Glorious Ping Pong

Today Mom and Peter and Lydia all went to Tennessee or somewhere thereabouts. Yesterday, Dad went to Yemen, and that left Abraham and myself at my grandparents, and they felt obliged to entertain us for some reason, so they took us to the library and I finally got Dune Messiah, by Frank Herbert, a book I have wanted to read for the past year and a half. (So far it is living up to its predecessor: its loaded with subtlety and complexity in a speculative fiction matrix: what could be better?) After that, we went to a fitness center which had, glory of glories, a ping pong table I played my second sport this summer. The first was ultimate Frisbee out at the Kesslers, and this was the second. (very sad showing, I was hoping to play American football and some other things as well, but all the respectable teens have all gone off and gotten jobs, and the rest sit entranced in front of their Xbox.) Anyway, I played for an hour and a half or so, and I feel great. I had to play with standard American paddles which are like wood. No good, considering that I had one of my now three paddles, and Abe had his at our grandparents house. (one of my four paddles broke. Horrible.) But I got on, and I realized that I am out of shape. Very out of shape. Not a surprise though, considering the amount I have not been exercising. This was kind of a random post, but hey, I guess we are all allowed a small amount of insanity at least.

The Beast Within...

Recently, I saw a car that had a sticker on the side of the door that read "When all else fails, READ INSTRUCTIONS" I discovered certain reasons for the sticker as well. As repulsive as the idea is, there are reasons for it: it works. I have now had my Digitech RP 80 for a year, but I only used the factory presets that it had, oblivious to the wide range of wahs, flangers, amp models, pickup simulators, expressions, reverb settings, noise gates, and choruses available to me at the touch of a button or three. Presently, I have designed several settings, but I don't really like any of them, but the wahs are fun... very fun.

Camping

Camping is nonsensical. Why create civilization if the only point of it is to get away from it? Besides, civilization is good: it has electricity, computers, music, IM, email, soft beds, and toilets that don't stink and aren't in a building far away where you have to walk to get there, and when you pull up the lid on a toilet in civilization, you can't see this cess pool, sitting turgedly there, putrifying the place. Besides all these good resons not to go camping, all my friends, whether in Yemen or America, are all in some form of civilization. This ends my tirade on camping.

Despite all that though, there was one good thing about camping: we got to go jet skiing. Those things are fun! Dad got on, and took off for the far shore, going at about 4/5 throtle, turned around, and came back, same speed. He did get up to full throtle for a while, but he settled back down. I got on, and floored it, and went in circles, and figure eights, and every other kinky geometric shape I could think of. While I was using the monster given to me the way it was designed to be used, Dad fell off. I wasn't trying to or anything, but that doesn't stop me from feeling really good about it afterwards. I think I also terrified my mom, but I was going slow and wasn't being nuts, so that was kinda bad I think, but the rest of it was awesome. You would hit a wave, and have to eat it you were going so fast, spray shooting up in an arc from your sides...Awesome in every way.

One last thing. The Michigan dunes. They are tinny. If you have ever been there, immagine something about three times taller and twice as steep composed of perfectly dry, powdered sand, you have Socotra's dunes. The clossest thing to the dunes on Socotra was the glacer hill thingie, but even they fell short of Socotra's dunes, and these were half rock and on a rock, and thus were cheating, but then, you can't expect all of plannet earth to be as good as Socotra...

His Very Own Instrumental...

Yesterday evening I went with my cousin Kate and my two brothers to see one of Kate's friends perform at the county fair. That was really neat. We got there, and I saw all this equipment piled up, two footpedals, (both boss. That name didn't connect at this stage...), an acoustic guitar, a bass guitar, and then some other smaller instruments, a recorder, a tom tom drum thing, a triangle, and some other small stuff. Any way, he set up all his stuff, and started playing. He had a hilarious song about proposing to a girl on Halloween when she was dressed up as a ghost or something, and he had another one about how the medicine and drug industry is in league with doctors to get rich off of us, but that isn't what I want to talk about. The two pedals that I mentioned before. One of them was the boss me-50 (not the bass model) and the other was the boss looping station, which I didn't notice at the time. Both pedals packed a walloping punch though. When I first got there, I looked at his instruments and I said to myself, no electric. He had it. You just couldn't see it. It was disguised as an acoustic guitar and a pedal. He could make that thing scream, and wail, and everything else. It was awesome. Being an amateur guitarist, I really could appreciate the kind of effort he put into learning that instrument. He was incredible. The second pedal though. He would sit down, and push buttons on the pedal, and then sit down with his drum. He would play the drum for a while, and then put it down, but the drums kept going. He then struck a triangle at certain choice moments, before putting that down and puttering around for a while. Meanwhile, the drum and the triangle are still going off. By the end of the song, he would have thrown in another two drums, a tambourine, a recorder, his base guitar, some beat boxing or vocals, and of course some acoustic and electric guitar. It was fun to listen to. I could have sat there all night, but Kate had to go to bed because she had an early appointment at her job this morning and needed sleep and peter was kinda stoned, despite the noise. I had never seen a one man instrumental before, but I would love to see one again. He has an album out, I am going to see if I can get my hands on it...

Chips and Travel and Music

I have made a midyears resolution: I am not eating any more chips. Period. I was on a boat trip out to the middle of a lake, and we stopped in this backwater and ate lunch. While eating, I accidentally dropped a chip into the lake, and then watched in horror as it created an oil slick. Five minutes latter, I looked over the edge of the boat again, and grease was still comming off of it just as fast as it was before, with no apparent decrease in speed or anything. I was revolted, and decided that I didn't need that kind of food, and I have given up potato chips. Don't get me wrong here, they taste fine, it's just that it is disgusting. I have no problem with them health wise (as this post makes it sound I guess) but I was merely revolted, thus no more chips. Laugh all you like. (Jeffrey will thats for sure.)

Today, we traveled from TN to IN. A distance of about an inch on my screen. It took eight hours in the car, and I think I left my AP student handbook at my grandparents house, and I need it to get my scores. Mega major bummer. To make up for that stupid cosmic twist of Fate, Fate granted me cable internet. Wicked fast, and on 24/7. Gorgeous.

On a musical side, my cousin and my cousin's friend played my cousin's friend's music (his own composition. His name was Jeremy, and my cousin is Kate for simplification in later posts if they make it.) They are really good. They left for a recording studio this evening to record some of their music. I should be able to get some m1n15t3r onto my blog here as well, as upload times will be much reduced. I could also put up the latest Xebec song depending on comments.

m1n15t3r

Its a band, or rather a guy, and the name is pronounced minister I think. With a computer. No humans at all, either singing, or playing instruments. Just him and his computer. I am not on my computer, and I don't have all the audio juggling tech that I have at my finger tips on her, so I can't post his song for a while. Bummer. If you like metal kinda stuff, go to http://music.download.com/m1n15t3r/3615-8433_32-100584710.html?Tag=MDL_artist_tab_apsongs for a couple of free downloads. I recommend the Crunch. I am not completely sure how he made this, but I have tried to do stuff like this and it always falls apart as soon as I try to do anything. My most successful attempt was me programming the computer to play specific wavelengths with specific distortion... I got about 30 seconds of really bad sounding noise with a cruddy tick, tick, tick for a beat (I even tried drawing the sound patterns: a horrible failure) before I gave up. This guy is a genius, admittedly he is using different tools and programs, but all the same, this is really cool.

Enough!

That's it, enough. I am not an American, and I am sick and tired of hearing about patriotism and nationalism and the fourth of July, and it isn't even here yet, and it won't be for two days. I am going to go and buy black clothes, black lip stick, black nail polish, and some chains, and wear it all! I am going to embrace the anarchist within me! Of course, I have no expectations that anyone will appreciate any of it, but hey, I feel like expressing myself.

Friends and Relations

Yesterday night, a whole bunch of friends and relations of the Crowders (my mom's parents) came over, and most of them were excellent cooks, and the meal was great. After the meal, we all went in to the piano, and mom played the piano, I played guitar (Abe has a new, very nice, very expensive acoustic guitar), and Grandpa played violin. I didn't think we sounded too bad, but then that was because I played quietly. Mom has been playing piano for nearly forty years now...And she is really good, so she held things together. We played some hymns, and people sang, and we had a very nice evening, despite the fact that I was supposed to know everyone, but really didn't. The hymns that we pulled off sounded great. The funniest thing that evening was this funky lady with shortish kinda bobbed red hair who came up to me grabbed my cheeks and went, "You're cute!" before turning three hundred and sixty degrees around in a circle as I fell over backwards. (I didn't quite hit the floor...) After she had turned her circle, she said, "I'm going to steal you and take you to my church for all the girls to look at!" which was worse. I mean, what do you say to that? All that came to my poor beleaguered mind was: someone make her go away, but you couldn't say that, least of all directly to her face. Anyway, I am still trying to recover from that harrowing experience.

Of psychology and Aquariums

I know, I know, a weird mix, and it doesn't sound interesting, but that's my life at the moment. I think to stay alive mentally, and I was taken to a really nice aquarium, so here goes. I won't even talk about psychology, despite the fact that I could, I just thought I would use the word, as it is impressive. At the moment, we are staying with my grandparents in Tennessee, in a retirement area, where 50% of the population is over the age of 50, and then a good 75% of the rest is over 30. The result of that is that there are no teens living in the area with two exceptions, me and my brother Abraham. The end result of that is that there are two very bored teens in Tennessee. We are good brothers, we understand accouter and we get along great, but family is family, and you just want to get away from it occasionally, especially if your family includes six little kids, both cousins and otherwise, as well as multiple aunts and uncles and other long lost relatives that you wouldn't even know you had. Any way, there are all these old people in the area, and most of them have had a life of eating well, even the ones under the age of 30, and there are a host of fat people. Large, bloated, distorted, with a natural transportation method reminiscent to that of ducks. I can't wait to go to Indiana where there are teens, and not so many fat, old, grouchy people.

The Aquarium was awesome. There was this one large tank with 3500 some fish in it, including at least 5 two meter long sharks. I can now say that I have had a large shark swim menacingly over me. When you are first introduced to the tank, you are at the top of it and can only see a small part of it, but you keep getting different views of the tank, with new fish and new types of coral and all. At one point close to the end, the path goes under and through the tank, and there are large glass domes to climb in and out of to see the fish, but you can't see the path from outside of the tank, so the path through it was a complete surprise and very cool.

that's it for my life at the moment, try not to die of excitement while reading it.

Timeline & my Girl

I have a new absolute favorite book: Timline, by Michael Crichton. Quantom Mechanics and the medevil ages all in one. The guy is an absolute genius. If you like either quantom mechanics or knights and ladies and whatnot, read it. This book is right up my ally, at any rate. It starts to get really, really good around page 13o. It also has some archeology thrown in.

The second thing is that my purdy black singing girl (guitar) still needs a name. I posted about it in the last post, but only Jeffrey commented. There are some "rules" to the game, although if someone came up with a really neat name outside of the parameters I set up, chances are I would use it. Suggestions would be much appreciated.

Sorry about the really short post, I was just so excited over my new favorite book (I havn't had a favorite book for several years now) that I had to post about it.

In the US with my Guitar

I am not an american. This is something that I have realized quite intensely today and yesterday. I have mostly the same ideisms that the rest of america has, but my values are all off. This is something that I have only come to appreciate recently. The intense focus on individuality and yet at the same time conformity is rather unnerving: everyone has a car, and then drives it. Conformity. And yet every car is different, and they are usually the only person in the car, showing an individual lifestyle.

My guitar needs a name, and its a she. She is dark and chaotic, but she is understanding for the most part. She does have a temper though. I took her appart to bring her with me, and she is still mad at me despite the fact that I stayed up far latter than I should have last night putting her together again. She kept going out of tune when I tried to play her with mom. She was just fine earlier today when it was just the two of us. At any rate, I have considered several names. Darcy, which means dark one, but that is a guy's name. Melanie, which means dark one as well, but I have a friend by that name and I don't want to 1. insult her. 2. give her ideas. 3. insult her friend and give him ideas. That said. I need a name for her. She is a Yamaha solid body electric with a black finish and a white pickguard. She is alder, with a maple neck and a rosewood fingerboard. She's got two sets of single coil pickups and one humbucker, and she is in need of a name.

I am Going in Circles

Or at least it feels like it. This is going to be a fast one: I still have to pack, and we get on the plane tonight, lol. I just finished school! Yeah! Mega-wicked awesome! I am now a senior.

We leave for the states tonight, without a good chance to say goodbye to friends I have known a decade and longer and may not be able see again ever. Bad! Mega-wicked terrible!

This is my fiftieth post! I have hung on to this thing much longer than I thought I would. I am usually a jumpy kinda guy, my dad describes me in all seriousness as obsesive compulsive for new stuff. I try everything, and then hang onto the really good stuff, like guitar, this blog incidentally, and several creative pastimes of mine. It is kinda nice to be able to talk on this thing, to have a voice, albeit a small one.

Have to go pack, have to say goodbyes, have to finish cleaning my room, have to say goodbye to my old life. If you actually want to read something, read the post below this one.

Last Weekend

Last weekend was hectic, as I believe the list showed. At any rate, The last two days have been even busier: I did four Pre Calculus homeworks in the time allotted for one in a heroic (maybe) attempt to get an academic award. Anyway, that is now over with, and all I have left is a test over two presidents and a vocab quiz before I am DONE!

I don't know why I am actually doing this, but I will give a review of Narnia for our Phantom... Narnia was great. The witch was by far the coolest character. The Bull was also really cool, and the centaurs were done very well indeed. The graphics were great, and it hardly deviated at all from the story. They didn't know much about the language of weapons though, because when Peter arrives in Aslan's camp he pulls out his sword and waves it around: a sign of contempt as well as a chalange: Basically, he was saying come and get me, I am hostile to you, I have not come in peace and I can take you all on all at once. Also, at the very beginning of the battle at the end, He pulls out his sword and then gives the order to charge, but the gryfins fly over...Go figure. Also, the witch should so have barbecued Peter, because she was orders of magnitude better than he was. The other thing was that Aslan's voice was nowhere near deep enough. The only problem that I noticed with the computer graphics was the train at the beginning: the steam looked good except that it was going about four times too fast.

Thermite was bad. Very bad. One of my teachers heard about our enterprise and tried to do it for his science class, so we gave him all of our hard earned aluminum powder, and he pulled iron II oxide off the shelf (which is supposed to do in a pinch) as opposed to iron III oxide. He mixed it up with our aluminum in the right (I think) proportions and then pulled about a foot of magnesium off of the school's supply roll. It wouldn't light. Nothing would light. (besides the matches which we lit with reckless abandon.) We tried everything, nothing worked, so now we have this lethal red powder just sitting in his classroom. I think we didn't have fine enough powder, and I have heard that you can get it out of etch-e-sketches...

Xebec and Zarz of Hazard... I haven't actually done anything with them recently except work on themes and such, although I have worked for several hours on a song for Zarz of Hazard which is nearing a complete stage. I hope to finish writing it today and record it with Tim tomorrow. I also hope to actually do something with Xebec now that my computer has unglitched...

The new song is Song X by East West on the album Light in Guenivere's Garden. We go to the States in two days. I have to (in order of importance) dismantle my guitar (so I can take it with me in my carry on. I really don't like the idea of intentionally taking it apart...) pack and lastly clean up my room and my cupboard and drawers etc. I don't think I will be able to post for a while...

My Weekend

I know this sounds funny to you American types, but I just finished having my last weekend of the school year(weekends here are Thursday-Friday) . I did a lot of stuff: so much that it would not fit nicely on a blog, and it certainly would not be fun to read, so I will give you a list, and then let you vote in the comments, and the top two picked will get posted:

My Friend's Exodus
Frisbee
Abe's birthday party
five hour Mech Warrior Fray
A day of Firsts
Thermite Attempts
Narnia The Movie
Zarz of Hazard
Xebec

Computers and Their Users

A friend of mine showed me a hillarious site on computers. Here is an exerpt for you. I will try to link the site, but I may forget.


Tech Support: "Hello, tech support, can I help you?"
Customer: (slowly) "Oohh." (pause) "I think I did a bad thing."
Tech Support: "Ok, so tell me what's up."
Customer: "Well, my computer was running great. Everything was working fine, I had no problems whatsoever."
Tech Support: "Ok..."
Customer: "So I decided to open it up and have a look inside. I saw all these wires dangling all over the place. There were grey flat ones, and small red, black, and yellow ones, and it seemed like they weren't connected to anything. So I decided to plug them all in."
Tech Support: "Um, you mean you plugged them all in? What did you plug them into?"
Customer: "Well, whatever I could get them to connect to. I saw pins sticking off of some of the boards that didn't have anything on them, so I plugged all the loose wires in to make it run better."
Tech Support: "And then you..."
Customer: "And so I plugged them all in, and I hit the power button, and there was this loud bang and a flash and a puff of smoke. Now it doesn't work at all."
Tech Support: (suppressing all emotion and turning deep crimson) "Can you hold for a minute, please?"
Kaboom! "Explosive" doesn't adequately describe the laughter. I related the story to some co-workers between gasps for breath. Several of the techs and I had quite the laugh fest while he was on hold. After about five minutes of eye-popping, sweat-beading laughter, I wiped away the tears, took a sip of water, and came back on the line. I knew it'd be futile to even attempt to troubleshoot it.
Tech Support: "Ok, well why don't we just have you wrap it up in the original packing material and send it back to us, we'll take care of the whole thing."
And so another computer newbie learned that the extra power supply cables and unused IDE ribbon cables don't have to be plugged in for the computer to work just fine.

here is another one...


Customer: "Hi, I think I've got a problem with my monitor."
Tech Support: "Ah. Do you still have an image?"
Customer: "Yes, best image ever. Thing is, when I look at it from the side, I see red hot components."
Tech Support: "Uh, when you look at it from the SIDE? How can you see any components?"
Customer: "Well, through that big smoking hole."

Ben Hur

Yesterday I went through Ben Hur. I don't recall having ever seen a slower, more boring movie. The chariot race was ok, but aside from that, there was a complete lack of excitement. Judah's relationship with Esther made no sense to me whatsoever at all, and each scene took forever to start: You would see two people facing each other at opposite ends of a hall for say, and they would stand there and look at each other for a minute or two, literally! Before they even started either talking or walking towards each other, or if you were lucky, both at once. If I had a good DVD editing program I could cut 25% of the time out and still have a comprehensive movie, reducing it from the three some hour mammoth that it is to something more manageable. Also, the plot was dull and straight forward. A good plot should not be completely comprehended the first time. There should be some reason to go back and watch it again, and you should enjoy it more the second time through. Most of my favorite books are like that as well. (Dune is a notable example.) At the end of the show I was left wondering what the behemoth was doing parading around with eleven academy awards. My own life is more exciting, which makes me wonder: if that is the case, why am I posting about it?

Graduation

Sorry for the depressing last post. At any rate, I am one of the honor guards for the graduation ceremony next Wednesday (I doubt they chose me for the hair...). Jeremy is graduating, and all the seniors were wandering around in their capes and hat things, and photos were taken. On seeing themselves, Jeremy exclaimed, "foggies! We've become old foggies!" Whether he was pleased or not, I have yet to discern. My cousin's opinion on all the get-up is that it can make anyone look ugly, and I agree. Maybe I am just jealous, but somehow I doubt it: the cape things look hot and restraining, and the hats are designed to blow off in a breeze... Plus, they were not designed to go over an afro, or even just a halfro...

The End of My Life

My life is largely coming to the end of my control. My friends are going to colleges in universities two continents away from me, all my classes next year with one exception (muzik) don't look like any fun, and my summer has been taken away from me (we are trekking all over the states, but we will only spend a week or so in Lafayette, and we will have to go camping... I will probably have to learn to drive sometime, and I have had less time to play computers recently, and it doesn't look like I will be able to play them much in the future either. After I graduate, I will probably wind up in some university some where and discover that it is not all its cracked up to be, and find myself with ten minutes of free time a day, studying the heck out of who knows what, only to get a job and discover that its not all its cracked up to be either... A friend of mine once said this: life sucks, then you die, and I am starting to realize how true that is.

Muzik

Music has arrived in Yemen in two ways recently: firstly, we have DSL, and iTunes is now supported in Yemen, so I downloaded the album Hearts of the Innocent by Kutless the other day, which is, by the way, an awesome album, provided you like Kutless. If you don't know and want to find out, listen to All Alone first, and then decide.

Tonight was the annual piano recital. My mom taught every single last student there, and there was a list. Peter (my little brother) played Concerning Hobbits, and did really well, and both Jeremy and Melanie played brilliantly. In short, the evening was a smashing success.

Last Saturday, the last piano teaching session my mom got in in before the performance tonight had a rather humorous incident: I was listening to a song called Everything was White, by Demon Hunter (a death metal band) and was singing along. Melanie heard me singing, listened to the song, and decided that there was no tune and that I was making it all up. There was a tune though, not in the verse, but in the chorus, but nobody else could hear it. I like that song better than all the other Demon Hunter songs I know because it has a tune, but they thought not. I could be going delusional again (I kept seeing dolphins in Socotra that nobody else saw) Or I could be really stupid and am actually listening to the radio station I heard two years ago and it took that long for my brain to register, or I could have finally gone schitzophrenic and am hearing all my voices speak to me at the same time, and they are all friends, and have decided to make a band together, or aliens could be attacking me with their ray guns because I am so obnoxious, but our metabolisms are so different I am hearing music instead of dying. Well, that last one is a tad outrageous, but you never know!

Me

I must lead a really boring life: no comments on either of my last two posts, not even on the neohippie thing. I was sure that that would at least get some "you freak" comments, but maybe you all are just too polite. Oh well. At any rate, I finally uploaded a picture of me. The halffro is real, not photoshop, just incase you were wondering, and there should probably be more guitar in the picture, but whatever. (The chord is a C#m7 if you were wondering.) I am also not from California as the picture might lead you to believe.

Wednesday

I have had a long day (it is 10:30 at night now.) and I feel like unloading. If you are not interested, or are only reading this because of whatever, don't read it, it is probably desperately boring. At any rate, the day started off normally enough, I went to school, etc, and when the day ended, I played ultimate Frisbee. I had an awesome team: Mr. V., who only dropped one throw, Abe, (my brother) Jeremy, (an amazing athlete), and Rayman, who is another good sports guy. I think we won, but I never keep score, so I don't know. Unfortunately, We were playing with a bunch of guys who didn't really want to play, they had to to get credit in something or something weird like that. One guy (who had an over inflated view of his own abilities and is generally a jerk) gave me a death threat, and was generally in my face, and another fat guy on the other team just sat in the endzone and caught frisbees, and generally made points that shouldn't have been made, so a really good day of Frisbee was made not as enjoyable as it could have been.

After Frisbee, I went home and taught guitar lessons to a friend of mine, which was fun, but slow. When that finished, we all went to youth group, where I saw Jeremy again (youth group is at his house) he was loading things into the back of a car to take to the flea market tomorrow. His books, his computer games, his flashtronII car (which is faster than he is, and he is fast.) his pellet rifles, a lot of his stuff, and I was reminded that he is going to be in university next year, and I am not. My life is moving on, despite all I have done to hold it down and in place.

Youth group was amazing. A guy from the US (that probably sounds funny to you people who are sitting in the US reading this...) came to Yemen and played the piano for us, and he was amazing. Unfortunately, he was playing on a Yamaha clavinova, which is a fairly nice piece of equipment, but is not a real piano... He held a concert yesterday, but I missed it, and I am now regretting it. He apparently played some really nice music there.

After Youth Group, Jeffrey, Justin, Keith and I discussed a blog that we are trying to put together, and it looks like it might work. I think I linked it, it is the RPG blog I think if you are interested in RPGs and whatnot, and I need to send invites to people and whatnot. I have had this idea for a while, and it is coming together so slowly that I sometimes despair of it ever happening.

We took a taxi home, and I got a guy high on qat (a mild narcotic that you chew to get high off of.) who wanted to talk. Unfortunately, while dealing with a second language and a guy who is mumbling, (due to a large mouthful of qat) you don't get very far. He would mumble something, and then I would hear something that sounded like owul-la-laa? Which means is this not correct? And all I could say was La Aarrif, which means I don't know. This went on until we got off.

Before Youth Group, Jeremy gave me a Michael Chriton book to read, (sphere to be precise. Chriton is one of my favorite authors. Technothrillers are awesome.) unfortunately, Abe and I stopped half way home and fed a friend's cat, and I left Sphere on the table in the kitchen next to the cat dish, where it will probably sit until I convince Abe to bring it home the next time he goes to feed the cat.

That was probably dry, but I feel better having written it out. If you read it all, I am amazed, and you need something to do. Kidding. At any rate, good night.

The Order of the Neohippie

Basically, so far, I am the only neohippie, however, our, I mean, my numbers will grow and swell, until we take over the world! Bwahahahahaha! Neohippies don't do drugs, we, I mean I don't smoke, and I keep clean. Everything else is the same though. The big hair, the color schemes, the music, the expressions, (yo, thats like groovy psychedelic man! Those are like awesome vibes! Etc. lol.), the aversion to war (Bush should be nowhere near Iraq.), and the emphasis on peace. We, I mean I again will take over the world! (I can't get it out of my head that I'm the only one. Neohippies are also very concerned with being together apparently...) comment and join our... My (aaaah!) numbers... I mean number. That is depressing: I am a number.

Milk and Honey?

Just last night, while eating my mom's granola with yoghurt and lyles golden syrup, it occurred to me that I was eating curdled milk and synthetic honey, which is hardly what was promised to the Israelites... But then, there was milk and real honey right there waiting for me, so I didn't feel I could complain or anything. The thought just struck me as being rather amusing.

Scratches

I scratched my guitar. It is not a very big scratch, but it is right on the front of the guitar. It is the second scratch I knew about. The first was down next to the plug in, and the third was on the back, but this one is on the front. Fortunately it is small and you can't see it from a meter away, but it is sad just knowing that it is there.

AP Chemistry and Fiberglas

I just finished my AP chemistry exam. I feel so liberated: I don't have to wake up early every weekend to study it, I don't have to fret in my sleep any more about it, I don't have to study it endlessly, I am free! Well, at least for the moment.

Last period I almost got high on Fiberglas resin. That stuff is wicked. If you get it on your gloves, it stays there. If you get it in your brushes, it stays there, and it ruins the brush permanently. Even soaking the brushes in gasoline doesn't do a thing. That stuff is incredible. It hardens in about a quarter of an hour, so you have to work quickly while wearing latex gloves, aprons and gas masks (that don't do anything.)

Hand Cuffs

Today, two of my acquaintances hand cuffed themselves together using real, professional hand cuffs. I don't know where Madian got them, but he didn't have the key either. They then went wandering around the school trying to find someone who could pick the locks. Eventually they made their way into the art room where Mr. Stanton and his class were (I was part of the latter). At any rate, Mr. Stanton looked at the cuffs for a while, then set to work with a calligraphy pen nib, a dissection pin and a jackknife. He eventually got them both out of it, However, the whole concept of locking yourself up when you don't have the key is sorta dumb if you ask me, and definitely funny...

Cars and Evolution and are they Connected?

For the moment, let us all pretend that we are evolutionists. (Something I like to do occasionally. I like to think that it will give me a firmer base to stand on if I ever have to defend my faith.) That roll assumed, let me ask a question, or rather several questions. Why are some human males infatuatted with cars? Where does this trait come from? To carry it on, and not to be sexist, why are human females often so much less interested in cars? Is evolution so fast that the last 80 years, (the amount of time the automobile has been affordable) have markedly changed us, and if so, how is it beneficial to the race as a whole, and to the individual? If it is not, (car accidents are the leading cause of death in the US,) what caused us to be pre-evolved to "like" cars? I have thought of something, but I want to see if you all can come up with something better: I don't want to influence your thoughts before you comment. (hint hint.)

RVA, 6 times 7 and a Four Person IM Session

All my Rift Valley Academy friends are back! They go to Kenya from Yemen to RVA, a boarding school, and I get to see them three times a year or so. It is a really sad system, I lost nearly all friends to the abyss. I lead a sad life. I live in Yemen, away from my friends in America, and then I make friends with all the kids who then vanish into the dark regions of Africa... Oh well, I will only have to go to college in another year or so and have to start all over again... I am really enjoying my time with them while they are here though.

After AP Chemistry yesterday (shivers) I went over to Jeffrey's house where I took tests. I had my blood pressure and pulse measured ten times during the afternoon, and I took a series of multiplication tables. Since I am in more advanced math courses, I haven't practiced my multiplication tables for years, and I had forgotten that six times seven is forty two. The interesting thing about the blood pressure and pulse deal was that I could feel my pulse, and I tried to control it. I am one of those people who likes to be in control of himself, if not the rest of the world around him. With more practice, I might actually be able to control my pulse, but I doubt it.

Just today, I had a four way instant message conversation with Andrew, Abraham, and Peter. Unfortunately, I and both my brothers were on the same computer, so we had to put our initials after everything we said. I think Andrew has consigned me to the loony bin, but then I probably deserved it.

Easter, Battlefront, and Dubabs

Happy Easter everyone! Sadly, I only have today off, I have to go back to school tomorrow, and I had school yesterday, but hey, a day off I would take any day. At any rate, we woke up at 5:30. Bleagh. I am not a morning person, neither am I a late night guy. My preferred state is sleep. After the sunrise service our family came home and finished Captain Blood, and if you like adventure and buckaneering stories, this is a must for you. I won't ruin it, it is by Rafael Sabatini, and you can look it up at many books which I have linked.

After lunch, I headed over to Jeremy's house and we played Battlefront back and forth. Battlefront is a very realistic first or third person shooter, where you are dumped onto a battlefield, given several hundred allies, and told to get as many enemies as you can before going under and having to respawn. You can switch sides and continue, so that is what Jeremy and I did. One death each, back and forth, unfortunately we were on his laptop, and when the power went out and didn't come back on his computer went into hibernation and the match was undetermined...

On the way home I got on a dubab, (a long van that runs a bus rout that you can get on and off anywhere along the rout) one of the easier methods of transportation in the city, and if I am not in a hurry and I am next to the door, one of my favorites, because (if you get a good driver) he goes whizzing in and out and hanging out of the door can get you a nice adrenaline rush... (I am a hopeless adrenaline junkie.) unfortunately, I was in a hurry, I was not next to the door, and the seats were about half as long as I needed them: my knees stuck up over the seat in front of me by about six inches. I had no idea that the blood source to your feet is located in your shin, but it apparently is. When I could stretch my legs again, my left one was gone. I shook it, and it tingled so bad it hurt, so I just left it, and eventually it went numb, before biting me again. My shins are not going to forgive me for a while.

The Second Word and books

I finally got something out of a girl at school. It was a year since she last said anything to me, and that was no. I made the fatal mistake of asking her if she played chess... Complete and utter rejection for an entire year. Several days ago however, she said "Hey." I was so surprised that I looked around me first to make sure that she wasn't talking to someone else, before attempting to get out a "Yo." However, my wits hadn't quite returned in the half second that had passed, and all I got off was a grunt. I don't think that I am very high up on her list of "salvageable males" to use a zits term. Personally, I think that this is simply hilarious, although I don't know why.

Recently our family has been reading Captain Blood by Rafael Sabatinni (I think that is how you spell his name) at any rate, it is by far the craziest tale I have ever heard told, and I must recommend it to you. You can get it for free off of http://www.manybooks.net. (which is, by the way, an excellent site. I'll link it if I remember. Check it out if you are a book lover.)

Thermite, Xebec, and The Zarz of Hazard

I think we are actually going to succeed in making thermite. Thermite is simply aluminum powder and Iron (III) oxide, which you get by pouring bleach on iron. This reaction produces chlorine gas though, so I don't recommend doing it unless out doors in a windy area. All you do is mix the aluminum powder and the Iron (III) oxide in a certain proportion. (I think it is one to one, but I haven't checked it mathematically) at any rate, it burns at temperatures of up to 3000K and can burn underwater or in space, and can allegedly burn through the engine block of a car...

I am presently in three bands. One of them a friend of mine made and called Smile, however, she left and it sort of fell apart. The second is Xebec (which, incidentally is just me), and the Third hasn't actually done anything, but is called the Zarz of Hazard. When I get to America, I think I will join another one, bringing my tally up to four... I am now a teenage rock god... Maybe.

The Anarchist's Cookbook

The Anarchist's Cookbook is not really so anarchist as it is just how to do all sorts of really dumb fun sounding stuff, like how burn a hole through straight through a car's hood, engine block and the asphalt below with just a little thermite... Which they tell you how to make. It is online, go to http://www.everything2.com and then in the search bar type in anarchist cookbook. It should come up with a list of crazy things to do from nitroglycerine, to dynamite, to C4, to thermite, to phone taps, to computer hacking, to vending machine theft, to chlorine gas, to hypnotization, to messing up a MacDonald... The list goes on... It is a great way to blow time. The thermite recipe I think is the easiest, and it is pretty awesome too... Have fun, but try not to knock yourself out...

My Guitar

It busted. The entire socket for the wire came out. Fortunately, I am a tech loving nut case, so I was able to fix the problem, but my brain did freeze up: I couldn't breathe for about five seconds when I saw the problem. It turns out that Yamaha drills this big huge conical hole into the bottom of their guitars that they then cover with this piece of plastic that has the socket in it. They also put in about six inches of extra wire so that when it does fall apart, you can pull it out without completely dismantling the whole thing. I only had to take two screws out to put it back together. Better than before, when I thought that you had to undo five screws to change a string. Turns out that they out thought me there too: there is a grill in the back of the guitar that you can feed new strings through. I now know far more about my guitar than I ever wanted too, probably because it keeps minorly busting. Over all though, I love it, and I play it most days.

I am thinking of posting a picture of me on my blog, but I don't want it to be just any old picture. I want it to be of me and my guitar, and I want it something really alarming, like my face growing out of the pickguard or something. The only problem is that I have this quasi afro that I am afraid I will loose in the black color of the guitar. Ideas would be appreciated.

I don't think that this looks as good on the computer as it does on my paper, but this gets the general idea across. The shell was actually a bit bigger, I goofed when putting the hand in. 

I'm Back!

I went to Socotra. We went around the island by boat. It was so awesome. I had to keep a journal, and then I had to put it into computer, so here it is. Don't read all of it if you value your time...

Day 1
It all started at 6:15 ish at the dome at SIS. I fooled around in the dome for 10 minutes or so before I realized that Mr. Stanton wanted us all in his room to help pack “gorp” and other necessities. When we finished packing things, we all went in and watched the Matrix. I had been trying to watch the Matrix for a long time, and it lived up to my expectations with the exception of the cool fight scene effects. When that finished, we went to the dome and stacked all the mats up and then knocked them down while on tip of the ten to twelve foot pile. After that, everyone except Jonathan and I watched Gladiator, while we discussed the perversities of Battlefront before going to sleep.
Day 2
I had slept for maybe half an hour before the dome erupted around me. Jeremy and Luke had the mats stacked up again, and they had somehow convinced the girls to try it, something I found quite amusing to watch. I tried to sleep for a while, but I gave up after a while, and joined the mayhem. Two rolled around and we loaded all the stuff into the bus, and we drove to the airport. Some hours later, we boarded a 737 and took off for Mukulla. The plane took off and I fell into a coma. We landed in Mukulla what seemed like several minutes later, and then took off again, and I again fell asleep. When the stewardess came by with coffee, I gratefully accepted some, but instead of tasting nice like it usually does, it tasted as if they had been half charcoalized before grinding. I downed it anyway in an attempt to wake up, but I fell asleep again anyway, and woke up just over Socotra. We got off of the plane and collected our stuff before loading it all onto three land rovers which took us to breakfast which took forever to arrive tasted wonderful and burnt my tongue. We stopped by for supplies in Hadibo before loading everything into three boats, which took a while to start moving. Everything seems to take longer here.
Once moving however, things changed a little. I am afraid I started a burn today on my arms and neck because all my bags were in another boat along with my sunscreen. What really captivated my interest however, were the mountains. AT the airport, the mountains were sheer and green, with strangely rounded tops for a Yemeni mountain. (As we drove to the restaurant, I observed that the mountains were green because of shrubs that from the car appeared to be roughly four feet tall on average. We passed through one pass, and spattered evenly over the other side of the mountain were cucumber trees that our driver ID’d for us.) When we got into our boat however, I observed that the mountains were roughly the same shape, but less green. They changed steadily from that to giant rocks to the mountains I know in Sana’a. The only problem with our campsite is that it seems to have been a boat sealing place, because there is tar everywhere, especially between my toes.
I hope this pen has waterproof ink, because some of our stuff got very wet in the boats today. At the moment, we have our tent set up to dry out so it won’t mildew; a phenomenon that I have heard fantastic tales of, but have yet to observe…
Day 3
Today wasn’t quite what it was planned to be: we overshot by a goodly distance before we realized our mistake and set down to camp. Our tent had gotten wet the night before, so we set it up and slept in it to dry it out. Breakfast consisted of a large bowl of Museli: So large an amount that Mr. Stanton implied that I couldn’t eat it all. (I was very hungry: breakfast is a main meal for me.) Once we got clear of the surf in the boats, we could see straight to the bottom. We saw dolphins once off a ways away from us before we stopped for lunch.
We stopped for lunch on this beautiful beach. The beach was perfect, and there were no rocks or anything in the sand. The beach was incredibly level: the waves washed ten to fifteen meters straight in. I read somewhere that you can calculate the average particle radius from the slope of a beach, and vice versa, and that the flatter the beach, the smaller the particles. Whether or not that is true, I don’t know, but the sand was remarkably fine and soft.
After our lunch, a sand castle, attempting to build a human pyramid, and chicken fighting, (something Jonathan had never done) were set off again. The water was still clear as a crystal, and blue as sapphire when we spotted a pod of fifty or so spinner dolphins ahead of us. We could see them breaching surface for air and on occasion, leaping out of the water for the glory of it. After a while, I could see them breaching all around us: one did so between two of our boats, not eight meters away from me, and if you looked down, you could see the dark shapes of their lithe bodies as they sway underneath us. Unfortunately, like all good things, they passed, and we could see them leaping behind us. Abraham caught one on photo leaping. I hope it turns out well.
Dinner was a mess. Team 3 (my team) was responsible for cooking, and we were having baked potatoes and fish. Our team however, being comprised completely of ignorant young men, although ready enough, was far behind Mr. Stanton’s expectations. Nobody (including the fishermen) had ever grilled fish before, but regardless of that, the food was excellent. The potatoes were done to a turn, and loaded with margarine and spready cheese, they were perfect. WE opened canned fruit as well, which was beyond excellent.
Day 4
Today started out well. Breakfast was a mug of instant coffee and two bowls of Museli and my Mom’s granola. Mixed, it is really good. We didn’t have milk mixed up, so I dumped milk powder and water on my breakfast and stirred. Precision is apparently an option, but I couldn’t taste the difference. It was a tad pasty, probably because I crushed the granola. We set off early in an attempt to get the boats away from the heavy surf, which comes in right off the Indian Ocean.
Our teachers noticed that a member of our group wasn’t “pulling his weight,” So he was pulled into our boat for the day. I feel sorry for the poor kid. He may have deserved it, but this is as close to paradises as we are going to get on earth: I have seen dolphins everyday that we have been on Socotra.
I pen this now sitting in the prow of our boat. The spray is beginning to pick up, so I will close for now.
Abdulrahman seemed to perk up after he took a leek, Mr. Stanton did as well, but thin lost the bottle when a wake hit it out of his hand…
The beach we originally shot for we missed by quite a ways: Erher is six to seven hours from where we camped. Our original campsite smelled quite evil, but we moved and the stench left. I managed to get some good swimming in, and I felt much better for it.
Later that evening, we ate chili, which is a misnomer in three ways: the first is, this stuff was hot off the fire, I didn’t burn my tongue, but I nearly did. It is also hot spicy: my stomach was not pleased with my after I finished. A burning sensation in your stomach is a very strange sensation. Thirdly, chili produces a lot of hot air… Apparently it is called a blue angel when it is ignited…
Apparently Abdulrahman and co. invaded our tent while I was away. The reasons were quite random. I surmised that they did so to escape the mosquitoes: they were all well bitten after the last night at the mangroves. Abe and Jonathan thought it was because they were afraid of the crabs, Mrs. V. thought they were trying to steal something, and they said that they were just trying to scare us. I had heard about it, so I planned to remove the tent poles from the tent while they were sleeping, but they were gone by the time I was ready for bed.
Day 5
I had my two bowls of Museli, packed my stuff and our tent and then tried to help Mrs. V. I am afraid that I am not very good a seeing what needs to be done, because Mrs. V. made it quite clear that I was supposed to help, not ask how I should help.
The fishermen said that today is going to be hot, and so far they have been correct on everything, and today looks (and feels) no different. I am afraid I am going to get burnt today.
Today we are trying to get to Erher. Jeremy and Luke both say that it is beautiful, and I am thoroughly looking forwards to it. The girls are too, I think, at least partially because of the alleged shower. My hair is particularly awesome. Melanie had a mirror, and I scared myself by looking into it. Part of it is my sweat thing which is quite fun to wear, and has acquired several new nicknames for myself including Rambo and Ninja. Mr. Stanton has been calling me Sir Gray Ham, which is quite amusing.
I am riding in the girls boat today, and it is very quiet. I think it has something to do with me, but I don’t know.
The girls boat stayed quiet too, so it probably wasn’t me. Melanie and Luke had an umbrella, and we all wound up under it after a while eating gorp and having fun. From the sea, Erher doesn’t look like much: tow giant dunes with a little greenish brown smudge at the bottom. As you get closer, the smudge becomes a lush green and you can see the shower.
The shower is quite amazing: it is this three-inch diameter pipe with no shower cap. You stand there and it blasts you. It is quite remarkable and it feels ever so good. Mrs. V. Said that she felt naked after washing off her coating of salt. Luke gave me some shampoo and I think Melanie would have killed me had I not used it, and the rebellion that my hair had been staging was quelled.
The sand dunes at Erher are so awesome. They just go on and on and on, and when you think that you can go no further, they end, and you look down, and you see the boats in the bay with the wakes spread out behind them and your entire camp fits under your thumb at arms length. Then, you sort of flop onto the dune and slide, meters at a time, down the dune. The dunes are at (conservative estimates) 45 degrees off of level, and it is quite terrifying to sprint down them, and ever so fun to trip. It took all of ten minutes to get to the bottom of the dune.
When we got back, Mr. Stanton showed me how to light a fire with friction. You take one stick of soft wood with a hole in it, and you spin a stick of hard wood with a little sand next to a pile of goat pellets. The method looked like it had promise, so I fooled with it, and tried a list of other things but neither really worked. The most promising method I attempted was rubbing a log with a rock. I got a smell of smoke and a really hot log with a groove in it out of the deal before I gave up.
We had spaghetti… or at least, it looked like spaghetti; but the noodles had the texture, qualities and tastes of wood glue with ash in it, but the sauce was really good, so I ate a lot anyway.
I am hoping to see a whale shark today or tomorrow. Melanie saw one two years ago, here at Erher, and Jeremy saw one last year. So far we have seen dolphins every day, and Mr. Stanton caught a sea turtle, so hopes are high, simply because we have seen everything else as well on this trip.
Day 6
Today we had our first hike. We started in this small village and hiked up into the interior. The only thing that made the hike difficult was the intense heat and humidity. On the way up was a large fresh water pool, and since we were already in our swimming trunks, we all jumped in. The water was cool and ever so refreshing. When Isabella got there, she just waded in she was so hot: shoes, socks, shorts, shirt, sunglasses, and hat. It was hilarious.
At the top of the hike, (which wasn’t much further) there was a lovely airy hut with a breeze and a menu with exorbitant prices. We bought food anyway, and sat down two hours later to a bulletproof goat and really good rice and beans. From the hut you could see a mountain covered with dragon’s blood trees. I bought two bags of incense and a large bag of dragon’s blood for family and friends, and we wandered off among the trees for a while before going back. We stopped at the pool again on the way back for a while again to cool off and to have fun.
The way down from there was fun. Luke, Jeremy and I ran down the mountain, and even taking three breaks, we estimate it took fifteen minutes to go down the mountain it had taken us an hour and a half to get up. I experienced time distortion and scenery blur three times before we got to the bottom. I think I would have died had I tripped once, and I am a firm believer in the immortality of the teenager.
When we got back, it was nearly dark and we had cooking duties. I am afraid that our macaroni and cheese was not as good as Melanie said it was, although it wasn’t nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be at several stages of its creation. Initially it was this onion and garlic loaded goop that was loaded with milk powder and was very runny. After three circles of spready cheese and pepper were stirred in, it boiled and became much thicker. For all the stuff we added, it was surprisingly bland.
Due to our cooking related exploits, we were unable to climb the cliffs above Erher to the cave there. I was really hoping that I would be able to do that, but now it is too late.
I did not see a whale shark today, nor did I see any dolphins, although other members of our party saw them. Today was the first day I have not seen dolphins.
Day 7
We had our second hike today, and it was far hotter today than yesterday. I sweated more than I thought was possible for a human and still be alive. Admittedly I have consumed possibly six liters of water today to make up for it. In comparison, I have never sweated before today, and I may never sweat again. We took a boat to a spot on the shore several kilometers from Erher and then hiked up to a cave in the interior of the island.
The hike was amazing. We were so hot and the air was so still and humid it felt like we were carrying a hot tub on our skin. It was a very interesting sensation. When we finally got to the mouth of the cave, several people wrung sweat from their shirts and got quite a bit out. It was disgusting, terrifying and awesome all at once.
The cave was beautiful. The cave goes three kilometers into a mountain, but we were only allowed to go a third of that, which was sad, because that cave was cool, both literally and figuratively. Huge stalagmites went up, and in other places, massive stalactites hung down, and many of them had met and made massive columns. We refilled our bottles from the lake inside the cave, before we hiked back outside and ate lunch, looking down at the sea, which was possibly two kilometers away, as the crow flies.
After lunch, we hiked down again and surprisingly, this was where I sweated the Mississippi. I think I forgot my sweatband at the cave; I know I missed it coming down. We came down fast, but much slower than yesterday: I didn’t experience time distortion or scenery blur once. Luke, Jeremy and I had all acquired cuts of some kind, so we put sap from a specific tree on our cuts. The sap is supposed to do three things: 1. Clean out the wound. 2. Disinfect the wound. 3. Seal the wound. I couldn’t tell if it had a disinfectant in it, but it did sting when I tried it, the scratches appeared cleaner, and it did form a clearish gauzy seal. I was quite pleased with the arrangement until Melanie arrived, saw our near fatal wounds and put triple antibiotic ointment on them, which removed the aforesaid seal.
Right now we are in the boats heading for Di Hamri, where there are allegedly refrigerators, showers, toilets, and great snorkeling all at once. Tomorrow is free of responsibility (as far as I know) so I am hoping to do some good snorkeling, and maybe read some.
Day 8
Breakfast was tea, beans, bread, and bees. For some reason, our entire campsite was swarming with bees, despite the fact that there were no flowers anywhere within sight and there wasn’t anywhere the bees could build a hive.
Luke and Mrs. V. went scuba diving, and the rest of us went snorkeling. There is a reason Di Hamri is a marine protected area: it is loaded with fish and coral and lobsters and all manner of sea life. I saw a massive lobster, twice to three times the size of lobsters you find in the meat section of Wal-Mart, and maybe fifty species or so of fish. Jonathan saw several groupers, and Mr. Stanton saw an octopus. I also saw a really big clam. When I approached it, it withdrew into itself, and when I blew water at it, it sort of closed up. It was close to a foot long and maybe half that wide, and blue in color.
During the heat of the day we sort of lay comatose on the mats at the campsite in the shade and read and talked and laughed. A lot of us went on introductory scuba dives including Jeremy and Abraham, who went as partners. It was the first time I didn’t have anyone who I was tight with, to communicate with, as we had no cell phone coverage, and my brother and good friend were underwater. It was a rather strange feeling.
Lunch consisted of Pringles: lots of them. Mr. Stanton had bought a case of them, and we hadn’t realized it until yesterday evening, so today we devoured them. We ate them plain and with tuna. That was rather weird, but it was good as well. We also found out that we had three or four large bags of dry hot chocolate, so we dug in with spoons and ate it dry. That was really good, if exceptionally sticky. That stuff stuck to every thing in my mouth, and took forever to get out afterwards.
Around three in the afternoon, Luke and Mrs. V. Went diving again, and Melanie and I went snorkeling. We saw this awesome blue fish with concentric white rings on it, as well as two different species of starfish, three different species of sea urchin, an eel of some description, that we decided was, without a doubt, the most dangerous eel alive, as well as some sort of blue sponge. We also saw a really long thin fish that at it largest was a meter and a half long, and only four or five centimeters in diameter.
When we got out, Luke and Mrs. V. had returned, and they had seen a two-meter long shark. Apparently, it had circled them for a while before deciding that they were dull. I think I would have exited stage left very quickly had I seen a fish that big, regardless of its species, and I don’t think that anything would have been able to catch me either. They also saw an eel that was as big around as Luke’s leg, and as long as a person is tall.
Supper was fish, beans, rice, and bread, and it tasted just wonderful. After supper, we packed as many things as we could to take them to the airport tomorrow and went to bed. We were going to pack things into the cars tonight, but they didn’t come. If they don’t get here early tomorrow, we might not get to the airport on time, but I am not really worried about it. We have been going to bed so early these nights, and waking up so early as well. In a way, it is really nice, but in other ways, it feels so good to sleep in.
Day 9
The cars were here when we woke up, so we rolled our bedding up, packed it into our suitcases and piled them into the cars. There were three land rovers, the same ones that picked us up at the airport, and they had the same drivers, but they had undergone personality changes, or they had been imbued with the spirit of long dead rally racers or something, because we went to the airport at 110 kmph over dirt roads. I was in heaven as we fish tailed the corners and jumped the bumps (of which there were many). As we rounded one of the last corners next to the ocean to the airport, I looked out the windows, and low and behold, there were dolphins. I saw dolphins every day except two, and one of those was because we were in Sana’a and hadn’t even taken off yet. The other was because I wasn’t paying attention, because other people saw dolphins that day.
The flight to Mukulla went off without a hitch, but when we tried to take off for Sana’a, there were many problems, not least of them that the army had an emergency and had to put troops onto the commercial flight. I don’t know if anyone got kicked off of the flight because of it, but there were certainly no empty seats on the flight. I was lucky I got to sit in the same row as Abraham and Jeremy next to a window. Another reason that the flight didn’t take off on time was the fact that there was this addled lady who wouldn’t sit down. I am afraid that I fall far short of her intellectually, because I couldn’t for the life of me understand why she wouldn’t sit down. It made no sense what so ever at all. The third (and last that I know of) reason that the flight was delayed was this guy who sat next to Sofia who fainted because he couldn’t breathe. They told him that he shouldn’t be on the flight, but he said that he was fine (regardless of the fact that he had to be on oxygen to talk) and insisted that he be allowed to fly. That was at the back of the plane though, so I don’t know how it turned out.
When we got back home, I took a shower, and that felt so good that I can recommend the trip simply because you feel so good when you recover from it. My bed was exquisitely soft, and my pillow luxury, and if I wanted it, there was cold water in the refrigerator. Forget the milk and Sprite and Mountain Dew: there was cold water.

The Fifth Dimention and Common Sense

What is the fifth dimention? This is a problem I encountered randomly in the semi delirium of pre sleep. I have been thinking about it for several days, but I can't come up with a satisfactory answer. If you are not acquainted with the dimentions as I know them, then here they are: the first is a line, the second is a plane, and the third is space as we know it. The fourth is time, and I am pretty sure that the sixth is hyperspace, but I am not completely sure. For all I know it might be the fifth, and then I would have a puzzle about the sixth. A good friend of mine suggested that the fifth is gravity, which makes sense after a fashion, but it isn't as two dimentional as I would like it. (the fourth dimention seems to be equivalent in ways to the first, it is sort of a line, and the sixth, if it really is hyperspace, to the third, so it seems fitting that the fifth would have some correlation to the second, and would be rather two dimentional.) Jeremy suggested that the fifth and sixth dimentions were completely different: the first three are where, the fourth is when, so it would make sense if the fifth and sixth were, say, how and why.

To radically change the subject, I have realized that I have a total lack of common sense. I am very creative, I like to think of crazy things to do, but it is always Abraham or a friend of mine that actually figures out how to do it. I find this in contrast with the rest of my mentality: I love taking things that work badly and make them work better. (mechanical please. I can also do it to stories and music and computer programs, but mechanical is my favorite.)

I'll end with a joke: I borrowed Heisenberg's car, I looked at the speedometer, and got lost.

Quantum Mechanics

I found this list of quotes concerning quantum mechanics, and I got a laugh out of them. Here they are:

do not like it, and I am sorry I ever had anything to do with it.
Erwin Schrödinger, speaking of quantum mechanics
Those who are not shocked when they first come across quantum mechanics cannot possibly have understood it.
Niels Bohr (many variants exist)
God does not play dice with the cosmos.
Albert Einstein (several variants exist)
Who are you to tell God what to do?
Niels Bohr in response to Einstein
I think it is safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics.
Richard Feynman
It's always fun to learn something new about quantum mechanics.
Benjamin Schumacher
If that turns out to be true, I'll quit physics.
Max von Laue, Nobel Laureate 1914, of de Broglie's thesis on electrons having wave properties.
Anyone wanting to discuss a quantum mechanical problem had better understand and learn to apply quantum mechanics to that problem.
Willis Lamb, Nobel Laureate 1955
J.J. Thomson
"To the electron: may it never be of any use!" [said to have been posted on the Cavendish Lab wall]
Ernest Rutherford
(1912) "Bohr's different. He's a football player!" [alleged comment on Continental theorists]
Niels Bohr
"Anyone who is not shocked by quantum theory has not understood a single word."
"The very nature of the quantum theory ... forces us to regard the space-time coordination and the claim of causality, the union of which characterizes the classical theories, as complementary but exclusive features of the description, symbolizing the idealization of observation and description, respectively."
"There is no quantum world. There is only an abstract physical description. It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature."
"Your theory is crazy, but it's not crazy enough to be true." [to a young Physicist]
Groucho Marx
"Very interesting theory - it makes no sense at all."
Werner Heisenberg
"I myself . . . only came to believe in the uncertainty relations after many pangs of conscience. . . . "
Erwin Schrödinger
"Had I known that we were not going to get rid of this damned quantum jumping, I never would have involved myself in this business!"
Max Born
"One does not get an answer to the question, 'What is the state after collision?' but only to the question, 'How probable is a given effect of the collision?' From the standpoint of our quantum mechanics, there is no quantity which causally fixes the effect of a collision in an individual event. Should we hope to discover such properties later ... and determine [them] in individual events? ... I myself am inclined to renounce determinism in the atomic world, but that is a philosophical question for which physical arguments alone do not set standards."
Richard P. Feynman
"A philosopher once said, 'It is necessary for the very existence of science that the same conditions always produce the same results.' Well, they don't!" (1965)
(on quantum mechanics) "The paradox is only a conflict between reality and your feeling what reality ought to be."
"We have always had a great deal of difficulty understanding the world view that quantum mechanics represents. At least I do, because I'm an old enough man that I haven't got to the point that this stuff is obvious to me. Okay, I still get nervous with it.... You know how it always is, every new idea, it takes a generation or two until it becomes obvious that there's no real problem. I cannot define the real problem, therefore I suspect there's no real problem, but I'm not sure there's no real problem." (1982)
[with John Archibald Wheeler in Rev. Mod. Phys. 21, 425 (1949)]: "However unfamiliar this direct interparticle treatment compared to the electrodynamics of Maxwell and Lorentz, it deals with the same problems, talks about the same charges, considers the interactions of the same current elements, obtains the same capacitances, predicts the same inductances and yields the same physical conclusions. Consequently action-at-a-distance must have a close connection with field theory."
Lewis Carroll [from Through the Looking Glass]
'I can't believe that!' said Alice. 'Can't you?' the Queen said in a pitying tone. 'Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.' Alice laughed. 'There's no use trying,' she said; 'one cannot believe impossible things.' 'I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. 'When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'
David Bohm
[D. Bohm et al., Phys. Rep. 144, 321 (1987)]: "If the price of avoiding non-locality is to make an intuitive explanation impossible, one has to ask whether the cost is too great."
Albert Einstein
(after Heisenberg's 1927 lecture) "Marvelous, what ideas the young people have these days. But I don't believe a word of it."
"Quantum mechanics is very impressive. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory produces a good deal but hardly brings us closer to the secret of the Old One. I am at all events convinced that He does not play dice."
"It seems hard to look in God's cards. But I cannot for a moment believe that He plays dice and makes use of 'telepathic' means (as the current quantum theory alleges He does)."
"What nature demands from us is not a quantum theory or a wave theory; rather, nature demands from us a synthesis of these two views which thus far has exceeded the mental powers of physicists."
"However I cannot seriously believe in it because the theory is incompatible with the principle that physics is to represent reality in space and time, without spookish long-distance effects."
"The Heisenberg-Bohr tranquilizing philosophy - or religion? - is so delicately contrived that, for the time being, it provides a gentle pillow for the true believer from which he cannot very easily be aroused. So let him lie there." [Einstein and Bohr did not often see eye to eye.] - contributed by Jeff La Porte

I got them from Wikiquotes. There is some really funny stuff out there.

Rain, Scorpions, and Deadlines

Today and last night have been some of the most stressful hours of my life. Today was the deadline for several things, including a test, (which I wasn't allowed to take unless I spent about five hours doing a review, which I was assigned two days ago,) and a game about the American Civil War, which Jeremy set up and I should have done something with several weeks ago. I just finished taking the test, and it looks like I will be passing this year, going to Socotra, and feeling good about myself before I play some runescape.

Today, we welded the back two legs onto our scorpion monument, and the thing is strong enough to carry its own weight! So far, we need to attach the tail, which needs a stinger and another segment, and the claws, which we have put together but which have yet to be attached to the body, the head (or cephelothorax to use our teacher's term) and the third sets of legs. It is really exciting to see the scorpion coming together, it seems like it took forever to get this far, what with all the wire models we did before we actually got the steel grinder and the angle cutters and the welder out, and then it took forever to figure out how to use them. However, we now know how to use them, and the part of the class that really cares about the project is really excited.

It is raining today. It rained yesterday as well (which is when I learned that welders don't work while they are wet, and it is raining.) I love it when it rains. It rains every day for a month in spring, and then not at all for the rest of the year, so when that month rolls around, I have fun. (I suspect that rain makes me more active than I normally am, I certainly feel more energetic.) at any rate, It looks like I have a good 40 minutes to play Runescape.

Track Meet and Weekend.

Yesterday was the annual track meet. I have been rather busy lately as a result of it, but it somehow missed getting posted about. At any rate, I competed in three events: shot put (I did really bad) discus, (really bad) and high jump (first.) I have a sneaking suspicion that my parents are prouder of the medal hanging in my room than I am. I cleared 170 cm, which is roughly a yard and three quarters: I can nearly jump over my best friend. He, however, can chuck a discus about a half again what I can, so fair's fair I guess. That was the first time I had ever won high jump, and since it is my favorite field event, I am rather pleased with myself. At any rate, the meet took from eight in the morning to four in the afternoon. I was fried. I went home, took a shower, and then went to youth group, went home and went to bed. The next thing I knew, I had over slept to my AP chemistry class, I got home, only to have lunch, and this is the first chance to post I have gotten in a while. If this is any indication of what the rest of my weekend is going to look like, I am terrified. Tonight, the youth group is having a progressive dinner, so it does indeed look like it is. At any rate, hectic is good, so I guess I'll have plenty to do...

My Hand

I have ripped up my right hand today. In sixth period today, I had to reduce a dead tree to firewood, and it wasn't just a tree either: it was a thorn tree... At any rate, I had an axe, and I had knocked all or at least most of the trouble branches off, and I was getting into the trunk of the tree. I had hacked at it for a while, but then I got bored of hacking, (partly because I had already acquired a great granddaddy of a blister as well as several minions) and so I attacked it with leverage, trying to pull one end of the trunk up, while keeping the middle down. Fortunately, the trunk was neither very long or very wide, but it was big enough. At any rate, I pulled and pulled, and got thorns in my hands for the effort, before I gave up and my little brother walked over and ripped it apart. All that effort for naught. I was to be had. Latter that afternoon, The entire SIS (my school) track team up and went out to view the stadium that the meet is going to be held in, and to do some practice. The only problem was that I am in high jump, shot put, and discus, and we weren't supposed to throw either shot or discus today in an effort to save the grass, and The high jump pit is rather ungainly, so they didn't bring that either. So I got to soften up the long jump pit which hadn't been used for an entire year by the look of it, and the "sand" had all petrified into some sort of bullet/shovel proof mess. I was given a shovel and was told to attack the pit. I did so, and summarily, I broke the shovel on a rock. It wasn't a small shovel either. It was one of those really "strong" shovels with a five or six centimeter diameter solid wooden handle. Came right apart, after leaving another blister. This was all after I played guitar and discovered a new fascinating noise that you could make with the side of your hand. Sadly, The side of my hand, (my pinkie finger particularly) has a big scab on it now. This sounds like I am simply posting to complain, but really, I think it is hilarious, (though my hand does hurt some), and reducing the tree was fun, as was the guitar... Try to look at this as another episode of a series of unfortunate events: the main thing I am trying to have going is humor. At any rate, prayer would be appreciated...

Explorer Catastrophies

I think my Internet Explorer crashed. The crazy thing gave all the template settings to websites before they displayed what was written, and that was left alligned. It was very unnerving to see Andrew's blog reduced to a white background. I have come to really like that nice blue color. I killed that instance of Explorer, and the problem went away (I think/hope) but it was really weird none the less.

I think I may have lost my character in Runescape. The runescape server went offline, and I think it took my character with it. I hope that they log me off for me, because I can't log on to log off: I have no way of knowing that I am not dead.

My New Blog

I am starting a new blog, one devoted to RPG gaming ideas. Hopefully it will be more successful than this one, which has taken forever to get any comments whatsoever at all. Thanks to those of you who do comment. At any rate, it is a blog you can just jump into if you are into RPGs and become part of the team. The whole idea is merely to throw ideas around, so essentially, the only rule of conduct is this: you must be respectful of other people's ideas. Here's the link: http://www.rpgthoughts.blogspot.com drop by if you are interested.

Runescape, Computer I, and (of all things) My Game

I have been rather busy of late, US history has been trying to kill me, literally. At any rate, I have been introduced to a very nice game galled runescape. It is an internet game that you can get to by going to http://www.miniclip.com it should be the top game on the left. It takes a while to load, and a long time to play, (in fact, it doesn't really have an end) so anyone with limited time or a dial up connection would be in some large degree of boredom, but everyone else with free time, it is a great game.

I had Mrs. PC as a sub again today in two classes. My school is writing new curriculum, so all the smart regular teachers are offline, and all we have are really annoying lousy teachers, and people who apparently have never seen sigma notation... (I'm not actually in caculus, but I like to think I am.) at any rate, she apparently thought that she knew computers (one of the classes I had her for was Computer I: the worlds dumbest class) where she supposedly taught me how to auto fill boxes in Excel. I was, needless to say, aware of the procedure, and told her as much. Her revenge came in the form of making me help her with all the problems she didn't understand. Sneaking internet games and chat programs by her was a trick though.

The other thing I have been doing recently is game design. I have successfully designed one game that works marginally for about the first three levels, but falls apart after that. Surveys revealed that it was 100% successful, everyone that played it liked it. Unfortunately, they liked it a tad too much and came begging for more. Unfortunately some more, I am the only one who knows the game intimately enough to host the game, so I have never actually played my own game. I am in the progress of writing a second simpler (hopefully) more defined game (hopefully some more) and I am adding things I missed out in the first game, such as classes. So far I have cleric, dark cleric, mage, archer, swordsman, thief, assassin, pirate, and several other I have forgotten at the moment. Strangely enough, I can't think of a whole lot more. If you could post comments with class suggestions I would be much obliged.

Restlessness and my Imagination

I am feeling restless. I can't sit still and do the same thing for more than half an hour without desperately wanting to get up and do something else. For me this is completely off the charts in bizarity. I have been known to sit still and not do anything except letting my mind wander in my many wonderland, where either I am wanted by the CIA for who knows what and I repel an attack on my home single-handedly using weapons of my own design from the best trained strike team on the face of the earth, or where I am some sort of knight back in the dark ages, wielding a sword, bringing justice to earth, or I am some whacked out magician on Antarctica before the last Ice age came as a result of the dark mages' greed for power, or some other nuty thing. I have also been known to read a book for six straight hours, not getting a drink, food, or taking any other sort of break. Being this restless is really starting to creep me out.

Relatives Galore

This morning, my lit teacher was sick, so we had an interesting lit class. Our sub was a strange lady. I had never seen her before, and she said to call her Mrs. PC. Go figure. She said she had some funny name like Pedro C....tzee. I forget how the middle part goes, but anyway, she wanted us silent, and when we did quiet down, she would smash in and start a new conversation. Whenever she wanted to address the class as a whole, she always started or ended the sentence with "Students," which utterly creeped me out. I felt like I was back in preschool. She ranted on our bad habits, and then let us out of class ten minutes early. It was bizarre. During the time between when we finished our work and the time we were dismissed, my classmates discussed (of all things) how they were all related to each other. Not through the imagination or some other kooky mess, but in all actuality. Ghassan and Abraham only today discovered that they were either second cousins, first cousins, nephew/uncle, or great uncle. The really creepy thing was that Sami, (a Somalian) was the one who knew all the relations. He managed to give Abe and Ghassan a quarter hour discourse on how they were related to each other that was very confusing, hence the multiple relations, with out repeating himself once. I knew that Yemenis often intermarried, especially amongst the higher levels of the government for diplomatic reasons, but I had no idea that they were that bad. At any rate, I spent a quarter of an hour listening to this mess that went something like this:

Sami: So his mother's mother's brother was the old president, who married your father's uncle's mother in law.

Abe: No, you just said that he married his mother's mother' great grand niece

Sami: No, that was the old Shiekh. This is the old President.

Ghassan: Yeah, the Arriani one, before Ali Abdula Saleh.

Abe: Oh. So that would make you my...

Sami: Here, let me draw you a family tree.

At any rate, this went on for a while, and about four family trees were drawn, none of which helped anything, if not hindered, leaving them with several different possible relations. For all I know, it might be all of them, or at least some whacked out combination. The scarry thing was that Sami knew the entire thing. He dismantled Yemeni government, business, and something else by houses, and then proved several other things by other references in the school, such as Hassim is Tarek's uncle, who are Ghassan's cousins who is distantly related to Kanan, who is the president's grandson, etc. The way he could carry on was simply terrifying.

My Crazy Weekend

This will probably be a bit of a long post, but any way, here goes. It all started Wednesday. School ended, and we had the first "official" football game in the history of Yemen. Unfortunately it was only flag football and not the full body tackle thing that I love, (probably a good thing considering the field) but it was football all the same, even if both sides were sadly deficient in almost every aspect. No crowds, no screaming, no waves, no hotdogs, no victory music, no injuries, nothing. At any rate, when that finished, I took the bus home, took a shower, and then imediately went to youth group. When Youth Group ended, I went to Jeffrey's house for a night over, as it was his birthday. We stayed up until midnight watching Startreck IV, (good if you like Startreck) and then went to sleep. The next morning (Thursday) dawned, and we rose far latter, and went out for breakfast at a small restaurant near Jeffrey's house. Around 8:45 I had to leave for AP Chem... =( when that ended, I hung around for a while, and then went home, and finally beat Jedi Academy. (bad game. Unpredictable graphics and sound) before going to bed. Friday, my family and I got ready for church half way across the city. Several Indians showed up for transportation, and we got there with little trouble. Once there how ever, Mom had plants for us to carry in. We did so, and in the process, one of the Indians knocked into me and I had damp dirt all over me. Indians are the one ethnic group that I am inclined to be biased against. It might just be their culture, but they typically are very relaxed about helping anyone, and they take a very non participatory in church. The two or three of the many in our church that help out have my complete admiration, but the rest don't ever seem to do anything. At any rate, there was a ping pong table in the basement, and David Park, Mr. Park, Mr. Barbo, a Korean lady and I played ping pong. I beat David twice, a serious accomplishment in my opinion, only to be beaten by both Mr. Barbo and Mr. Park. I didn't get to play against the Korean lady, who was the first serious female ping pong player I have ever met. (man, this post is making me sound more racist and sexist than I actually am. Really.) At any rate, I went home, did homework, and then went to a Youth Group Softball match between the Parents against the Youth and the kids. We were creamed. I came home, finished my homework and went to bed. It took forever to finish the weekend, but in retrospect it took hardly any time at all. So now I am in computer one class "learning" how to use Microsoft Excel and blogging, looking forward to a short afternoon (my mom has piano lessons, and among the students are several friends of mine, so I won't get much time to myself this afternoon. Tomorrow I have track practice after school, as well as Tuesday, and Monday I have other obligations. I will have very little time to myself it looks like, for about the next week.

Driving and Doom

I may have to take driving lessons this summer. I have been trying to put them off, as I will get far more responsibility than I want when I learn to drive. My fears are thus: 1. Mom and Dad will pawn off all their driving errands onto me. 2. I will probably get to drive my little siblings around town. 3. I will have to pay for fuel, and I want an iPod, a base guitar, and a steel string guitar. Also, there is nowhere in town that I want to go to that I can't get to via public transportation, (which my parents pay for.) there is simply no reason for me to drive here. However, I think my dad is conspiring against me: he has (I think) rigged up some sort of driver's ed thing in Indiana, so that I can drive back to TN for my parents, and then I can do all the aforesaid horrors for them once I get back.

Nerds Anonymous

I love my pre calculus class. Our teacher is from the UK, and then their are four students: a kid from Germany, a Somali, a Yemeni, and then myself. The only American. In addition, everyone has some kind of querk. Our teacher is a techee, he uploads world news to his cell phone every day and has seemingly random trig values memorized. The Somali dismantles computers and adds chips, The German programs graphing calculators, our Yemeni can do roots in his head, and I program computers. At the beginning of the year, there were only two students. The German and myself. We have made everyone prove their nerd hood before initiating them into the class. Our teacher decided to call it "Nerds Anonymous" a name that was heartily approved of by all the students.

Our Game

Recently, my friend and I have been noticing strange behavior from the girls. They completely ignore us. We say hello. They don't even look up. Bad story. At any rate, it has almost developed into a game with me and my friend. Often times there are just one or two girls in the hall between our class and the pingpong tables right at the beginning of lunch (which we use to play pingpong), so we wave, and yell hello at them. Not so much as a flicker of recognition: "oh! There is someone else in the room with me!" Nope. Nothing. Nothing whatsoever at all. At any rate, it has developed into a joke between my friend and myself when he started it one day when he said, "alright. If we can get them to notice us, we win." We have yet to win. I find it funny, if majorly disturbing.

Irony and Alchemy

Last night the power went out again at our place (a common occurrence here in the netherworld) while I was studying AP Chemistry. Not a favorite subject, but it needed to get done, so I went and got a candle. After studying thermodynamics and thermochemistry for a while I sat up and felt totally like an alchemist. Amusing in this "modern" age. Which reminded me of when I studied computer programming by candle light. I got a good kick out of that. I am considering starting a list. The heading would go something like "comical studies by candle light" or something like that.

Guitars, Stupidity, and Laughs

Recently, I have been doing a lot of really dumb things, that in retrospect I have been getting a kick out of. For example, I had to change a string on my new electric guitar for the first time. I looked at it for a while before deciding that I had to remove the entire back of the guitar to do so. I did that, and successfully changed the string. The next day, looking at the back of the guitar, I noticed a grill through which you can change the strings without utterly dismantling the guitar. Maybe that is a bit of an overstatement, as I only had to remove five screws and slide the back plate over, but all the same it was kinda funny. The insides of my guitar are really interesting though: (to me at any rate) there are three really big springs (for the whammy bar) some wires (...) and six slots for the strings to fit through. I might dismantle it again just to fool around with the insides... nah, probably not, I paid to much for my baby, but you get the gist of what I'm saying.

It Was Stupid Alright

I don't think I need to say anymore, but I will. I had the moderate comments on, and I hadn't given it my e-mail address. When I fooled around with Google help I figured out what I was doing wrong. I think that three comments vanished into cyberspace all the same, but I don't think that I will have that problem again. Sorry if yours was one of them.

Internet and Birthday Catastrophes

Well, this is indeed uncool. My dashboard says that I have 8 posts, and I can't see any of them. I am probably doing something really dumb with the settings or the template or some such nonsense. I am not an old know nothing when it comes to computers, I can program in C++, I have, in fact written my own (unbeatable due to some glitch) computer game that all my friends hated me for, network computers, and play games with great alacrity, but when it comes to the internet, I am toast. I recently printed off a page of html code lingo so that I could get the gist of what my template was doing, but it was still mostly lost to me... While I am listing all the bad things that ever happened to me, I might as well inform you all about all the catastrophes that my birthday party went through before it even happened: I was going to have an Age of Empires II fest with seven other kids wirelessly, but the network crashed and so the entire party has been reworked. Tomorow I am going to have a movie, and there are no good movie rental stores in Yemen, and there are no theaters unless you want to watch Indian kickboxing with Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and French subtitles (no english), so I asked several friends if they had any good movies they were willing to watch again, and it turns out that they have all been loaned off somewhere.

Random Recollections

Yesterday was kinda whacked: it was a random collection of lucky and unlucky events. Firstly, it was my birthday, and my school had school canceled for the Islamic new year, which was nice: I got to sleep in for the first time in several weeks that I got to sleep in. AP chemistry has been eating my weekend sleep for the past month now. The down sides were that I got sick and the computer deleted my latest in music composition. I started over, because I liked it, but it is going to take a while to get the mess back to its former "glory." I think I used a different beat, but I think the tune and chords are roughly the same. At any rate, I have AP chemistry tomorrow (bleuagh! Run in terror for your life! It is after you, and this time you have reason to be paranoid!) and youth group tonight, so I'm going to have to hype myself up on caffeine to survive all four hours of it tomorrow.

I borrowed a book called the Opal Deception from a friend of mine recently, fourth in the Artemis Fowl series (I'm not sure I spelled that correctly). At any rate, it is a good simple read, better if you need a laugh, but I would recommend that you get the first one first, because it is sort of a single long story: you need to know everything that went on beforehand to understand this book. The other books were just as good though, so don't worry if you really want to read this one but are terrified of having to slog through pages of dull future classics material.

I wanted this on the side bar really tall, and this looks horrible, but I'll leave it for now... 

Pingpong Problems

I have forgotten how to play pingpong. I switched styles from spinning with my backhand to slamming with my forehand, but that didn't work so well, and when I switched back to backhand, that didn't work so well either. The result was that I was completely wiped out by my friend when I played him.

The Edomites

while buzzing my friend Andrew's blog, I found a link to the Edomites, and in curiosity, I clicked it, only to get one of the best laughs of my life on their apparently half serious parody of the constitution of the US: the constitution of Christain Bloggers. If you need a good laugh, you should try it. I have the site linked, but just in case I change everything and forget to put it back in, it's http://www.edomites.blogspot.com

Commenting Success

I just tried posting a comment again, and the crazy thing worked. Here's to internet *quaffs an imaginary beer* the thing is nuts, but it sure can be some fun. (Untill Dad finds that you spent your afternoon blogging, playing online games, and reading when you should have been doing homework...) At anyrate, I am rather enjoying this blogging buisness, although I will probably drop it in two weeks or so just like almost every single last hobby I have ever had when I get bored of it...

Computer Musings

I have been using Google for a lot of things recently. Search engine, e-mail, blogging, etc., and they know what they are doing. It almost looks like they are preparing to take over the world: they are some sort of society that is run by some alien mastermind on pluto who knows humanity inside and out, and is running all other communication systems off of the net, so that when the aliens are ready to take over, all they have to do is crash all their programs and the world would be there for the taking. (I only sound paranoid and delusional, I am not really, I simply have an "over active imagination".) At any rate, whoever they are and what ever they are trying to do they certainly know their computers. I have recently had computer problems cleared up by their comprehensive help site which is so much better than Microsoft's that I have now officially given up on Microsoft's help system (which I have hated for years.)

They are not without their problems though, I can't post comments on other people's sites and at the moment, they can't post on mine, which ranks upwards of the top ten uncool things for my computer to do. It may have something to do with me being in a different country (Yemen for those of you unaware of my history and shortcomings), and it could be that I have some settings on my computer set too high or it could be some other plethera of problems, or it could be some combination of errors. It is amazing that computers work at all considering that they work in binary, and a single digit change can crash certain programs...