Sunday, May 25, 2008

The End

Finally we’re done with blogs (or at least I will be after I finish my 200-250 words that will make up this last post)! I don’t mind writing. I do, however, mind frequent and mandatory writing. When I think of a topic that’s good, I’ll write about it on my own. However, when I have to think about a topic and then immediately begin writing about it, I don’t necessarily have as much fun. This was the problem with blogs. Sunday morning would roll around, and I’d have 3 blogs to write. I’d sit at the computer, trying to think of a topic to write about, but nothing would come. This was always agitating, which lead to my dislike of school sanctioned blogging.
One thing that I think may have improved my blog and possibly other peoples’ would have been to have had class time provide for the sole purpose of reading other peoples’ blogs. I kind of wrote these entries as if someone else was going to read them, but I know not many people actually did. I think everyone could have benefited from feedback from others and a bit of public attention to the blogs.
I may continue to blog during the summer, but the chances are slim. I simply am not on the computer much. I don’t have any reason musically to get on (iTunes or Youtube videos), and I don’t really play computer games because I have an Xbox. These blogs were better than the writing notebook and its 5 entries per week, but they could still use improvement. Summer is almost here, and the blogs are done. Sweet.

Team Zodiac

I have to say my favorite map is either bloc or overgrown, although downpour and strike are close seconds. My Call of Duty 4 team is pretty much MLG now. We’re 45-4, have beaten the number two ranked team, and are ranked 142nd out of 22,700+ teams. We have seven people on our team: two from Iowa, two from Nebraska, and three from Idaho. We are one of the best HCSnD teams out there. This is one of the major factors that make these maps my favorites.
I am quite the sniper in HCSnD games. I used to use the M40A3, but I’ve recently switched back to the Russian Dragunov because I got it golden and because I like semi-auto’s much better. There is barely any difference in accuracy between the two, but with the Dragunov I can fire four or five times in the time it takes the M40A3 to reload and fire its second round. Using snipers or other long range weapons is how we frequently win. We can eliminate two or three people in a 5 vs. 5 game within 15 seconds, increasing our odds of victory by a large factor. Using the sniper in overgrown, bloc, and downpour also provides you a ghillie suit, which makes you much harder to see. I’ve had people walk right past me (or on me) without realizing I was there because of my ghillie. Clan matches on good maps are always a good time.

CS's last post.

This is why, in the end, CS is garbage. Please look at the most recent post on his blog for this year at this garbage blog. It is titled “BURN IT ALL”. Read through it. It is very well written. This is the text going to be spoken for our video essay about global cooling which is due at the end of this year. This is not a blog post. This is meant to be a movie. CS posted this on Tuesday because he didn’t want to have to post any more blogs during the week. He is infinitely lazy. Seeing as how Alex is behind the 9 blog posts which are due today, I believe he should be able to use it for a post. I am going to finish this one up with it, because I am the one who is going to have to say everything written in it, making it mine.
It’s not necessarily that I have always enjoyed the sight of fat people sweating, or even that I have come to enjoy this phenomenon, so much as I have always been cold. For this reason, I have found the world more delightful in these later years of my life, as I am sure many others have.

We live in America, the country you can count on to lead the world. We can count on America to make things how we want them: bigger, faster, hotter. I am proud to be a part of this effort, to make winters more comfortable, to make heating bills less costly, to turn up the heat, and get places doing it. America leads the world in the consumption of these magnificent hydrocarbons with other major players such as China and India playing in suit. We hold today a reputation for leading the world even stronger than it was after the Second World War.

Not only are we as Americans doing the right thing, our environment is repaying us. Public water bodies such as pools, rivers, and oceans will someday be warm enough to comfortably swim in. Too many fit guys like myself are being forced to wear shirts while they swim to avoid freezing to death. Only we can answer this call.

On top of this, the world around us will swell with life. No longer will plants wither in December, and no longer will we have to spend money to produce structures to protect them from poor weather, we are taking a stand. The air will be thick with oxygen, like a cozy blanket.

Children will be able to spend more time outside, someday even year round. The sports we love to play would never have to stop, and with any luck, any and all Americans will be able to work on their base tans for free.

Historians say that history repeats itself, and that we must know of these pasts if we are ever to escape them. I draw upon a key issue of genocide to conclude my case. Many years ago, our planet was wrought by an entire age of ice, destroying an abhorrent number of dinosaurs, and leading to their extinction.

This was no freak accident, as historians will tell you that there was not one, not two, not three, but four separate occasions in which this world was covered entirely by a storm of ice. Do not go calm into this dark night, stand for our economy, our comfort, and our lives: Warm this globe.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Your Homepage.

This site bothers me: http://kenn.cr.k12.ia.us/. This is the Kennedy Homepage. We should all look to this website in our times of need and find hope in the presence of our classmates. This should be a beacon of excellence in the dark world of Iowa and its surrounding haze. This is, sadly, not the case. Our current homepage makes me want to weep openly.
There are three pictures which appear on the left side of the screen. I don’t think they even scroll between the different ones, because you have to refresh the page (at least on my computer) to see the next one. The first one is some kid in the cafeteria looking stupidly into the camera. It’s obscenely unnatural. The next one contains two random girls hugging each other. They are, again, in the lunch room. I would almost bet money they don’t actually go to Kennedy, because I’ve never seen either of them in my life. The last picture, however, I find the most offensive. It has some kid in a red shirt looking at the camera, while in the cafeteria… He appears initially to be a very smart kid. You can tell by the fact he has a spicy chicken sandwich in front of him. However, if you look closely, you can see there is mayonnaise on the sandwich and that there are more packets that he has yet to add. This is disgraceful. What a horrible way to RUIN a perfectly good spicy chicken sandwich. Anyone at my lunch table (except maybe the Canadian kid) would agree; the act of putting that white crap on a spicy chicken sandwich deserves capital punishment, at least. Because of these three pictures taken on the same day in the cafeteria, our website is trash. I need not go into the color scheme, the scrolling words at the top, or how they banned Alex from the forums, because you already know that this site isn’t worth visiting.

Hug 'em!

I typed in “Weird Animals” into Google and found a site with this little guy on it. Apparently he’s known as the Yeti Crab and is only about 6 inches long. It has blond hair on its legs and claws, which is the fur on the picture. Yeti Crabs are thought to be blind. They have bacteria in their hairs that can filter out poisonous minerals from the hydrothermal vents they live by, way under the ocean. They also eat green algae and small shrimp.
The only animal cooler would be the platypus. Why? It’s (as far as we know) the only poisonous mammal. That’d be like a human with a venomous stinger on the end of their finger(s) which they could hunt with. Sweet.
Now I can’t help but wonder why I just looked up an obscure animal and decided to learn about it. My Psychology would tell me that I am intrinsically motivated to learn. I just wanted to at the time, so I did. I wasn’t rewarded, really, in any way. No one gave me a high-five, paid me, or fed me candy. I just looked up the yeti crab for no real reason, learned about it, and that’s it.

Around Eleven.

I have, again, gotten into a disagreement with the queen of noobs, CS. This is a purely verbal disagreement in the fact that I haven’t punched him out and that we’re actually arguing about words. Disturbed has their new album to be released very soon (early June?) so they’ve pre-released a single called Inside the Fire. If you haven’t listened to Disturbed before, you may find them hard to understand. This is where the disagreement follows.
In this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9jImX7s2yk, between :36 and :38, we can’t agree on the words. These are your options, listed from right to wrong:

“Around Eleven” – Correct!
“No Longer Living” – No way this is right…

When we had Mrs. Dolezal for a sub during zero hour one day, we had a few friends try to decide which words they thought they heard. Depending on what they were told first (priming!) would affect the outcome of what they said. My guess is because they couldn’t tell either way, so they just went with the first thing they heard. Hooray AP Psychology.
Please, don’t attempt to consult “official” lyrics, because there aren’t any. Right now, all there is for lyrics are people guessing what’s actually being said. One lyrics site has nearly completely different lyrics from the next. Listen to the song, and decide for yourself.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

3!

I have looked for support again, from my friend Alexander. When I realized I had three blog entries to type this morning, I was distraught. I didn’t know what to do with myself, because I was so far behind in my writing. However, I looked at Mr. Alex’s blog, and found that he hasn’t written an entry in nearly two weeks. I found hope with this fact, the fact that someone was worse off than me.
Looking at other people’s blogs (in a completely stalker-type manner, of course) I have found true meaning in my life from examining the future’s problems TODAY. I’m quite surprised Zachy hasn’t written about the disaster (tsunami?) in Myanmar. It’s all over the news, with their military government not allowing aid to enter the country, apparently because they don’t like Americans (or more likely our western influence, which owns).
Segueing right from aid to AIDS, I heard a new acronym for this on xbox live from some 7 or 8 year old kid. He called it an “Anally Inflicted Death Sentence.” I’m not sure what to make of this, other than that that kid has issues. Another thing Zachariah could write about is AIDS, which will likely be a problem for quite awhile. Also, on a side note, “Zachy” is apparently spelled wrong, but “Zachariah” isn’t? That’s borderline insane.
Lastly, I haven’t ripped on CS in a post or two, so I will take this opportunity. On the way to the United States History AP test, he nearly turned left in front of a horde of incoming cars because our light was green. Suicides are, in fact, -10 XP. How noobish.