Topic: General Ramblings
I haven't moved on. I've only moved away.

Nunchucks
Topic: General Ramblings
How many nuns could a nunchuck chuck if a nunchuck could chuck nuns?

A Meaningless Gesture
Topic: Short Stories
The man lay in bed. A dimmed light cast the shadow of a novel onto the wall. He could not bring himself to read anymore. He pondered.

Pondered about his girlfriend. About their anniversary. About the present he hadn't bought. What would he buy? But the stores would be closed by now. She would be there by the time he woke. He would be utterly unprepared. Maybe tonight he'd write her a romantic note.

He decided not to think about writing anymore. He turned over in his bed, glancing at his essay as he turned. Or rather, the five blank sheets of paper, save for the obscure quote about greatness on the top of page one. He had to finish, but not now. Any time but now.

The guilt became its own being. A parasite gnawing away at his soul. Forcing him to remember his anniversary, though the sheer pointlessness of worrying about something he could no longer change just made the parasite stronger.

He began to wonder if his essay could be as bad as he imagined. Maybe he could thumb through his book and get some sort of vague outline. A thesis, maybe. Just something to make him feel better about the terrifyingly empty wide lined paper adorning his desk. He would get his book.

But he stopped himself, a heartbeat away from getting out of bed. He recalled that his book would be virtually useless tonight, as it was some ten miles away, separated from the world by a combination lock, just a few steps away from his English room.

Again he felt the parasite. He could do nothing. He was an empty vessel that just happened to exist at the moment. He decided he didn't like this line of thinking. He would no longer just take up space in his bed. He would do something.

In a rather meaningless gesture, he rolled off the bed. He plunked against the floor, harder than he expected. The floor shot pain into his back, pain that ricocheted throughout the rest of his body. He was now taking up space on the floor instead.

He chuckled at this thought. The jolt had knocked him around a little, but it was enough to dislodge the parasite for a few minutes. During this brief interlude, the man talked some sense into himself, climbed back into his bed, and promptly fell asleep, leaving his cares for another day. His parasite waited on the floor, prepared for his foot the next morning.

Eggs and Cake
Topic: Chain Reactions
Cake may be my favorite band of all time. And I would never have discovered them if it weren't for www.eeggs.com.

The story goes like this: For the longest time, I was not very web savvy. A few IM's here and there, a lot of "lol" and "brb" and so on. Every so often, I made some venture to explore the internet a little more. See what it had in store for me. Somehow or another, I ended up on www.eeggs.com.

It's an Easter Egg Archive. They keep track of little hidden bits of information, like bonus tracks on CD's, hidden footage on DVD's, whatever. I stumbled across the TV section and found Futurama. There was a topic that caught my eye: Alien Language.

Matt Groening (and David X. Cohen, if you will) had decided to put an alien language in their show. It was made up of some random characters that could be substituted for English letters. In an attempt to learn more, I came across the second leg of my journey towards Cake: www.peelified.com.

This was PEEL, the Planet Express Employees Lounge, a message board and shrine to Futurama. After lurking for a while, I decided to sign up and start posting. This was on April 13th, 2003.

Some of the members were posting pictures from an online comic strip called Penny Arcade. This would become the third pillar.

Penny Arcade was hilarious, and every so often, they made mention of a site called Red vs. Blue. I go there, and again, fall in love. We're on pillar four, for those who like to keep track.

Soon after falling in love with RvB, my computer died. Simply put, I needed a new hard drive. This new drive did not have Quicktime on it, which was my favorite player for RvB videos. When I went to redownload it, I found that it was bundled with a neat little program called iTunes. Pillar five.

Having fallen in love with iTunes' simplicity, I decided to find some good songs to buy. I turned to another site, www.albinoblacksheep.com, for guidance. I found this one through PEEL as well, so it's like the mile marker between pillars two and three.

I found a music video to Cake's "Comfort Eagle," which defies all known genres of music and must be classified as a made up genre: Aztec Rock.

I downloaded "Comfort Eagle," then "Short Skirt / Long Jacket," and before I knew it, I was in love with Cake.

To recap: Eeggs ---> PEEL -(Albino Blacksheep)-> Penny Arcade ---> Red vs. Blue ---> iTunes ---> Cake.

Calculus
Topic: General Ramblings
A calculus problem from my textbook: A ball is thrown vertically upwards from ground level, starting at 96 ft/sec. Find its maximum height.
Answer: 144 feet.

How in God's name do you throw a ball off the ground and 144 feet into the air? I think you'd have to have an MLB pitcher throw it, but he'd be underground and sideways.

Woulda Coulda
Topic: General Ramblings
I just don't understand the phrase "Woulda, coulda, shoulda." I mean, Woulda and coulda make perfect sense. But shoulda? Shoulda just means you woulda and coulda, but you didna.

And maybe there's a good reason why you didna. So don't complain that you shoulda.