An update!

So. Inspired by Eric's lovely discovery of What's Hannenin', another one of Soulja Boy Tell 'Em's generous gifts to this world, I decided to do a little more research on the one they call Soulja Boy Tell 'Em. Aside from his enigmatic stage name (who's doing the telling? why is his name a verb, and not a noun?), it is his album names that made me wonder the most at what this world has come to:

iSouljaBoyTellEm - This is the name of the latest album of Soulja Boy Tell 'Em. I think I know what he did here. I removed all the spaces and punctuation from his name and slapped a lower case "i" in front of it. I'm not really sure what this signifies. It's about as mysterious as iCarly, which I am still confused about. It seems like people are assuming that the American public will automatically think something is cool just by putting a "i" in front of a name. The lower case "i" generally signifies a connection to technology, like the names "iPod" or "iMac" invoke. At least iCarly has some remote connection to the Internet and the Web. I am still mystified as to what iSouljaBoyTellEm means. If you didn't tell me that this was the name of one of his actual albums, I would think that it was a cheap Chinese counterfeit of one of his other albums...

souljaboytellem.com - Yes. He actually named an album after his website. If this is an attempt to confuse the general public, congratulations, Soulja Boy Tell 'Em. You've done it. I thought that this took the cake for sheer stupidity in album naming conventions. I thought there could not be anything worse. Until I saw,

Unsigned & Still Major: Da Album Before da Album - In Soulja Boy Tell 'Em's first album, I think he really outdid himself. I'm going to just give you guys a minute to just think about this album name. Da Album Before da Album. No clue as to why the first "Da" is capitalized. What is "da Album?" What if he never released another album? Why wasn't his second album called "da Album?" Once you guys have gained some sense of rational thought back and English competency, please, move on with my post.

• [CHART] Security of slot machines vs. voting machines - Although I'm not saying I'm protesting the results of the election, but its a sad state of affairs when people value the handling of money over the handling of the government.


• [VIDEO] Bing Bong Brothers - This is a video from the same folks that made the now wildly popular Jizz In My Pants. I think the video is self-explanatory.


• [IMAGE] The Decline of Civilization - OKAY!

san ta ftw

Yesterday we were driving on the highway in PA for an hour to go eat at this awesome buffet. Well. That's not really that important, it's what I saw. In the middle of nowhere, while on the highway, I saw something unbelievable. There was this huge sign and building for the University of Phoenix. Yes. It exists outside of the internet. Our questions have been answered. It's real. Well that's about it.


... Still no cheesesteak :(

This year, my new years resolutions are going to be HD and in complete 16:9 aspect ratio. But really. I plan to work out more and get in shape.

Which probably involves eating less.

And picking up the slack on my schoolwork.

I need A's again.

Don't forget to check out the 2007 Hubloggies and nominate your favorite moments/whatevers. In a few days, I'll close nominations and put together a master list for you guys to cast one (a single) (1) vote for each category. I didn't realize how much work that might involve until right about now.

• [ARTICLE] JK Rowling drops hints of possible 8th book - We can all hope, eh? Maybe Harry'll actually die. Although I'm kind of satisfied with the say the main story arc ended, so I'm not sure if I really want to see more of Harry. Maybe an exploration of Neville is in order?


• [VIDEO] How not to interview John Cusack - Wait. Was he the guy in The Day After Tomorrow? Or was he the one in Mystic River?


• [IMAGE] When you see it, you will shit bricks - Believe me. The first time I saw this, I was shaking for at least a minute afterwards. I can't remember if I've posted this before, but its worth a second posting. They need reaction videos for this picture. Post your reactions in the comments...

ufo ftw

Dora the Explorer promotes peer pressure.
She may also be an illegal immigrant. In whatever crazy land she lives in. Either that or she's a drug user. Along with Bob the Builder.

Skiing was pretty freaking awesome. The mountain we went to had a steep learning curve. The training slope was like 10 feet long, and had a slope of around 30 degrees. The very first actual slope [the easiest one] was like a mile long, freaking 80 degree incline, and sharp turns. It was insaaaaaaane. Ridiculous. But fun. The emotions I felt throughout the process of skiing went a bit like this. Cold -> Embarassment -> Fun -> Leaving training area -> fun -> sheer terror -> pain -> few hours later -> Super awesome fun. Steep learning curve, high pay off.

Still no cheese steak :(

Philadelphia is a city. Not a state. Now who ever thought it was a state? Well lots of people of course. I am just here to educate. :D

God, I blow hairy ass at geography.


So I am here now for a few days and we are going Snowboarding/skiing tomorrow. Kick ass. Pizza, french fry, pizza, french fry. If you don't do it right, you're gonna have a bad time.

On the way up here, I saw a sign in Delaware. A street sign. One of those diamond yellow ones. I am 100% serious about this. No lies. It said, in huge letters "DEAF CHILD." Is it bad that I laughed? Well that wasn't all. Not far after it, there was a similar sign, but instead a huge image of a kid running. Now a kid running isn't funny, but a silhouette of a west-wing looking kid next to a DEAF CHILD sign is. Now I don't know if it's good or bad that they have signs like this. I do know one thing though. It's damn hilarious.



...and no. I have not encountered any cheese steak yet.

So a few weeks ago, I went to go see Enchanted, that new Disney movie. I had high hopes, seeing as it received 89% on the Tomatometer. Yes, indeed, it was CERTIFIED FRESH! I hate to say something so clichéd, but I must say that I was enchanted. So, I'll shamelessly plug and urge you to go see it in theatres before it gets sent to the murky depths we lovingly call DVD and cable television.

Now, in case you didn't know, last week was exam week here at Norfolk Academy. And exam week means to me, in some perverse way, a time to slack off with NO HOMEWORK!!! And of course, it means the end of first semester and that grades go in. I've already begun looking at colleges and investigating music programs. Have any of you guys started yet?

In other news: I'M THE PRINCE!!! Yaya! Okay, so it's Rogers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, performed by Norfolk Academy students. Performance dates are: February 22-24. More info coming...

Also, Merry Christmas, everyone! David, I must say that was a creative poem. I laughed, I cried. What can I say? I heeded the call to visit more often. =] And as my Christmas message, I wanna tell you all to laugh as much as you can because someday, your biggest Christmas wish may be as simple as a good laugh. Why not start now?

Now, my parents don't want me to be blogging, so this will be my last second-to-last post. The last one will bear the schedule for Cinderella. Just wanna say: MERRY CHRISTMAS and HAPPY NEW YEAR'S. Here's to a great 2008. Hope to see you all soon!

Peace.

Consider this a little gift from me to you.

Eye candy?

No, not something like Alba, sorry.

Green Eye.

New character. and spruced up in photoshop. Cyclops+The Thing?

Robo.

I could go really corny and put the lyrics from that Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto song on here, but I won't.

Just enjoy it, okay?

Green Ghost.

Attempting to make some new characters. Shading really makes things better.

Alice.

This WAS one small thing that I gave to heiiiidii for christmas. Just a little thing. Ho ho ho =]

DONT WORRY. I WILL FIND A WAY TO PRINT THE REST OF YOUR GIFT, HEIDI.

Monsturr.

Poor cities. Drawing with a mouse really sucks.

Leap and Fly.

A bit of a random concept? Still messing with vectors. See if you get the message.

Hope you guys enjoy this big update. Wanted to put something up before the year ends. Hopefully, the next year will mean better designs and much more to come.

So this long year is finally drawing to a close and it wouldn't be proper to close out the year without some sort of recognition for the good times and the bad, the crazy times and the... well, crazier ones.

And thus I announce the first ever Hubloggies, where we recognize the year that has passed. Produced below are categories of awards and now its up to you guys to nominate candidates in the comments of this post. Depending on the category, the candidate can be a favorite moment, article, post, whatever. I am not limiting the number of nominations a person can nominate per category; you don't even have to nominate something for every category - there's a bunch of them and its a lot of work.

Nominations close in a week and on January 2 (or around then) I'll have a list of the final nominees. The voting mechanism will most likely consist of you guys emailing me your choices and me doing a tally. But all that stuff can be worked out later.

And now, the categories for the 2007 Hubloggies.


Best Post

Best Bloob

Best Link in a Post

Favorite Courtyard Moment

Favorite Moment During Class

Best Quote

Best Party

Biggest Surprise

Biggest Disappointment

Most Awkward Relationship Moment (award sponsored by Deeva)

Best of...
Music
Movies
TV Shows
Online Video
Literature
Video Games
Sports


So, in your comment just type out the category name and your nomination. If its a moment, try to make it short but concise and accurate. If its something online, try to include a URL.

Have fun.

(write-in categories and nominees will only be considered if there is enough support)

To say, I love you.

But you didn't answer the phone.

So I had to leave a message.

Did you get it?





Yeah. I don't know anymore.

When things change, there are two options: things will either be better or worse than they were before. When things change, a person is given two options for reactions: enthusiasm or disdain. When things change, a human has two mentalities: optimism or pessimism. When things change, an organism can behave two ways: aggressively or acceptingly.

When you pull everything together, change can be a real messy thing.

But change is good.

Right?

...

Right?

I like talking about my problems cryptically. It makes me feel better. Those of you who don't keep an active blog should consider it.

Speaking of your websites, allow me the opportunity to plug a few:

• onewhoisweird Xanga - Krista's Xanga, always full of insight and and inspiration. A good place similar to this for intellectual discussion.
• Rusty Pliers MySpace - Krista's band. Support.
• Twilight Wishes - The Eastereggs' site. Honestly, its refreshing and heart-warming to know that whenever I think of a clever HTML joke, someone can understand it.[/dry wit] And seeing the talent on this site, I have confidence in their TQ team, in terms of web design at least.
• d.aweed.us - My personal CV/resume/professional website. Although "personal professional website" creates a bit of an oxymoron. Know anyone who needs a website? Direct them to check out daweedus. (Davidus). I am available to take some jobs, although maybe just minor ones.

Now, for the regular Dailies. More like Weeklies. I think I've said that before. Hopefully I can find time to write more over the break. Maybe make cool flash game? Give me some ideas?

• [PICTURE] Unusual road sign - Probably somewhere in Japan. Or Elbow Road.


• [VIDEO] Bustin' moves during a wheelbarrow race - Someone needs to teach me how to do this.


• [ARTICLE] 11 "Don't-Tell-The-Wife" secrets all men keep - Basically, we love you no matter what. Even if you are a terrible, terrible, horrible driver. Its surprising how true most of this stuff is. Ladies in relationships out there, study this well.

jeans FTLLL

The most difficult part for me when writing a post is thinking of a title. Should I reference lyrics of a song I'm listening to right now? Should I reference something obscure that only two people in Latin class would get? Should I finish a post then title it accordingly? Since the title is the first field on this post form, this intensifies the dilemma. Once I start a post, though, things just seem to flow.

Whatever the hell these things may be.

So I went ice skating for the first time yesterday. I was quite terrible, actually. Fell like five or six times I think. And there was something wrong with my skates so now I have a terrible mark on my left ankle that stings whenever something touches it. In other words, I walk with a kind of limp now. But it was fun. Not the limping. The skating.

Finally next week is the last week. Maybe I can finally get some rest. Hopefully. Since some of you guys have asked, I'll now give you a brief list of what I want for Christmas, with the most-wanted being first:

1. Time
2. Sleep
3. Sex

Just kidding. (about the sleep)

• [ARTICLE] Student with knife arrested - The state of public schools in America makes me sad. It seems like every other week there is a stabbing, shooting, or rape at some public school in America. It sickens me how completely twisted some of our youth are today. Take this story for example. In Orlando, a 10-year-old girl was arrested for bringing a knife to school and cutting slicing mutilating viciously gutting and repeatedly eviscerating her food with it. It was reported that before she cut her food, she yelled out the name of her gang and cried out something about "revenging" one of her fallen friends. Please. This human-food gang feud in our schools needs to stop. We all know someone who has been hurt by animal crackers or nearly killed by mashed potatoes. But at some point, we need to settle our differences and learn to cooperate. Until we reconcile, I don't think that anything will stop our children (and the whole future of America) from bringing deadly weapons into school. Before this, some of my best friends were french fries. However, with this division set upon us, I'm afraid the only time I can get to see my fried companions is when I bribe the lunch lady with an extra 50 cents.


• [COMIC] So that's why they did it. - Explains the lovely origins of 2g1c.


• [VIDEO] Mike Huckabee is not running to be an eighth-grade science teacher - Watch and cringe in pain as Mike Huckabee denies the existence of evolution and completely mutilates and eviscerates the concept of evolution as being just an "accident." He also claims that topics such as these should not be a simple "yes/no" proposition during a debate. I disagree. The reason politicians do not like the yes/no parts of a debate is that during these times, a candidate's actual policies shine through. No political mumbo jumbo and clever choice of words can hide your neolithic and backwards view of the world, Mr. Huckabee. I believe that this topic of evolution is very important to me, as a voter next year. I want to know that whoever I'm electing has an appreciation for science and reasoning, and that this candidate will not cave in to external pressures when trying to develop a policy on scientific research. I think it was McCain who claimed that we were wasting federal money doing scientific research on some niche topic. I could not believe what he said. Without broad scientific research (even in niche areas), how can humans understand to the full extent their world? Oh wait. Thats right. We already do. God did it. And that's all we care about.

hil ary PWN ED ftw

In writing up this post, I am delaying working on my FIOP a little bit longer. I still have a number of sections to write and I'm presenting on Tuesday.

Like a lot of things, its a risk I'm willing to take.

Basically spent the whole day with young kids and old people. Taught theory today, depressing how little they know at this point. I understand now why teachers raise their voices. They are frustrated. They pour their heart and soul into their job, and their kids crush them as if on a steamroller. But I still think it feels good. It feels good to educate. Maybe I'll become a teacher when I retire. After all, they do make a hell of a lot.

Then I went with Interact to an old people home. It went pretty well, except that is always awkward trying to be enthusiastic around old people when all they return to you is a stare. Not even a stare of tempting encouragement. Just a stare.

And I just realized my finger is bleeding. No idea where I got the cut from.

• Wikipedia founder: Teachers banning use of Wikipedia are "bad educators" - Speaking of teachers, Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia, has changed his stance a little bit on educational use of Wikipedia. Now he claims that "younger students" should be able to use Wikipedia as a reliable source, as long as an article has proper citations. However, he still cautions against scholarly and university-level research based on Wikipedia. I agree with this sentiment wholly. A third grader needs to do a report on pandas. Where else would he go? Encyclopedias. Of which Wikipedia is one of the best. However, the "proper citations" mumbo jumbo is complete BS. No body really checks the citations at the bottom, anyways.


• 15 in-demand careers and their college majors - Looks like doctor and lawyer didn't make the list. I guess they really just need more librarians.


• 2 Girls 1 Cup: An Essay - A thoughtful, intelligent, examination of this beloved "masterful modern work" which "raises more questions than it answers." Ah. The innocuous 2 girls and 1 cup.

re bel ftw

Psychedelic.

Wanted to dedicate another design to the guitar god himself. =-o

I never have time for this anymore. =/

For those who actually believed me and Deeva when I said that I was going to California to transfer schools, November Fools!

I actually went to California for my Grandma's funeral. Deeva just sorta made that whole story during 20 minute break and I went along with it.

So yeah. I'll be staying in Virginia. I know, how unfortunate.



Saaaaave me.

Do you know the feeling you get when you know something life-altering is going to happen? When you recognize the future holds a dark mist, shielding all foresight? When you realize the rest of your life could hang in the balance of a few moments? When you see the domino about to be pushed, setting in motion events that could affect you when you are on your deathbed? I hope you do. I hope you know these feelings.

Because I don't. I wish I did.

But my mind says I have other, bigger things to worry about. Supposedly.

I wish I didn't.

I hope eventually I can learn to love.

--

If you were to analyze this post for its literary qualities, now is when a shift in tone occurs. The title represents, vaguely, part of my life. In terms of external structure, the first paragraph is longer than all the rest and is full of rhetorical questions, emphasizing the uncertain nature of myself right now. What follows are rapid, quick sentences, indicating perhaps I was tired; however, they also perhaps contain quick and concise representations of my thoughts. And this part. Is like. Totally meta, dude.

Took the SATs yesterday. Totally murderous. Its been a while since I've taken a 4.5-hour test. Last time I took a test that long was last year's SATs. I do feel like I did better this time, though, especially on the essay. However, this isn't going to stop me from taking it in March again. Unless I perform exceptionally well. Which I doubt.

And now, here are the Dailies. I would really like to comment on what has been firing up game blogs in recent days (and basically everything i've been reading online for the past 48 hours), the firing of Jeff Gerstmann of GameSpot, but that is too niche of a topic to post about and only Eric and I probably care. Maybe myself more because when I had time to read about video games, I really was a big fan of Jeff's work. If you want to read about what's going on, that link provides a pretty useful summary.

And now, here are the Dailies.

Damn. What a long post.

• [PICTURE] So that's where they got the idea from - In a world of cups and girls, this is all too poignant.


• [VIDEO] Treeman will come and eat your babies - This may be one of the creepiest videos you will ever see. Technically, these things are known as cutaneous horns, but untechnically, they're damn BRANCHES.


• [ARTICLE] About making good decisions on the road - Touching article about a selfless driver who risked his own truck to try and prevent a crash. Now the question becomes, what would you have done?

Wow. I spent quite some time on this post.

ger stm ann ftw

I'm not going to bitch and moan about how the break is almost over, everyone has been doing enough of that already. And I don't want to be reminded of the shovelfuls of work we have waiting for us. Shovelfuls? Is that actually a word? Ah, damn. I just did.

Apparently, if you head out to your local Best Buy early enough tomorrow morning, there should be a handful of PS3's (25). This could be Parth's chance. Actually, there probably won't be any people out there. 360 ftw.

Do you like this three-key exposition? Notice it? Only the masters do it.

• What superhero are you? - Yeah, I know, its another one of those lame quiz things. But I found it intruiging at least. I turned out to be Spider-Man. Sweet. Don't forget to take the villian one as well. I was Dr. Doom. The guy with the screwed up face.


• World's worst website - Aaaand the winner is... Myspace.com! Yes, Myspace.com. It won partially for its terrible user interface, its attraction of spyware, but mostly, for its all-too-lacking security system. A well-deserved reward, I believe. Myspace, here's hoping for your quick and smooth downfall


• The last moments of Saddam's life - You saw it here first. The first leaked video of Saddam's hanging. The quality is kinda poor, but you can still see the fear in his eyes. There is a serious amount of suspense til his actual death a minute or two in, but its a dramatic ending. Its a bit less organized than I thought, it looks like it took place in the court room. But it gets the job done.

foxt rot ftw

Ho Hum, the witch is dead. Ho hum, the witch is dead.

Good riddens, Saddam.

Why does Star Wars Episode I suck so much? I don't know why I wasted an hour of my life watching it again. What, do they market it to 3rd graders or something? Well, they were damn successful. I remember being 9 and freaking out over the movie. But I digress. It pains me to think I could have been doing something productive.

I just found most of my old videos on my phone, so its good to know that I still have Alex acting like a dumbass intact after my hard drive died. Does he read this?

Wasted a trip to the mall today. Hurrah.

Oh, and I nearly pissed my pants when I saw this yesterday. They were what I was looking for in China, but couldn't quite find. These'll do. I ordered like four. They're awesome. Hopefully they'll come in soon. What will I do with them? No idea. Its like buying a new vase or painting. No clue why you did it, just that they're awesome.

Well, vases aren't that cool.

• Pachelbel rant - This college comedian makes this awesome riff against Pachelbel's Canon. Music nerds will appreciate some of the niche jokes ("punk rock is a joke... its just baroque") and some of the stabs at modern music. However, if you dig deeper under its exterior, this really is a riff on how all modern music really is composed of just a few chords. I-V-I. Or in this example, I-V-vi-I. At least Pachelbel was innovative and threw in a relative minor twist.


• Please stop giving him tickets - Damn, college life seems rough.


• Here Wii come... - And there they go. No more puns, I promise. Penis. For Greg. This morning, Amazon put up some more Wii's for sale... and they sold out in less than 20 seconds. Again. I refuse to buy anything that I have to either wake up at 4am for or constantly hit refresh and break my command+r button for. But I tried.


• Oh Jesus - This five year old kid gets a perfect score in DDR. And how typical, he's Japanese. And who says the Japanese haven't put out anything innovative? Meet this kid, Dance Dancea-san. Dude. I'm naming my kid that. Dance Dancea-san.

ke vin ftw

After 40+ hours of gaming, I finally beat Twilight Princess. Insane. All in 4 days too. There is still a lot to do though. However, I plan to do that some other time. Anyways. My comments on the game? Awesome. However, it just seemed some things were lacking. Maybe it is because I am really good at the game and some things just seemed too easy? Well there is still the whole 50 level cave to go through. That should be fun. Well anyways. Pretty damn awesome. About it being easy at times, I guess it is because they put in mind the Wii, and made some boss battles and stuff easier or less complicated. However, they were still challenging at times, so it wasn't really simplified. Also, I think because of that the game seemed more strategy oriented. Like Oracle of Seasons vs Oracle of Ages. Seasons = more action based, Seasons = more strategy based. There was a lot of thinking outside of the box in the game. Well anyways. Enough of that. I could go on for days about the game.

Anyways. Did I get my permit? Find out some other day. However, I just have to say...
Those bastards.

This has been bothering me for a while. Is it just me, or do the v's, w's, y's, and other letters seem weird? Maybe it's just my computer?

Now that I have wasted 4-5 days of my winter break, I only have 3 more days to go! Or is it 4? I can't count.

I have no idea why I chose to learn a Rachmininoff. I could be doing a Gershwin prelude right now. Baragh. Yes, yes I could.

So hung out Steven's house today; freaking sweet. And he'd better be reading this by now. Street Fighter + MPO + Mah Jong + more nerdery = best. Do I hear a New Year's at Steven's? FTW.

So I'm working on a little redesign for the site in time for January and want to take a quick little poll: Do you guys like the bar at the bottom? Do you guys actually click on the comments to check out the recent ones? Want to keep it? Or go with something else? Any input would be appreciated.

• PS3 better than real life? - Yeah right. Xbox 360 all the way.


• Dolphinsex.org - Here it is, on the Wayback Machine, the site that ignited our little 7th grade selves. I thought the site was lost forever, but then I remembered about archive.org. It has saved one of the most informational and user-friendly sites on the net. One of the best things I've read in my life has to come from this site. "WARNING! In the considerations of safety, you should NEVER let a male dolphin attempt anal sex with you. The Bottle-nose dolphin member is around 12 inches, very muscular, and the thrusting and the force of ejaculation (A male can come as far as 14 feet) would cause serious internal injuries, resulting in peritonitus and possible death. Unless you are the masochistic type, you will have a hard time explaining your predicament to the doctors in the emergency ward...."


• octopi's flash archive - I hear Deeva was looking for some games... and here are some little flash concepts/experiments I did a long, long time ago. Check them out. If you dig around the site, I'm sure you'll find some stupid things I've said. Apparently, I said "LOLK" a lot back then. And speaking of flash, Thinkquest buddies: I've been working on a little flash intro thing; IM me if you want to check it out. But its no where near the caliber and depth of some of the things on pieFlash. Damn. Those were the days, weren't it? pieBlog, the precursor in many ways to Hublog 1. And yes, I probably thought it was totally the hippest thing to do to use Latin and the some circle equation in the logo. Damn fine octopus, though.

digg ftw

We have this box of chocolates or truffles or whatever in our house and they were supposed to be gifts, but somehow they never managed to be gifted. And now I'm stuffing my face with them. Besides looking like assorted dog crap, they're good.

How was you guys's Christmas? Did you get what you asked for? I did. A $20/month mediatemple grid-server hosting plan. Oooh. Exhilirating, I know. Its actually discounted at $16/month which equals about $200 a year. But its way worth it. Hopefully, all switching will go smoothly in January and you'll have a faster, better Hublog. $200/year is actually a steal for 100GB of storage and 1TB of data transfer. 1TB is so much that most people don't even know what it stands for. But I'm ranting.

If I were to... say, redesign the look of Hublog, what would be some things you guys would like to see?

• A Mythbusters Holiday - Mythbusters marathon on Christmas Day? Hell yes. Back to the Future back to back to back day after? You can count on it. I love the holidays because the only things that come on are Back to the Future, Mythbusters, and Meet the Parents. Literally.


• Mr. James Brown, we will miss you - Dead on Christmas day at age 73.


• Emperor Palpatine wishes you a Merry Christmas - Rise, my child.

mac book ftw

Oh. I'm late on this one. Been to too many filipino parties that I never got the chance to wish you guys a good one. To whatever you believe in, happy holidays!

HAPPY BELATED BIRTHDAY JESUS! =O

So as a little Christmas gift for you guys, I wrote a song and recorded it for you. Okay, well maybe I didn't write it for you, but its for you nonetheless. The piece actually stems from my Romantic piece from my Personal Project so Krista and Heidi have probably already heard the theme. I really liked the theme and didn't think the string quartet gave it justice (it didn't - it was a crappy arrangement), so I re-arranged it for the piano. I hope you enjoy.

Nocturne: "Thus, Winter". Thats what I ended up calling it. I really couldn't think of a name besides "Nocturne" but I knew I had to. The piece has a kind of Chopin tone to it but Beethoven mood or feel so I'm in a real pickle. I was inspired by Chopin's Nocturne in E-flat that I played last year when I came up with the theme, so I guess the name is a bit of a homage. I wanted to put the song name (the part in quotes) in another language like French or German, but "winter" is winter in English is winter in German is winter in French. "Von Winter" just doesn't really do anything for me. Not exotic enough. So, I just picked something.

It might even fit well. Every winter I can remember, we all said something along the lines of, "ah, its winter again," thinking of last winter and what happened and either looking forward to it or dreading the fact that its arriving. I guess this piece has that kind of mentality and maybe thats how I came up with it. Damn. This post would make a mighty fine I-search.

I spent forever recording it. Hope you appreciate the sound quality. I really wanted to reduce the ambient noise, so I recorded all of this with a shirt wrapped around my mic. It actually helps. This was about the fourth real "take," I accidently erased the second and third ones. I count a "take" as a take when I play the entire song through. There were probably over 50 tries when I stopped halfway cause of some messup. There are still some mistakes, but hey. Live life on the EDGE.

• Oh dear... - That wasn't supposed to happen.


• Rights infringement to a new degree - Guys, we can't hug anymore. Hugging for a long time might lead to dry humping. Which might lead to unprotected sex. Which might eventually lead to a date of some sort. Which, of course, will eventually lead to more sex. And nobody wants that. Especially not this school in Iowa. Apparently, bunches of girls were plugging up the halls from these long hug-a-thons. Which leads me to wonder if this school is just full of touchy-feely students that just hug each other 5 at a time in the middle of the hallway, smiling for a minute. I can see it now. Seriously, I don't get it. Maybe we just don't feel the love down here, but how bad could this epidemic be?


• 11 trippy questions - 11 questions that'll get you thinking. For the holiday nerd.

... aaand, omfgz. Extra dailies for Christmas. Or, cleaning out my recently dugg. Whatever you want to call it.


• Cool Photoshop trick - Nik, enjoy.


• Identifont - Don't know what the font used in Schirmer's is called? Use this to find out! Still don't know? Sucks, huh. Answer a bunch of questions and get the font you're thinking of.


• More puzzling questions - Why do they use sterilized needles for death by lethal injection? If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, then what is baby oil made from? Why do toasters always have a setting so high that could burn the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?

Like the festive decorations? The color scheme doesn't really match but hey, neither do the lights in my neighbor's yards.

mac book... ftw?

So I wrote a little Romantic tune for one of the movements in my Personal Project. Now I'm currently arranging it for the piano. Well, I already have it arranged, but I'm anal and want to correct it more and more. I'm going to record it tomorrow and then put it up Sunday as a New Music Sunday, so stay tuned for that. Its gonna be awesome. I don't know what to call it yet, but some sort of Nocturne, probably, as I was inspired by Chopin's Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 in E-flat. The beginning sounds a lot like it, and there is a little waltzy element as well. But by the end, it digresses into something a little bit more middle-period Beethovian, a la Appassionata/Eroica. I'm probably going to work on writing down the notes the rest of the night... in gayass Finale.

So, its finally break. What we've all been waiting for. And what do I do? I still work. I got a Rachmaninoff to learn, two duos to learn, and Thinkquest duties.

Oh, Thinkquest buddies: the site for submitting/compiling links is up; but I need to perform a server restart for some changes to work... which isn't happening for some odd reason. I'll get it to work tomorrow; talk to me then.

• Clocky's available - Clocky, the alarm clock that runs away after you hit snooze, is finally available. I really need to get one of these. I woke up late every single day of this week, even 8:30 on Thursday. Once you hit snooze in Clocky, he moves to a random part of your room and then rings again so that you have to physically get out of your bed then hit "snooze" again to sleep some more. Clever, huh? Those damn MIT grad students.


• For the nerdaloids out there: name of the 7th Harry Potter book - Links to a blog post that links to Rowling's website. On her website is a little game you have to play to find out the name of the last book. Now to be honest, I figured it out, but for the life of me, can't remember it. You check it out. You'll probably want to eventually give up and then just highlight the hidden stuff on the blog to check out how to win the game.


• Audi ftw - Damn Bentley snobs. Audi >> all. But funny nonetheless.

oce ans 13 ftw

Here is some gaming humor for you. lol. Too bad maybe only 2 of all our readers [excluding me of course] will get the joke.

Well I guess we can all be happy that all those projects are done and over with and that Christmas is just around the corner.

I just love how everyone covers Christmas songs.
[In my opinion the MCR one is kind of bleh if you listen to any song with good singing before or after it. If you have just been listening to songs with weird singing for a while, then I guess it's good, but once you hear something nice you realize "Wow, all those people suck." However, I still really like MCR.]

Speaking of Christmas covers, I still really like the U2 cover of this song. Another one of my favorite Christmas themed songs is Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" Maybe I just like Bono. Kick ass singing voice. Also, David Bowie gets to sing the lines originally written for him at Live Aid. Anyways, Band Aid 2 was :\ not so good. Band Aid 20. Well it is OK, just some parts, kill the whole song for me. Well a lot of parts.

Greatest Christmas song ever? I Won't Be Home for Christmas.
... I miss blink-182.

I am in the celebratory mood. I got the Holiday Spirit in me. For those of you who gave me presents this week, thank you very much. I will try to get everyone presents after the holidays. I am kind of short on cash right now...

Please.

2nd movement of Appassionata is the best. Ever.

Except for the 2nd movement of the Pathetique.

So this is why they have the phrase "IB work." Or whatever they say. IA, Personal Project, Political Hours, Death. Can't wait til next year.

At least I feel a bit proud of myself because I finished up the Latin project last night at around 2am. Well, more like 1am but I stayed up til 2 playing MGS anyways.

Speaking of last night, check out this SNL Digital Short. Its a bit NSFS, but I'm sure we can all handle it.

So I've taken a little break from writing this. And I hope I've entertained you long enough for you to forget about your projects and worry a bit less.

Now let the stress consume us.

So tommorow starts the week of.
Death?
Fear?
Lots of Projects due?
Break?

Whatever you call it. Are you ready?

HA! I'm not.

We'll see who survives this week.

Good luck? Break a leg? Godspeed?

I got my Macbook back yesterday; finally. Turns out I lost all my old hard drive data. I still have my files like PPgay and stuff backed up, but I'm mad that I lost the "timeline of my life" through my wallet. I had spent at least a good 2 hours or something on that. At least I'm mobile again. And with a computer thats actually usable.

I'll start dailies and stuff again tomorrow, probably, when I have time to get my old rig set up again. Its eerie to see my 20" turned off dwarf this 13" monitor. I'm going Pro for college.

On a more personal note, I wish I could have something to say here.
On a more public note, server switch. Coming to a Hublog/Blacktop near you soon.
In a more darker tone, ThinkQuest ftw.
On a more personal note, I still wish I could have something to say here. But once again, I fail to deliver.

I wonder what grade Mrs. Davis would give or an essay like this one. Probably a zero. Most of you have probably already seen that, it's just that it's Oedipus Rex and we are doing that now. Mhm. Yup.

I pretty much completed my personal project. Just have to add some stuff/tweak some stuff in my Isearch/Journal, and I am doooone. I have to say though, my product is like what I expected it to be. Crap. However, they can't judge me on how well I did on my composition right? Exactly. Therefore I slacked and decided to throw this piece of crap together. The little "bridge" [if you can even call it that] sounds pretty coo though. Too bad it doesn't sound a bit like the rest of the piece. It seems like someone just accidentally cut and paste that into the song from a totally different song. The only similarities between the song and that little blurb is that they are both in D Major, that's it. They both are like totally different styles and scales. Like the "bridge" is not asian 5 note scale.

Well the "PPgay" as you cats seem to call it these days, is indeed pretty phucking gay. Creative eh? Phucking. I'm almost at par with Virgil and Mrs. Meyer with their abilities with words. This MYP stuff is really getting my creative juices just flowing like crazy. [/sarcasm]

To sum it all up.

CLUSTERFUXCKSS. ASDASDASD

In 8th grade the Week from Hell was when everyone got mad at each other for some dumb reason. Now its back. For me at least.

I know its a cliche and a sort of unspoken rule not to bitch about our lives here, but I feel like I must. I have never wanted a break so bad. Actually, I've wanted a break more... but, actually, I don't know how to explain this. Just, ACK! HEALTH!

This is your Capa-tain. Knock it off in the bloober. I'm no 1st Amendment taker, but I will start initiating memberships when I have time... like, say, middle of summer of '12. If this is still around.

captain dave out.

As I sit and watch the world,

I can't help from shedding a tear.





I am totally ripping this off from David, but...
Final Fantasy ftw

O yeah, btw Dane Cook ftw. Too bad this person only uploaded starting at part 3 :\. And if you are thinking about watching that. I just want to put it out there that he can be quite profane and talk about some uhhh raunchy topics. Nonetheless, funny stuff.

Logic board failure. Uncertainty of data recovery. Thats what the Genius at the Apple Store told me. Ouch. At least he's going to attempt the data recovery for free, I think. Its not warrenty'd but hey, he seemed nice enough. I hope I get my own computer back by Wednesday.

I couldn't have been crippled at a worse time. A bunch of projects due, personal project, a ton of stuff. I pray to God that I can recover my ppgay stuff from email archives.

I haven't done dailies in a while and the activity on the site seems to have gone down and spam up. Try to ignore it, guys. I don't know if I should keep the math thing around. I'll be switching servers in January so hopefully things'll right themselves by then.

• Fake Judge - For a new sort of reality show thing, these two think they're on a real court show. But obviously they're not.


• Re: Microsoft - RETURN OF THE GOATSE. For those of you who don't know what Goatse is, read up on it on Wikipedia. Its at least a bit decent and graphical-less. So basically a Microsoft blog steals/hotlinks an image off of a guy's Flickr without attributing it to him... and he gets a bit ticked off. Fire up the old Goatse, swap a few images, get some revenge. Read the article; but the links to the pictures at the end are probably not for the faint of heart.


• James Kim: 1971-2006 - The story of James Kim gets more and more tragic. Its as if the planets aligned and everything possible went wrong and worked against him. For those of you who don't know, Kim was an editor at CNET and went missing last week. He was driving home with his wife and two kids from Oregon and took a wrong turn. The weather conditions were so bad they had to stop and eventually burn their tires to stay warm. Kim decided to set out on foot soon after to find food or a nearby town to try and save his family. He was found days later face down in the snow and dead from hypothermia. He was only one mile away from a fishing lodge full of food. The reason he got lost was because vandals opened up the gate that usually blocked the road he took. A loss indeed.

kim ftw

Like a car, I ride endlessly.
With no direction.
No sight in mind.
Straight forward.
To the sun.

I woke up at 4 this morning after my "short nap" [lasted from around 5pm till 4am] to do homework. Had some extra time and found some stuff online. Also various other times during my day. Today was a pretty good day. Study block was full of laughs. I wonder what will happen when someone uses the keyboard... Not that there is anything wrong with it. Just, when we tried to use it, there seemed to be some problems. I don't know, maybe we just can't type.

Well. Time to copy David. Link time.

Did I ever tell you the story of Steven [Stephen?] Su when he was in 8th grade during their orchestra BG trip? Well everyone was being all cool and stealing candy from the store. He tried to steal some. Got caught. My sister and all her friends just die when you mention that story. laugh about it.

We
are brilliant people. We = my people. My people = Chinese people fool. I don't really agree with the list being the top ten things we invented, because there are a lot of other things, but it does have some interesting info. I just love the comments too

Yakov said: (Dec 4, 2006)
In Soviet Russia, Chinese invent you!

Next is...
This.
Ok. I respect everyone and their views on stuff like evolution, but seriously, this angers me. The exhibit is what makes the museum famous. It helps them make money. Also, they are phenomenal discoveries. Even if you don't believe in evolution, you can marvel at how well preserved the fossils are compared to other ones. Well I really don't like their attitude. Their "Mr. Leakey [ha, leaky], tear down this exhibit. Or else." attitude. Then there is the fact that the Bishop said "We will write to them, we will call them, we will make sure our people know about this, and we will see what we can do to make our voice known." If you hate it that much. Don't go to the exhibit titled "EVOLUTION." Easy as pie. Don't deprive so many others who want to see this exhibit just so it pleases you. The museum wants to try and please everyone, but there is a limit to how much you can please people. It is impossible to please everyone. The only way you could have a museum to please everyone would just be a big room that had mountains of free money in it. Well my point is, you don't see scientists going to churches and saying like "Take down these bibles and all those pictures, the aren't real. Like anyone could really do stuff like that. You have to make this place according to my liking. Hm? What was that? O, well I don't care if it is a Church or the freakin' Smithsonian, it offends me. What? What if I don't even come here? Psh, what kind of question is that? What if I did just wander in here? You wouldn't want me to be offended would you?" Ok. Well anyways. It is a museum and everyone has a good reason and everyone goes to them, but I think you can see my point. I went on a long rant there, but that's because it is late and that just irritated me. Why is it crazy people have to make the rest of the group look bad?

I remember Mr. Haddock was trying to solve something like one of these. An interesting read. You can actually relate a lot of it to stuff we have learned before. Like I remember how Mrs. Griffin was talking about people trying to find a formula for prime numbers. I guess the "Traveling Salesman" problem explains why Mapquest's "Fastest Route" option sucks.

flOw
is a very addicting game. IMO. I played the original flash version in electronics last year. I could not stop. It ends though, sadly :'(. However, I don't really care that much about the whole PS3 thing. It looks nice on PS3, but like Jeff said "Everything looks nice on the PS3." I am just kind of glad that such a great game and group of people got recognized for their games by such a major company.

Speaking of games. BAM!!!
Sorry if I scared you there Greg. With the caps and all. Halo 3 trailer that came out on the 4th. Man. Nintendo and Sony just got bitch slapped, Positive Electrical Nonsense Is Silly slapped, and owned all at the same time. Awesome trailer. I just love the dialogue in the beginning too. It was just made so much better after I watch and read this thing about how when you stare at the sky, just wondering, you are literally staring at millions of galaxies. At the same time, the same thing could be happening billions of lightyears away. Both doing the same thing, just like the boy said [Master Chief?] said, "Maybe someone up there is wondering what it's like here." Then I just love how it transitions right into an attack by the Covenant. Really adds an ironic kind of taste to it. Man. Total Halogasm there.

I know I've failed some things.

I know I've been wrong.

I know what I should have done.

I know a lot of things and I don't know even more.

I know I have not always been right.

But I know now that I have never been more right in my life.



The tragic hero. Everyone becomes one sometime.

My Macbook's hard drive died today, at the worst possible time. I can't bring it to the Genius Bar and I don't have any other computer except for my dad's, which I'm on now.

Now I am currently frantically searching for whether removing the hard drive voids my precious 1-year warranty.

I betting the problem is a combination of stupid firmware upgrades from Apple that screws up my fans and my running RockNES all day yesterday playing Tecmo Bowl. My fans do not like RockNES. They scream when I run it.


Good thing my dad's not home and doesn't need this.

Prattle. Wtf is a prattle. It was on my SAT. I did alright, I guess. Better on math. Totally sucktastic on the essay. Oh well. Chuck over another $40 to take it again.

I got really nothing else to really update about. Eric's right, a lot of our readers are in debate; so the typical "heres what happened last weekend" post by Matt'll tell us readers are back.

• 40 deleted Family Guy scenes - Enjoy. From the DVD, I presume.


• MISSING: Mr. James Kim - A fairly significant person in the tech industry has vanished. James Kim was the audio editor at CNET.com. He was the one that did all the reviews for MP3 players, headphones, and the like. Now he's missing. Audio reviews grind to a halt and everyone is trying to find out where they went. Very mysterious and haunting.


• We Feel Fine - An amazing visualization of how the world is feeling. This site collects information from blogs and networks like Myspace, Friendster, Livejournal, etc, and if it runs across the word "feeling" or "feel" it takes the sentence and uploads it to the database and matches it against a set of 5000 pre-defined feelings. Or it just puts it up. Either way, its a very good visualization of the abstract. You can categorize by mood, geomap, age, gender, practically everything. Click on a circle to read their full bio and their full sentence. I don't know if it includes Facebook notes or not... but if it does, I may have to change "mood" to "feeling" and participate in this thing.

wii... ftl?

I just realized that a majority of hublog readers are in debate. When all the debate people were gone, there were practically no visitors to hublog

Working at the restaurant today makes me really miss the restaurant life. Meeting all kinds of people and stuff. I talked to this guy who just got back from Cambodia. He seems like the old veteran-y kind of type. He's gone all over the place. He was talking about how he got this niceass house [he described it to me. It's huge. He bought it furnished and everything] and he has maids and all this other kick ass stuff. How much did he pay for it? I forget the exact prices of stuff, but I mean like all that was like cheaper than one house here in VB. Crazy. Well we also talked about how the US sucks. Ha. You guys have all probably heard that talk from me every summer I come back from Taiwan. He was talking about how you can leave your house unlocked in the day and it is relatively safe, while in the US it would be better to keep your stuff locked up 24/7. Well, he is now officially on my list of cool old people, along with the crazy old guy at Wendy's.

The crazy old guy at Wendy's. He and his friend seemed like veterans, good friends for quite a long time kind of people to me. They were behind me in line. The crazy old guy was the crazier one of the two. Funny guy. The other guy was the kind of guy who stands there and just kind of listens and talks along. The service at that Wendy's was suckass that day, and he was saying stuff like "That lady should be working at a morgue with the speed she's working at." and the other guy chuckles. Maybe add in a few curse words. Man. Great stuff.

Old people depress me. But if I am a healthy old man, then I will be OK with it. As long as I can control my body and wipe myself. I wanna be like Keith Richards. That man is like 63 and still rocking out, along with Mick Jagger or Charlie Watts [who is older - 65, cool guy]. I do not want to be old and people taking care of me. I would like to be old and I am able to take care of myself.

Did you watch that sketch on SNL last night? "We are totally out numbered!" "Mmmm I don't care, I just can't stop smiling. This is just SOOOOOO goood!" Or something like that.