Christmas Decoration

Decoration-wise, I don't really have a favorite thing. Mine's more of a whoooole bunch of things put together. I'm really a huge fan of decorating Christmas Trees.

I really don't know whether it's my compulsion for things to be balanced and look good, whether it's my perfectionist attitude toward creating a work of art, or whether it's just the variety of different decorations all put on tree to make something look beautiful and meaningful to our family that makes me enjoy decorating Christmas Trees (though I doubt the second T should be capitalized). Every time I decorate one, there's always a feeling of talent and accomplishment in that I've just made something that's partly my own, but it's more for everyone that sees it to look at and enjoy than it is my creation. The whole family gets involved in throwing on the tinsel, picking and placing ornaments, lacing the garland around the tree, and, for whatever reason, putting candy canes on the leftover branches.

The only real thing I can relate it to would be writing a book, or a piece of music. In any case, this is without a doubt my favorite decoration we put up each year.

This doesn't count

I would just like to add that I have a lot more blog ideas than I give myself credit for, and should really work on doing these more often! This was kind of a fun release of thoughts.

Toys, Toys, Toys...

Why are there ellipses on all of my blog entries? Oh well. On with the show.

When I was a kid, my brother and I had a room dedicated to nothing but every toy we had ever owned in our entire lives. It was undoubtedly the greatest place known to mankind. Jordan liked to put everything back in its place, and have it all ready to unpack when we needed it. Me? Heck no. Everything belonged on the floor, and that's the only place it did belong. That way, we could see everything, find it pretty quickly, and add toys to our ridiculous adventures whenever we needed it.

Jordan and I would create these ridiculously epic stories and quests with our toys. We'd have all the Power Rangers and Ninja Turtles battle their way across the room to fight the evil Megazord on top of the TV at the end of the Room. We'd have survival contests with legos to see who'd stay the most intact after we'd flung them across the room with a catapult. In all actuality, a lot of thought went into these crazy little adventures me and my bro would conjure. We never did the same thing twice, and it was amazing.

Nostalgia's really been hitting me hard, lately. I mean come on, it's almost Christmas!!

Music Without Words

I've recently discovered that I've begun to listen to the music I hear without hearing, let alone understanding, most/all of the words sung by the vocalists. (I've also discovered that I begin numerous blogs with the letter "I", but that's not the point.)

I downloaded a song titled "From Now On, We Are Enemies" off of Fall Out Boy's new Greatest Hits CD. I really loved the song, and couldn't even decipher a single word of any part of it. All of the musical impacts were just perfect, it seemed. After a short period of inquiry, I discovered that Patrick Stump, their lead singer, composes all of their music, and Pete Wentz, their bass guitarist, pens all of the lyrics to their songs (none of which make any sense, by the way). Apart from the fact that Patrick has an amazing instrument in his pipes, I've begun to listen to all of their music again, and realize that I never actually cared about the words; the music was what really got to me, and what really left the lasting impression on me.

After finding my old iPod, I went through several tunes, remembering exactly why I had downloaded that song, and discovered that EVERY SINGLE SONG ON THERE was the exact same way. I really don't care about what the singers have to SAY. I do, in fact, care about how the singers make me feel what they want to get across. That's what's important in the music.

Time Travel's Quite the Thing...

I define Time as the idea fashioned by humans to attempt to rationalize and further describe the changes of the different things of the universe as they progress through their cycles. Though this kind of definition of time doesn't exactly allow for a time-space fabric to exist, I find the concept of Time Travel to be remarkably interesting, regardless.

For example, there's a temporal paradox (time-travel related paradox) where some say that it can't be possible, because we haven't had evidence of it yet. Surely, if time travel has developed in some future, then they would have travelled back in time to this point eventually. Since no one has come back this far, and no evidence of time travel exists, then it's logically deducible to be impossible, right?
This theory doesn't really allow for all possibilities of the restrictions of time travel to be accounted for. For example, time travel COULD only be forward in time, and backwards being impossible, no evidence WOULD exist. OR, simply no one has yet to travel this far back in time, or even any and allevidence of time travel has simply not been discovered yet.

Either way, I find it quite intruiging.

Let Me Be Myself, Myself!

This Thanksgiving Break, I got to see all but like two of my cousins. And everytime I get to see 'em and hang out, I really want to have a good time and fit in and stuff, so I crack a lotta jokes. Problem is, my family is like the elite society of awesomeness when it comes to jokes, and they're all like the MASTERS. They've also (almost) all been through high school and college, so they've gotten used to it. In the end, I make myself look like an arrogant idiot in front of pretty much everybody, sayin some things I normally wouldn't. Not like swearing, but just different comments.

Everytime I look back on the holidays, I just want to be me when I go, yet I always seem to fall back into the jokester routine. It's not like I have anybody to impress, because they're my family and love me regardless. I guess it's kind of a pride thing. I don't wanna be boring or uninteresting to anybody, so I constantly strive to be someone that they wanna be around, when it's always been the other way around. This break, I just gave up the whole jokester act and was me the entire time. Greatest break I've ever had. Can't wait till Christmas Break!

What's Been Happenin'

Seeing as I'm rushing, yet again, to get these done, let's start off with what all's been happening that's kept me so far behind.

For those of us that may not know, some yet-to-be-determined cause has severely affected my schoolwork. I've developed what's called "convergence insufficiency." Whenever my eyes look at things up close, namely text on pages and screens, my right eye isn't turning in enough to adjust to the distance, so I'm reading all of the letters out of order. The only proper way to describe it would be to say I've contracted a tretable form of dyslexia, and it's one of the scariest and most enlightening experiences I've ever been through.

Until now, I've definitely never appreciated reading like I should have. Up until this point, I haven't really ever thought twice about texting people, studying, surfin' the net, playing games, or reading magazines or the newspaper. All of it's just so second-nature, you know? But now, that I've temporarily gone down in the reading department, I really take time to savor every chance I can get to read. Texting is so much more enjoyable now, because I can simply understand what people are telling me! I can read words on The Alchemist and actually enjoy the book rather than have to listen to it all and "read" along with a jumble of letters. It's absolutely fantastic.

My one warning to everyone - don't take the simple for granted. It can be given, and it can be just as easily, if not easier, be taken away.

Good Television

Since the second half of September's kicking in, I finally get to have some shows I look forward to seeing every week. Summer really doesn't have any good shows... like at all, unless they're reruns. But there is hope, Whoville!!

The Office has got to be, without a doubt, the funniest show I've ever seen. Family Guy can't even trump it... well... most of the time. It's just one of those shows that everybody can appreciate, that has the perfect balance of believable and contrived situations, characters and lines, and it just plain brightens up my Thursdays. Plus, it doesn't rely on obscene or inappropriate jokes to land an audience of sustained viewers. You've just gotta love The Office (although, from experience, people that actually work in offices find it much less entertaining than those people who don't work in offices do).

Fringe is probably tied for my favorite show, coincidentally showing on Thursday too. It's a sci-fi, mystery kind of show that has gotten better and better with each consecutive episode that they make. Even though the first episode of the new season was an exception, I had yet to be able to predict ANY of the plot twists, even though they were all legitimate and not outlandish. It kept me guessing, fascinated, and excited for an entire season - which, to me, is the concrete definition of GOOD TELEVISION.

Heroes, on the other hand, has gone down the drain, and I mean FAST. It's this show about people that gain super powers after a solar eclipse with a lot of other hard-to-explain, hard-to-give-justice plot turns and stuff. In any case, though, starting from the second season, I found a lot of their main conflicts to fall back onto the same premise, and ultimately get really, really boring. This is what is called NOT GOOD TELEVISION. Note the differences.

In any case, I'm extremely excited for the Fall TV stuff goin' on, and am AMAZINGLY excited for the Lost Season Premiere in 2010. Speaking of series being good and bad, that show went from Good, to REALLY GOOD, to pretty bad, then back to Good, then to Better. I'm just plain excited, because that season finale had to be the most cliffhanger of an ending like ever.

Dignity/Shame

Of course, ignoring all of the degrees of things being harder to fight with dignity, or easier to surrender with shame, I think it's much, MUCH easier to fight with dignity.

Choosing to fight with dignity or surrender with shame is a single choice in my opinion. It's not an every-instance kind of deal, it's a habit. It's consistent with your character, who you are as a person, what your morals are. Fighting with dignity therefore is as simple as choosing to be the good guy or the bad guy. That said, it's not that you can't change sides of the force or anything; you have the ability to choose to act how you please. It's simply - coming from my experience - that what you choose to do (dignity/shame) is very consistent as you grow older and go throughout life.

I think I speak for everyone when I say Muhammad Ali (sorry if I spelled it wrong) did nothing but fight with dignity and pretty much become the best boxer in the history of the universe because of it.

Club Idea that needs some work

The People Watchers Club is an existing club at Yale University, and is actually an extension of Statistics, Psychology, and those kind of classes there. All the club does is watch people in different locations and make observations about their behavior. For example, a People Watchers Club field trip may consist of going to the Mall of American and observing how people behave there.

If things start to get experimental and risky, some of the club members may decide to apply stimuli to certain scenarios. While people are occupied with cluttering up a certain section of the mall, some club members may convince two or three people to go around, and see if any ripple effects take place. Another idea might be to take a field trip to a busy city and have some of the members play ultimate frisbee, or something of the like. As more and more members start off playing each progressive session, one might observe how the rest of the park-goers may react, join or avoid the game.

When I first heard about the People Watchers Club at Yale, I thought it was an amazing idea. I always enjoyed watching people do things, see what everybody tends to do or not do, usually in a comical sense; I had in mind more of a massive improvisational comedy group rather than an actual educational activity, but it can still be used both ways. For example, what if you had one hundred people all scattered through a section of the mall, and NONE OF THEM MOVED for about three or four minutes. What would people do? Think??

The main problems with this club getting started are a) we don't have a sponsor, b) we don't have a formalized goal, proposal or anything, and c) If we were to go on field trips, we also have no sponsorships/funds to make that possible. Once we get some of these situations resolved (at least the first two), we can actually make the People Watchers Club of Apollo High School a reality.

Money - What does it mean to me?

Money is nothing but a means of distribution of wealth, by definition. But to me, money means I can go get an ice cream shake at Coldstone whenever I have some of it.

Money's obviously important to me, let alone people. You've kind of gotta pay for stuff with it, because as of yesterday, you can't buy cokes in "tales of adventure" anymore. Acorns got banned along with that.

It's hard for a definitive resonse to "How much is enough" without any given context or constraint on such a question. I'll try and add an end to it: "How much is enough for someone to be happy?"
More reasonable, I think. Well, myself, in order to make someone happy, there isn't a limit to how much money is "enough" due to the fact that every single person is different in what would make them happy, and what ends they would have to meet in order to fulfill those wants. So, whenever you have enough money to where you can give to the community, confortably support your family, be able to have the fun you want to, and be able to support yourself after your young days are over, that's enough money for someone.

I forgot the second to last question, but money definitely is a method of making part of the world go 'round. Although it doesn't make ALL facets of society function the way they're supposed to, it does provide a distribution of wealth for the population of the world, and allows simple economics to function, giving us all the basic resources we need. It doesn't, however, make a family love each other, for example.

Have some fun/Sport Watchers Club

For those teachers that get all mad at practical jokes, little "activities" all us kids organize mid-class, and just do it for the heck of it - get a new job.

Sure, you're paid to teach English, or Math, or Biology or whatever, but if you're gonna get paid for doin' somethin', you might as well enjoy yourself, right?

I'm not gonna lie, I've tried to get a couple of my classes to do the wave SO MANY TIMES, and nobody ever does it because the teachers will get mad. And the thing is this isn't going to interrupt the educational process - it's just gonna make it more physically involving. Who wouldn't wanna do the wave after sitting for 75 minutes straight in History not listening to or learning about anything, just working?

On a related note, I was kind of running with the idea of the People Watchers Club, and was also thinking about how much fun the Boys' Soccer Games are to go to, because we've got a really funny and fun student section goin'. I was gonna end up makin' the idea for either the People Watchers Club, or the newly-introduced Sport Watchers Club.

All the Sport Watchers Club would consist of would be a dedicated student fan base that would attend all kinds of the school sporting events - and not just the major football and soccer and baseball games. Volleyball, Wrestling, Marching Band, Academic Team, Dance Team, Swimming, Tennis, and all that kinda stuff need some love too. Being in the club is easy - just sign up for some events you'll attend for sure, show up, cheer the kids on, and go home. Simple as that. Staying in would be more of the challenge, though. You'd have to attend so many events in a nine weeks, and behave yourself and legitimately cheer them on when you're there. You'd have to attend a wide variety of events, too. As kind of a reward or payoff for actively participating in the club, you could get discounts from the Spirit Store, or even free Spirit Wear, or things like that.

All that may sound too "schooly", but I figure it'd be fun and it'd make all the different activities really feel appreciated. It wouldn't hurt to throw in a few fifty-person cheers at a tennis match, just to show how excited everyone is. Or cheer in the middle of a golf course RIGHT in the other team's backswing... well, maybe less of the latter, but still, it'd be a lotta fun.

If You Really Want It...

For those of us that know about Marching Band stuff, here's a piece of wisdom for ya.

Daviess County has always been one of our most experienced rivals in competition, and has always had the reputation of being amazing. And to be honest, they're only bigger than we are and are all doing the same thing. Apollo High School has finally come across a chance to take Class AAAAA back BY STORM.

The Daviess County Band of Pride isn't up to their game.
This year, their band camp staff consisted of ENTIRELY new members, even including their Director. With all the inexperience laying all over the place, it's becoming hard for them to unify and keep it together. Sure, they're Daviess County, but no band's worth anything until they are ONE band, and not someodd players walkin in the same direction.

If the Apollo High School Marching Band will give it our very, very best, never give up, never quit, and work our absolute hardest until the end, we honestly have more of a shot at this point at making Semi-Finals than Daviess County does. When it's one week before our first competition, I just wanted to let everyone know that and get this thought into writing before we all give up and mosey around like we have for the past 4 years straight. You wanna make it to Semi-Finals? You wanna take ownership of your mistakes and fix 'em, rather than pretend they're not even there and forget about 'em in an hour?

I'm not going to let you.
Now is our time. Now is our chance. We strike NOW, because there may never be a chance this blatantly oppurtune in our lifetime. Marching Eagles, let's take 'em.

Gotta love Demetri Martin

In the possibly-different words of Demetri Martin, here's what I believe about this saying:

There's a saying... that people in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. That's nice.
How about... no one should throw stones. That's just bad behavior, get it outta here!
My saying is no one should throw stones, regardless of housing situation.
Now, if you're TRAPPED in a glass house, and you have a stone to throw, then throw it!
What, are you an idiot?!
So really, it should be ONLY people in glass houses should throw stones.
GIVEN THAT they are trapped, and have a stone with them.
It's a bit longer than the original, but... yeah.

I'm still not sure what to blog about

So this is more than likely gonna sound like rambling over a blog, for those of us who've blogged before. Sorrys.

I went to O'Charlie's for dinner one night, and I realized that I have NO idea what genre to classify that restaurant in, not to mention the fact that I have yet to find something there I find delicious. Is it just American, or is it like in whatever category that TGI Friday's would be in? It's not really the same theme of restaurant, but a lot of the same food cooked the same style. Makes me wonder.
I can't decide whether or not I want to actually learn how to play piano or not either. I mean, I really like the sound of the instrument, but I'm a mallet man till the end'a my days. But it sure sounds beautiful... it's a pretty trivial, but tough choice. Any input on any of this?
I want that hoodie from Bates!!

Visual Thesaurus and Course Notes

So I had to bust out a thesaurus the other day, for whatever reason, I don't remember, but it was still ridiculously time consuming and... yeah, completely unproductive.
I eventually came across this site that's like visualthesaurus.com. It's officially the best... thesaurus... ever... wow, that should never be repeated. I don't have a life, for those of you that weren't on board already.
Anywho, all it is is this Java program that gets whatever word you search from their database, shows it as a root word, and has radially branching possible definitions (color-coded to the different parts of speech), and from those it has possible words as synonyms. For those of us that think a paper thesaurus sucks major, and would appreciate something that doesn't, link in the sidebar.

On a not-really-but-kinda-related note, Course Notes is like my new best friend. Our history book, however, is not.

Wanna pull a practical joke really bad, post ending in the word "prognosticate" third says what I do.

I'm not entirely sure what to title this...

... but yeah. I'm probably the most similar to my brother out of all my family members, though some other people might try to lie to you by telling you otherwise. We're like 21 months apart, both pretty smart kids, 'specially in math. The main difference between us is that we both do entirely different things during spare time (other than like playin' PS3 or somethin'). He's a movie dude, I'm more of a watching-funny-stuff-on-Youtube or hangin out with friends, or doin' my own, pretty fun thing kinda guy. I think we stole that weird psychic thing that twins have with each other though. We'll both be thinkin the same things same time, unintentionally dress in the EXACT same colors for whatever day it may be, or have conversations consisting of like five words, while intellectually encompassing three conversations. I guess the why's because we're brothers, but call me crazy.

I wonder what the rest of my class was doing while I was writing this blog. If anybody knows, just hit me up with some comment that'll enlighten me.

Doesn't know what to get for lunch...

The 20th comment on this thing says what I buy

Don't care how ridiculous this order is, I'll get it