The Old Home of Max's Miscellany

Blog has moved

2007-01-21T16:27:00.000-08:00

This blog has now permenantely moved to emess.us.

Stories from the Sex-ed Frontier

2007-01-19T23:52:00.000-08:00

I recently took a look through the discussion board on Facebook's Abolish Abstinence-only Education, and found a long thread of people describing their experiences with sex-ed. Following are an assortments of some of the more interesting (or appalling) ones. Note that I make no promises to their veracity...

At my school for sex ed we had the "gum deminstration" where a visitor came into our class and then the teacher picked two girls (the visitor was male) the visitor took a piece of gum and after talking to the first girl gave her the gum and she was instructed to chew it. The visitor then when to the next girl and started talking to her, then went back to the first girl, took the gum that she had been chewing and gave it to the second girl. The point of this deminstration was that you don't want to give the person you marry a chewed piece of gum (ie used merchindise) so thus you should wait till marrige. the teacher also told us that homosexual sex was evil. I should tell you all that I went to a PUBLIC school and that this class was funded by public tax dollars.

And in my senior year of highschool, some girls did a project on it for one of the two teachers that didn't deny [sex's] existence. Also, we swapped webpages about sex ed. To prove it, they said it was magic when two of the teachers were pregnant. They wrapped up a statue of the greek fates, and if one of the VPs had her way, there wouldn't be "Male" and "Female" restrooms. There would be "Teacher" and "Student" restrooms with no gender distinction.

A little off topic but I know about a christian school (i didn't go to) that made the students write a letter to president clinton about how abortion was murder and should be outlawed. After reading what you wrote about the sex ed thing they taught you...I've come to the conclusion that christian schools should be outlawed. :-)

"A little off topic" yes, but still pretty creepy.

We had about a quarter of our religion classes in 5th-7th grade dedicated to sex ed. We started out talking about puberty and anatomy, then pregnancy. We talked a lot about the development of the fetus and how abortion is murder. Every topic and test was begun with "3 reasons why the human body is sacred." We didn't talk about contraception much except that it was against God's will and that there was a failure rate. We had like one leason a year about STDs, very little about STIs. The only time homosexuality was mentioned was in 7th grade in a lesson called "Sins Against Sexuality" where it was lumped together with pornography, rape, molestation, polygamy, and beastiality.

In high school, sex ed was the second half of our freshman religion class. The first day covered the anatomy stuff most everyone had already had. Then for several weeks, we went into how pre-marital sex is not only immoral, but also jeoprodizes the happiness of future relationships and that once your relationship incorporates sex, it stops growing. The second half of the class was about pregnancy and all the responsibilities that come with having a baby and the best way not to have a baby is to not have sex. Even if you're married.

Then one quarter of junior year religion was about morality. There was a lot about how having premarital sex means you're making the choice to turn your back on God. For our teacher, morality was black and white, there was no circumstance in which contraception, abortion, homosexuality, or premarital sex was okay.

For me the problem with this approach is that it assumed that the student would always hold the same moral beliefs. If you ever stopped believing that God hates gays or that you'll go to hell for premarital sex, you're not left with much information on how to have a healthy, satisfying sexual relationship.

[W]e watched a couple Lifetime movies about girls getting pregnant and/or the man in the relationship learning to be more respectful to his girlfriend because it was clearly all his fault she was pregnant, at least that's what the shows implied. They were really conservative movies.

Like... the girl in one of the movies couldn't keep the baby because she wanted to go to college, so she left it with the guy to take care of it, then after a few months she started angsting about wanting to have her baby back with her. So then she drops out of school and runs back home and tells the guy "I want my baby back with me!" and he's all like "psh, fuck that, bitch. You abandon that kid, you're not his mother anymore." Then she starts crying and runs off again, then he feels bad about it but moves on and finds another girl and everything is happy again.

And that's why you shouldn't have sex, ladies. Because it's his fault you're pregnant, and you can't take it so you abandon your baby so you can go earn your Liberal Arts degree so you can get a day job at Target easier after you graduate. But that won't work out because you dropped out only to be told off by your exboyfriend, calling you a bad mother, and you know that as soon as you leave his house again he's gonna be dongin' with his new girl, and she's hotter than you.

Society's views of sexuality are horribly sexist. Men are expected to be a ribald bunch, whose urges must be satisfied, but if a women screws up, she is unclean. If a teenage couple gets pregnant, the girl is a slut, but the guy's just another guy. It's her problem, afterall.

Vagina = Blossoming Flower and my teacher (a middle aged female hippy) was afraid to say the word Penis.

I could expect that from a kid, but...

my school heavily focused on stds and unwanted pregnancy.. we watched lots of movies about stds and looked at so many pictures of genitalia infected with stds.. they even handed out condoms and flavored lube!

My cousin's Catholic school seemed to go out of its way to be useless and offensive. Included in the "sex ed" package was "how to treat women." That might sound nice, but it wasn't. It was stuff like, "Never leave her alone at a dance. If you have to go to the bathroom, get someone to watch her." One, I have no idea what that had to do with sex ed, and two, it's ridiculously sexist. :P

They were also taught that men can't control themselves, so it's the woman's job to remain "chaste." Women shouldn't even make jokes about sex with men, because it would show the woman has no respect for herself. Pretty much, it was the woman's job to keep men from having sex with her. If anything happened, it was her fault and she was a slut. I wish we Catholics would join the 21st century with everyone else.

We watched a very painful birth on video and looked at a lot of different STDs. Birth controll was never mentioned, statistics were never given, information on the specifics of transmission were never given. The conclusion of 3 weeks of this was: "If you have sex you will get pregnant and die" Sure enough, after highschool started I saw quite a few pregnancies, even of super conservative religous teens whose parents I'm sure supported abstinance only education.... I wonder if they do now.

My school, Landover University for the Saved (although I am currently on a mission trip to the LIEberal northeast) teaches on the GODLY "Sex Education". NEVER have sex. If you are a man and cannot control yourself, however, you are to find yourself a suitable woman/servant and have sex with her (as the natural use of a woman, of course, is to satisfy men's sexual urges). If you need Biblical citations, I will be happy to give them (from the 1611 King James Version of the Bible, just the way God wrote it)!

www.LandoverBaptist.com -- Unsaved? Unwelcome!

This obvious piece of satire might have been funny, but the it sparked a minor war between gullible readers who actually believed it and the original poster, who kept making more outrageous statements, until some people told him to stuff it.

mine was pretty weird. the teacher walked in, inflated condoms with her breath, passed the, spermicide and all, around the room for everyone to handle, along with diaphragms (sp?) and female condoms. she vividly described the various forms of sex and protection, intentionally making filthy jokes and doing nothing but trivializing safe sex.

Here we have the opposite problem...

5th grade (public) - sex is like legos...u stick it in, girls have vaginas and guys have penises

6th grade (private) - sex is a sin ... u do it before marriage, and your going to hell.

8th grade (publice) - we did a fill in the blank worksheet word for word out of the book which taught us condems were evil and sex was the devil, oh and our teacher didnt even mentionit

Sex is like Legos, it's a sin and the Devil. Therefore (∴) we can conclude (using the Transitive property) that Legos are sinful and the work of the Devil. Guess I'll have to throw my old collection away.

My "Home Ec" teacher told us that baby aspirin was the best form of birth control: "place it between your knees and hold it there." I wish I was kidding about this. If we brought up birth control she got all uncomfortable. Oh yeah and guess how many girls in my graduating class ended up having babies? That baby aspirin worked great I guess...

Apparently, some teachers are not just ignorant, they're completely stupid.

In 5th grade, at the end of elementary school, they separated the boys from the girls and that's when we learned about puberty. But, we didn't actually discuss what made the opposite sex opposite so if I hadn't had a brother, I might not have known (at least not until later) that boys have penises and girls have vaginas.

In 6th grade, the church I was forced to attend again separated the boys from the girls. The sunday school teacher kept saying over and over again that we needed to remain "pure", that Jesus only approved of girls who remained "pure" until marriage, and that our husbands (because, of course, *all* of us were 'straight') would better "enjoy you if you are pure on your wedding night." I had no clue as to what she was talking about and since we had finished a big DARE campaign in school the year before, I thought she was talking about drugs, alcohol, and cigarettes. After she was done talking, we *all* had to sign a "contract" with god that basically read that we were committing ourselves to "him" until we were married. Then, we received a small silver ring and my ring wouldn't fit.

In the 8th grade, a coach sat the volleyball team down and told us all how disastorous pregnancy was to our volleyball careers and higher education aspirations. She said this without telling us how one actually became pregnant.

In the 9th grade, I took health and the teacher spent an entire week (monday through friday) talking about abstinence. She even said that if you have sex and didn't want to, that you can reclaim a "secondary virginity" which sounded like a bunch of hooey to me. After all of the abstinence crap (which was what it was), she finally let us watch a video that described (but didn't show) the sex act ("the penis enters the vagina..."). The video, though, made sex seem sterile and frankly disgusting as it did show, from inside the vagina, an ejaculation and my teacher said, "that's right girls, we are the recepticles for all of that. And, if he has a disease, you just caught it and sucked it right up into your body." Honestly, she made us sound like toilets. We did discuss, over only one class period, condoms and birth control pills but she mainly just kept saying how ineffective they really were.

"14 girls out of 100 will become pregnant using a condom. But if you can't control yourself and have sex, it's better than nothing."

There was a lot of shame, a lot of guilt, and a *lot* of misinformation.

In 10th grade, when I decided to start having sex, I took myself to the closest Planned Parenthood and sat down with someone and just asked a ton of questions. I left that day with a bunch of information, pamplets, condoms, and a prescription for birth control. It was refreshing to *finally* have someone tell me the truth in a heathy, positive, and supportive way. I started having sex with my boyfriend (who is now my husband) that year confident that I knew how to protect myself from disease and pregnancy.

But, if I hadn't taken the initiative to educate myself, I shudder to think of what might have happened to us.

You rock, Amanda! If only everyone else was this smart.

I went to an extremely small Christian school (like 20 people in the whole high school.) Of course we were taught abstinence only...if they had taught anything else besides that, I'm positive parents would have been in there ranting and raving. So, anyway, the lady teaching it for us girls brought in a red rose and passed it around instructing everyone to pluck a pedal off. Once all the pedals were gone, she said..."If you have sex before marriage, this is what you'll have left to give your future husband...an ugly stem." So then we all took purity rings and vowed not to have sex before marriage. Yeah, didn't work for too many people. 2 girls got pregnant not too long after that. I also vowed not to have sex before marriage, but once I met my fiance, it just happened. Oh well.

Getting back to my earlier point...

12th grade was the Sex Class when it came to religion. We got to watch the videos about why sex is just for marriage, and when you have sex before marriage, you're giving that gift to someone who can't appreciate it. You should be new, beautiful, and have never been touched or used. If you're not a virgin, you're trash! (As a rape victim, this bothered me to no small extent.) The book also told the truth about disease and such, and also about different methods of birth control, and how the Church sees it. The only mistake was that the author confused PlanB with RU-486, and I brought literature to the teacher to prove that they were not, in fact, the same thing.

And finally, my contribution:

I got lucky. I go to probably the most liberal school in Oregon, and we started puberty in sixth grade, getting a bit steamier in seventh grade. Nothing happened in eighth grade for some reason, but in ninth grade we talked about rape, STDs, and all sorts of contraceptives. We put condoms on bananas, too.

The only bad thing was that I had already read a lot about it anyway, so much of it was repeat information. But the class was awesome because we were all freshmen so every other statement made us giggle. It was a fun class.

Weird words my Computer Invented

2007-01-13T22:44:00.000-08:00

A while ago, I posted an article about a random text generator I made for Computer Science. It's has since undergone some major changes, but I also discovered a website (one of many) devoted to the text generation by the same method, use of Markov chains. On their site they included a short C program for generating text on the letter level (mine worked on the word level). I downloaded it, compiled it, and ran it on several documents. Luckily, OS X comes standard with both a word list and supplementary list of words like "altar boy and able-bodied." I fed these through the program and it produced some odd results. I made a list of some of my favorites and what I think the definition's for some of them are.

Ante-ecclesiastic acid: Acid that has not yet been blessed by a priest.
Blood donkey-ball sin: If you have any idea what this means, you're a creepier person than I am.
Chair ejectment devil: A demon that lurks around ejection seats and causes them to fire without warning
Cobwebbedness: An person's quality of being old, abandoned, and difficult to get rid of.
coffee-blood-descending: Relating to someone whose parents where heavy coffee addicts.
cathologic: The logic used by the Pope
cotton dioxide: One part cotton, two parts oxygen.
crime museum benzol disease
death chamber tree
deep-udder transformer
double-shakespear-broker
fire-baked fly: A fly that flew into the fireplace by accident.
hospital groove: When the nurses get bored at night...
lava consent rose: Rose signifying consent to something involving lava.
omnibus trichloride: One part omnibus, three parts chlorine
picked goose company: Someplace where I would not advise working.
pseudo republic engine: Another name for North Korea.
rabbit candidate snake: Huh?
tadpolehearted: Having a soft, young heart.
fly drill lubricatory: Another one best left to your imagination.

Rack 'N' Roll

2007-01-07T19:30:00.000-08:00

January 6th has come around at last, and FIRST finally released the rules for 2007's competition, Rack 'N' Roll. On Saturday morning, we all gathered to watch a one and half hour long video. The first 1:10 minutes was spent telling us how great they are, the final twenty minutes was actually about the competition. The game looks pretty fun; it involves making the robots drive around, picking up inner tubes placing them on a gigantic rack structure. Think cylindrical tic-tac-toe.

Our team voted on choosing a rather difficult design for our robot, meaning the software folks, including me, will be very busy working out drive code and other important software. This is made even more difficult because we will not have the robot available for testing for a couple of weeks. Until then, we must make due without.

As a result of this build season, I am required to give up "every free second" to working on this project. This means no blogging for me.

John Anthony Yost

2007-01-02T21:07:00.000-08:00

Copied verbatim from the Wikipedia Help Desk:

See How the people who stalk me on line will not let me search your site?

Dear Wikipedia;

I believe I have been the victim of some idiots hired by the Government to slander and lie about me. They would call me the Anit-Christ, John the Apostle, John The Baptist and other things and rewrite the history to reflect me. John Anthony Yost the man who writes, "Your Life in Print." Only liars hide the content and will not let the victim in on the content they write. To the victors history can be written, well they lost and they cannot rewrite history. We all want the truth and the news reports how vandals on your site rewrite history at will and you have no expert oversight. You should not allow ameteurs to rewrite history it hurts people. You should have pages where your thoughts on the subject can be heard, not edited. Please tell me what Ceif means, they are stupid and drug addicts of the Governmet. I am a vitim of "directed energy weapons being used on me 24/7.

Signed Editor and Chief,
John Anthony Yost

A fascinating case study. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 23:38, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

Things I learned about Utah

2006-12-24T00:52:00.000-08:00

A foreigner's first impressions of Utah, from a trip five weeks ago:

Utahans really love putting giant letters on the sides of hills. Every time we would think of another letter, we would round the curve and see a giant white letter affixed to a hillside. I am pretty sure they have the entire alphabet somewhere, and probably some kanji as well
Iodized water reacts with certain foods, such as Ramen, to create blue water. A little internet research tells me it reacts with the starch.
Iodized water still tastes better than some bottled water, however.
All pepper jack should be buried. That stuff is evil.
It is really nice to have climbed down the rock after they find the baby rattlesnake sleeping next to the belayers.
It was also nice when they waited until I finished climbing before telling me why everything was so tense.
Never enter an airport security scanner marked EntryScan, unless you want the crap scared out of you.
Sleeping in a van does not relieve you of the need for a sleeping bag. Also, if your sleeping bag is in a van right 10 feet away, it's worth retrieving it even if you lack a flashlight, (which turned out to be stuffed in the sleeping bag anyway.)
Utahans also seem to like misspelling words, so you get places like "Stan's Burger Shak," "Quik Eats," and "Brazilian Cosine." The latter was spelled correctly on the reverse side, however.

James Kim

2006-12-15T09:04:00.000-08:00

Photo from The New York Times

Recently, the news has been buzzing with stories of James Kim and his tragic death on Mt. Hood after trying to seek help for his family. What surprised me was the amount of attention this incident attracted, especially on the national level.

Call me a hard case, but I do not truly understand why this story deserved such attention. It was sad, I agree, but is it any worse than all the other news we get from Iraq, or even other stories of people getting lost in the woods, or drowning in the rivers? Please say we have grown numb to such stories.

John Wiser told me that this got attention for its status as a human-interest story, but he admitted that perhaps the priorities got misplaced. On the day Kim's body was found, my mother and the carpool seemed to make quite a big deal out of it. Apparently the search had been in the news for a while; I hadn't noticed it.

The Evolution of a Blog

2006-12-09T08:58:00.000-08:00

I find it kind of interesting how much my blog has changed in little over a year of syndication. When I first started this blog, I had little idea what type of blog I would create, and indeed, I had had the idea of creating some technical blog, where I would feature technical news and findings. The earliest entries reflect this, and are rather stupid.

My first post of the commentary genre, and the first post of any real length was a post about the post about the whole scandal at the 2006 Winter Formal, when some froshies came drunk. Following on its heels was the first of a few posts about Operation Save America.

I didn't really talk about much meaningfull until a post about The N and Degrassi. Directly following that post, I wrote my first post that dealt with my views on sex-ed and sexuality in general. It also gave me my first real comment. I later chose to follow that up with a post on "abstinence only" sex-ed.

From then, I tried to steer my blog in the direction of commentaries for social issues, and keep from becoming some personal insight into my personal life. The world needs no more of those.

Some other posts of note:

14-year -old girls and MySpace: I was a little worried about posting this, because it referenced some girls who were most likely friends of people who read this blog on Facebook. I decided to post it anyway, because none of them mentioned any names.
Measure 43: Choose choice: This blog does offer me the chance to comment on certain social issues that I feel strongly about, like Measure 43, which would have required parental notification for abortions in Oregon, were it not defeated in the 2006 midterm elections.
Panty Raider: This post is responsible for a lot of people finding my page by searching for "panty." Ah well.
The Preppification of Catlin Gabel: A post I wrote about the changes in the Catlin Gabel marketing program.

The Gizzard Wizzard

2006-12-08T20:24:00.000-08:00

Buckman Elementary, where I wrote the masterpiece on an old Macintosh.

I came across an old poem that I wrote in (I think) fifth grade. I remembered writing it, but could find it, but it decided to show up a while ago, and being totally lost on what to post I decided to stick it up. Just keep in mind I wrote this at age eleven.

Ahem

The Gizzard Wizard

Have you seen the gizzard wizard?
He'll make chickens' gizzards red.
Or black or blue or a deep green hue
or whatever they have said.

You might think that's crazy,
that that's a silly thing to do.
But if you eat them up,
you'll know who was who.

What? You don't have a gizzard?
Well DUH you're not a bird.
So leave my sight before there's a fight,
Between you and the gizzard wizard.

Hey, this gives rise to a new blog category: Literature.

CatlinSpeak: The Revolution

2006-12-04T18:05:00.000-08:00

Grade Inflation
Sam A. '07

After many a tireless hour, Bill and I managed to get CatlinSpeak's website online. For those of you who do not know, CatlinSpeak is the school's newest commentary and community magazine. CatlinSpeak is actually a fairly old magazine, but previously it had received little to no attention from me or the community. But Bill and John decided to revived the newpaper, outline the year, and establish it as a prominent community magazine. The community recieved the first issue well.

Our second issue had a focus, the topic of grades and grade inflation (Catlin is notorious for being extremely strict with the grades.) Our next issue will focus on the what it is like to be a conservative in an incredibly liberal school. We also asked alumni to comment on the value of a Catlin education, and recieved a huge response, so look out for that in the near future. Sometime in the spring, we should publish an issue devoted to narratives and fiction pieces written by the community.

A short aside, my involvement in the newpaper/magazine is by luck. Near the end of last year, I came in a classroom to eat lunch. John saw me, and assuming I was there for the paper, passed out an outline. This got me interested, so I stayed involved and asked Bill if I could help out with the website, since I am a geek (in training.) Eventually, Bill made me an admin, so I have been helping out a lot with posting the articles and getting the second issue online.

Stupid Skymall Products

2006-11-26T22:51:00.000-08:00

Anyone who has flown commercially should have some point noticed the Sky Mall magazine located in their seat-back pockets. If not, one should take the time next their in a plane to check out some of the odd-ball and absurd products they offer within their margins. Travelling back from Utah, we got a good selection of them.

I didn't find this one as funny as others. This is the Firefly Survival Poncho, a jacket that "could literally save the lives of you and your family members," according to the description. It can withstand temperatures up to 1650°F, so no worries, except that you'd be dead at that temperature. The cost? $99.99. The picture in the magazine has the poncho superimposed over an intense forest fire, make it look like some modernized grim reaper.

Sky Mall also has its assortment of corny Holiday products, like this snap-on Snowman Lampost Cover. I'm still not sure whether this is a Winter decoration or a Halloween decoration. Either way, if I put this up in my neighborhood, the neighbors would come over with flamethrowers and burn it. We have high aesthetic standards in my neighborhood.

Sky Mall's decorations do not stop at Holiday, however. They also make a mailbox designed for long term mail storage, (2 weeks, by their claim.) The Step2 StoreMore Mailbox is made of a “Realistic-looking ‘stone’ column.” Note that the word "stone" is in quotes—it is very realistic plastic, but not stone. As with the snowman, this would note sit well with the neighbors.

A large part of Sky Mall's business is convincing people to fill a need they never knew they had. They offered several devices for alerting you when to stop backing up in the garage. You could pay thirty bucks or so, or you could just hang a soft weight from the ceiling, and stop when you see it move. One of their offerings is a cereal dispenser called Breakfix. For only $79.99, one can be spared the incredible agony of having to pour cereal from a plain plastic container, and having to measure out the portions yourself. I didn't find this all that funny until I saw the movie they posted on their website. Look at how annoyed the kids look at being in such a stupid commercial. Though I like the sound the things makes; it would entertain me for about ten seconds.

All of these products seem quite sensible when you compare them to the mother of all toilet-paper-roll-holders/iPod docks, the iCarta:

Woah. Somebody must be spending a lot of time on toilet. Poor guy.

Uhhhhhhh...

2006-11-25T16:51:00.000-08:00

I always love to here that my blog is getting more attention, since it gets almost no notice at all (although some people may read it on Facebook.) However, there are certain types of people it would be nice to keep off the blog.

I say this because, looking through the scarce list of referring pages on StatCounter, I discovered that one of my visitors had found my blog by running a search on Blogger's Blogsearch for "girls peeing." This guy hopefully lost interest pretty quickly, because my blog is not a porn site, least of all a site that would host photos of girls peeing. The page he ended up on was a post I wrote while ago about MySpace. And yes, it does referrence a girl peeing, but not at all what he wanted.

Let's hope he stays away.

Gay Marriage Killed the Dinosaurs

2006-11-24T17:35:00.000-08:00

I stumbled across a group on Facebook titled "Gay Marriage Killed the Dinosaurs," a group lampooning the arguements of anti-gay-marriage activists. In it, it contained the following tongue-in-cheek list, which I thought was pretty darn funny:

Ten reasons gay marriage is wrong:

Being gay is not natural. Real Americans always reject unnatural things like eyeglasses, polyester, and air conditioning. Also apparently those homosexual animals have picked up some unnatural behavior.
Gay marriage will encourage people to be gay, in the same way that hanging around tall people will make you tall.
Gay marriage will change the foundation of society; we could never adapt to new social norms. Just like we haven't adapted to cars, the service-sector economy, or longer life spans.
Straight marriage has been around a long time and hasn't changed at all; women are still property, blacks still can't marry whites, and divorce is still illegal.
Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of Britney Spears' 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.
Straight marriages are valid because they produce children. Gay couples, infertile couples, and old people shouldn't be allowed to marry because our orphanages aren't full yet, and the world needs more children.
Obviously gay parents will raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight children.
Gay marriage is not supported by religion. In a theocracy like ours, the values of one religion are imposed on the entire country. That's why we have only one religion in America.
Children can never succeed without a male and a female role model at home. That's why we as a society expressly forbid single parents to raise children.
Legalizing gay marriage will open the door to all kinds of crazy behavior. People may even wish to marry their pets because a dog has legal standing and can sign a marriage contract.

The Preppification of Catlin Gabel

2006-11-11T23:44:00.000-08:00

Recently, Catlin decided to revamp its image, and we hired a marketing company, Crane Marketing, to boost our image. As a result of this, they updated the admission materials, and changed the website to match the new colors. My first reaction upon viewing this website was that it had a frightening resemblance to the stereotypical Prep School website. What mainly bugs me is the addition of the two photos at the top. They just bug me. I recently got to take a look at the new admission booklet. The book is basically what I expected, all of the photos are posed, and the writing is slightly over the top, as in the following quotation:

Watch the students arriving in the morning.
The youngest children follow the trail of bronze honeybees into the Beehive.

First- through fifth-graders swoop past the Paddock and the Fir Grove into their own set of buildings clustered around the Lower School.

Middle School students rush through Schauff Circle to the imaginative, welcoming atrium of the Warren Middle School before arriving at their classroom-lands of Treasure Island, Fenway, and Narnia.

And the oldest students swarm into the Upper School quad, surrounded by the Science Center, Miller Library, Dant House, and all the buildings in between.

This is Catlin Gabel: a village dotted with groups of learners at work and play... [sic] and wonderful litle niches for students to work independently.

The part on the Middle School particularly amused me. That isn't what I remember.

The various quotes sprinkled throughout the felt weird as well, especially the one apparently by a cute Beginning Schooler, “Look where the blue and red touch—it's purple.” It's not that it isn't cute when kids learn, it's that something like knowing colors seems like it could happen anywhere.

I was talking with my Computer Science teacher, who said that it seems weird to me because it was written by non-Catlinites, for non-Catlinites. Still I wonder if it would be possible to write a marketing brochure that would not only impress prospective parents, but would preserve what makes Catlin Catlin.

Democrats take the House!

2006-11-07T22:24:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to hear this for a long time. Measure 43 was also defeated, thank God.

The Top Five Ugliest U.S. State Capitols

2006-10-28T16:02:00.000-07:00

I was recently reminded of how ugly our State Capitol building is, when I wondered if it was really the ugliest in the nation. I looked through Wikipedia's pages about each State's Capitol, and made a list of the ugliest:

5^th place: Ohio Statehouse

This has the same problem as Oregon, but at least Oregon's is clean.

4^th place: Oregon State Capitol

The main reason I don't like my state's Capitol is because the dome looks like some boring concrete pillar, or a dial on a stereo. I don't know why it must be so plain in such a unique state. We deserve better.

3^rd place: New Mexico State Capitol

It's not that I don't like contemporary architecture, but care must me taken so that it doesn't look like a La Quinta Inn, like the New Mexico State Capitol does.

2^nd place: Hawai’i State Capitol

The architecture of the Hawai’i State Capitol was supposed to mimic traditional Hawaiian architecture. I can't say for sure if they did that, but I can say that it reminds me very strongly of those truck weigh stations you see along highways. Not the best model for a center of government.

1^st place: Alaska State Capitol

Ewwwwwwwww.... Designing Capitols that resemble La Quinta Inns or truck weigh stations may not be a good idea, but it is better than making a building that looks like a public elementary school, or a generic office building, or a public storage facility, or...you get the idea. Seriously, I don't know what Alaskans were thinking when they approved this piece of shit, especially considering the kind of cool stuff they could have done with an Alaskan building. Something relating to snow and ice would be nice.

Flip Flips Out

2006-10-23T16:57:00.000-07:00

Okay, below is Mr. Benhams latest post and my comments. I apologize in advance for the slightly immature tone of my response, he really angered me.

Homosexual thanks Flip – Flip responds

I would like to thank Flip Benham for attending the 2006 Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade (a.k.a. Dallas Gay Pride Parade) this past weekend.

I would like to thank him for yelling things like “your parents are going to Hell” and “your parents' church is an abomination” to the children who were marching with the Cathedral of Hope. I appreciated the most when one of his followers stepped out into the parade route in front of my daughter and shoved an anti-gay pamphlet in her face, yelled at her and scared her into taking the pamphlet. Several of our youth were visibly upset with the taunting from Mr. Benham and his followers screaming and shaking their Bibles at them. Again, I say thank you!

Like it or not, we in the gay community have families with children. Many times our own children hear us talking about the discrimination and bigotry that gays and lesbians have to endure. And when we try to explain this to our children they say they understand but deep down I don't think they really get it. Well thanks to Mr. Benham... they get it now. What a great learning experience he gave the youth of our church. Discrimination and bigotry is so much easier to understand when you see it first hand.

Thanks again Mr. Benham. Our children learned a very important lesson on Sunday and we probably could not have done it without you!

Johnny Bennett

FIIP'S RESPONSE

Dear Johnny,

You are so very welcome! To keep our kids from sexual predators such as you is absolutely essential. No one shoved a pamphlet into your “daughter's” face. She wanted it and received it. You grabbed it out of her hand for fear that the truth would set her free from the horrible lie of homosexual sodomy.

The Cathedral of Hope is an abomination before Almighty God and so are you. Leading precious people whom God loves into believing a lie that one can be a Christian and practice homosexual sodomy at the same time is a crime that cries out to the heavens.

Unless you repent Johnny, you will find yourself in hell! It will be your own choice. That's right! You can choose today whom you will serve but, after you choose, you will have no power to negotiate the consequences of that choice. You are deeply loved by God and that will never change. He will love you right into hell – it will break His heart - but it is, after all, your choice!

Thank you for writing to me. We have had several people out at your “youth group” at MCC. They were never invited in. There is not much tolerance for the Gospel of Jesus Christ there. One has to bless homosexual sodomy or he is out of the group. There is zero tolerance for the Truth of the Gospel.

We will pray for your “daughter” that she will find her way free from the ubiquitous lie that has enslaved her “father's” heart and soul. The author of this lie in none other than the devil himself. Johnny, you are no match for him! Neither is your “daughter.”

We are praying that the Truth will set you free. Because I love you, I am sending you this quick response.

In Christian love,

Flip

I read this post and just though to my self, "WTF?" Benham has really gone off the deep end. Let me analyze some lines:

To keep our kids from sexual predators such as you is absolutely essential.: The next person who equates homosexuals with sexual predators is gonna get my fist in their face. I am that sick of this ignorant “fact.” Seriously, Bennett sounded like any other father concerned about his daughter, but Benham just read “homosexual,” and the lightbulb went off in his head.
No one shoved a pamphlet into your “daughter's” face. She wanted it and received it.: Interesting. You knew this girl for all of two seconds, and you could already read into her thoughts? Your hubris knows no bounds.
Because I love you, I am sending you this quick response.: Bullshit. You do this not because of love for Bennett, or even for love of God, but for love of yourself. You are so wrapped-up in your convictions that you speak the Truth that you seek to carve others down. You are not the messenger of God, you are the agent of yourself. You accuse Bennett's actions as “fear,” yet it is you who fears that there may be a truth other than your own personal interpretations of His word. I can no longer respect you as a man with a different opinion; you are the true “abomination before Almighty God,” not Bennett.
We will pray for your “daughter” that she will find her way free from the ubiquitous lie that has enslaved her “father's” heart and soul.: How dare you have the audacity to delegitimize a child's relationship to her father? Who gave this sacred right to you? Not Jesus, surely! If these children grow up scared and confused, it will not be because of their parentage, it will be because of the self-hatred you instilled in them at such a young age. Remember those experiments undertaken by Kenneth and Mamie Clark? The ones where the black children began viewing white dolls as better than black dolls? Remember?

Anyone else notice that this site and those like it often consist mostly of creepy prophetical phrases like "the Gates of Hell" and "the Homosexual Agenda." Very rarely do they ever answer the topic at hand. I could create a pretty good imitation them by just stringing together stuff like "this is a SHOCKER!" and "you will go to hell!" and it wouldn't matter what I was talking about. Let's see what happens when I plug some OSA text into my random text generator:

we were unloading our signs a local sidewalk counselor and was just doing what I am writing as an expletive, while allegiance to Satan, sex, lies, homosexuality, abortion, suicide and evolution is considered "progressive" and enlightened. God has more disaster than our federal government has relief. That's right! You can choose today whom you will have brochures on the face of this cesspool of sin. Paul was one of truth, freedom and hope through the veil of its associate, supplier and customer bases." Did you read that? The NGLCC desires that the truth would set her free from the schoolyard. He has worked so hard to get up on a little girl from abortion and the Democrats have been a by-product of that choice. You are a proclamation that put him up against a recall movement that failed for a judgment from God Himself! He thrust us out of the cross for the past 16 years. Hundreds of children from the streets, and the future just as horrible, is the very survival of our world back to Christ, or will we continue OSA's national campaign: GOD IS GOING BACK TO SCHOOL. At lease fifteen saints got up and take their place beside Tanya Britton and other anti-God policies i.e., the failed attempt to avoid. A young white female reporter said to skeptics, stand outside this abortion clinic employees would start harassing the sidewalk counselors off the debilitating burden of the sinful flesh. The schools of our Christian parents. Years later, when we finally saw a picture sign at the Supreme Court's "law" that legalized child-killing through abortion? Dr. Martin Luther King understood the necessity of publicly exposing the injustices of his efforts. He has been thrown out and participating in this addiction. None of us are restrained by nothing. They call themselves Aryans. They are being blackmailed by the attention paid to the people. You are deeply loved by God and His Word by Sam Walton, are honored! It is now promoting abortion, homosexuality, and other abortion protesters. Hagnauer and police have said and done little yet our hearts were grieved. We prayed that God forgives the sin, and step out and tell the truth? It may never happen until and unless their Black female victims decide to shake off the street shouting Bible passages over a bullhorn. Flip Benham, leader of the Constitution more. I also reject you as My priests; because you attack reporters who come and then gets lured off with many other pleasure-seeking, lust-filled boys to a people being destroyed for lack of knowledge. How long will you, Black Parents, refuse to sweep it under the influence of Satan. The smirk on your hands. You will be able to see it. It brings to light how Lee Scott, the CEO of Wal-Mart employees have either uninsured children, or are on Medicaid. This news item showed women holding signs in front of an abortion on a minor without the parent's consent. WATCH It's a bold faced lie.

The Wendigo

2006-10-14T23:26:00.000-07:00

This is my official entry for Matt Dinniman's 1st Annual Flash Fiction Contest. Enjoy...

Edgar sat under the incandescent glare, finalizing a draft of what would become his next best selling horror story, and winner of the year's Pulitzer.

With an expression of sick pleasure and fanaticism, the Wendigo extended an emaciated arm through his veil snaking it around the petrified victim. He deftly drew her hand across her side, which decayed instantly. She screamed as the Wendigo began to feast on her shriveled flesh...

Edgar blinked. A whimpering below him caught his attention. He looked down. "Good night, my dear," he hissed. "Thanks for your assistance," and then he was upon her.

My linguistic weekness

2006-10-14T12:20:00.000-07:00

I have an incredible weakness to other peoples' vernaculars. If I hang around any crowd for a long enough time I'll start to talk like them.

Sometimes the change is not so bad, as when I was eating lunch with this young British woman, and said "no" with a British accent, "Nu-ooh." This amused me slightly.

Other times the result is not so tasteful. When I was in elementary school, I vehemently opposed the use of "retard" as an insult. I would call people who used it out, much to their annoyance. Eventually, however, I became exposed to enough people using that word, that I started occasionally using it every once-and-a-while. Now I am working on not using it, even though I get tempted to often. The same thing happened with gay, althougth I am convinced I have never used gay innappropriatley.

Another linguistic thing I picked up is swearing. I don't think I swore much before coming to Catlin, but everybody swears here, so I picked it up after not too long. Now I often find myself injecting "fuck" and "shit" into my conversations, although I have toned it down recently. I have a friend who will get on my case if I swear to much.

So, a question for my readers,¹. Do you have this problem at all, or am I just unique in this regard?

¹ All three of them.

LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2006-10-13T11:52:00.000-07:00

5^th result on a Google Image Search for lol

You know what bugs me? The overusage of the IM phrase LOL and similar phrases. People obsess in sprinkling it in everywhere, even after the most mundane of topics. What originated as a simple way to speed up typing in the fast-paced world of IM communications now propogates itself into Facebook and MySpace comments, email messages, and other forms of communications where time is most certainly of the essence. So we get stuff like "i love your profile. and btw, red robins ROCKS!!! lol." So, is she actually laughing out loud, or is this just a filler word?

By over usage, we've almost completely devalued this phrase into nothingness, as with so many other clichés we have introduced.

What I hate about The N

2006-10-11T19:22:00.000-07:00

How do I hate The N? Let facts be submitted to a candid world:

They are overly obsessed with making the shows have as much sex as possible in shows. Degrassi uses sex as a plot device, but The N confuses plot device with plot.

The N tries to reveal every damn spoiler they can about Degrassi. They revealed that the Sean and Emma would make out, that Sean and Peter would have a street race and that they would hit someone. Also, that Darcy is going to go all "3^rd-season Manny", and Jimmy's a virgin.

They have the dumbnest commercials. Aside from repeating the same commercials over and over again (I've started to memorize tampon commercials,) they are these stupid promotions about all there main characters joining these dumbass therapy sessions for stuff like "compulsive catfighters."

You know, I'm beginning to think that The-N is just annoyed that they didn't come up with Degrassi, so they try to either influence it as much as they can, or outdo (outsex?) it with shows like South of Nowhere (not a bad show, but no Degrassi.) But because The N isn't as smart as Epitome, they can't write as good a show. So they just try their hardest to add their own rotten spice to Degrassi.

The N also pissed me off when they refused to air "Accidents Will Happen," because it dealt with the subject of abortion (*gasp*.) Suck it up and have some backbone already. Quite censoring scenes where somebody writes 'fag,' or gets a boner. Let us see the intense violence (we can handle it,) and show us sexual content and the condom ads.

Magazines

2006-10-10T16:13:00.000-07:00

One thing I have never understood is why magazines are so fond of half-hiding the title with pictures. Seriously, look in the magazine section of a store and nearly all of the magazines hide the title in some way. Are they trying to test their loyal readers ability to distinguish magazines at a glance? Is it like peOpLe cApiTaLIzinG raNDoM lEtTErs? Or am I missing something odd? This doesn't really bug me, I just can't understand it.

More thoughts on Measure 43

2006-10-08T16:39:00.000-07:00

The principle arguement behind backers of Measure 43 is that abortion is a decision that should be discussed with parents. I strongly agree with this, in fact, I would be offended by the parent who did no feel her daughter's abortions (and pregnancies for that matter,) were their business. I disagree that the solution is legislation.

Fear that daughters may be unwilling to discuss an abortion with their parents can be alleviated by creating a home environment where the children can feel safe approaching their parents about their pregnancy. It is insulting to create a law where parents can create as unsafe an environment as they wish and still force the teenagers to subject themselves to it. The parents who are genuinely concerned about their daughters' health and wish to be involved in their decisions have no need for this law, because their daughters will already feel comfortable coming to them. If the parents don't trust their daughter, the solution isn't to try and legislate trust in the girl, the solution is to figure what is wrong with their relationship.

Dances are getting stupider

2006-10-01T00:08:00.000-07:00

Random image from the web, which is pretty similar to our girls' interpretations of togas

I got just back from the first dance I've been to since the infamous winter semiformal last year. The only reason I went is because I thought this one girl was going, but she was worn out from rummage work. So basically, the participants included apparently every freshmen. I guess they under the unfortunate belief that Upper-school dances are actually good. Unlike middle-school dances, which actually played good music, we get nonstop shitty rap music. Seriously, the DJ (a senior) played two non-rap songs: a slow dance and Hips Don't Lie (twice.) Don't get me wrong, I don't mind a few rap songs, but three hours of rap is way more than I can handle.

The new freshmen were apparently trying to outdo the now-sophomores in skankiness: They formed the core of the mosh pit and this one girl was really grinding away with whatever boy was quick enough to get behind her. This isn't as bad as MySpace, because it stays within the school, but is it that necesary to mash your ass into some random boy's crotch? Couldn't you at least get to know them first? Another thing that bugged me was their interpretation of toga. Some girls literally came in dressed in a sheet around their waists, a bra, and sash. Talk about stretching a definition.

I'll tell you what I do like about the dances: there held outside. That's about it, though. I still plan to go to the winter semiformal and prom, because former apparently has an OK DJ, and prom is, well...prom. You can't miss prom.

Measure 43: Choose Choice

2006-09-28T23:19:00.000-07:00

Illustration from Willamette Week

Finally, after a bit of silence, I have something to say...

I recently got into a friendly debate with my fellow carpool member, Grace, about the upcoming Oregon Ballot measure that would make it illegal for doctors to perform abortions on girls under eighteen without parental notification. I oppose this law, because I believe that if a girl is considered capable of consenting to medical care on her own, (as she legally is from fourteen on,) she should be able to consent to an abortion.

Although this law is technically less restrictive than parental consent laws, it still doesn't give the girl much more freedom. How many minors can truly stand up to there angry parents and go against them, even if the law is on their side? Their parents are their parents, and they can pretty much impose whatever they want on the girl. This law also creates other potential problems:

[What] about the girl who watched her sister get pummeled and kicked out of her home when her dad found out she was pregnant? Or the 16-year-old who showed up in labor not sure where to turn? Her 16-year-old boyfriend was trying to find housing, her mom was an unavailable addict on the streets, and her dad in California doesn't want her.

These young women are real. They're my patients. Where do I go for parents?

Elizabeth Pirruccello Newhall

In a more ideal world (I say more because in an ideal world, we wouldn't have unwanted pregnancies,) this lab would have no effect because girls would feel comfortable talking with their parents about something this big. But if I had to choose between them getting killed in some back-alley abortion because they were afraid (perhaps rightly so,) to tell the parents, and sneaking around their parents backs and having their abortions done by a licensed physician, I would choose the one former. I tend to value the life of the girl over that of her unborn embryo.

The drafters and supporters of this law mostly mean well, but Measure 43 would create more problems than it solved.

And just for the record, I am sick of pro-choicers being described as bloodthirsty murderers. Similarly, I hate the label ‘pro-abortionist,’ as this implies that I believe every pregnant women should abort and that we should outlaw childbirth.

Other blogs in opposition:
sweaty bloggopotamus: No on 43
The Rev. Chuck Currie: One Christian View Against Oregon’s Measure 43

Abortion
Oregon

Patriotism

2006-09-28T20:47:00.000-07:00

Patriotism is such a strong word...

I have often wondered whether or not to call myself a patriot. On the one hand, I do think America is a wonderfull country to live in. On the other hand I am very unhappy with the current administration. But to say I am not a patriot feels weird.

I do strongly disagree with people labeling liberals who oppose the governments over-zealous war against terrorism. I like Barack Obama's comment in his speech at the Democratic National Convention: There are patriots who opposed the war in Iraq and there are patriots who supported the war in Iraq. I refuse to have patriotism called into question simply by those who cannot defend their own arguments.

Random Text Generator

2006-09-25T16:19:00.000-07:00

After a long struggle, my random text generator is now working. It takes in a large amount of text, like a novel, and spits out random text by analysing common word patterns. It can produce some interesting results, like: "Just then her head was in the process of crawling away." (Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.) A more detailed description of the logic behind it is here.

Anywho, I put a copy of it on my school's labserver. You can type in the URL of a text file below, and it will go generate random text from it. Make sure you use a text file, though. Using an HTML file gives some pretty odd results. Files must also be fairly long.

Some files are below. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland produces the best results.

http://cs.catlin.edu/~schwarzm/stories/alice.txt
http://cs.catlin.edu/~schwarzm/stories/huckfinn.txt
http://cs.catlin.edu/~schwarzm/stories/beowulf.txt
http://cs.catlin.edu/~schwarzm/stories/bush.txt (Some Bush speeches)
http://cs.catlin.edu/~schwarzm/stories/obama.txt (Some Obama speeches)

I Deleted my MySpace account

2006-09-23T20:48:00.000-07:00

Goodbye, and good riddance

The title says it all. MySpace is stupid and is a waste of my time.

MySpace

Teachers should read this

2006-09-23T13:49:00.000-07:00

Christ, is it that hard to be a teacher? How to keep your mug off the 6 o'clock news if you're a teacher (in 16 easy steps)

English 11 with Art

2006-09-22T21:06:00.000-07:00

This year Andrew's mighty computer program put me in Art's English 11 class. Only two weeks in and he already intimidates way more than my previous two English teachers (sorry Bill, you tried.) When it came time to turn are first draft of our narratives in, I had half-assed the assignment. Art told the entire class to write "This is the best work I can do on my own." If we did not sign it, we could not turn it in. He told us all that it was much better to be late than a liar. Despite my desire to not be late on the first assignment, he had found my weakness, I am not a liar. Labeling me as such is one of the few things that sets me off, since I have made a conscious effort to not lie when possible.

I ended up turning in the paper late. He would have known it was sub-par, and I did not want to give him leverage against me if we ever got into an argument.

I think Jake described the experience pretty well when he said afterward, A part of my sould died in that room.

Muslim protestors

2006-09-18T16:13:00.000-07:00

Some people use the violence and chaos in the middle east as evidence of how "evil" Islam really is. Recently, riots broke out after Pope Benedict XVI read a quote that angered many Muslims and caused more protests. When the Danish cartoons appeared, the Danish embassies in Muslim countries were attacked. So there definately are a lot of angry Muslims out there.

What these people don't realize is that this has nothing to do with their religion, but rather their condition. These people live in desperate conditions. Desperate conditions can bring out the worst in people, not just Muslims. Look at apartheid, or even the Underground City in Edinburgh.

Finally, never EVER forget the power of a mob. Perfectly rational, calm people can become lynchers and looters when surrounded by an angry crowd.

In case you're wondering, the quote the Pope read was a quote from the fourteenth-century Byzantine Emperor, Manuel II Palaiologos. It read as follows: Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.

Resources:
Life in the underground city: The Town Below the Ground: Edinburgh's Legendary Underground City
Life under apartheid: Kaffir Boy

Middle east

Good Lord, it's begun...

2006-09-17T18:16:00.000-07:00

Just when you thought they were gone forever, they come slithering out of hibernation, striking without warning, spreading chaos and inciting riots wherever they go. Yes my friends, it the first mass email chain. All ye be warned! This chain's mission: Operation Take Down the Barn.

These mass emails come every three months or so, when somebody sends a mass email to everybody. Somebody else replies and for some reason, decides that entire school must know. So instead of hiting Reply, they hit Reply All. Then everybody else decides this conversation MUST be public, and sends their replies to everyone. It's a mess.

Notable past emails:

The earliest one I can remember started when somebody sent around that stupid drunk driver poem/petition.
Last year, one of the students got fooled by the Do Not Call panic.
Of course, we get about 20 lost-and-found emails per week.

mass email

Panty Raider

2006-09-13T22:20:00.000-07:00

Paranoid parents who are already freaking out about MySpace can have another panic attack about Panty Raider, a game from 2000 that involved stripping women down to their underwear to save the world. I'm not making this up. It seemed pretty stupid, but I'm not tweaking out about it, there's worse shit out there.

What got my interest was Snopes’ comment about at the end of their article about it. It echoes what I've been saying for a while:

Concern that adolescents might be unduly influenced by Panty Raider are easily answered by not buying them the game and by making the effort to supervise their play of video games in general. It's unrealistic to call for a world in which every single item is made kid-friendly, lest that item drop into an impressionable youngster's hands. Supervision of children remains the province of their parents; it's not up to every video game company to produce only items that impart the right values, it's up to the parents to screen what reaches their children, rejecting as unsuitable whatever they believe would foster in their offspring the wrong set of values.

Are the concerns of Dads and Daughters and other such groups valid? Probably. But is the answer sticking a cork into one piece of software, or is it striving to be a responsible parent by filtering out what are seen as harmful influences? The bottom line is that there just aren't that many corks, and one victory in this area might lull some into believing they no longer have to be vigilant because others are doing it for them. Better to concentrate on the one bottleneck — what's allowed to reach one's kids — a parent can and should be the watchdog over.

Barbara “panty hosed” Mikkelson

School

2006-09-13T19:47:00.000-07:00

I miss summer!

Well, school has started, I have already been bogged down by homework, so I haven't updated much

Sadly, I don't think I'll be doing much updating of my blog for a while. I am now a Junior, and I am taking English 11, European History, Accelerated Science, and Accelerated Precalculus, so I won't have much time to blog for a while.

But for now, let's talk about what is different this year. First of all, the teachers decided to move C&C until after 1^st period, their reasoning being that this will make kids be on time. Most people hate it because it means classes start at 8:00 instead of 8:15. I'm actually pretty neutral on the matter. I think it's rather odd, but it doesn't affect me, because my first period class (Computer science) is one I can easily concentrate on.

The other major thing they changed was the food. They hired a knew chef, who is a great cook, but takes forever, so you have to stand in line for fifteen minutes instead of zipping right through. They also have decided that we are all overweight and cut down our serving sizes. This is complete bullshit because no one in the entire upperschool is overweight, and we need those extra calories. They got rid of the instant soup and shrunk the bagels and muffins. They also put the cookies in bags of three, so if you want just one or two, tough luck I guess.

In other news, my history teacher and former English teacher/techie are working with a large number of students to establish a New Yorker-ish style magazine. Previous student newspapers have failed, so we are changing our approach to be more of a commentary, to provoke responses, to publish controversial opinions. The first issue is looking beautiful. Anyway, I asked John if he thought any of the entries on this blog would be interesting, so he checked it out and liked what he saw, so perhaps my blog entries will show up on future editions.

Interesting YouTube videos

2006-09-10T18:47:00.000-07:00

This post accidently got published before it was ready, but I pulled it.

YouTube is a pretty awesome site: even though it uses Flash, which is slow on a Mac. Here are some interesting videos I've found recently

Game Over

Some guy spent a lot of time making claymation versions of classic arcade games.

guitar

This guy was so good, he got an article about him in The Oregonian It is a video of a guy playing a rock version of Pachelbel's Canon

Terminator (MADtv)

What would happen if the Terminator was sent back in time to protect Jesus. MADtv has an answer

You sound like me (MADtv)

This one needs some background. Basically, first there was Pearl Jam, and then Creed and The Calling. Creed and The Calling were both accused of ripping off Pearl Jam, so MADtv made a music video about it.

Enough is Enough!

Samuel L. Jackson in Snakes on a Plane

House parody (MADtv)

Another MADtv video which also needs some background. House is a TV show about this group of diagnosticians who work with infectious diseases. Dr. House is a rather callous and impolite doctor, but people put up with him because he is a brilliant doctor and needs a cane. MADtv parodied him by making him even ruder.

Gabmore Girls

MADtv parody of The Gilmore Girls. According to Wikipedia, the show "features intricate, extremely fast-paced dialogue," which explains the parody

The Narcissist

Another MADtv parody. They make fun of Coldplay's The Scientist.

Steve Irwin

2006-09-07T20:54:00.000-07:00

I never learn about great people until after their death. Such is the case with Steve Irwin. I was never that interested in his show, I thought it was rather stupid. It wasn't until his recent death that I actually looked into his life and realized what a loss he is. He devoted his life to the preservation and human understanding of animals, and as an environmentalist, I would like to honor him and extend my regrets to his family.

Entry on Fireflies in the Cloud

2006-09-06T18:51:00.000-07:00

From the September 6^th issue of the Willamette Week:

Great news for a state that cannot fund its schools or basic social services. Thanks to Oregon's "kicker" law, which regurgitates income taxes when receipts exceed forecasts by more than 2 percent, the state will shovel more than $1.3 billion back to Oregon taxpayers next year. Shortest school year in the nation + kicker = fun! Everyone can buy Jet Skis! Winners & Losers

The "Random Blog" feature

2006-09-04T14:27:00.000-07:00

Look at the top of this window, and you will see a thin navigation bar, which has a "Next blog" button, which really gives you a random blog. I thought it would be an interesting way to discover new blogs, but I quickly discovered that it returns spam sites masquerading as blogs or non-english sites about seventy percent of the time. It recently gave me some amateur porn site. I like randomness, but I think Blogger needs to work on what should be allowed.

Interestingly enough, all of the spam sites have .info addresses.

14-Year-Old girls and MySpace

2006-09-03T16:49:00.000-07:00

Why are fourteen-year-old girls so attracted to MySpace? I think it may have to do with increasing knowledge of their own sexuality. They are curious about their place in society, as are all young teens, and they use MySpace to experiment with their personality.

These girls apparently don't seem to care what creepy guy masturbates to them, or they don't think about it, which explains some of the various pictures I've come across. Like the one posted above (it doesn't show her entire face, so I think I'm okay.) Or the one I came across of some girl peeing in the woods. Or the photo of the a girl with her pants revealing a good portion of her thong, above the caption, "Ooh la la." Below many of the photos you can find comments by their "friends," complimenting them on their ass or boobs. Why do you think pedophiles love this site so much?

I've gotten about three or four friend requests from strange fourteen-ish girls. This has three possible explanations:

They are legitimate people who I don't remember. (This is what I originally thought.)
They are girls looking to boost their own friend count by adding random guys.
They are creepy older guys pretending to be young girls to try and lure them into a trap.

Whatever the cause, I ignore them now. I actually know everyone on my friend list (except for bands.)

A lot of concerned parents want to abolish MySpace. I disagree, even though I think the world would be a better place without it. Parents shouldn't really be blaming MySpace; they should be blaming the parents of the girls who do such stupid things on the Internet.

I need ideas

2006-09-03T14:14:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in a while because I have no idea what to write about. No one's done anything weird or stupid. Can someone give me an idea?

Election 2008: Let's hope one of the candidates is good

2006-08-30T22:35:00.000-07:00

The 2008 presidential election will be the first election that I'll be able to vote in. I'm hoping someone good will run, because I don't want a repeat of Bush vs. Kerry.

I'm slightly glad I didn't need to vote in that election, because I wouldn't have been thrilled whoever won. On the one hand, I think Bush is an idiot, and sooner he leaves office the better. On the other hand, Kerry seemed like a stupid millionaire poser, who was obsessed about his war record. I wouldn't have felt good not voting however, because it's harder to justify criticizing the government if you had the opportunity to vote but didn't.

If only we could convince Barack Obama to run...

Snakes on a Ferry!

2006-08-30T22:02:00.000-07:00

The Columbia River Gorge is a good approximation of the river in my dream. Photo from http://www.chmafc.org/images

I had a bizzare dream the other night. It was a new, exciting twist on Snakes on a Plane. These people were on this ferry, and these evil people I guess put snakes on the plane, as a terrorist plot. I don't think the snakes at much of a role, but they were there. The enemy boat was close by, and I think people got shot as well. The ferry kept going towards its destination at a Los Angeles. Now I very distinctly remember it being L.A., but there was no ocean; It was at the end of a river that was heavily forested on both sides down to the water, and there was even an island. L.A. was about the size of a small town, but it had skyscrapers and bright blue lights, like a miniature version of some city.

Anyway, I think the plot involved some scheme where the ferry would make it to shore, but look like nothing was wrong so that the people on shore wouldn't interfere. Why the ship didn't just sit out in the river is unexplained. Anyway the ship is sinking as it reaches port, and the few survivors (the other passengers were killed by the snakes, I think) bravely jump about twenty feet from the ships side to the dock. I think the survivors included a couple and about four others.

Right-wing phrases I am very tired of hearing

2006-08-30T14:04:00.000-07:00

Radical homosexual agenda

This just gets really tedious after a while. There is no homosexual agenda. Everyone needs to get this into their heads.

The sanctity/dignity institution of marriage

Don't get me wrong, I thing marriage should be a very dignified union. But when people use it as an opposition to gays getting married, it just pisses me off. I've heard people talk about how marriage is an unchanging "entity" that should not be decided changed by the government. True, it should not be a "governmental" thing, but it has changed. Back in the "good ol' days," woman had no power in the relationship, and they gave up all their power and money the instant they married. If they wished to leave their husbands, tough. Divorce was frowned upon, but now it is extremely common, (cough50%divorceratecough.) In addition, marriage is different from culture to culture, and America, the melting pot of cultures, should learn this.

Homosexuality (as a "practice")

Is anybody ever accused of practicing heterosexuality? Look, some men are attracted to blondes, some to girls with big breasts, and some to other men. It's simple.

Pro-abortionist

Pro-lifers use this term to make pro-choice people sound like bloodthirsty murderers. I'm pro-choice. I do not "like" abortion, but neither do I see it as murder.

For the record, I do think that sex-selective abortion is wrong.

I'll think of some others soon.

Birthday and a Stiff Foot

2006-08-28T18:12:00.000-07:00

The good news: today I turned seventeen. Now I can get into R-rated movies and I have a new camera.

The bad news: I spent all of Saturday squating on the garage floor to reseal cracks in the pavement. The next day, the muscles in my lower right leg have stiffened up, so if I am standing up, I cannot roll back onto my heel or even bend my toes upward. This stiffness means it is difficult to put on shoes, because my toes scrunch up and I cannot hold them straight. Also, in normal walking, after you lift you rear foot, it bend paralel to the floor and sort of "glides" across the floor. Since my right foot can't do that, I have to lift it higher than my left foot, or it will kick the ground. My toes are curled in my sandals so they are taking more abuse than they are meant to.

I'm sorta famous!

2006-08-27T16:34:00.000-07:00

Interesting. If you go to Google and search for Max Schwarz, I am first on the list, out of 13,900,000 results. That's kind of cool. The first result links to my user page on Wikipedia. That may be because my user page will be linked to from various other pages on the site.

Similarities between Pirates of the Caribbean II and Star Wars Ep. V

2006-08-25T20:09:00.000-07:00

I was a little dissapointed with the darker tone of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. It's not so much that I don't like dark movies, but I enjoyed the first movie because it was a fun adventure movie that I was really able to get into. Anyway, I was driving Cole home (my first passenger since my six-months expired,) I noticed several parallels between it and Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.

Jack Sparrow and Han Solo are both skilled captains of their respective ships, even though people often think they are crazy. Jack's crew often is confused by his actions (like staying near the shores to avoid the Kraken,) and Leia and C-3PO are alarmed when Han flies directly into an asteroid field, and later when he flies directly at a pursuing Star Destroyer. They are adventerous.
Both of them are mainly concerned with there own fates at first.

In both movies, the female lead tries to pursuade them to stay and fight, but they leave anyway.
However the woman's message gets through them, and they return in the heat of battle to rescue their friends

They both are pretty funny characters, and have a good sense of humor.
They are both captured at the end of the movie, and their fate is left uncertain, but the main characters are going to rescue him.
Both Jack and Han's last name is a common English word.
A former enemy will aid them in their search. In Star Wars, it's Lando, in Pirates, it's Barbossa.
Lando and Barbossa are both former captians of Jack and Han's ships.
They are captured due to the potrayal of a friend. Jack is betrayed by Elizabeth; Han is betrayed by Lando.
There is a love triangle between the three main characters.
Both Leia and Elizabeth are in the care of important government people.
They are both captains of a ship with great sentimental value behind it.
Both ships are described as "the fastest."
They weren't always captain of that ship.
Both Will and Luke are brave and skilled fighters, but they are incredibly naïve. Both Jack and Han are much more "street-smart."
Both Will and Luke are rather rash at first, and must learn to control their emotions.
Both Will and Luke discover an unpleasant truth about their fathers.
Both of their fathers are not fully human anymore.
Both Will and Luke are taken to a very rough-and-tumble place (Tortuga, Mos Eisley)
Both movies are the second installment of a trilogy, and end in a cliffhanger.
There is an ambush by a notorious enemy near the beginning of the movie. (Darth Vader & The Empire, the cursed pirates)

If you think of anymore, add a comment. If you actually read this blog, add a comment and tell a friend.

Abstinence-only: A failing concept

2006-08-22T14:20:00.000-07:00

The national standard for sex-ed programs is "abstinence-only." Think it works? Think again.

CANTON, Ohio -- An Ohio school board is expanding sex education following the revelation that 13 percent of one high school's female students were pregnant last year.

There were 490 female students at Timken High School in 2005, and 65 were pregnant, WEWS-TV in Cleveland reported.

The new Canton school board program promotes abstinence but also will teach students who decide to have sex how to do so responsibly, bringing the city school district's health curriculum in line with national standards.

The board made the changes in a vote at its regular meeting Monday.

The Rev. David Morgan served on a committee that developed the lesson plans. He said the new curriculum moves beyond the "Just Say No" approach.

Health textbooks, older than some students, will be replaced.

"If we had math books from 1988, reading books from 1988, as a parent, I would be furious," said Patty Rafailedes, a physical education teacher.

The Ohio Department of Education doesn't require schools to provide sex education, particularly when it comes to using contraceptives. The state curriculum calls for venereal disease education, which often is taught along with nutrition and the effects of drugs, alcohol and tobacco.

"Sex is more complex than the information about drugs and alcohol," said Bill Albert, a spokesman for the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy. "It is not a not-now, not-ever message."

According to the Canton Health Department, statistics through July 2005 showed that 104 of the 586 babies born to Canton residents in Aultman Hospital and Mercy Medical Center had mothers between the ages of 11 and 19.

WYFF4

Looks like this school has finally figured out the obvious: no matter what you want, teenagers are going to have sex. I'll say it again: teenagers are going to have sex. They are not going to respond to adults (who are viewed as old-fashioned anyway) telling them that they are "too young." If you really wish for them to not have sex, you should just talk to them about the right and wrong reasons for having sex. At least that way, they'll get to make their own decisions.

Of course there is always the old arguement that sex-ed will lead to promiscuity. No, No, NO! The Media leads to promiscuity. Drugs lead to promiscuity. Friends lead to promiscuity. Peer pressure leads to promiscuity. Everything but sex-ed leads to promiscuity. Catlin Gabel leads a pretty open sex-ed program starting in sixth grade. We even put condoms on bananas in ninth grade. As far as I know, their have been no pregnancies at Catlin. And we are practically the most liberal school in a very liberal city.

Image is a cropped version of image found here

Snakes on a Plane

2006-08-21T19:04:00.000-07:00

Movie Poster

Last night, I went and saw Snakes on a plane. Man is that movie ever sweet. And despite being a horror movie, it was pretty damn funny. I never actually saw any of the internet hype, (just a trailer,) but I knew the basic premise. A lot of reviews have been unimpressed, but I enjoyed. There is something funny about the two couples making out in the bathroom, and the snake attacking them through the hole where the smoke detector used to be (they disabled it to smoke some pot.) Or a snake hiding in the barf bag, waiting to pounce. Samuel L. Jackson was pretty awesome in that movie, especially when he delivered that famous line (which I was totally unaware of beforehand.)

Snakes

Links:
Samuel L. Jackson's famous line (courtesty of YouTube)
Movie Trailer (courtesy of Apple)
Snakes on a Plane (Bring It) - Cobra Starship (courtesy of YouTube)

Sick and Tired?

2006-08-19T15:04:00.000-07:00

Okay, mis amigos, it's time for another commentary on gay marriage:

Nearly a month ago, Washington's Supreme Court has upheld the state's laws barring gay marriage. Dissapointing, but not surprising. Justice Barbara Madsen claimed that the laws were enacted to "promote procreation [sic] and to encourage stable families." Which makes perfect sense considering how close our race is to complete extinction. Also considering how stable all heterosexual families are.

More recently (August 19th,) one Oregonian reader sent in this gem to the editor: "You apparently have no idea how sick and tired I and thousands of your readers are with your determined efforts to ram the homosexual agenda down our throats with gratuitous articles such as the one in last Sunday's Opinion section." (James Shand, Southwest Portland.)

This statement becomes more ironic the more I read it. It is people like him and Flip Benham who are ramming their opinions (and religion) down my throat. And I am sick and tired of it, so I have little sympathy for the Shand and the thousands of pobrecitas he is refering to.

I am not shoving my beliefs down anyone's throat. Believe what you want, seriously.

Operation Save America - Again

2006-08-16T19:40:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I looked at OSA. I was browsing through their webpage, when I notice this blurb: How quickly we Americans seem to forget that, while not all Muslims are terrorist, all terrorists are Muslim. Have they forgotten about about Timothy McVeigh, a devout Catholic who partook in the second-deadliest terrorist attack on American soil?

Later Rev. Greene (whatever happened to Flip?) wrote this: When was the last time a headline indicated Christians took knives and beheaded Muslims simply because they are Muslim? Never. Well, no incident springs to my mind, but I am reminded of Jews being persecuted by the "gentle" Christians. I am reminded of the Salem Witch Trials, where 20 innocent people were executed for suspicions of witchcraft. What about "Bloody" Mary I of England? Was she a gentle Christian?

We need to understand the difference between Muslim terrorists and just "Muslims". How else can we expect for the potential terrorists to tell the difference between American oppresors and just "Americans."

The Horrors of Sex Education

2006-08-06T22:03:00.000-07:00

According to the ALA's list of 100 most frequently challenged books, books about sex-ed, seem to be very common. Among those books is the book that I read, What's Happening to My Body?, by Lynda Madaras. This really pisses me off because this book helped me understand a lot of stuff that was too awkward to discuss with my parents or friends. If it helped me, it can answer question other preteen boys have.

Why do parents try to prevent their children from hearing about sex? Do they honestly think it will be easier when the kid is a moody teenager? American society treats sex as this taboo subject, which helps to explain why young sexual abuse victims wait so long to speak up, often after the offender has had several victims and the first victim has grown up.

We also have this notion that sexuality is non-existent in children, which is complete bullshit. Children lack the maturity to have a sex life, but that doesn't mean they don't have sexual feelings. We have all sexual feelings are entire lives (even if we were too young to recognize what they were,) and most of us turn out all right.

Sometimes parents seem to believe that sex-education will somehow encourage sex, but I disagree. First of all, reading Madaras' book has not filled me with desires to have sex. Second of all, unless the parents keep their kids locked in a cellar forever, they are going to hear about sex. They should have friends, after all. The difference is that their friends are not experts on sex, (You can't get pregnant standing up!, or You don't need condoms if she's on the Pill) and make the kid even more confused. Plus, some questions may be too awkward even for friends: I keep having fantasies about raping somebody. Am I a pervert?

Perhaps parents are too reluctant to admit that their baby is someone with sexual feelings and desires. This is postponing the inevitable at best, and dangerous for their kid at worst.

By the way, the male version of her book is at number 61, while the female version is at #40. Interesting

The N's "Every Episode Ever" marathon

2006-07-30T21:29:00.000-07:00

Manny reveals to Craig that she's having an abortion.

Two questions:

Are you American?
Do you watch Degrassi on The N?

Then you should be suprised as I am that The N has decided to air "Accidents Will Happen," the (in)famous abortion episode whose existence they've refused to acknowledge since its debut on CTV two and half years ago. I have always been angry at The N for doing this, (especially since it was one of Degrassi's best episodes,) but the commercials amused me (in a cynical way) when they advertised it as "The episode you've never seen before." Considering the nearly every Degrassi fan in America has downloaded it illegally, I think a more accurate term would be, "The episode that we were too spineless to air with the rest of the episodes." It is quite possible that the only reason they chose to air them is so they could have a 100 episodes total.

N.B. Even though they are airing it in the marathon, they still don't acknowledge it in the episode guide.

The following is an excerpt from Boycott the Caf, (a website you probably shouldn't read if you are easily offended.)

You know how certain cable networks like the-N try to appear cool and hip to young people? Because if there's one thing a teenager can relate to, it's a cable television channel. They'll air stupid little promos with cartoon teens saying how hip they are, how much they are just like you, and are on your side. Then they pull this shit and ban something, because as far as they're concerned, we're not allowed to see it. Hmm...Maybe the-N isn't actually run by a bunch of ultra cool young sixteen year olds. Maybe they're really run by a bunch of uptight middle aged pricks.
Billy Green

Is having common sense socialism now?

2006-07-17T19:46:00.000-07:00

Collected from the Letter's to the Editor section of the Sunday Oregonian, July 16, 2006

Government wants Land

Letter writer Greg Jacob missed the point ("Continued growth harmful," July 11). This is what the government wants. It wants us all in condominiums or apartments and to own no land. They also want us to be on mass transportation or bicycles. This is all a game plan to further control our lives.

They want us all crammed in a small area, to take away land ownership, have us use mass transportation and [not have] guns. That is why the government and only the government is so upset that the people passed Measure 37.

They don't think we have the brains to use our own property. That is why they keep trying to take away more recreation areas. That is why they want to take away the kicker and tax you to death. Socialism is their goal.

STEVEN C. BALL, Northeast Portland

Lets take a look at some of the points Ball raised:

[The government] wants us all in condominiums or apartments and to own no land. They also want us to be on mass transportation or bicycles.

The government is againt polluting our air? Shocking, but that is the point, Ball. Less pollution means breathable air.

[T]he government and only the government is so upset that the people passed Measure 37.

No, Steve, a lot of us are upset, like me, my family, and everyone else who is angered by the greed and shortsightedness the proponents of this measure. Measure 37 takes money away from the public, and put it into the pocketbooks of individuals.

They don't think we have the brains to own property.

I wonder why...

[T]hey want to take away the kicker and tax you to death. Socialism is their goal.

No, they want to take away the kicker because—like Measure 37—it takes money away from the public, in this case, putting it into the hands of corporations. Same goes with tax breaks.

I certainly would not support a socialist government; socialism does not work as a form of government. But our schools need money. The kicker, when distributed among 3,421,399 people, results in almost nothing going into individual's pockets. If kept by the government however, it could be put to good use.

Smoosh

2006-07-15T13:02:00.000-07:00

When I fist heard about this band (two sisters, aged 12 & 14,) I initially wrote them off as a "girl group," (especially with a name like "Smoosh") but when I actually heard their song, Find a Way, it completely blew me away. Chloe's drumming skills are amazing for a twelve year old (which I guess makes sense, sense they were taught by Jason McGerr, of Death Cab For Cutie.) Asya's is the singer/songwriter/keyboardist, and manages to escape the clichéd pop melodies that expected she'd use. They have released two albums, both avaliable on iTunes, and I hope they have sucessful careers in music.

~~Below is MySpace's audio player. They are likely going to sue me for copying it, but who cares?~~ The player was crashing Camino whenever I tried to load my blog. Here's a link to it instead: Click if you dare...

Civil Unions

2006-07-02T17:50:00.000-07:00

Bush claims he believes marriage is between a man and a woman, but would support civil unions.
I seriously doubt that anyone would refute this: The most important thing about marriage is not what the government recognizes, but the love that the two people feel for each other. After all, marriage is older than government.
A gay couple could go to a church that supported gay marriage, go through the marriage ceremony, (I do!, etc.), and obtain a civil union. For all intents and purposes, they are married.

Some might use this as an argument to claim that gays shouldn't need marriage because civil unions are just as good. I disagree for three reasons. One, this is eerily reminiscent of the separate but equal policies implemented in the South. Second, the implication of the law is that gays are not the equal of straights. Thirdly, civil unions don't provide the same level of protection that marriage does, and they are not available everywhere.

The Button

2006-06-26T00:13:00.000-07:00

This is one those things that come from a combination of wit and a lot of waaay too much free time. Thank you Sonja!

My thoughts on Operation Save America

2006-05-27T22:47:00.000-07:00

This may sound a bit weird, but I like to visit websites that I strongly oppose. I would like to think that I only do it to better understand both sides of the arguement, but I think a large part of it is liking to get angry...

Anyway, one site I sometimes visit is Operation Save America, a pro-life website with a very strong Christian philosophy. However, they also have extended their goals to stomp out, "the radical homosexual agenda" and, less commonly, the "lie of Islam." Let me first off start by saying I really hate it when people talk about the "radical homosexual agenda." I've heard stupid things before, but this is just idiotic. There is no "gay agenda" any more than there is a "Christian agenda." OSA may have their own agenda, but they are certainly not a reflection of the Christian community at large. I mean, do heterosexuals have their own agenda. If they do, I've certainly been left out of it. Secondly, how can one call Islam a lie? Yes, certain Muslims have done terrible things, and those Muslims deserve to be punished, but not because they are Muslim. In case the Reverend Flip Benhem hasn't noticed, we have rather fucked up Muslim countries. Rev. Benhen, you talk about faith in God as being important? Traditional Islam is an extremely structured religion, based around constant prayer (five times a day) and total devotion to God, including fasting, pilgrimage, and tolerence to other religions that believe in God. Islam dictates that it's followers should allow Jews and Christians to live peacefully, becuase they believed the same God. Spain under Catholic rule included the Inquisition, as just one example. But do I think Christianity is bad? No!

Wow, I am getting way off topic...

Anyway, I recently stumbled across an article and response that had been posted on their website. The article was written by a tutor at a school in Charlotte, North Carolina. I have read her article several times, and found it to be a very well reasoned article, expressing concern for her students and the effects of being forced to look at gory photographs of dead fetuses while on their way to a first-period English quiz. However, the Reverend's response somehow morphed this into a cold, closed minded bigotry toward Christianity, which makes me wonder how carfully he actually read the piece. She labels her concern for David as pseudo-concern...a cover for her real agenda – her hatred of Almighty God and His Word. WTF? Where on earth did that come from? This article was hanging by a thread already, but this is truly the straw that broke the horse's back.

I wonder what would happen if the Reverend Benham were to stumble upon this page. He probably inform me how I hate God, hate Christians, and how I wish to crush their ideals. I mean, that is basically this post in a nutshell, isn't it?

Vote with your brain

2006-05-19T08:35:00.000-07:00

What a woefull day. Joe lost the CGSA vice-president election to Cody. Why? Joe is a responsible student who is a good leader (I've worked with him.) He is much more responsible than Cody, who managed to win by giving a funnier speech. I had to put up with Cody for an entire year in choir, and am quite upset that he holds a position of power. The same thing happened with Treasurer elections: Ben lost the election to Evan who made only a joke speech. Must people vote for the funnier speaker? I'll confess that I did laugh at the other people's speeches more, but I had the sense not to vote for them, a make mistake I made when I voted for Jimmy. The story does have a happy ending. Sherwin managed to win Secretary, and Stew at least won the role of president.

Why are girls so insecure?

2006-04-10T21:14:00.000-07:00

take that fugly picture of me out of your "random stuff" album.

A girl sent me this message after I posted a picture of her on my Facebook. I removed it per her wishes but I am still convinced it is a great picture. Earlier I had been taking photos stuff around campus, and this one girl kept refusing to let me take her picture. Should I blame the advertisements on TV for this destruction of self-esteem? It is very annoying to have a perfect picture ruined by someone who wimps out a photo shoot.

Should I be worried?

2006-04-05T21:04:00.000-07:00

In the past few months I have recieved about 2 letters from the Marines, 2 from the National Guard, and one from the Army. My mom suggests that because of my age, they assume that I am a Junior. Either that, or this is another consequence of stupidly checking the box on the PSAT's saying that I wanted to recieve information from colleges.

Teen drinkers

2006-02-27T23:18:00.000-08:00

Last Friday, the social commitee at my school ran the winter semiformal at the Northstar ballroom. Of course, teacher's were supervising it and knew who was coming in. However, this did not deter freshmen from coming in drunk. One girl became really sick, and was vomitting all over the toilet. She must of drank a lot, because by I got there, she lying down, presumably with her head in the toilet. I don't think she actually passed out, but she must of had one hell of a hangover that weekend. Plus her parents must have totally killed her. On Monday, everybody was obviously talking about the dance, since at a small school like Catlin, news travels amoung its 270 students pretty fast. I later discovered that 9 freshmen girls were suspended from Tuesday through Friday. A friend of mine who is on judicial council said that Freshmen were not allowed hear a the case, due to possible biases.

I am quite surprise at this when you consider that the freshmen class is only 75 students, and only about half of those are girls. I can picture a group of girls getting together and trying some beer, or one girl getting others to try a sip of something strong, like vodka, which would be all it would take. On the other hand, if they were doing it at home, then I would have expected any parent with half a brain to notice that they are driving a bunch of drunk froshies to a dance. Maybe some rather bold (or stupid) person actually brought spirits into the dance, and dared people to take them.

I would not be too surprised if the school declares some emergency class meeting about this. I overheard that an AA worker and former Alcoholic who talked to our health and sociology class will be meeting with the families of these girls.

Update: I heard they all got drunk at one girl’s house, and the parents drove them to the dance drunk. Maybe we should stop focusing on peer pressure and start looking at the parents.

Wikiholism

2006-02-14T07:58:00.000-08:00

I have become a total Wikipediholic. It has completely overtaken me. The whole concept of this collaborating is surprisingly addictive. It has become so addictive that is has been taking time away from my schoolwork, and I have declared a one-week Wikibreak.

They're Here!

2006-01-12T19:47:00.000-08:00

Intel Macs are finally here. And about 5 months early, to boot! God, I really want a MacBook Pro. My only issue is with the name. "MacBook?" Apparently, they added Mac because they want to have the "Mac" name in all of their computer products. Apple - Hardware

Christmas

2005-12-25T21:37:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, my family exchanged Christmas gifts. I got ski-bus, some gift certificates, and a wad of cash. I'm not unhappy with the gifts, but sometimes I wish we could actually do something for Christmas, something less materialistic.

Linux

2005-12-24T11:09:00.000-08:00

I have been trying for hours to get it to connect via direct connection of crossover cables. Despite the assistance of Apple, Microsoft, David Pogue, and numorous webpages, I don't seem to get this magical connection between them.

Well, with help from Andrew, I managed to connect to the computer and get the files off. Then I spent hours trying to get it to boot the installer. You see, this computer is old, and its BIOS lacks the ability to boot from a CD-ROM drive. I finally found a floppy disk image that allowed me to chose a boot method, and I was finally able to boot into the Fedora installer. However, after Anaconda loaded, it told me that "install aborted abnormally", which it did. Maybe it is like Mac OS X, which refuses to install on ancient Macs without a hack. Maybe Linux detected that my computer only had a 133-MHz processor and 64 MB of RAM and said, "This is hopeless!" and quit. Very Frustrating!

Winter Blah

2005-12-24T11:05:00.000-08:00

I have a bad case of winter blahs. Like, I should be having lots of fun right? I never do.

I hate windows

2005-12-03T22:35:00.000-08:00

My family has an old PC.
It runs Windows 98.
Of Windows, I've increased my hate.
For from my mac, it can't be seen.

This computer is an old Microtech PC with a sub 200-Mhtz processor and 64-MB of RAM. We plan to get rid of soon, but I thought it would be cool to install Fedora Core on it a run it as a server. However, there are several old files on it that might be worth saving. However, it has no internet, no burner, only a floppy drive. I have been trying for hours to get it to connect via direct connection of crossover cables. Despite the assistance of Apple, Microsoft, David Pogue, and numorous webpages, I don't seem to get this magical connection between them. It is frustrating because I have limited freetime, so I don't want to have to fiddle with this kind of crap.

Outgeeked

2005-12-02T08:17:00.000-08:00

I have been completely outgeeked by the robotics software department. All I have is one measly old computer. Joe has two computer desktops with five displays, plus a server cluster that hosts his own website, JoeDeBlasio.com. Tom has several computers too. I have squat. I am thinking about converting this ancient computer we have into a server for fun, before we ditch it.

Blogs and Bling

2005-11-26T19:25:00.000-08:00

This Thanksgiving break, I introduced my 81-year-old grandpa to the word "blog." I recomended he get one, but his computer was too old to display this one with IE, and FireFox takes a long time to download over dial-up. We did manage to incapacitate his computer by installing a Windows 98 2nd edition driver on a 1st edition system, which for some reason prevents it from doing anything on start-up. His computer is reaching the end of its life, maybe I can convince him to get a Mac instead of upgrading to an XP-box. During Wednesday's pre-movie dinner, I discovered that out of my parents and 2 grandparents, my mom is the only person who knows what bling means.

Cool OS X Apps

2005-11-07T21:12:00.000-08:00

I discovered two sites for OS X apps, coolOSXapps.net, and coolOSXapps.com. The .net one seems to be better, but I haven't really explored the other.

Wasted Freetime

2005-10-29T13:35:00.000-07:00

It seems like every weekend I just sit around doing nothing, and leaving all my work to the last minute. Then I have to stay up late on Sunday trying to do a semi-acceptable job on the whatever English essay I have to work on that weekend (my english teacher always has us doing something with an essay over the weekend.) I am even doing that right now. Plus I don't get any excersise whatsoever so a feel depressed and lonely (I have like, no social life) and I just feel like crud. Add the fact that Catlin gives an ungodly amount of homework... My next essay has to be about one of bunch of short stories I read. I don't even know what to write about, but the first draft is due Thurday so I really need to start.

Browser woes and Apple News

2005-10-19T22:20:00.000-07:00

I am in between browsers right now. I started off using Safari, but then switched to Firefox when I discovered how cool it was. However, it seems to be very slow, so I switched back to Safari. Then I discovered Camino. It is a very slick, very well integrated browser. However, it is rather unsupported. Safari is unable to view the blogging controls for Blogger, and so I am trying Firefox again, this time with a new Mac theme that seems to run at an acceptable pace. In other news, Apple has come out with a new Photoshop challenger called Aperture. It is very slick from what I have seen of it, but it probably has a long way to go before it catches up to Photoshop. The Powerbook line has been updated once again. It makes me feel so left behind to be working on my 1st generation Al Powerbook, with a measly 867 MHz processor and numerous dents and gouges.

iTunes 6–Why?

2005-10-14T13:41:00.000-07:00

Well, I checked up on Apple's website and, lo and behold, they had a released a new iMac and iPod, both of which look very cool. However, they also added iTunes 6. The biggest difference I can see is that I now have to pay for the priveledge of watching music videos, the free videos have disappeared altogether. What surprises me is that none of the reviews I have found mention this change at all. Doesn't anybody find the idea of paying $1.99 for something they used to get for free a bit…cheap? Apple's Website

RSS Menu

2005-10-12T21:12:00.000-07:00

I have discovered an incredibly easy app for placing tons of RSS/atom feeds in the Mac menu bar. It acts a lot like Firefox's Live Bookmarks, except it runs independently. RSS Menu page