Archive for October, 2009
Lucky Eights
For those of you in my AP US History class that need un-bullshat notes for the midterm, here they are for Chapter 8:
Chapter 8 Notes (PDF)
WordPress Logo Fun
There’s a little contest that WordPress is holding for best use of their logo. Here are my humble entries:
Van Gogh’s Starry Night: WordPress style.
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UPDATE 2009/10/23
I didn’t really expect my submission to make it to the top, but I guess it did. Vote for it here:
http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2009/10/24/vote-on-the-wordpress-logo-entries/
Thank you advance to those who voted for Starry Night. It’s nice to know that people still value true art over mass media.
Ramblings No.002
These days, bottling companies proudly state, “Now made with 50% less plastic.” While that’s great for nature, the laws of nature state that all other things being equal, you can’t keep the same quality with less material. Up until recently, I kept a spare bottle of water in my backpack, and while these bottles were now “squishy,” I didn’t expect them to spring a leak. But they did. So now I have a soggy Spanish textbook, and for the same reason books are hard to burn, they are also hard to dry. But if it’s any consolation, you can now crush a bottle with your bare hands. Quite satisfying, actually.
Now that it’s junior year, with more homework translating into more time on our asses, and no more mandatory PE to counteract this effect, many of us are going to put on the pounds. I tried to make it a goal to do a set of curl-ups and push-ups before going to sleep every night, but like New Year resolutions, they turn out hard to keep. What’s interesting about this goal is that I’m not scared of the work I need to do, or the sweat I’ll break. It’s the time. Doing ten is a piece of cake. Twenty is okay. As you go up, however, it seems to take exponentially longer and longer. Doing forty is an eternity. I can take the pain of doing a thousand, but I’m loathe to take the time. Pain is fleeting, but time even more so.
Ramblings No.001
I’ve decided to start a new category called “Ramblings,” which I suppose are like “Bread Crumbs,” only bigger.
Anyways, a couple weeks ago, I actually consciously took notice of one of those rides (I’m almost tempted to say ‘toy’) that they have outside of supermarkets and everything. It struck me that who actually uses these things? Once in a while, you spot a parent caving in to Bambi eyes, and pulling out a dollar for their kids to go ’round in circles, for the duration of which the adult stands listlessly staring at their kid. My family has never been one to spend on these things, and I imagine few other families would, so it makes me wonder if these brightly painted hunks of metal are even cost-effective. On the other hand, maybe they’re just decorations, as you rarely see a supermarket or food court without one or two somewhere, sorta like the now obsolete gumball machines.
Speaking of gumball machines and the like, if you’ve ever tried some, the candy is more resistant than an anthrax spore, probably because they have to last so long since nobody ever buys them.
Apparently, in the decade the two years I spent in kindergarten, child’s play has changed dramatically. Recently, the subject of cooties has popped up, and on a whim, I irresistibly Wikied it. Kids are now providing each other with immunizations, which I didn’t expect them to know, and if they did, to associate it sharp points and plungers. They also are now “pretend[ing] to be representatives from health insurance companies.” But that’s not all. Not only are kids growing up too fast, but they’re also losing their innocence and becoming money-grubbing like the companies they emulate, “denying [other kids] their pretend claims for compensation” because of cooties. I wonder if they’ll conform to Obama’s plan, though.
