Morning Logic

I woke up at 4:30 EST today, a full hour and seventeen minutes before sunrise. So what did I do with my time? Well, I think I might have proved Taoism. How? I'll explain.

As I previously posted, I lost my Latin I book. While looking for it, I reasoned thusly:

1. If I am unable to find my Latin I book, I will have to buy a new one.
2. As soon as I buy a new one, I'll find the one I lost.
3. I'll find the one I lost because I'll no longer be looking for it.
4. Therefore, if I want to find my Latin I book without buying a new one, I must stop looking for it.

As you religion scholars know, this fits perfectly with Taoist principles. I'll admit, though, that maybe "proved" is the wrong word. Feel free to substitute what you feel fits better.

Edit: I forgot to add - I did find my Latin I book this morning, after I stopped looking for it. Taoism in action!

Save Me Baby Jesus

This was not a fun moment for me. The one consolation is that it appeared to be somewhat awkward on both sides. And Ben... I do try to help out if I can.

(19:10:22) Emma: do um... do you have ben's blog site link?
(19:10:47) Dougie: oh dear me
(19:10:50) Emma: ...
(19:10:57) Dougie: *sigh*
(19:11:00) Dougie: yeah, I do
(19:11:07) Emma: can i seee it
(19:11:30) Dougie: I'd give it to you, but there is honestly a danger that Ben would kill me
(19:11:34) Emma: haha
(19:11:38) Dougie: I
(19:11:45) Emma: i just didn't know what it was about
(19:11:46) Dougie: I am faster and stronger
(19:11:49) Emma: and wanted to see it
(19:11:53) Dougie: but he would FREAK OUT
(19:11:57) Emma: because people were talking about it
(19:12:03) Emma: and i didn't know what was going on
(19:12:09) Dougie: wheeee, high school politics
(19:12:21) Emma: hahaha really
(19:12:58) Dougie: I think in this case I would recommend asking him if he comes on
(19:13:08) Dougie: (okay yeah I'm saving my skin but really)
(19:13:12) Emma: hahaha
(19:13:23) Emma: i can't ask him
(19:13:37) Emma: if it's a matter that he would kill you over, i don't want to ask him
(19:13:43) Dougie: well...
(19:13:52) Dougie: I can outrun him, no worries
(19:14:03) Emma: if you show me, i promise i won't tell him you did
(19:14:08) Emma: i'll say peiter did
(19:14:17) Dougie: heh
(19:14:52) Emma: pleeease
(19:15:00) Dougie: this is difficult
(19:15:08) Dougie: chivalry wrestling with loyalty
(19:15:16) Emma: haha
(19:15:21) Dougie: I feel like Tokyo during a Godzilla vs Mothra movie
(19:16:06) Emma: pleeeeeease
(19:16:39) Dougie: grahhhh
(19:16:50) Dougie: eh
(19:16:52) Emma: graaahhh
(19:16:54) Emma: dooo it
(19:16:57) Emma: you know you want to
(19:17:08) Dougie: sigh
(19:17:11) Dougie: I can't do it
(19:17:17) Emma: fiiine
(19:17:21) Dougie: you've got to just ask him
(19:17:30) Emma: i'll ask peiter
(19:17:34) Dougie: I'm sorry, but that would be betrayel of the highest order
(19:17:37) Emma: haha okay
(19:17:51) Dougie: betrayal
(19:17:53) Dougie: urgh
(19:17:57) Dougie: neither looks right
(19:18:03) Dougie: but it is betrayal
(19:18:07) Emma: okay
(19:18:18) Dougie: (also it's Pieter, i before e)
(19:18:27) Emma: yes
(19:18:44) Dougie: rightio
(19:18:51) Emma: well thanks
(19:19:07) Dougie: you're welcome

Early to Rise

I was actually up before the sun today. I was up at 5:30 EST, 19 minutes before sunrise. That was a novelty. I got to school at maybe 7:10.

I discovered I forgot my Latin I book. Can you guess what class I have first? Sod.

Yesterday I read The Secret Life of Bees, the required book for English I Honors. It surprised me. Maybe it was just how tired I was, but it was actually a good book. I liked it.

I have to convince Ben to join the ORPG today. I don't think it'll be that hard. He's a good guy to argue with, because there's a chance that he might actually succumb to logic, as well as the risk that you yourself might be broken.

It's a luxury you usually don't get when arguing with people. Especially online.

Going Back

School starts up again tomorrow. I'm not really looking forward to going back, but that's nothing unusual. Well, let me be clearer. I'm not looking forward to getting up at 6:00 AM EST six days out of the week and getting back at maybe 5:00 PM just to work for a few hours. I have no problem with seeing my friends again, though.

One thing I ought to address is what the future holds. That is, school next year. It seems that despite the recent hike in tuition fees (an increase of about USD$5,000) we do have the money for me to continue going there. We're just trying to figure out if that's the best thing to do.

One of the biggest problems is that there isn't really any other place for me to go that's nearby. My current school is a convenient ten minutes or so from my house, and is easily the best school in the area. The next nearest school is a public school with class sizes of at least twice my current's.

I would like to stay at my school. I have some issues with the administration, and I don't agree with many of their policies, but some of the teachers/classes are truly fantastic.

The whole issue needs some thinking over.

Hoppido

Have a happy Easter everyone (except for you Canadians who, my calendar tells me, celebrate Easter Monday). I'd like to take this opportunity to direct you all to SaveToby.com.

I'd also like to say that David Lanham is awesome.

I have eaten way too much chocolate and sugar in general today. I can't remember the last time I gorged myself like this. Mmh.

Incredible Indeed

I finally saw The Incredibles tonight. I've got to say, it's been a while since I last saw a movie anywhere near as good. Possibly I never have.

It's a much more mature movie than most Pixar films to date, but it retains the same joie de vivre that is evident in the others and, if anything, enhances on it. It's so obvious that the animation team, and everyone involved, had a lot of fun working on it, and it comes through into watching it.

The characters themselves are amazingly nuanced, both in voice-acting and in animation. Also, looking through the deleted scenes on the second DVD, it was obvious that the editing was judicious and all done to make the movie better.

All of the extras that come with the two-DVD set are great. We're still working through them and probably will be for days to come. They're almost worth the price of the movie over again.

One great detail I'd like to mention is that the genius who wrote the movie, Brad Bird, also did the voice for Edna Mode, the super-suit designer. It's really fantastic.

I really cannot recommend this movie enough. Buy it.

Persecuted

I went to Staples to buy a USB-to-Ethernet adaptor for the TiVo (so as to connect it to our network). I settled on a decent, USD$29.99 Belkin USB 10/100 Ethernet Adapter. I was also going to get the router we need, but I didn't have the cash on me for it (about $130).

However, I was reluctant to give my business to Staples this time, for reasons I will explain. While I was looking at a tablet PC (an unnecessarily heavy and all-around badly-made one, I'd like to say) in their electronics section, I noticed an employee pretending to restock some RAM cards or something nearby. I wandered off to the stationary supplies because he was making me nervous.

While I was browsing for that item which I actually ended up purchasing, I noticed the same employee walking through the aisle parallel to mine. Watching me. I quickened my step and ducked behind a display of reading glasses placed, inexplicably, in the printer supplies.

Later, as I was looking at the clearance shelf, I had that eerie sensation of observation, and looked around to see him once more monitoring me, in some manner I guess he supposed to be surreptitious.

Finally I was weirded off enough to pay and leave. I ended up skulking to an Electronics Boutique down at the end of the strip mall. There, I felt, my sort might be more accepted.

Now, I'll be the first to admit that my countenance is not one to inspire confidence in shopkeepers. However, I really didn't appreciate the personal attention I was given. Sure, I have (really) long hair, but, for crying out loud, I was also wearing my Williams hoodie. Don't stores have surveillance cameras specifically so that they don't need to pay people to freak out their customers by giving them the evil eye?

The sixties are over, people. Just because someone has long hair doesn't make them any more of a candidate for unlawfulness. I'll admit, though, that afterwards I was wishing I had removed one of the CompactFlash cards from the digital camera display while I had the chance.

DVR'd

Woo! We got a TiVo last night. I spent about an hour hooking it into a web of cords now encompassing:

• Television
• DVD Player
• Digital Cable Box
• VCR
• TiVo

I put some polishing touches on it this morning and, miraculously, all of the connections seem to be working. I had been having some difficulty (last night) because I had connected the cable box to the TiVo backwards, but it got straightened out.

I'm going to have to take some photos of it, just so you can see how insane our cable management is. Our cable modem and four-port router (as well as Airport [the original Graphite version]) are nearby, as well as the speaker system, so there are roughly four dozen cables of varying length, thickness, and color mingling in a futuristic orgy.

Things are going to get crazier, as we're planning on expanding our home network with a router with a few more ports (probably to a total of eight) so the number of ethernet cords running to and fro will double.

If you're interested, we have a Series Two 80GB TiVo. I also took the trouble of referring As the Apple Turns at feedback [at] appleturns [dot] com. If you'd like to refer me, it's dougie [at] gmail [dot] com.

We also got DVDs of Napoleon Dynamite and The Incredibles. I've watched the former two, three times but haven't seen the latter yet. I know it's supposed to be pretty fantastic, so I'm excited about seeing it.

That's about it.

Well Now

I didn't go to New York, didn't go anywhere, in fact. Bad stuff's going/has gone down. Not sure how long this vacation's going to last--'cos I'm not sure whether I'm going back.

From a 3.8 to a 3.0... Good work, eh?

Also they just hiked tuition from $18000 to about $23000. That's for a day student. WTF.

Bloody hell.

Artist for Hire

I did a little something for Quiggy over on his WikiCities page. I just used a Google Images search and Photoshop.

Ya want some work done? Maybe I can help you out.

[Shamrock]

Happy St. Patrick's Day.

Not many people know this, so I might as well share it with you. One of my middle names (I have two) is Patrick; I got it for two reasons. One, my grandmother was named Patricia, and Patrick is the closest male equivalent; two, Patrick was made my Saint's name.

I've always had a special place in my heart for St. Patrick. Not like that crummy St. Valentine...

Roll on, Google

Google just released its (awesome) homage to Mac OS X with its own Google X.

More is written on it in the Google Blog.

And if you haven't already, check out Google News; they just updated it so you can customize the page. I did away with the Sports and Entertainment section. Much nicer.

There's also a Google "weather" operator now, so you can just search with "weather [place]", minus the quotes. Google is keeping busy, aren't they?

Edit: Holy Hubbard, Batman! Looks like Google took down Google X for whatever reason. It's not under Google Labs anymore, but the most recent post on the Google Blog is still up. What's going on?

Following up: Google X is still missing, but there's a way for you to check it out. I Furled it, and you can look at Furl's cache of it. You won't see the original images, but you can get an idea of it.

Hey Look

I have a MySpace profile. I dunno why, though, since I don't use it. A lot of other people seem to, though. What's up with that?

Quality Programming

Holy crap! WHYY/PBS is showing Eric Clapton and Carlos Santana playing together! I'm sorry, it's just... Orgasmic.

Real Vacation

Our travel arrangements for spring break have just been made. We're going to be in New York starting the 21st and staying at the Grand Hyatt. I had really wanted to go someplace warm for my vacation, but this is good, too.

We're going to be staying for about a week, so hopefully it'll give me time to take some good photos. Also, because of my school trip to the MoMA, I have a season's pass dealy, so I'll be getting in free. Sweet.

I will, of course, be blogging during my stay. It would be ridiculous if our hotel didn't have broadband in the room, plus I'll be carrying my cameraphone with me. At all times.

3.14

Happy π Day!

Scanning

So, I went out. Maybe this'll even become a regular thing. My mom and I went out to Staples for a new scanner. Our current all-in-one machine (printer-scanner-copier, HP PSC 1210) stopped scanning. However, after browsing a bit, we realized we really didn't know what would be a quality machine. We resolved to browse the Macworld site and find out.

Afterwards, we went out and ate at one of the local diners. I normally have a policy to never eat lunch at diners, but I relented for the first time. It was pretty enjoyable, too. Each table had a jukebox-type thing, and we played Frank Sinatra “That's Why the Lady is a Tramp” (my mom's choice) and The Beatles' “Penny Lane” (my choice).

We then went to the nearest art store, where I got another Pigma Micron pen (this time in Royal Blue). I've been drawing everything lately with these; they are true quality.

Then, back home and the usual.

DON'T PANIC

Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Program Details - Yahoo! TV:

"Episode #103.
Arthur and Ford end up on a stolen spacecraft."

WHYY/PBS is offering up fifty pairs of tickets to see the movie a week before it opens, $100 a ticket pair. I'm panicking! I'm also watching. Woo!

Spammed

I dunno why, but just tonight I started getting waves of spam from Yahoo! users. They're totally pointless, not pushing any services or V¡agra, so I don't get the point.

Dear jerks: Please stop.

Emotional

I had another fight with Rachel. Like all of our fights recently, it just burnt itself out pretty much, which is good. Last time (before this one) we had a fight and then abruptly I got us talking about Tim Burton. This I inquired about her brother; apparently he's becoming a socialist.

I always thought he'd be an anarchist. Huh.

Maybe this is a sign of maturity. Being able to go at it like that and then more or less keep going normally. Then again, sounds way more like teenaged mood swings... Ooh-er.

Either way, it's good when it's over.

I Hate Everybody

(17:14:34) Quiggy: oh, I like the old DKtAS template better
(17:14:47) Dougie: WELL YOU SHOULD HAVE SAID
(17:14:56) Dougie: I had one person tell me it looked like plaid
(17:15:07) Dougie: another said it reminded them of toilet paper!

New Look

Yes, I changed my template. I did it solely because of all the negative comments I got about the old one (which I really don't understand, I liked it fine).This oughta do. Eh?

Out and About

I got out of the house for the first time since, well, Saturday I guess. It's been a while. This cold put a big crimp in my lifestyle. (Yeah I know I'm so active normally hahahaha.) Anyway, I had lunch at T.G.I. Friday's and picked up some reading material at Waldenbooks.

Nothing much else to report on, except that Biz did it again. Right on.

For the Record

I hate it when this happens. Although I love Questionable Content, though. Also cream cheese. But not problems with boxer shorts.

Sessile Lifestyle

Well, since I got sick (cold plus some bronchitis-type thing) I have been watching massive amounts of television. Mostly movies. Today I deviated by reading unholy amounts of webcomics.

I read the new Scary Go Round, Wigu, and Overcompensating. Then I read the entire run of Skirting Danger. Now I'm working my way through the archives of Sore Thumbs.

The good thing is, I've been laughing, and laughter is supposedly the best medicine. The bad thing, laughing makes me start coughing, and it hurts to cough. Plus every now and then something unutterable is expelled from my throat from a cough.

One good thing that has no down side, is that I've been listening to some good music. I don't know what I'd do without iTunes.

Mortality

A couple of hours ago my Uncle Sandy died. He was battling with cancer, so it wasn't that much of a surprise, but you find it doesn't make much difference. He wasn't really my uncle, but my great-uncle--my maternal grandmother's brother. His screen name--his stage name, that is--was Sandy Ward.

I never knew him that well. I only actually met him about three times, but he made an impression on me during the time I spent with him. He had a charisma that made it clear how had gotten into movies.

As these things make one do, I've done more thinking, considering, of my own mortality. Truth is, I never plan to die. Given an infinite amount of time, I might actually get things going well for me.

Kung-Footy

From Shaolin Soccer:

[Random assailant goes into kung-fu stance]
Sing: You got any change on you?
Random assailant: Yeah.
[Random assailant digs change out of pocket, gives to Sing]
Random assailant: Are you stealing my money?
Sing: I guess so. Was that preying mantis style?
Random assailant: Yeah.

I swear I didn't make this up.

Spring Break

Spring has arrived. I feel good about that. Absolutely terrible every other way, though.

I've got a really terrible cough. It hurts my throat. I might be getting bronchitis, which would suck. I'm also feeling inappropriately depressed, considering I have twenty-four days of spring break in front of me.

I don't really feel like blogging, but I'll relate something that happened as I was leaving school. I had been off by my lonesome, and a girl named Katie S. came over and looked over my shoulder to see what I was doing on my laptop. Things like that always make me nervous, but Katie also has the intimidation factor of being rather good-looking. So I got a little twitchy.

Anyway, we hung out and talked for a coupla minutes, maybe ten or so, and then I had to go get picked up. As I said goodbye and was leaving, I did a little two-finger salute (which sounds like a dirty euphemism but in this case I mean it literally). For some reason, this made my left leg stop supporting my weight for just a second, causing it to somehow bend sidewise and make me stumble into an inconveniently placed table.

This is analogous to what happened to Ben.

I'll blog more when I feel better, or can think of nothing else to do.

Later, I Swear

Sorry for the absence of posts. Since Wednesday I've been taking exams, and that has consumed the majority of my time. I promise some new posts once I'm done, though.

Making a Font

This was asked in a comment, so I thought I'd cover the three main ways I know of to make a font.

• You could spring for the high-end (although rather pricey) FontLab. If you have a tablet for your computer, it's good for making handwriting fonts, plus you get a good selection of glyphs you can make. As in, the difficult and lesser-used, but occasionally essential, characters. Like ¡.
• The way I made my recent font is with FontEditor BitfontMaker. It's free, it's web-based. It only supports a small array of glyphs, the alphabet, numbers, and basic punctuation, and you have to draw each pixel by pixel, but it satisfied my design needs. It's better if you enjoy working with pixels.
• The last way is Fontifier. Fontifier costs $9, and the way it works is innovative. You download a blank table and then draw, or write, in the appropriate boxes. You scan the paper back into your computer and upload it. The software scans your completed sheet and creates a font based off it. If you want a handwriting-based font, this is the cheapest--and easiest--way to get it.

I hope this proved useful. Until next time!