so sorry, Fiddler. I think Robert’s (/RtH’s) quote is wonderful…I wish I could do more to help, if you need anything, we’re here for you. *sending love*
I’m so, so sorry.
*many cephalopods*
Oh, MidFid. *hug* I’m so, so sorry.
I’m so sorry. If I could just reach through the computer screen and give you a humongous hug, I would, but this, *hugs*, will have to suffice. I’m so sorry.
I’m so sorry, Fiddler.
I’m so sorry, Fiddler.
Aw, so sorry, Fiddler. Losing someone close is rough. Gather your friends close, and lean on them if you need to.
I’m so sorry, Fiddler. That’s awful. And telling people is the worst. I recommend beginning with, “Mom, Grandpa just called…”
I’m so, so sorry, Fiddler. *hugs*
I’m very sorry that your grandmother passed away, Midnight Fiddler, and I hope you remember her forever.
Hugs, Fiddler.
I’m so, so, sorry. *gives fluffy kitten*
When I was at the World Science Festival last year, I went to go see the life-sized model of the James Webb Space Telescope in Battery Park. (There are pictures on the ‘blog of it.)
When we were leaving the park, I saw that they had a statue that had stood between the towers of the World Trade Center that had been recovered and turned into a memorial. When I looked past the statue, I could see the telescope model, and what struck me was that, coincidentally, they had very similar color schemes- black and gold.
I thought that view was so powerful that I took several pictures of it. I put the best one up on my profile on another site and called it the name I thought summed it up- “21st Century Juxtaposition”.
The two structures together, and what they represented, seemed to suggest to me both a contrast and a choice. For a long time, we’ve been staring at the statue. My hope is that we’ll now choose to go and embrace the telescope.
You know what’s fun?
Being sick.
You know what’s even more fun?
AP week.
You know what the most fun is?
Being sick during AP week.
Guess who’s having a lot of fun this week? Yup. Me. I was up until 1 doing my research paper and studying last night, and then up for another hour and a half because as soon as I went to go to sleep, my stomach started doing some funky things. Just a few more days, and then the year is basically over. Just a few more days and 700 years of history review. *sigh*
I’ve been sick for the entire schoolyear. I also have the SAT tomorrow, though no APs (I’m in 7th grade). At least the standardized tests were easy…
*Not tomorrow, the next day. Sorry.
FRICKETS AND CROGS
I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I pied your post anyway just ’cause it sounded awesome.
Tomorrow: AP tests two and three, Lit and Latin. Lit: shortest and easiest test I’m taking. Latin: second-longest and definitely most difficult test I’m taking. I am going to be tired, hungry, and not at all in a good mood to go to my organ lesson.
You take organ lessons?
That’s awesome.
Yep. I think MissSwann does too, though that may be incorrect or outdated.
Just found out a friend of mine’s family sort of know Neil Armstrong. As in, her grandparents do and she was introduced to him/shook his hand, although she didn’t realize that it was that Neil till afterwards.
I may or may not have made pathetic high pitched noises of envy and love. /Teared up.
SPACE HNNNG. I think all the stuff going on lately with it has been upsetting me more than I realized. I nearly started crying thinking about how people may not touch the surface of another planet for a long while… and that’s something sort of important for me. Space. Going there.
I wishwishwish commercial space travel was more of a real option. Or that it might be in my lifetime. Because I need to go out there, at least once.
It’s coming together. Virgin Galactic did an important test flight yesterday.
Asi sera, mi amigo. Tantas cosas asi sera.
(It shall be, my friend. Oh how many things that shall be.)
Ahem: Asà será, mi amiga. Tantas cosas asà serán.
(And it’s more like “It will be so, my friend. Such/so many things will be so.)
(Darn it, forgot to conjugate for plural! Thanks for the edits, Piggy!)
You know what’s really fun? When you print off 9 pages worth of a paper that’s due tomorrow, only to learn that, hey, your black ink is out on your printer, and a good 6 of those pages are essentially just very faint traces of printing. Joy. Now I either have to go get ink sometime tomorrow, or pay to print it on one of the campus printers, since my school print budget is out (thanks to all the ornithology pics i had to color print, at 50 cents a page–that goes through your $35 pre-allotted budget real fast).
ajfal;kdfhgldjfkldfhgaldks
Merry Cinco de Mayo! I have a cold. Urgle.
(previous thread)
Piggy (228.1): Cool, thanks!
Robert (230): Oh, yeah! We sold our Honda Fit after my mom died, and my dad is now looking to get a Ford Focus.
Axa/oxlin/Piggy (238/etc.): Yeah, I’m 19, too. I was what, 14 when I first started posing on MuseBlog? And even then, there were lots of people who were younger than me. OH SO OLD.
Piggy (247): Do it!! (re: selling all your stuff and living in the Rockies, so you don’t have to go back and look at the post.)
oxlin (249): Ooh, mango juice! That sounds delicious.
(new thread)
re: May– I can’t believe it’s May. I can’t believe I’m almost done with my first year of college. I can’t believe any of this stuff. My brain just won’t process it.
oxlin (11): Thanks! Best day. In related news, I found 4 four-leaf clovers last week! I had never found one before, and then I found four! Very exciting.
Axa (29): You’re the best!
Luna (49): In high school, I used to dream that I was getting up, getting dressed/ready, eating breakfast, etc. Then, I would wake up and realize that I was actually sleeping and had 5 minutes to catch my bus. But then again, there were the times where I woke up at 3 am, thought it was 6 am, and started getting ready, only to find out that I still had several hours before I needed to get ready. Mostly, in college, I’ll wake up and tell myself that I’m going to sleep instead of going to class, but 5 minutes later, I talk sense into myself and get going. In terms of forgetting about class–I think I get close to that, sometimes, but I’ve always remembered before the class started, at least so far.
KaiYves (50.1.1.1.1): Like Firefly, of course!
Bibliophile/THF (51.1): I think everyone feels like that, from time to time. I feel like that a lot, too. Part of it, I suspect, is just the speed of the blog–everything goes so fast, there are a lot of people, and especially nowadays there are so many really short comments (less direct replies like I remember from the past), so it’s easier to get lost in the cracks.
Well, I think you’ve said it all re: Osama bin Laden, but my first thought after I heard the news was “I wonder what kind of day Uncle X and Aunt Y are having!” They work for the US State Department, currently in Afghanistan. My aunt does something related to border control, and she took lots of trips to the Pakistan border with the Ambassador. I think their last day there was actually the 2nd, but I’m interested to hear what it was like!
Axa (55): Yes, mine has that, too! Except, I never write my posts in the textbox. Actually, I’ll take this time to explain my flamablamablous method that I’ve been using for years. I open Mac’s program “Stickies” and create a little sticky-note (you can also do this with Microsoft Word or TextEdit or anything that allows resizable text boxes), and I create a long, thin box on the right side of my screen. Then, I open MuseBlog and make the browser window smaller so that I can just see the comments section, and not all the stuff on the column on the right. So, essentially, my screen has a section on the right for writing, and a side on the left for reading. I scroll through the MB thread, reading it, and when I want to comment, I just have to click over to my Sticky-note and type the comment (this saves all of the up-and-down scrolling that I used to do when replying to everything). And then, I copy+paste everything into the text box when I’m all done to post it. (Plus, then, I won’t lose my crazy-long posts due to internet/browser problems.) Yay!
// Also Ireland?! I might study abroad in Ireland! My school has a really cool conflict-studies program there, which I’ve been considering. I think at this point, it’s between Ireland and New Zealand for study abroad.
// Also also, 92 degrees, that’s crazy! Yesterday night, I slept outside in the woods behind my school’s campus, and it got down to 31 degrees and there was frost on our sleeping bags when we woke up. Right now, it’s 50 degrees.
Lizzie (57): I haven’t started packing yet. I have to move out by tomorrow. I really don’t want to start. Wahhhhh. Good luck!
Fiddler (63): I know the feeling. She is with all that is beautiful in the world.
Beedle the Bard (65): Imagine taking the APs and SATs with your non-dominant hand because your dominant hand was injured in a serious sports injury. Yup yup, you can do it!!
Personal news: I just took my last final. Hurrah! Now, I have a 2-week Wilderness First Responder course, then I’m home! It’s sad and weird to see everyone leaving, but we’ll all be back in the fall.
Re: waking up at 3 a.m. thinking it’s 6: My friend once did this. However, he didn’t get dressed, get his books ready, and see the clock. He got up, got his stuff together, took a shower, ate breakfast, and drove to school. Then he noticed it was three in the morning. On a Saturday.
Luna — ugh, printers. i’m always wary of going over my page limit and imagine I will as the years go on.
Pan — wow the stickies method works so well! This does eliminate a lot of unnecessary scrolling….excellent!
Conflict studies sounds really interesting, that’s in Northern Ireland I would think? Just by the way I looked up your school and I think the experiential learning and the general philosophy (based on what I could discern from the website) is just really great. Haha just throwing that out there
If I can though I would be so pumped to do so, I really want to go somewhere that is not the general area where I live/go to school.
I’m trying not to get too far ahead of myself though, since I might not have the space/time to do so anyway what with taking a leave and everything. BUT I am still hoping I can! I think it’s really important to experience another country and I think I especially need to get taken out of california tbh
I complain about the heat but I actually love it (hmm wasn’t I just talking about Ireland?
)
Most of the time, anyway.
Good luck on finals! (and to everyone else too!) That sounds like a pretty cool final to me, although being two weeks long…:lol:
Thanks for your kind words and support everyone. *hugs back to all*
Yesterday wasn’t all sorrow; I rescued a baby barred owl (asdfghjedfsybcxn CUTEST THING EVER) and got to help fed baby squirrels (asdhjbnfedsjbhesnmmrfgocjkn MORE ADORABLENESS). The squirrel’s eyes were just opening and their tails hadn’t bushed out yet, and they were SO CUTE. There were also baby bunnies, baby raccoons and a baby fox that had been attacked by another creature. I’m still under the affects of adorbz overload.
I’m glad you had some adorableness to mingle with your sorrow, especially since, from what you’ve said of your grandmother, she would have appreciated your observations. I find that nature is both piercing and comforting when we’re hurting.
Okay, since I said I would go into a little more detail, here’s quick snippets of what I did everywhere I went.
New Zealand: walked through Fangorn used 12-megabit Internet, and went into glow-worm caves
Australia: played Goldeneye 007 and visited very old friends
Thailand: fell into a pond and rode an elephant
Ethiopia: met our sponsored child, got uncomfortably close to baboons, and got a ride from a couple smugglers
Uganda: visited orphanages, went to the best church service ever, and saw the best middle/high school band I’ve seen in a long time
Frankfurt: watched SpongeBob Schwamkopf and played Life in Technicolor on an actual dulcimer
Rome: went to the Coliseum and heard a guy in a gladiator costume say, in dramatic Italian fashion, “OBAMA!!!!”
Silvignano: saw another very old friend and ate wild asparagus
Dordogne: went canoeing, walked through a castle and tried on a coat of mail, and ate the best meal ever
Paris (so far): went to Disneyland, visited every art museum except the Louvre, and ate an entire Hard Rock Café cheeseburger in about 10 minutes
Feel free to ask for any clarification.
A glow-worm cave! That sounds great. Also, I’m very jealous of your world traveling, and very glad you get to experience it so soon!
Great – that should be, “O, mickle is a glow-worm cave!”
Me too! Well, with Waitomo Caves and the elephant in Thailand. Tell us more!
I think I may have invented a new game. You may name it collectively, but its interim title is The Recent Comments Game. It will probably turn out to be rubbish, but let’s see.
Have a look at the Recent Comments column on the main page. It aggregates the most recent comments from all the topics, so mostly nothing relates to anything else. But occasionally it throws up random juxtapositions which are at least strange. If one copies, pastes, and deletes the references to which topic the comment appeared in, some of them raise a chuckle. This one isn’t spectacularly funny, but I thought it was worth flagging up.
———————-
Lizzie – “I think that if someone is having sex they should be mature enough to use birth control and accept the risk of pregnancy.
Rebecca Lasley (Administrator) – That’s a great idea! Do you have any particular requests for what designs you’d like to see?
———————-
Over to you. Spot the funnies or invent a better name.
Ooh! Ooh! Lemmesee…
Bibliophile: Well, not really; anything would be great.
agrrrfishi: Tenor viol it is, then, my good man.
Argle, that’s all I can find.
bookgirl_me: “You are as superfluous as a sandbox in the desert.†“I think I just wrote that my mother treats me like a…
Bibilophile: What?
Also:
KaiYves: An article in the local paper talked about seeing a space shuttle launch at “Kennedy Space STATIONâ€.
Bibliophile: Well, not really; anything would be great.
They’re not that good, but whatever.
Mikazuki- I’m so, so sorry Fiddler. *hugs*
Rosebud2- Ooh! Ooh! Lemmesee…
Randomosity101 – “Lenin’s real name was Vladimir Illich Ulyanov, and with a name like that you’ll want to shorten it. 
Rebecca Lasley (Administrator) – I understand the feeling…
Piggy: Does anyone have any strategies to do what I mentioned in 13? I want to actually follow through with a plan for once in…
Cat’s Eye: The best activity ever is doing online driver’s ed while listening to Disney songs and intermittently…
Not that good, oh well.
Feliz Cinco De Mayo, and Happy 50th Anniversary of Freedom 7!
Whatever you do, DO NOT eliminate HG2G. This will be your greatest companion. Do not leave it behind. OR I WILL FIND YOU.
Congratulations!
And slightly better:
This reminds me strangely of what John Kyl said: I suppose as long as it’s a free country, we will have proselytizing nutcases roaming the streets
Another variation I thought of is just taking random posts from the RC bar rather than consecutive ones, just to open up more possibilities.
I think you’re right. No point in insisting on consecutive order if there’s a funny to be extracted. Maybe a gold star for a genuine juxtaposition.
The first 4 were all mine or a reply to mine.
And the 7th!
So. Concerts. [Warning: Long post ahead. If you don’t understand the references to Paperclip, all is explained on the Romance and Relationships thread.]
On Tuesday, we showed up in our awesomely awesome band shirts. We moved the whole band room down to the auditorium/theater. I discovered that my trombone was not where it was supposed to be (the guy’s dressing room. Woodwinds went in the girl’s dressing room.) I then ran around for twenty minutes before I realized that some cauliflower had MOVED MY TROMBONE! BACK TO ITS SHELF IN THE BAND ROOM! So I ran back to the auditorium with my trombone, panting and yelling derivations of the word “cake”. At this point the whole grade started arriving, with the P.E. teachers yelling at them to fill up the front row. Then, I set up my tenor and went down into the pit with the jazz band, where we played all of our songs. I played my solo and it was fine. Went back up on stage. Played songs, with me on trombone. I discovered that Paperclip never stops talking. EVER. Not even during concerts. Not that it’s a bad thing, but I can never hear him because we always get into conversations while the piccolos are being tuned, which takes FOREVER. So. Played songs. Kids clapped. Went to fourth period.
That night, the beginner band’s concert meant ANOTHER jazz band performance. That went fine. My friend’s sister played a solo, and curtsied. That was fine. THEN. I discovered that while I had been watching the beginner band, the rest of the jazz band had gone downtown to hang out. Feeling very excluded, I went home, was convinced Paperclip would never like me, felt excluded became depressed, cried myself to sleep, woke up to the Imperial March, discovered it was National Star Wars Day, still felt depressed, made tea, ate cereal with sore teeth from newly installed orthodontia, went outside, discovered that the weather was bad, felt very depressed, got to school, felt extremely depressed, and remembered that it was the day of our BIG night concert. Whoop de doo. THEN! In band, GUESS WHERE MY TROMBONE WAS! In the band room. Again. Screaming bloody murder, I moved it back to its spot, and unpacked it, still feeling very depressed. THEN, Paperclip said, “You should have been there last night, downtown. It was great.” And that made everything better. Feeling happy and unreasonably romantic, I made it through the rest of the day, got home, “worked on” homework, got into nice dress clothes and white shirt, realized lasagna was for dinner, decided to postpone evening meal until after the concert, brushed hair, braided it, put on treble clef earrings even though trombones are bass clef, brushed teeth, stressed, got sheet music, and drove to school. Apparently the huge “DO NOT MOVE” sign I had put on the case worked, because my instrument was still there. Then Paperclip showed me the CORRECT way to oil a trombone slide (the oil that came in the case was the wrong type) so for once in my life, the slide was like greased lightning. It was wonderful.
In jazz band, I had my solo in Limbo Jazz again, and even though the sound system was fixed, I didn’t need the microphone. That’s how awesomely loud I was. Then I banged backstage a bit more, aquired the correct instrument, but WAIT! I didn’t need it, because I WAS CONDUCTING THE MARCH. So I conducted the march, didn’t drag the tempo, gave the bari saxes their cue, bowed, and picked up my trombone to play our utterly boring slow song, which we played amazingly for once. Then it was the low song with lots of low brass, which was fun and loud. Then we stopped for solos and awards, and I did some more banging backstage, listened to Red’s nine-minute piano solo, got on stage, played my All-district audition piece, and messed up five times without anyone noticing, except for maybe my mom, because I’ve practiced so much she knows it by heart. After that, there were awards, and then I banged around some more, DIDN’T knock over any percussion, aquired my trombone, and we played LOTR, Eric Clapton’s Layla, and a Green Day medley. It was amazing. Afterwards, we hung around outside chatting.
So the symphonic band’s concert is tonight, and jazz band is performing on that one, too.
[Kudos to you if you actually read all this!]
I’m glad everything went well! Anyone who plays Layla on trombone has my respect, hehe
. And it sounds like good Paperclip-ish things are happening too. Congratulations.
Thank you!
Bass clef traitorYou’re right, a sticky slide is SUPER annoying, and mine is dented right in fourth position.
Anyway, that sounds like a lot of fun…We had our concert last night and we were the first ever concert band to play the soundtrack from Tron.
Amazing!
Done with the AP Latin exam. That was by far the most difficult test I’ve ever taken. I just hope I get a 2 so I’ll get my 87 dollars back, but I’m not sure I’ll even get that.
dang you get refunded?! that is a good thing at least!
i’m sure you did wonderfully! good luck on Lit (although i’m sure you’re done by now actually…well retroactive good luck then)
Yeah, our district gives us back our cash if we get a 2 or better. I’m not worried about how I did on Lit. It’s the shortest and easiest test I’m taking this year.
Just got back from senior/symphonic band concert, and guess what? If you put down and pick up a tenor sax enough, the reed will break! So I had to play with a new reed and the first tenor player got the solos, but it was OK.
I stayed for the concert. Lady Gaga songs sound really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really good in band arrangements.
Piggy: Yikes. Good luck.
Speaking of grading systems, the school system is changing the grading system to 1234 instead of ABCDF. I am heartbroken. I can’t get all 4’s, but I can get all A’s, so there go my chances of the honor roll. Grr.
Oh no, I hate playing on new reeds on sax! I’m sorry.
It was all right; I could still play, just not as well.
Hey, space fans! (Don’t try hiding; I know there’s a lot of you here.) My debate topic for English class is about whether the United States should continue to spend money for space exploration, including voyages to the moon, Mars, etc. The topic was actually specifically chosen by my group so that the Negative could mess with the teacher and imply conspiracy theories, BUT I’m the Affirmative, and my partner and I are supposed to be serious. Does anybody have suggestions for where should I begin my research, either ideas-wise or resource-wise?
Symphony of Science has some good arguments.
Human space exploration, robot space probes and rovers, or both?
We haven’t narrowed it down yet. However, most of the conspiracy theories seem to revolve around human space exploration beyond earth’s orbit, so it’s possible that we’ll skew that direction.
Axa: That’s a great quote! Thank you!
What sorts of conspiracy theories? I’m having trouble imagining what you mean, or why it might constitute an argument against having a space program (human or otherwise).
Well, it appears that there is still a segment of the population that still believes that the moon landings were faked. (Exhibit #1: my friend’s substitute teacher a few days ago) In my debate group, the Negative side has decided that one of their key arguments is going to be that those landings never actually happened, and therefore, we clearly don’t have the technology to go to the moon again or proceed to Mars. (They don’t actually believe this, but conspiracy theories are a running joke in the class.) I’m expecting them to target their entire argument at the manned spaceflight program. My side could certainly include information about the rovers and/or probes, but the manned expeditions are more naturally going to come up in the debate.
So their argument is going to be “we shouldn’t have a space program because we don’t have a space program because we’ve never had a space program because there’s no such thing as a space program”?
They’re going to sound awfully silly saying that.
i have the perfect reply courtesy of Neil deGrasse Tyson:
“Everyone I know who says that going to Mars is a ‘waste of resources’ gives me too high a number for how much they think NASA is getting. I say, ‘How much do you think they’re getting on your tax dollar?’ They say 10 percent, 15 percent. It’s one-half of one penny (per taxpayer). And you’re gonna attack NASA for its one-half of one penny, and say it’s ‘spending it on the wrong things,’ when NASA is a force of nature unto itself to inspire a generation to wanna become scientifically literate?! And one of the greatest problems this nation has today is the absence of science literacy!â€
Okay, so you knew I couldn’t pass up commenting on this topic…
The Arguements of the Body:
Ameliorating Disasters- A presence in space enables us to see “The Bigger Picture”- we can see our planet as a whole and track and predict where prevailing winds and oceanic currents will carry hurricanes, volcanic ash clouds, and oil spills.
The Survival Imperative- A species that only exists on one planet is incredibly vulnerable. Supervolcanos, asteroid and comet impacts, pandemics, environmental damage and nuclear threats. We talk about any of those as “The end of the world”, but what we really mean is “The end of human civilization on THIS world.” Of course, if our civilization is ONLY on this world, than it WOULD be the end, but if we have colonies elsewhere… we will go on.
Eating… – Improved weather prediction aids farmers in growing more crops, and satellite mapping can help find areas that are more ideal for agriculture. While we can’t tell where the fish are biting, we can determine which areas in the sea have higher biomass concentrations, a good indication as to where more fish can be caught.
… and Drinking- Satellite mapping and measurements of gravity variations can reveal hidden sources of water in drought-stricken areas.
Unwraveling Necklaces- You know how you can order all kinds of cheap things for parties from those novelty catalogues and if you get necklaces or lanyards, they always come all tangled up? Focusing on a knot by itself doesn’t get very far- you might free one necklace by working with another one on the other side of the whole mess. That’s what spinoffs are like- while developing technology for space travel, we discover something that could be useful in another area. Here’s a more comprehensive directory than I could ever give: http:// www. sti. nasa.gov /tto/
The Arguements of the Mind:
Comparative Planetology- Doctors have trouble treating a disease they’ve never seen anything like.
“So you’re an atmospheric scientist?”
“Yeah. I try to fix the polution problems in our planet’s atmosphere.”
“So, how many planets’ atmospheres have you studied?”
“So, you’re a vulcanologist?”
“Yeah, I study volcanoes to learn what signs the planet gives that an erruption is coming, so that we can minimize damage.”
“So, how many planets have you studied the volcanoes of?”
For Science!- We want to know how the Universe works! We want to know the history of our solar system! We want to know how planets form! We want to know if there’s life on Mars, Europa, or Titan! There may not be immediate applications on Earth as with the applied science in the previous examples, but it’s better to know than not. As a letter in the latest issue of Sky and Telescope put it: “The finest of our scientists have never contented themeselves with building a better photocopy machine.”
Getting Schooled- Now, you hear NASA PR people say “We’re going to inspire STEM education” a lot, but that sounds kind of boring. So here’s what they mean-
No MuseBlogger would ever be one of these kids, but you know the type. They don’t think it’s fun to be curious and find out how things work. They sit in science class using their phones, shooting spitballs at innocent victims like yourself, and going “What am I ever going to do with this, anyway?”
Now, after hearing this enough times, your teacher is going to get tired of dealing with that kid, and he or she is going to snap. He or she is going to give that kid a Deadly Laser Death Glare and shout “WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY?”, and when the kid repeats “I said, what can I ever do with this when I’m grown up?”, your science teacher is going to go to their computer, turn up the sound on their SmartBoard, and throw up a video of the latest crewed rocket launch, and go “YOU CAN BE AN ASTRONAUT AND RIDE ON A GIANT FLAMING SPACESHIP AND FLY TO MARS AND BE AN INTERATIONAL HERO, THAT’S WHAT!”
And that stupid kid is going to sit down and shut up, because he got Schooled.
The Arguements of the Spirit:
Curiosity and Exploration- So, what’s out there? What’s at the South Pole of the moon? What’s on an asteroid? What’s on Mars? What’s down that trail in the woods you’ve never hiked down before? What’s on that street in your city you’ve never visited? What’s at the end of the engrossing mystery book you’re reading right now? You want to know. The unknown makes us feel itchy, and the only way to stratch is to find out.
Good News and Bad News- Remember the story of Pandora’s Box? The one good thing inside, the thing that made it possible for humans to endure all of the evils that escaped, was Hope. Sometimes, especially for people our age, it’s easy to get overwhelmed and feel hopeless. In our own lives, we’ve got tests, homework, grades, zits, admissions, bullies, drama, and People Who Just Don’t Get Us. And in the news, we’re always reading about war, crime, violence, economic problems, environmental issues, and pretty much everything else that can go wrong. We might be forgiven for just deciding that “Everything sucks and I suck, too.”
But we’ve got the space program. We’ve got the moments when we can get on a computer in free period and read about new planets being discovered, about satellites being used to protect our environment, about astronauts and scientists and engineers doing things right. We’ve got the chance to put aside our differences and watch a launch with our parents or siblings or friends. We’ve got hearing on TV about how NASA expertise helped to save the miners in Chile. We’ve got the fantasy of floating weightless when we close our eyes at night. We’ve got some good news.
We’ve got hope.
Kai, this is a fantastic list. Thank you so much!
Robert: Pretty much. It’s practically a straw man argument, which is why I think my side needs to do mankind justice by making as strong of a case for space exploration as possible.
You’re welcome. It took two free periods to write, and I made a few typos.
What do you think of this plot?
City of protectors: Built around *relic name* which contains all magic of the world, also has magic catchers.
That could be a good setting for a plot, but it isn’t a plot itself.
It’s time again for Random Snippets of Thought, brought to you by Piggy Industries and Weetabix.
-It worries me that some people here think I’m a good debater. I’m horrible. If you want to learn from me, do the opposite of what I do.
-After finishing the multiple choice section of the AP Lit exam, I first wrote out as much as I could recall of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, followed by bits of Portrait of a Lady (both by T.S. Eliot). After that, I wrote some haikus in Spanish and drew a pig.
-I should go to the Cinco de Mayo parade this Saturday.
-No, subconscious, I’m pretty sure that listening to Disney songs is a much better activity than homework.
-How does one develop a taste for bean sprouts?
-I wish I didn’t have to teach Spanish tomorrow by myself. Speaking of which, I need to find a ride.
-Oh whoops, I need to take that math placement exam sometime soon. And pester Mags and ‘Gister for their letters of recommendation.
-I wonder if anyone’s ever had a team of Pokemon that were all level 100 and shiny.
-I should go feed the geese again.
Thank you for your cooperation.
a. I adore The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.
b. Disney songs are definitely the optimal way to spend homework time.
do i dare disturb the universe?
the worst is when you listen to disney songs on youtube, because then you get into the multilanguage versions and there is NO TURNING BACK
DISNEY PARA SIEMPRE
“¿Has oÃdo al lobo aullarle a la luna azul?
¿O has visto a un lince sonreÃr?
¿Has cantado con la voz de las montañas?
¿Y colores en el viento descubrir?
¿Y colores en el viento descubrir?”
Please tell me that was “Colors of the Wind”. If it is, I feel very accomplished at Spanish.
Si, mi amiga hispanohablante.
The best activity ever is doing online driver’s ed while listening to Disney songs and intermittently pausing both and watching Doctor Who.
Lately I’ve been squandering my time looking at video game glitches online. My favorite so far is still ZZAZZ, although another good one is the fact that the original Marathon game could delete every file on your computer.
That’s not a squandering of your time!
Have you heard of the Minus World, from Super Mario Bros.? It’s one of my favorites.
I have big plans for painting my room when I get back to CA. I think I’ll paint my door to look like the gates to Moria, and then on the wall with the windows I’ll paint a giant map of Middle Earth. The opposite wall will retain the mural of the sea dragon my mom made one summer, and I will paint my ceiling to look either like space or a giant rainbow (it has wooden beams, you see). What should I do with the other two walls?
I would recommend an underwater scene and a cloudscape, so you could look at it and pretend you were flying. (You could put a rainbow in it, too.)
Mountains, perhaps?
The Misty Mountains? Isengard on the south with the Entwash snaking by; the mountains of Moria with Durin’s Tower; perhaps the main entry of Moria with the Watcher in the Water lurking outside; Lothlorien and Fangorn in the foreground and the start of the Old Forest Road–unless you want to show the mountains from the other side, in which case: Rivendell. It would be quite a mural.
Choklit–paint squids!
Well, today I’m leaving on my trip… (I think I talked about this before…I joined/got into a program in my town, and we’re taking our yearly trip.) Wish me luck.
Good luck!
Hnnngggggggggg
There’s a job listed for college students only. Python technician. Working with snakes in the Florida keys over the summer. But it’s from may 23-august 14 (my finals end like… may 22). And I’m not sure my parents would let me do it. Or if it’s even still accepting people. But I emailed asking for more information because SNAKES, AWESOME
HYPOTHETICAL ENVY
Python Technician. You do know there’s a programming language called Python? Just checking.
I can’t be the only one who connected it first to Monty Python. I was quite intrigued–being a Python technician would be fantastic.
You definitely weren’t.
I actually connected it to the programming language first, despite not being nor never having been a programmer. Snakes are indeed awesome.
Are these invasive Burmese pythons and African rock pythons? If so, “working with” them probably means killing them. Florida has a huge problem with introduced species. Pythons in particular are gobbling up the native wildlife. They even eat alligators!
SFTDP, but Kai or anyone else who might know, what sort of places does NASA have that would work as a place to put a monument to Jerrie Cobb? I suppose I could look up a map, but I don’t know if there is one, and if you already know of somewhere, this way could be quicker…
I would say the Lovelace offices in Albuquerque, New Mexico, because that’s where they trained and because Randy Lovelace was one of the officials who supported the Mercury 13.
my aura of fail is so great I cannot get on the fail thread due to technical issues with my computor
lolRecent Comments Game – I’ve decided it’s legitimate to remove extraneous words from the end of a comment to improve the flow, provided one doesn’t add any. Added full stops (sorry, periods) are OK.
So, for your delight, a triple sequence:
Robert Coontz (Administrator) – So their argument is going to be “we shouldn’t have a space program because …
Lizzie – Don’t worry, it’s traditional to get into last-minute long-distance impractical relationships.
Insatiably Quaeritating Bibliophile – Take the pasta machine. You won’t regret it, even if your dad will.
There is something–looks like a sequin–stuck in in my cell phone right where the charger is supposed to go. I cannot get it out. My cell phone has very little power left. Da
mrn.89 (Halomaniac)~ That comment has an aura of of great win, actually. So you win at failing? This is confusing. You’re a Muser, so you automatically win at everything.
90 (Paulie)~ Good one!
Guys, I am on my second day at home completely alone and I went grocery shopping today. I feel SO GROWN UP.
Now, whenever I go grocery shopping I feel that the immortal words of Hyperbole and a Half apply perfectly “I look other responsible people in the eye with a knowing glance, as if to say ‘I understand. I’m responsible now too, just look at my groceries.'”
So there’s that. The other thing about when I go grocery shopping is that I kind of look like the most outlandish hippie ever. Now, not because I am the most outlandish hippie ever, but because in my town hippies are kind of scarce. So a kid wandering around the store with reusable bags and armfuls of produce isn’t typical. And today instead of taking reusable bags I took a basket. Because, I thought to myself, this basket has more structure than a bag, so maybe it will keep my dark leafy greens (DLGs) from getting smashed? And I don’t need to get too much, so one basket will hold enough, instead of lugging around tons of bags, which will only make me feel awkward when I don’t fill them all up. Or make me feel compelled to buy more. Besides, the bags are kind of icky. A basket it is!
So I took the basket. Which was made in Uganda and is round and sort of flexible with a white and blue pattern that’s very simple and pretty.
I was also wearing a long flowing skirt, a crochet hat, birkenstocks and lugging (in addition to the basket) a terribly practical, mud brown purse.
Needless to say, if someone was looking for me, they wouldn’t have had a hard time picking me out of the crowd.
But I got my groceries, including pom pom mushrooms and yet more tofu, and my DLGs didn’t get smashed. So I am happy.
Tonight/today/at some point within the next 24 hours I intend to make an attempt at scrambling tofu with the fresh asparagus my aunt brought from her garden yesterday, mushrooms and other yummy things and wrapping them up in vegan crepes. That sounds terribly delicious to me right now, but I haven’t a clue how I’m going to do it, since I’ve never scrambled tofu before. And I’m not really a huge asparagus fan, but better as an added flavor than just steamed plain.
I wonder what would happen if one roasted asparagus? I imagine the taste would be great, but it might get stringy. Hm. Research needed.
The problem I have right now is that there are so many ways of making tofu and they’re all good, and I have a finite amount of it, so I need to decide what I want to do. Scrambled, baked, fried, smooshed up with oil and spices, put into soups or other dishes in any way shape or form…..OH NOES HOW DO I CHOOSE?! *sob*
I’ve been on a real tofu kick recently. Tofu and baked vegetables. Omnomnomnomnom…….
I love tofu, as long as it isn’t trying to be something else.
Roasted is my absolute favorite way of fixing asparagus. First I toss them in a vinaigrette of varying ingredients, very lightly so as not to overpower the vegetable. The thicker stalks work better than the real skinny ones, but they come out all right if you’re careful. In fact, I may have some tonight. Though not freshly cut by an auntie, alas.
My grocery bags are netted string, made in France. I’d been wanting one ever since the first hippie invasion and finally found some about 20-25 years ago. I love how I can tuck them in a pocket when they’re empty, then as you fill them they expand almost as much as Mary Poppins’s carpet bag. They also inspire envy in the checkout line, which I enjoy very much.
That sounds delicious, and I detest asparagus. Hum.
My favorite grocery bag has a TARDIS on the outside and it expands to be much bigger and then has “bigger on the inside” on the inside, larger pocket. (It is one of those big shopping bags that you stuff into a pocket that becomes the outside. It is also blue). I don’t actually own it, though I want it.
personally i can eat tofu any which way, including cold with soy sauce, but i generally like it in stir frys (fries?) with lots of cabbage and peppers, and then on top of some quality rice
i feel envy for your shopping basket (as well as rebecca’s!)
wow will you look at those comma splices. apologies, friends~
Piggy~ I like the occasional imitation meat product as much as the next guy, but with emphasis on the occasional. Being vegetarian/vegan by simply eating imitation meat instead of meat meat is stupid, not to mention horrifically expensive.
Rebecca~ As I believe I stated above, I’m not a huge asparagus fan, but roasting tends to bring out the best flavors in things. Perhaps I’ll try it with the few stalks I have left over…mmm.
We have some of those net bags around somewhere, I may snatch them, since mom doesn’t use them. My only problem with them is that they tend to snag on things, and I’m always afraid they’ll break. I have a Chico Bag, one of those ones that folds into its own tiny pouch, and I adore it. The seams are starting to look strained though, which is muy sad.
Axa~ Oh lawd, don’t even get me started. I’ve been constantly craving tofu lately. It’s kind of sad.
So guys, I did the scrambled tofu thing I described, and it was AMAZING. I’m inordinately proud of myself. I even managed to get a fair percentage of my crepes to turn out perfectly.
It turns out I actually work harder than a lot of the kids in my Math class who are smarter than me. But they still get better grades because they just grasp Math more easily.
It’s also quite possible that they lie about how much they work because for some reason doing something without any effort is valued more than spending a lot of time and care and effort on something.
No, no, I was working with them today, and they just threw down the first answer they came up with without bothering to check or making the graph exact because our teacher doesn’t grade homework. They actually complained I was slowing them down because I checked my answers and did my graph carefully.
I’d say you’ve got the better approach. Eventually they’re going to hit a subject in math that doesn’t come as intuitively to them, and then while you’ll have a system worked out for breaking down the problems and dealing with them, they won’t know how to approach it.
(also, they’re probably not as accurate now as you think they are)
(confession: even though I usually finished tests around the same time or earlier as the first person to turn them in, I usually took all the allotted time checking work. I guess it worked – I graduated second in my class of over six hundred people.)
The “Currently Popular” sidebar thingy is a weird shape right now- the length of the thread titles go long, and then short, and then long-but-not-quite-as long, and then shorter, etc., forming a sort of triangle.
It looks fine on all three of my browsers.
She means the shape created by the titles.
Aha. Never mind.
Some friends and I are planning a couple-day trip to St. Louis after graduation. Apparently the primary purpose was originally to get barbecue. But we’ll be going to Ted Drewes as well, if I have anything to say about it.
Piggy hungers.
Ted Drewes! I’ve been to Ted Drewes.
I love Ted Drewes.
92 (Fiddler) – That is the second reference to Hyperbole and a Half that I have read today. No, not just Hyperbole and a Half. A picture from that exact post was posted on one of my favorite blogs yesterday.
Regarding tofu: I am not a big fan of tofu in any situation, but I really really agree with Piggy (92.1) about fake meat and stuff. I’m not a vegetarian, but I think that if you’re going to take meat (or all animal products) out of your diet, you shouldn’t try to make the same thing out of something else. Appreciate the food that you are eating for what it is!
I don’t really get it. I don’t eat fake meat myself because I just don’t feel the need, but if someone wants to go vegetarian vegan for reasons other than taste because that’s important to them, but they love the taste of meat and don’t want to stop tasting it if they don’t have to, I’d think that imitations would be a good solution.
That’s a good point. It seems to me that soy burgers and the like don’t actually taste like meat, though—at least not the ones I’ve had. Fiddler makes a good point in 92.4, too; it’s awfully expensive.
Ack! My post didn’t come through. But anyway… I spraypainted my science project green and silver, and then I had cookies.
What’s your science project?
Marble roller coaster… We have to make the marble run through the track, relying solely on gravity and centrifugal force. Our group’s theme is “Alien Apocalypse”.
Sounds cool!
We still need a soundtrack. I want Jaws.
Well, I’ve set myself a challenge.
As you may or may not know, I write music. And I quite enjoy it, especially for chorus.
So I’ve challenged myself to write 5 pieces (which is nearly twice that I’ve ever written and have a serious chance of having performed), setting poems to music. All of them a about nature, and they are-
Sonnet 18 (Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?) by William Shakespeare
May-Flower by Emily Dickinson
The Rainy Day by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman
Night by Pul Laurence Dunbar
I hope I’ll be able to do it!
You! Send me a telegram.
I do depart to do so.
Auditions over ( for the night ). Time to do nothing at all, except read Gone With the Wind.Bliss.
I found an in-character Twitter feed for Wernher von Braun. It’s really funny, too.
Twiddlytwiddlytwiddly… I love Saturdays. Today I got up at 10AM, mall-ratted for a few hours, and then went swimming.
It’s election day in Singapore. If I had a vote I would cast it for the Singapore Democratic Party, just because their logo looks like the Star Fleet symbol.
I get mistaken for a hippie so much I think I’ll just go with it.
Well, you are moving to California, darling.
Excellent point. I know very few Californians who are not hippies.
I SAW 13 THE MUSICAL YESTERDAY!!!
It was FLAMABULOUS. My friend H was Kendra, and two of my friends were in the Company. ‘Kendra’ has told me lots of things about her friends in the cast, which made the entire play a little bit funnier.
-‘Archie’ is dating ‘Malcolm’
-‘Evan Goldman’ is actually seventeen
-My friend Z got to sing the “I want a Wonderbra” line (which made me think of sbf, by the way!)
-Did I mention that the guys who play Archie and Malcolm are dating?
It was so amazing and funny and the music was fantastic and the singing was spectacular and ‘Evan Goldman’s tap dancing during “No one says no to a boy with a fatal disease” was really really good (the guy who played Evan has been taking tap since he was really little), and I laughed every single time Kendra hugged someone because H is such a hug person and I bet she loved it.
Also, I have a crush on Evan Goldman now. :3
*Evan and Patrice kiss*
Archie: *weirded out expression* *sings* Well if that’s what it is, then that’s what it is…
Audience: *cracks up*
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“That if you hold your breath until you almost choke, a little bit of pee comes out?”
“….”
Recent Comments Game:
Rebecca Lasley: “I call them ‘sea vegetables.’â€
Robert Coontz: “That’s almost weird enough to make me want to do it.”
fireandhemlock1996: “Happy New Year!: I SAW 13 THE MUSICAL YESTERDAY!!! It was FLAMABULOUS.”
ZNZ: “It must be out of jealousy. That’s the only explanation.”
(My favorite:)
Rebecca Lasley: “Unless they’re so big that as she walks she catches people in them instead of dreams.”
Choklit Orange: “Singaporeans. Nobody here has a sense of humor.”
Enceladus: “I do depart to do so.”
Robert Coontz: “I really used to do things like that, by the way. I was pretty cocky when I was young…”
Could we perhaps get a thread for this?
Here is how I remember that the word pamplemousse is masculine so I don’t get it wrong on the French test:
Enc est un garcon. Enc est un pamplemousse, alors un pamplemousse est un monsieur.
Clever, right?
Chickens like apple petals. Hmm.
Yeah, im sitting under my apple trees on a blanket with my dog next to me and studying and listening to Johnny Flynn. The chickens are pecking at me and the petals, and it’s so nice and warm. Every time there’s a breeze, there’s a little blizzard of petals and the chickens go crazy.
Mmmmmmmmmmm it’s so nice. :3
My parents decided today was too nice a day to waste indoors. So they sent my two younger brothers, the family dog, and me outside to walk around with strict instructions not to return until eleven-thirty. (They, of course, felt perfectly fine “wasting the day,” and were on their computers all day.) I was quite annoyed, as I had just started playing on the Game Cube, so I figured that if they wanted us to walk but weren’t going to tell us where, they wouldn’t mind if we went a lot farther than they expected. Also, if we stayed around where they thought we would, we would have been bored quickly wih nothing to do and overly familiar scenery. So I decided to go somewhere we would enjoy being. We went to the local graveyard.
Recent comments game-
Princess_Magnolia – “States’ rights! I’ll make a man out of YOU, Daniel Webster!â€
Princess_Magnolia – If you turn your iPod up loud enough, you eventually won’t be able to hear yourself doing anything.
Princess_Magnolia – I didn’t even pick up on that. It’s all right, and by the way, frogs are reptiles.
I realize it looks like Maggie’s having a discussion with herself, but I still thought it was too good to pass up.
Does anyone know of any uses for a bowl of coffee-flavored, watery-textured Marshmallow Fluff?
Fudge recipe?
Glue.
I made it into ice cream. For some reason, the coffee flavor got more intense in the freezer.
Recent Comments Game!
Rebecca Lasley (Administrator): I call them “sea vegetables.â€
ZNZ: It must be out of jealousy. That’s the only explanation.
Princess_Magnolia: If you turn your iPod up loud enough, you eventually won’t be able to hear yourself doing anything.
Robert Coontz (Administrator): That’s almost weird enough to make me want to do it.
Cat’s Eye: Some teens do become pregnant by choice; that is, they are actively attempting to have a baby.
Piggy: Is it me? It sounds like something I would say.
We really do need a thread for this. P*ease, GAPAs?
As you wish.
Don’t the comments have to be consecutive? Or did I misunderstand the rules?
See the latter part of comment 77 and the reply in 77.1. I will add that to the rules at the top of the thread.
Ok, my iPod is officially trying to kill me.
I set it on “Shuffle”, and the caking thing kept bringing up all of the songs that I never listen to, and only have on there because I used to share it with my sister. So I’m trying to clean my room, and Hannah Montana starts blaring through the speakers, and then I skip, and it’s some song from My Best Friend’s Wedding sountrack, and ALL of those songs make me terribly depressed, and I skip again, and it’s Rachmoninov’s Piano Concerto #2, which I only have on there because my mom is convinced that if she downloads enough songs I don’t like, I might start listening to them. So I skip again and it’s some other Disney Channel star. Singing. Urrrggh.
Then I skip and it’s one of the tracks from last year’s spring band concert, where the sound system was screwed and it’s basically two minutes and forty five seconds of static and saxophones.
There’s also another track where it messed up, and it’s like five seconds of clapping and the band director saying, “Thank you” through the microphone because the sound system was working somewhat that night.
You don’t have to use the shuffle button…
Nothing was particularly inspiring me, so I let the iPod choose. Big mistake. I NEED THE SPRING BAND CONCERT RECORDINGS.
I love the sentence “static and saxophones.”
That’s not a sentence. It’s a phrase.
D:
Ughh.. Busy week. I don’t like the way teachers skip subjects that are on Standardized Testing And Reporting tests… And I hate STAR tests in general, eighth graders have two weeks of them…
Other news: My dog ate my baseball glove so my dad had to drive me out to buy a new one so I could play in the game today. Breaking in a new mitt takes forever… And I have to use so much glove oil (that is really expensive and comes in a tiny tube)…
My English/History teacher left on maternity leave yesterday… Now almost half of my teachers are gone…
[Snipped in entirety because it (1) was based on off-the-blog communications and (2) gave too much identifying information about a school. –Admin.]
I got the Alan Shepard Commemorative stamps! Two sheets, bought with 17 dollars of my own money.
*Feels very grown-up and accomplished*
I haven’t been on recently because my computer was taken away because I wasn’t doing school. I haven’t gotten it back yet, so I’m using my mom’s computer.
In other news, some friends invited me over to their house yesterday to play Portal 2. So we made the Portal cake and went over there and got through most of the game. The cake came out a bit lopsided, but it was delicious anyway.
And I have at least forty five more minutes of violin practice to do. I should get started on that.
The concert went beautifully. I think we sang pretty well, and I managed to hold myself together during 1,000 Grandmothers, like I didn’t at the rehearsal last night. It was good. It was fun, and helpful and good and I’m glad I got to sing.
Then at the reception I got people to happily and enthusiastically eat raw tofu. People that are from around my area, and who’s first guess as to what “vegan” means is some kind of debilitating disease. Okay so that’s exaggeration. But still. This wasn’t a group of 20-something liberal vegetarians with nose piercings, this was a group of mostly middle age and up folks and they happily devoured raw tofu. For some reason neither dad or Pip are very impressed by this FEAT OF GENIUS that I have accomplished, but alas, such is life. Under-appreciative men. The 4th graders have it right; “boys are stupid.”
Awesome! Congratulations.
There is a sign at our local pool that says, “Lightning: a Deadly Killer.”
I am flattered.
Statement: I have the house to myself tonight, as my parents have gone to a Mother’s Day concert.
Read: Tonight I will be cooking many extremely messy dishes that will leave the kitchen a disaster zone and the fridge stuffed with leftovers, and that only I will eat because I like the taste of burned potato.
My families self- imposed Internet famine is over!
In unrelated news, happy mother’s Day!
Our families tradition of splitting our mothers breakfast in bed between the family was carried on.
So yesterday we went to New York City. I sw a person pretending to be a statue. I saw a bunch of people giving out Free HUgs. Both creeped me out.
I don’t like hugs.
On the plus side, I got a pokemon plush of Axew! *cuddles* I also got lots of M’nM’s from the giant store in Times Square.
Agent Lighting- I have that problem too. I need to clean out my iTouch because of the Hannah Montana and other Disney cake on there.
People who pretend to be statues creep me out, too.
It’s like mimes, but worse.
Statues pretending to be people: Mannequins.
*stumbles into person*
“Oh, sorry…” *sees that person has no head*
*walks away quickly*
How about people who pretend to be robots? They’re at least as annoying as mimes and may be up there with human statues, I’d say.
What’s with all the mime hate, anyway? I once saw an entire play done in mime. It was extraordinary.
I think it’s because in the Discworld series practically everything’s allowed in Ankh-Morpork except for mimes, who get thrown into a deep pot with the words “Learn the words” written on the side…or something like that, it’s been a while since I read them. But since lots of Musers have expressed fondness for that series, it’s the best bet that’s where they picked it up, as I can think of nothign else taht expresses such a degree of mime hate.
On another note, didn’t’ Muse once have an article on people who did human paintings and statues?
Hung upside-down in a scorpion pit, actually. But yes, that’s why I don’t like mimes. (:
But that’s what puzzles me. It all seems to be second-hand hate based on something only a slim minority of people have actually seen in real life. And they’re usually referring to street mimes, who are a far cry from the real artists. It makes as much sense as someone hating music because en is annoyed by kazoos.
I think most people are hating them in a tongue-in-cheek fashion (see ZNZ’s little smiley face up there). And there aren’t enough people in the world who know or care enough about mimes to be offended on their behalf. In that way it’s a safe demographic, plus an in-joke among all that have read Discworld.
At least, I hope that’s it. I don’t like the idea of Musers being second-hand haters for anything, or refusing to try miming just because of that. Remember, we are in Roundworld, not Discworld. Lord Vetinari can’t get to us here.
Oh, I’m not really referring to Musers so much. Mime hate was around long before Discworld. It’s just one of those things I’ve always wondered about.
Now clown hate, on the other hand, makes perfect sense to me. But most people can draw from their personal encounters on that one.
Clown hate = coulrophobia. (Yes, it’s a word.)
I used to be so scared of clowns. I still don’t like the cream-pie-and-psychedelic-costumes type very much, but Cirque du Soleil cured me of coulrophobia in general…
I’m not scared of clowns. Really. I’m not and I don’t know why people are. I mean, the make-up and everything look more dumb than scary.
On the other hand, I’ve not read certain Stephen King novels with scary eldritch abomination-clowns, which may also be a cause of coulrophobia. Amazing how reading affects you…
Clown hate is, I think, the Uncanny Valley in effect.
@shadowfire – That makes sense. As in, the makeup makes them not look like real people?
There was a really good blog by some professional clown on this, but I can’t link to it, I believe…
120.1.1.1.1.1.2.1.1.2: I’m not, either. I was afraid of circuses when I was little because of the noise, but there was nothing specific to clowns.
Yes, my hatred is purely tongue-in-cheek. I actually think mimes are pretty cool.
Also, Vetinari can get anywhere. ‘Cuz he’s Vetinari.
I like mimes… and people pretending to be statues… Especially the latter, I think they can be pretty awesome.
A few of my friends went to Italy last summer, and one of them randomly pretended to be a statue to try to get money. It didn’t work, so they decided to play a game they call “Ninja” (it’s complicated), and people started throwing money at them right and left. They made about 15 euros.
*remembers game of Ninja from band camp* Wow.
I love Ninja!
I rather like hugs.
I love that place. Did you see the Naked Cowboy? We did.
Re: Living Statues/Mimes/Other Slightly Disconcerting Street Performers:
I think it’s pretty cool, actually. The first town I was in in Canada was Kingston, and we were there during their annual busking festival, where street performers from all over the world congregate and do their thing. It was amazing! There was a guy dressed like a whiteface clown with an accordion who stood perfectly still until you put some money into his bucket, then he’d play a carnaval-ish sounding tune. The amazing part was how mechanically he moved, he swayed like an automated thing with his feet planted in one place and then when he finished the piece he straightened up slowly. I was incredibly impressed at how precise he was. I can only dream of having that much control over my body.
Living statues are disconcerting, but, again, I have massive respect for anyone who has that much control over their body.
Mimes are amazing. I saw Marcel Marceau at Ford’s theatre when I was little, and it was incredible. He was fantastic, and looking up at he booth where Lincoln was assassinated was kind of beyond my understanding at that age, but I remember being impressed nonetheless.
I have more Sonata Arctica now! And lots of Muse and various other things. Huzzah! I’ve needed more music.
Muse as in the band, oddly enough, not the magazine for once. When I get home I’ll have lots of both because the library has the magazine!
Back from the trip! And it was so so amazingly awesome!!! We went rock climbing and played all these awesome games–like King Frog–and hiked up a certain very high mountain which took forever, but the view was amazing.
We also went canoeing, and I am happy to say that we did not capsize.
But the bus broke down.
We played a game where you write down a sentence and pass the paper to the next person, draw a picture illustrating the sentence, fold it so that you can’t see the original sentence, and pass it on, etc. until you have your paper back.
I wrote “The bunnies were coming” and it morphed into “of mice and men.”
The best quotes were by far:
“Hey Danny, have you ever pooped in a bag?” “Yes K.J., I have.” “How about a pvc pipe?”
“Why didn’t somebody tell me? [that I was carrying about four people’s stuff] I would’ve put my stuff in her bag!”
“What is this, the ugly hat convention?”
“Mooooooo!” *silence* *excited expression* “Sorry, Lemon, you’re out.” *despair*
Telefairy?
What? (I’m beginning to worry that this is becoming my signature post. That really worries me)…
Didn’t get to go to the aquarium like I wanted, but did a lot of driving and went running.
“Are you my mummy? Are you? Are you my mummy?”
yes, she is
and she is the best mummy
Happy Mother’s Day from my brain, which is kind of Who-land right now.
My mom tried to take a root out of the ground by attaching a rope to the root and to her car.
I am excited to go to school tomorrow (for once!) because I get to paint (on a canvas!) a tiger!!!! When I finish (if it is any good) I’ll send in a picture…
The plus side of living in a time zone ahead of most other people here is that I get to reach all the holidays and such first.
The downside is that I get to the AP French exam first. There are other people here taking it, aren’t there?
I should be fine though, hopefully. I did pretty well on the mock, so….
Good luck, Selenium. May the force be with you.
Thank you!
But don’t turn off your targeting computer.
You’re not allowed to have a cell phone or targeting computer in the testing room, actually.
Oh. I guess she has to trust in the Force, then.
It will be Buddha’s Birthday tomorrow…
The Force and Buddha… you’ll be unstoppable.
But she won’t care.
Yes, I’m taking the AP French exam in roughly… Sixteen hours? Seventeen? Something like that. I should study, but I don’t even really know how…
Three hours for me, now…Good luck to you, Tesseract! You will be fine.
When do we find out our score? This is the first AP exam I’ve ever taken, sorry.
Around the third week of July, here. It might be slightly later for you since you’re overseas? I’m not sure.
Good luck to you too, Sel!
Third week of July?! That’s ages away!
Done with the AP Music Theory exam. Now I’m going back to school for AP Music Theory.
Isn’t that redundant?
I didn’t realize there was such a thing as AP Music Theory. If I took it, I’d probably fail.
I shouldn’t take that, I think the only thing I understand about music is it sounds purty (pretty)
Some of it…
*coughcoughdeathmetalcoughcough*
Donuts.
In the band room.
BEST IDEA EVER!!!!
Or possibly worst.
Depends on how susceptible to sugar rushes the trumpet players are.
The trumpet players in my band are VERY suspectible to sugar rushes.
Study for finals sucks under the best of circumstances. Studying for finals when you’ve just come down with a cold and have a sore throat, headache, and overwhelming desire to SLEEP, still have to finish packing up everything in your dorm room, and aren’t even going to have a payoff at the end of finals (nice, long, carefree summer spent at home) since you’re trying to establish residency in the state in which you are attending school? Yeah. “Sucks” is an understatement. I can’t process anything I”m reading, I’ve “studied” for my ornithology final tomorrow morning, but am in no way even remotely prepared, I’ve barely started studying for my physics final tomorrow night, but at least I only need a 68% ish in that to keep my A. But I’m not absorbing anything I’m reading, it refuses to make sense, and all I want to do is scream really, really loudly and just CRY. Because it’s so frustrating trying to learn stuff when your brain refuses to absorb anything because you’re sick.
Blasted cold. It’s the third one I’ve had this semester, and the second that I’ve caught off of Alan.
Cake cake cake cake cakity cake.
Having literally been sick for an entire year by now, I know exactly what you mean. Luckily, some moments are better than others, so it isn’t as if my entire year was like that, but some of it was, and I hated it.
Is it just my computer, or does a completely blank comment have 8 pies?
Yes.
No, it has 25.
It didn’t at the time.
I didn’t even know you could post a blank comment. Never tried.
I always assumed you couldn’t, since you can’t preview them. Not that there’s anything there to preview.
Just leave a pair of italicizers with nothing inside them.
Oh, please. Is everyone going to do this now, and am I literally the only person who hasn’t pied any of those?
2 brackets also work, by the way, and they’re faster. (I hope I didn’t just encourage anything
Sadly, there’s nothing there to pink.
You’re a member of the PoPoPo!
It’s not pointless. It’s an experiment to see a pinked comment that has no text but still displays pinkedness.
It’s true: Piggy used a different technique. Would someone pie comment 131.3.1, please?
I noticed the technique, but by pressing preview, you’d know it was possible to make the comment, and you knew that there was something to pink, so it could have been a thought experiment.
And no, sorry, but I’d rather not pie it.
Oh, I knew it would work. That’s why it was “an experiment to see a pinked comment that has no text”, not “an experiment to see if a comment that has no text could be pinked”.
Couldn’t you just copy the previewed comment and pink it yourself on your computer without posting it?
How would I have pinked my own comment, and how would I have done so without posting it?
I meant highlight it in pink in MS Word. I understand, though. Let’s just… forget this. It’s getting…
I was supposed to be off the blog by now, but I have to say this. I don’t see anything wrong with Piggy doing this experiment, because it was not clear whether having text (not just space) was necessary for pinkage–not to mention the fact that in a preview, there are no empty spaces, even if there are in the actual post.
The biggest PoPo offence that Piggy might have done is put this on the random thread instead of the HTML thread. However, as one of the founders of the PoPoPo, I approve of the comment’s placement because the experiment sought not only a moderated post but at least ten pies, which would call for a well-frequented thread.
Also, success! Pink with no text whatsoever!
Not to mention the fact that it was in direct reply to AM’s comment.
Oh. I didn’t notice. Oops. I’d like to mention that I was actually sort of joking, at least to begin with. Yes, I was a bit annoyed, but… It’s like the difference between how JKR–or a reader–would think of Hermione’s “You. Are. A. prefect in book 4 as opposed to the way she actually meant it. Obviously Ron shouldn’t drink firewhiskey, but… Oh, you know what I mean. Sorry for the apparent lack of clarity (and humor).
As a preventative measure, I see why you would make
a comment exposing the blog-clogging flaws of some cake
But what I have missed
Is why you persist;
Not to mention I wonder why I’m still awake.
Yay! Pink emptiness! I should have made it into a big square, but oh well.
You wouldn’t have been able to do that without compromising your experiment; at least, assuming that this blog format has the same rules as the old blog format in this situation, which is a sizeable assumption to make. The HTML thread won’t let me post a blank comment at all, so I don’t know.
[Snipped down to a manageable size. Hereafter please take further experiments of this sort to the HTML thread. Thank you for your cooperation and courtesy to other MuseBloggers. ~The Management]
You do realize that’s completely pointless now that we know it can be done?
Also, do you remember our HP Trivia Game?
yeah, but SCHOOOOOOOL’S. OUT. FOR. SUMMER! (GUITER MUSIC) SCHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL’S OUT. FOR. EVER! (guitar music) SCHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLS BEEN BLOWN. TO PIECES! (long guitar solo) and so forth.
We have… *checks calendar* five more weeks-ish?
We have until June 29th.
My birthday!
Sorry. Our last day of school is June 9th, with exams the two weeks leading up to it.
I’m done with my finals and all but it doesn’t feel as exciting because a) a lot of my friends aren’t done yet and now they’ve all gone grumpy and I feel like they don’t actually like me. b) I have to pack and packing is scary c) I’m in college so the end of school means leaving all my friends here and going home. I am excited to be home this summer but I’ll miss having friends around.
So I’m doing online driver’s ed, and I’m playing Pandora kind of low as background music. And the site gives me Red Asphalt V, and I’m all busy going “holy god his head is turned all the way around oh my god I’m crying oh my god oh my god.”
And then Pandora starts blasting at me: “IT’S A PROBLEM-FREEEEEE… PHILOSOPHYYYYYY… HAKUNA MATATA!”
And I’m all “ohgodohgodohgod.”
People are jerks.
I wish I was dead.
Whoa, Armada. What’s wrong?
1) Hugs and choklit are always the #1 solution in times of trouble. So, many of those.
2) If you feel okay talking about it, what happened?
We love you, Armada.
*hugs and squid and chocolate*
We’re here to listen.
People are definitely jerks. I regret being a pacifist on an almost daily basis because of it. Racist people, people who start fights in the hallways, people who spread rumors about you and laugh behind your back for absolutely no reason.
But if you wish you were dead, they’ve won. Keep your head up, Armada. You can make things better.
I need to hug you right now.
Please tell us what happened.
We’re here if you want to talk about it. *hug*
Armada! What happened? *hugs*
Oh, Armada… *huggles and squiddles*
Tell us what’s wrong. We’re here to listen.
Armada, what happened? *hug* Do you want to talk about it? Have some hot chocolate and love.
Yes, they are, and no, you don’t. I’m sorry whatever it is happened, but it’s not your fault. *hugs*
* many many squids *
They are indeed. Do you want to talk about it? *infinite huggles and choklit*
Even if you don’t feel like talking about it, we’re here to support you, and none of us are jerks. I’m very sorry for whatever you’ve experienced and I hope you never have to experience it again.
Don’t say that, Armada.
We all feel like that sometimes. But please don’t wish you were dead.
Sometimes people can be jerks, yes. But people can also be pretty great.
I’m so worried about the AP French test tomorrow. I’m about to start crying. I feel so unprepared, especially compared to my other two, and the worst part is I don’t even know how to cram.
This is coming from the person who threw up last night (maybe because her nerves were so bad but I don’t know) so it may sound a little hypocritical, but try not to worry too much. You can’t really prepare for these kind of exams, so the best thing to do now is stay calm and relax. You will do really well, Tess, I’m sure of it. You’ve had more than enough preparation in all the years you’ve been learning French, so don’t worry about feeling unprepared now! Just try your best tomorrow and I’m sure everything will work out.
If you want to study, try thinking or talking to yourself in French (or on MB, if you’d like) but honestly the best thing to do is to get a good night’s sleep and RELAX.
Bon courage!
Good luck! You’ll do fine. Is there anything awful that happens if you don’t? With AP tests, they seem pretty great because if you do well then you get extra points towards college and if you do poorly there isn’t really a consequence as far as I can tell. But then I did IB so maybe I’m wrong.
Good luck! I’ve never done AP, but Selenium’s advice sounds good.
Pamplemousse be with you.
May whatever part of the force that is not currently directed at Selenium be applied to you. Good luck! You’ll be fine.
My advice for cramming is to drink as much sugary tea as you can, record yourself reading your notes out loud, and then listen to it over and over.
The force that was directed at me is no longer necessary, seeing as I completed my exam three and a half hours ago, so I’m going to redirect it to Tess (and anyone else taking APs). GOOD LUCK! (:
N’inquiete pas Tess! Vous allez etre fantastic! ^^
Merci beaucoup, tout le monde! L”examen n’était pas si difficile que j’avais imaginé.
Today my MRT card ran out of money and I walked four and a half miles carrying a heavy backpack home. Argle. My head hurts.
I fully sympathize. My back hurts after walking even five minutes home.
Ouch! Sorry.
And I thought it was annoying and tiring to walk 1 and a half miles…
http: // youtu.be/cW20AlC0IbA
Go to 30 sec. Yeah, she’s an MBer at heart.
Terrifying! (Willow was the real MBer, though.)
Not to mention Joss Whedon.
WIN.
Is it bad that I know what this video is without even clicking on it?
Me too!
I had a job interview today. I was supremely awkward, as I’m wont to do when I get nervous. Ugh. So instead of being all “I know this stuff, picking up an 18th century item and talking about it is easy, just like I’d do for a visitor, la de da” I ended up being more “um, so, uh, this is a hat? And, uh, it keeps sun off your face? And you wear it like this? Because, uh, like, um, tans were unfashionable and stuff….um….do I need to say more?”
>.<
Oh well.
In the past two hours or so I’ve managed to get three fairly sizable scratches – say, 2-3 inches, and I have no idea how. They hurt, also.
I’m not sure whether to pie that or not.
That’s what I should have done! *pies Piggy’s comment instead*
@134:
Sorry, peoples, don’t worry. It was a little bit of an overreaction. I’m just kinda touchy right now, and can’t deal with people being idiots. I don’t really want to discuss the details currently.
I just have no self-esteem whatsoever. No… insulation to stop me from going rock bottom every time something stupid happens. I do usually bounce back okay, though. Sorry for any mood swings which I may display.
SO ANYWAY.
Yesterday was… interesting. In both some pretty epic ways and some not-so-epic ways. I’m supposed to be doing anthro homework right now, so I’ll be back with details later. XD
Aw.
That’s OK Armada! *hug* You’re right. People are stupid. However, if someone wasn’t stupid, then we wouldn’t have any smart people either because in order to have smart people, you have to have stupid people to compare them to.
We’re playing Pictures At an Exhibition.
Oh dear packing. Will it ever end? I hate packing. Bleh.
Endeavour’s set to launch on my dad’s birthday!
I just watched the whole music video for “Born This Way” by Lady Gaga, and I am warning you guys against it right now. Don’t watch it.
*entire blog stampedes to Youtube*
*except Bibliophile who, while curious, knows she would regret joining the stampede due to deepseated hatred for pop music in general)
Good plan, in my opinion. Lady Gaga ranks high on my list of Things That Are Bad for One’s Mental Health. (Additions to the list are welcome, by the way.)
I like that song, though! It’s a sort of nice gay anthem type of thing. Although it does get a bit religious.
I do respect Gaga in general, though. While her songs aren’t terribly exciting, they are more original than most pop hits, and her persona is a work of genius. I like that she’s so weird and doesn’t care what people think.
I am suspicious of anyone who travels around in a giant egg wearing a meat dress.
Technically, she wasn’t wearing the meat dress while inside the egg…
Being given hard math problems with no instruction on how to do them.
But that’s fun!
(X n X) *just took math CST, and feels like freaking out and sleeping for a year*
I mean fun when you have as long as you want to do them. That’s different.
I think I got a Proficient… I’ve never gotten Proficient in my life!!
Hopefully my history score will make up for it.
I don’t like her music, but I like that she uses her fame to be an activist for gay rights and she isn’t shy about it. It would be kind of nice to have another equally famous but tamer activist to go along with her. :]
Things That Are Bad for One’s Mental Health:
Being normal.
Things That Are Bad for One’s Mental Health:
Trying to be normal.
I must confess that I joined the stampede. When the cheesy Star Wars-esque music started playing I started laughing and I didn’t stop throughout the whole video. I just couldn’t take it seriously.
And the dancing was mediocre at best. /snark
Hey Museblog!
Well… I ahve one AP exam left tomorrow…. should be OK I hope. Yay Statistics!
Right now I am eating a dark chocolate Reeses cup and it’s delicious. ^^ Whoever thought of them is a genius!
I have nothing of import to contribute.
Thank you for sharing that with us. Neither have I, except replies, which I already made.
So yesterday.
Yesterday a bunch of my friends and I were hanging out at Electros’s house for homeschooling stuff like we do every Monday. My friends and I got our Social Studies presentation on Tuvalu ready in like a week (we had four months to work on it… but yeah…), and it was actually okay, except for the bit with the possibly-rotten jackfruit. So everything was fun. There were two kids coming to see whether they wanted to join us next year, and I think we may have scared them off, because for some reason we were all realllllyyyy perverted that particular day more than we’ve ever been. >.< I hope we didn't scare them too bad.
So anyway, after Social Studies when we were all hanging out outside, people were playing frisbee, and Electros and I were hanging out on a rock watching them, his girlfriend not being there yesterday for some reason and us being members of the Official Lazy Teenagers Club. (Yes, it's a club. Me and Electros and Camilla are all in it, and Camilla's sister and our other friend Marlene joins us sometimes.) And I was tired, so I asked him "Can I lean on you?" And he had no problem with it, so we were leaning on each other, and then my frisbee-playing friends Candle and White started going 'awww' and similar things at us. So Electros got up and chased them around the yard with a small stick and beat them up minorly. And then we went back to leaning on each other. So then White and Candle started making unnecessary innuendo (this was Perverted Day, remember), and it went a little overboard, and Electros got up and chased them around the yard with a tree. Yeah. A ten-foot-long log. So they spent the rest of the afternoon hiding from him, and it was just epically hilarious.
So then everyone (including Electros's grandmother) thought that I was "making my move" on him or something while Purple (his girlfriend) was away… which I found hilarious, because obviously they are all so far off the mark. (Honestly, I just wanted someone to lean on. I did ask him, he could’ve said no if it was a problem with him. And I can stand up to his girlfriend killing me if she finds out. Probably.) So then… I told Electros about the whole Camilla thing. And then I told White. I shouldn’t have told White. And it kinda all went downhill from there.
But oh well. It was still an epic day, if I just try not to think about the evening.
Goodbye.
What is the term for when you start liking a pairing but don’t even like the show? (no I will not deluge my situation)
Non-fan shipping?
Long-distance.
I’ll try not to deluge your situation either. Will you divulge it?
*shows ignorance* What’s a pairing?
A pairing is 2 (usually fictional, at least in my experience) characters that you ship. Though, come to think of it, if you don’t know ‘pairing,’ you might not know ‘ship.’ It’s short for ‘relationship’ and is like matchmaking but also usually with fictional characters from a fandom.
I ship Sagan/Druyan and Kelly/Giffords.
Is it good or bad that the only one of those I know about is Sagan?
I suppose I have heard of Emerson/Melissa shipping, and they’re real people; I just forgot about them.
Ann Druyan, (Here I’m spelling it right, I made a typo before) Carl Sagan’s wife and long-time collaborator, to whom he dedicated many of his books.
And then, of course, I presume you know who Mark Kelly and Gabrielle Giffords are.
No, I don’t. Again, is that good or bad? If it has to do with pop culture, there’s no need for you to tell me who they are, but otherwise I’d like to know.
Gabrielle Giffords is a congresswoman from Arizona who is recovering from being shot in an assassination attempt back in January. Mark Kelly is her husband, a veteran astronaut, and the man scheduled to command the final flight of Space Shuttle Endeavour this coming Monday.
Hint: western animation show. That’s all I’m giving.
Also, I’m a moderate between slash and het. Yeahhhh.
(I’ve written everything I ship in separate columns, and they’re almost exactly even. What’s really the deciding factor is if I include pairings I like from my own series, which involves…. you guys. It’s really weird, but gets less weird when I consider that our Armada is completely different from my Armadda, etc.)
(I should be advised to keep away from having free time.)
Oh, becasue you probably don’t know, slash=gay and het=straight. Before you weird out, I should warn you that moderates are valuable people. Het Is Ew is a trope for a reason, and that reason is half of FFN.
Silliness
TRUE LOVE
My friend Orion says he’ll donate $15 to Japanese earthquake relief if I write him The Diary of Anne Frank II.
What does it say about me that I am seriously considering it?
That you love history and writing and are a caring person?
Oh, you haven’t heard his plan for The Diary of Anne Frank II. *ominous*
Do we WANT to hear it?
Yes.
If it’s blog-appropriate–and I assume so–then I’m dying of curiosity (but satisfaction will bring me back!).
It’s technically blog-appropriate. It’s just, well, he’s a teenage boy who idolizes the creators of South Park. So while containing no actual inappropriateness, there are… Well. Hearing it made me punch him repeatedly.
I am still considering writing it for $15 sent to Japan. So, whatever that says about me…
That you want to help Japan and jump at the oppurtunity to write a fanfic?
Axa (72): Yep, Northern Ireland!
Agent Lightning (80): You didn’t have to get all A’s to be on my school’s honor roll, just some. You can do it!
Piggy (83): [re: bean sprouts]–first, put them in sandwiches with lots of other things. Then, you’ll sort of get used to the taste without having them all by themselves.
Fiddler (92): I’ve been doing some shopping myself lately, too. I’m doing a May-term at school, which means I stay for an extra month (or, in my case, 10 days) to do a special intensive class. Everything is closed down, including the dining hall, so I have to cook for myself! It’s really great, because I’m eating so much healthier than I do during the school year. Today, I went with my friend to the Kroger to get foodstuffs, and we looked super hippie-like (well, more “wilderness-like” than hippie-like, though they’re related. Basically, unbathed for quite some time, unshaven, outdoorsy clothes–essentially, we looked like we’ve been living in the woods for months, which is what we always look like), buying vegetables by the pound. And reusable bags, of course. But the town here is used to us. They sort of give us a “oh, it’s those kids” looks. But we got awesome food, so it’s fine. Mostly AVOCADO YES. And sprout bread.
re: tofu — I love it. Absolutely love it. I used to gobble it up plain as a toddler, and I don’t think my relationship with it has changed at all as I’ve grown.
Enceladus (98): I sang some Emily Dickinson poetry-music in choir back in the day. It was beautiful. Sounds like a great project!
re: pink comments. Is there any way to make it not pink? Maybe I’m just strange, but I find myself skipping past the pink comments just because it’s so unpleasant to read with that color of a background. Then I remember that pink means it’s most liked and I should go back and read it. Can it be a more bland color, or even just a lighter shade of pink? [[Well, actually, now that I think of it, my eyes just get really intolerant of computer screens in general when I’m not used to looking at them, so it’s probably just me. But if anyone else doesn’t like reading on the pink, let me know!]]
Bibliophile (131.3.1.1): Haha! I remember those days. Thanks for bringing me back.
oxlin (142): You can do it!! I’m sending you happy packing-vibes.
Also: I’m looking into buying a pocket knife/multi-tool (Leatherman-type, I’m thinking) for backpacking and every-day use. Does anyone have suggestions?
Also also, sorry if this is incoherent.
I happened to be nomming down an avocado smoothie as I moderated your post.
… avocado… smoothie?
Yup. I first came across them in a Vietnamese restaurant. I hear they are popular in the Philippines as well. Their versions are more like sweet milkshakes than my experiment which used fruit for sweetener.
I don’t have any specific recommendations for pocketknives, but I’ve found that it’s best to avoid the ones that have flashlights on them–the lights tend to break pretty quickly for no apparent reason.
Thanks!
Leatherman Wave. I have one and it is awesome. It comes with a saw! If you still want a leatherman and don’t feel like spending /that/ much money, I also have a micra and it is pretty awesome as well.
Thanks, I’m certainly going to be working on it more when busy-ness level heads down.
If I show up here tomorrow, someone give me a slap. I’ve got a skit to finish writing and an entire chapter of confusing chemistry to outline (read: paraphrase) for Thursday.
Bah. I have strange thoughts about perceptions of myself. I’d like to be seen as fierce, but I’m not entirely certain if I am, or how fierce I might be. Friends in RL have said that people perceive me as child-like and that this leads to certain impressions of me, some of which I dislike. I’d like to be the one who skips places, and the one who blows bubbles randomly but I also want to be seen as fierce and not easily defeated. It is hard to balance the two, particularly when I skew towards one.
Luna Lovegood. That’s all I can think of.
…What? I always got the impression that she didn’t care what others thought of her, or at least not enough that it impacted her actions.
I’m saying that oxlin’s ideal personality to be thought of seems a lot like how Luna was percieved by her friends.
Oh, I see! That’s true.
Okay, the Endeavour launch is now on for May 16th, so if you printed out the posters, I would recommend printing out your labels with that date on them to go along with them, and putting them up as soon as you can, to ensure they’re seen by as many people as possible before the launch day.
(That’s what I did today in my free period at school.)
I have nothing of import to contribute today as well.
And yet your presence is a contribution in itself.
Standardized tests.
Dancing to Justin Bieber and relating it to physics.
It’s been a weird week so far.
One thing I am truly grateful for in life is the student who stands just inside the school entrance and opens the door for me every day.
Thank you, God, for that kid.
I woke up today and was unable to breathe without extreme pain in my nasal passages.
Oh, the joys of pollen allergies. -sigh-
I’m in a weird situation. Half my teachers are really far behind on their lesson plans and are trying to pack twice the work into a period (and twice the homework, too
), and the other half of the teachers are very far ahead so they have slowed to a crawl and we spend half of our time doing meaningless work or watching movies only somewhat related to whatever we happen to be learning.
Ah, well. I guess it evens out in the end.
I’m worried about Circles. I saw a raccoon out earlier (raccoons seen at midday – trouble). Apparently this morning Circles was fighting with a raccoon on the porch and they were really going at it, when dad tried to chase the raccoon off Circles ran into the woods and the raccoon followed. None of us have seen any trace of Circles all day. *frets*
*fingers and toes crossed*
Here, too.
Here, too, and *thumb squeezed, which they do for good luck in Germany, though it’s hard with fingers crossed*
My work ethic: less than nonexistent. In AP Bio and AP Lit (ironically the two courses in which I’m dual-enrolled), I’ve just not done several sizable assignments, dropping my grade a considerable amount. I just haven’t a cake to give.
In my attempt to cut back on time spent on internet, going on a museblog hiatus of indefinite length. Am announcing this solely to keep myself from getting bored and coming back.
See you later, Lizzie! May all your pies fly straight and true.
I win at life.
I went to get a dress for junior prom today, hoping to spend around $150, and I thought I’d be at the store for at least two and a half hours.
$40.
Less than one hour.
It’s a beautiful dress- long and flowy on the bottom, and almost the same color as the greenish comments on the blog, but more yellowy. The top is fitted, and the back is a bit open, but there are sparkly straps going across it, which I would like if it didn’t have the sequins. Such is life. I’m sewing it up a bit by myself; it was ripped a bit, hence the amazing price. (On the internet, it’s $350.)
Before prom, we’re going to Troy’s friend’s “pre-prom” party (which I still don’t get the point of), except I feel sort of strange, because he’s my brother’s friend. Eh, whatever. It should be fun.
Wow. That is a very, very lucky circumstance. Have fun at junior prom!
Hey, Towel Day isn’t in the Coming Soon bar.
This will be a day late when it gets moderated, but happy 117th birthday, Martha Graham! You were a Cool Person and I’m glad your company is still performing.
Appalachian Spring (Ballet for Martha) was composed for her to dance, correct? I am eternally grateful.
Dear Internet: read the book Moon People. One of the funniest novels ever written.
Piggy-Gahhhh I’m jealous.
There are assignments I would like to not do.
Instead of actually having senioritis, I just complain a lot and say “I don’t even want to do this” then I do it anyway because I’m afraid of criticism of my academic skill.
Every so often I will forget to do an assignment or be unable to do it due to time reasons and I freak out.
Earlier this year we had a government class project about the Bill of Rights. Mine was a Guy Noir radio show type thing. I recorded it on the computer and put it on a cd and I was really excited because it was an awesome idea. I dressed up in a coat and hat so I could walk around and act out the story. Then it turned out that the cd played extremely quiet on my teacher’s computer and nobody could hear my narration. I spent the next two government classes crying in the hall. My teacher told me I could just give her the transcript and I would only lose a couple of points from the presentation grade as if I had made a speech and spoken too softly. I cried some more and told her that I didn’t want to and I would just start the whole thing over and do a new project. I spent most of the weekend crying and making a poster like a computer screen, then as I was about halfway done I realized that it would take under 5 minutes to give her the transcript and I just wasted a weekend because I was overly emotional. So I stopped making the poster.
I didn’t even care about the points in that project. I was so excited about it and I thought it was one of my best ideas and I really wanted people to hear it and like it. When they couldn’t hear it I thought that everyone would just think I was trying too hard to be cool and that they would think that I did the project at the last minute because if I actually took time to do it then I would have known it was too quiet. Of course looking back, probably nobody thought that.
All of my work always looks/sounds like I did it at the last minute. (except math) In English when I have to write poetry or essays I spend hours writing and rewriting. Most of what I write is trash and completely unusable so I have to start over and start over and start over. So I guess by the time I actually start something acceptable to turn in I am doing it at the last minute, but it isn’t for lack of devoting time.
Still no Circles. Dad came home from work for about an hour to help mom and I look for him (he took the shotgun, since a most likely rabid raccoon is still on the loose). We went through the woods where Dad last saw him yesterday morning and we checked all the places he’s been known to go, but to no avail.
He used to vanish for days at a time, but he hasn’t done that for years. As he’s gotten older (he’s been around here for about 10 years) he’s stayed closer to the house, so for him to be missing for so long is very strange.
We haven’t seen any vultures, which hopefully is a good sign.
We didn’t see the raccoon, either.
I want my little buddy to come back so we can snuggle in the grass and everything can be right in the world.
We’re hoping with you, Fiddler.
*hugs* it’s always seemed to me that cats have a better time of finding their way home, so i’m hoping he’ll show up soon!
Fiddler: Figuring that magic can’t hurt, I’ve written a charm for Circles. (Mishmish and Mina are my cats.)
Spirits of meadow and woodland,
Your blessings on Circles, I pray.
May he have vanquished his ring-tailed foe
And decided to call it a day.
If he be roving for pleasure,
Safe through your haunts let him roam.
Give him his share of tall grass and fresh air,
Then guide his soft footfalls home.
Mishmish, most housebound of catkind,
Curled in your trundle-bed lair,
Send him your love of the Great Indoors,
Food-dish and sofa and chair.
Mina, erect at the window,
Frozen, all-seeing, on guard,
Beam him the rays of your green-eyed gaze
To light his way back to his yard.
Hawks and coyotes, ignore him;
Sunlight and moonlight, defend.
Shadow your child on his way through the wild,
Then let him return to his friend.
This made me smile and then start crying again. Thanks. *big hug*
It choked me up, too. Have you met Robert’s kitties? Or am I the only one who’s met all three of the poem’s cats?
I’ve just heard from Midnight Fiddler. CIRCLES HAS COME BACK.
Squids for everybody!!!! Flamablablous!!!!!!
That’s flamablamablous. But yes, it really is.
I have never consistently remembered how to spell it…
Saying it out loud a few times should solve that problem.
That’s so wonderful!! I’m very glad!
MF says one of his legs was pretty chewed up, so they’ve taken him to an animal hospital, but he’s home.
Mishmish and Mina get treats tonight.
Time Lord, Cylon, werebear, and now enchanter. The GAPAs are beginning to look less like mild-mannered science writers by the day.
Oh, come on. Did any of us ever really think they were actually ordinary humans? One of those days something mysterious and magical and exciting will happen and we’ll look up to see Rebecca wink and disappear with a poof.
She’s a genie?
-us.
I’m just a garden-variety thaumaturge, but I can rise to the occasion when required.
Don’t forget Rosanne’s highly reliable imagination.
That expression, by its intended meaning, makes absolutely no sense to a gardener. Gardens can contain some astonishing varieties. (Besides, ALL of my plants are extraordinary to me.)
YES!
You rock, Robert.
MF – I sincerely hope Circles comes back, poor kitty.
Thanks Robert, for passing on the happy news. And thank you again for your lovely poem.
Circles came back just before dark tonight. Dad and I were outside, because he thought he had heard a cat (I think he heard the raccoon, though we didn’t see it), then mom exclaimed something about Circles and so we both came running, and he was there. He came up to the clothesline where Mom was.
His back right paw has a big hole in it, and he had it tucked up to his body and wasn’t putting any weight on it. He was sitting when I first saw him and petted him, but when he moved away we saw his leg. I called the animal hospital, which was closed, but their answering service had the number of an emergency clinic, which I then called. Dad got the carrier, we loaded him in and Mom and I took him to the clinic.
The vet was concerned about his breathing (fast and heavy), so they put him on oxygen and took some x-rays. The x-rays showed only a little bit of fuzziness on a small area of lung, likely a bruise from the fight, but probably nothing too serious. When we left the clinic a few hours later they hadn’t yet done anything with his leg, but as soon as they were confident that his breathing was regular they were going to start work on it.
He should be all up to date on his shots, so there’s hopefully not to much of a risk of his getting rabies or some other nastiness from the raccoon, but we’re going to see about a booster shot in the morning. Right now that’s my biggest concern, even though I know that he’s probably up to date and it’s not going to be a problem. Just oh god, if it is…
Anyway, he’s spending the night at the clinic and I’m going to pick him up early tomorrow morning to transfer him to our usual animal hospital, which opens at the same time the emergency one closes. We’ll have a better idea of how he’s recovering in the morning.
We got to see him before we left, he was on loopy drugs, but he was still pretty together. Not too surprising, as he’s a pretty together cat in general. He snuggled up next to us and purred. He has a kind of snuffly-sounding purr that I’ve never heard any other cat do, and it was so good to hear it again. When we were waiting for dad to come up with the carrier we were petting him and he was purring, even though he was in a great deal of pain. He’s a wonderful, wonderful cat.
That’s the good news.
The bad news is that we still have raccoons. Now, raccoons aren’t inherently bad, in fact, I think they’re pretty neat critters for the most part. However, the ones we have around here are of the Fat And Sassy variety; the kind that think they own the place and will just look at you sarcastically when you yell and stomp and bang things to try and chase them away. Even that would be okay, if there wasn’t a big problem with the raccoons in this area being rabid. We have at least one that is quite likely sick, as I saw it out yesterday in the middle of the day and it looked kind of mangy, not to mention the kind of confused look it gave me when I started banging the door and yelling at it. I’m not a vet, but I’ve lived in the woods too long to not recognize when an animal isn’t right.
As I write this I’m hearing keening noises that I’m 98% certain is coming from a raccoon. I don’t like that. It’s making too much noise for everything to be alright. I’m unsuccessfully trying to squash the feeling/dread that it’s the sick one. Hopefully dad will be able to shoot it soon, before Circles comes home. I’d like to see about keeping Circles at the hospital for an extra day or so so that he’d be safe from other wildlife and be able to be looked after during recovery.
This is all terribly long, I’m sorry.
I’m tired and I need to be awake by 0630 to take Circles from one vet to the other. Goodnight. Thanks for the positive thoughts and energy beams, everyone. Please keep them coming.
(Oh, and Rebecca~ No, I’ve not met Mishmish or Mina, but they sound like wonderful souls. Perhaps someday I will get to meet them. So far you’re the only one that knows all three felines mentioned in the poem.)
Update: I picked Circles up from the emergency clinic early this morning before they closed. His leg was infected, but they’d cleaned and flushed it out and put him on antibiotics. His breathing returned to normal soon after we left, they think it probably had something to do with his being scared. He was calm and happy when they put him in a secluded cage.
I took him straight from the emergency clinic to the regular vet, to check up on his vaccinations and to see about having him board there for a few days so he can recover in a safe place. He’s strictly outdoors, as we have a one-room house and Mom’s allergic to cats. We were concerned about his staying outside to heal, since he’d be exposed to possible continued attacks by raccoons and wouldn’t be able to defend himself. So he’s staying there until Tuesday at the latest.
He’s all up to date on his rabies shots, but we’re going to have to monitor his behavior to make sure he doesn’t start acting weird. The vet may give him a booster shot if they deem it prudent.
He was rather spacey from the drugs, but he seemed fairly alert and comfortable (if not fully relaxed) while I was with him.
He’s on the mend and he’ll be back home soon, and that’s what matters. ♥
Dad’s going to teach me how to shoot a .22 so when there are problem raccoons wandering around in the daytime I can, shall we say, dispose of them. Hopefully we’ll get the sick raccoon before Circles comes back.
*random post*
I just found out that I got an A on the German assignment I was procrastinating for three weeks and ended up writing in 5 hours the afternoon before it was due (I usually get Bs).
Actually, I’ve only got latin homework due now. Which I could probably procrastinate or not hand in, but since I’m the only one who actually does the homework in latin and pays attention in class I don’t want to break the teacher’s heart.
I found a new awesome song: so now, I’m basically listening to “I’m still here” (John Rzeznik) and “I’m still here” (Vertical Horizon) on endless loop. I find two songs I really like and then they both have the same title…
Otherwise, theres mucho social awkwardness and I promised to make brownies but forgot and now I don’t have time.
Jim’s Theme from Treasure Planet? (The Rzeznik version, I mean.) I love that song.
Treasure Planet is a CRIMINALLY underrated movie.
I think it’s finally hit that me that SCHOOL’S ALMOST OVER. I’ve got only one more final (3 this afternoon), and then I’m DONE. So even though I don’t get to go home, no more studying for an entire three months. Will it be a miserable summer? Qutie possibly, but hopefully not entirely, but hey, no school to stress over for awhile. I just have to cope with being away from my family longer than usual, but I should be able to manage, and since I’m going to be living with Alan and his family for the summer, once I get to know his parents a smidge better, I can adopt them and while it won’t be the same as my own….The weather’s going to be a big thing….It was up in the 80s yesterday, and while I was dying from the heat, I was getting assured by everyone that don’t worry, it gets MUCH hotter than this, and just keeps getting hotter until August/September. Gee, thanks, I know that, please don’t remind me, I’m not designed for hot weather.
But ONE MORE FINAL!!!!!!! So happy. Plus I’m seeing Dad this weekend, he had a business trip in the lower 48, so he’s making a detour over to see me and take me shopping for a car. So that should be good. And Alan’s birthday on Sunday. So I’m in a good place right now, especially as, despite the fact I still have a cold (thanks, Alan), my head doesn’t hurt really bad like it did yesterday….
I have nothing to contributeOkay, I do have things to contribute. Like, uh, the fact that I need to either buy food tomorrow or risk living off half a jar of peanut butter. And the fact that I bought a rather nice pair of sleeves today.I finally completed my application for dormitory housing yesterday (at like 1 in the morning). I also bought a shirt. It’s pink, long, and very pretty–although pretty isn’t a word I typically use to describe my clothing. Plus, it was only 5 JD. Not a bad price.
I also managed to seriously lose my temper at my teacher today. Well, that only took four months. I need to make a PowerPoint about American holidays for part of my finals. *shrugs* Well, I’ve said my bit. Now I can honestly say I have nothing to contribute, because I already have.
haha when I saw “judgement day” on the sidebar i thought it meant a day where everyone walks around being really judgmental of each other and i thought jeez that’s not very nice….:lol:
I printed out my cards with the new date on them and started giving them out. I have black-and-white for today and tomorrow and color for Launch Day.
Just took my AP World History exam, first one ever. ‘Twasn’t horrible, but I really hope that I got a four. Oh man, those essays were so hard.
They are. My sympathies.
I’m listening to Placido Domingo sing Nessun Dorma. I have goosebumps literally everywhere that one can have goosebumps.
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER THE RESTAURAUNT AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE SPOILER SPOILER.
I just finished reading The Restauraunt at the End of the Universe and I was horrified by something that happened towards the end of the book. When Arthur Dent tries to find the Ultimate Question to Life, the Universe, and Everything by pulling Scrabble tokens out of a bag blindfolded, he comes up with six times nine. He and Ford Prefect both agree that six times nine is forty-two>.
Rant alert:
SIX TIMES SEVEN IS FORTY-TWO! NOT SIX TIMES NINE!!!
Either Douglas Adams was entirely WRONG, or he was using base thirteen without notifying the reader, which is horribly misleading!
SPOILER HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY SPOILER
You’re willing to suspend disbelief for “Earth gets demolished to make way for a hyperspace bypass” but not “6 times 9 is 42”? What makes the latter so much more “WRONG” than the former?
I always thought that because Earth’s computation is fundamentally flawed by the arrival of the Golgafrincham ship, it produces an invalid version of the Ultimate Question.
In other words, garbage in, garbage out.
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY SPOILER
I have been told that this is the point. The answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything is “You’re an idiot.” As in, you can’t even multiply seven times nine correctly.
I think that the point is that it doesn’t make sense, and the universe will NEVER make sense.
It is in base 13!
But Adams said himself that he didn’t write jokes in base 13.
Then it wasn’t a joke.
True. “I may be a sorry case, but at least I don’t write jokes in Base 13.”
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER THE RESTAURAUNT AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE SPOILER SPOILER.
“I always knew there was something wrong with the universe…”
Although I’m fairly sure that that was from the TV show.
i thought that was the point too…
Well, I’m not dancing to Justin Bieber anymore.
Thank goodness for R.E.M.
Has anyone seen Race to Nowhere?
SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY SPOILER SPOILER.
176.1- Well, Earth being destroyed is a meaningful part of the plot, and therefore deserves a suspension of disbelief. A mathematical equation is not.
176.2- I hadn’t thought of that, but now that you mention it, it does seem like a possibility.
176.3- Actually, that makes perfect sense. I hadn’t thought of that either, but I could certainly understand it.
MCAS blah blah blah finals blah blah blah trombone blah blah blah blah blah.
Me too. The MCAS is evil. It’s run by Voldemort (apologies to wizards who may be shocked by my writing of you-know-who’s name) When they give you the instructions,they always tell you to “fill in the circle, and make a *dark mark*”
SPOILER!SPOILER!HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY SPOILER!
I think that the point is that it doesn’t make sense. Nothing else about the book does, so why should the math? Not even simple multiplication is safe from the wonderful, all consuming randomness of Douglass Adams.
You-Know-Whose.
Wouldn’t it be cool if MB gave you updates, like “[someone] has pied your comment” or “your comment has reached a hot-pink level in toxic awesome” or “[someone] has added their input to your output” or “[someone] has posted on x RPG.”
Not feasible, I know, but hypothetically convienent!
Yes! Exactly! It would also be nice if, when you pied a post, you could see it the pie move, hit, cover, and splatter onto the avatar, even though that’s even less feasible.
Squee! GAPAs, would you mind if I posted this link? If so, feel free to zap this comment.
http: // www . huffingtonpost . com / 2011 / 05 / 12 / cryptomycota-new-branch-of-life_n_861366 . html
Grace Bumbry and Kristin Chenoweth are AMAZING. Go look up on youtube “Glitter and Be Gay” from Candide and “Habanera” from Carmen. I nearly died from the awesomeness.
Also, my thumb really hurts. Ow.
I somehow read that last bit as, “My third thumb really hurts.”
Good Eats is ending. TT_TT
I have decided to learn the trick of lucid dreaming. Because I think it would be utterly awesome to have a world that I could feel like I was living in, which I also had control over.
Anyway, apparently the first step is learning to remember your dreams, so I’ve started working on that.
You know what? I still haven’t gotten used to how LONG threads get now with the new Museblog. Back in the day, 400 comments was a lot. But this thread right now is at 700 and counting, and no one’s made any call for part 2. I know the increase in comments is partly due to the reply system and other things, but even without that the thread’s still pretty long.
We’ve noticed it, too. For a while we thought we could get by on two threads a month, but traffic seems to have picked up. Things tend to slow down in the summer, but if they don’t, we’ll start creating new threads around the 10th and 20th of each month instead of just on the 15th.