| < August 2003 | Matthew Loar > Blog | October 2003 > |
Guess what? After the exalted Josie had her conference with Mr. Blair (he's making all of us do them, she was first), Mr. Blair realized that he had "been working our asses off" and that he was going to take it down a notch. When he said this, Vince turned to Josie and said, "I love you, Josie!" That's a sentiment I share. All hail Josie! (Incidentally, it took me about 15 minutes to realize that Mr. Blair had actually said "asses.")
Then in Calculus, Mrs. Butler told us that tomorrow would be a "work day." Things just keep getting better and better!
Econ went well, as well as the Scholastic Bowl practice. Mrs. Joyce pretty much said that I would be the captain, so I'm happy.
Well, I do have to finish something for English, as well as my National Merit
essay, so I'll sign off now. Check out the "interesting" link!
See Mary?
It does work.
How I felt after I forgot to register to take the SAT in June
I could say that Kyle should call them, but that would be cruel.
Today wasn't too bad. I stayed up late trying to get my Chem and Calc done, and then the Chem wasn't due and Mrs. Butler gave us till Monday. Oh well.
Went to Peanut Day after school. We had quite a few people, and it went pretty well. Rock on!
Got a newsletter from Allison today. Guess what? Dues are now $10.50! Nice to
know that before we started collecting, right?
Well, today really kind of sucked. OK, it wasn't that bad, until the Key Club meeting. I spent hours yesterday getting ready for Key Club 101, and then there were 2 new members at the meeting today, and not a whole lot of old ones. It sucked. We handled some business instead. The whole meeting just didn't go very well, and so I'm just frazzled. Getting all of these stupid permission forms for everything is a real pain. It's not like NHS does that. Speaking of NHS, at a little impromptu board meeting we held right after, the board approved the use of advertising antagonistic to NHS. It's incredible just how much animosity one silly little organization can create. They steal our projects, they deserve it. Now I just wonder how far we could take it. I also think that some kind of challenge, Key Club vs. NHS, could be good.
Above all, we need to get on top of the promoting issue. And I also need to delegate better. The problem is that everything has come up so quickly, a certain teacher monopolizes my time, and though it takes less time to delegate than to do everything yourself, you can't delegate the night before.
P.S. Kyle came through with the carbon-copy Activity Sign-up sheets, but, as I knew he would when he didn't show me a proof sheet like he'd promised, he misspelled "Activity" on all of the several hundred sheets. I told him that he'd be paid back by showing all of the members for the next 3 or 4 years how dumb he is.
P.S.S. The board also grudgingly approved Kyle's appointment as SAP. I would
have preferred more formal acceptance, but until we have a club big enough to
care, I've decided to forgo formality.
And you thought California judges were dumb.
Court blocks Do Not Call Registry
Yay, more authority for the FCC. It's not like the FCC charges $75 for licenses for the "General Mobile Radio Service" or anything.
Today went pretty well. The chem lab went all right, I got my English homework done (Yay, Major Works Data Sheets. It's not like I have anything better to do than spend several hours filling out one of these stupid things for everything we read so Mr. Blair won't give me an F on it because I didn't fill every square inch) and tomorrow we're watching the video of the Springer skit. It should be funny.
I got my lunchbox back! I lost it yesterday, but today it was sitting on the filing cabinet in the cafeteria. Yay!
I almost asked Lindsey B. to Homecoming. Almost.
Well, I have a ton of stuff to do to get ready for Key Club tomorrow. Key Club 101, yay!
Oh, and another thing. Mr. Verthein came into my English class today to talk to me because he couldn't get into contact with the lady running Good Neighbor Day to find out where we would be for administrative approval, and he said he was considering canceling the activity. The administration sucks. If we don't get to do this because of them and miss our press coverage, then an anonymous narrative of my experience caroling for NHS last year will find its way into Mr. Johnson's inbox.
Currently listening to: Man, it's so loud in here by They Might Be Giants
Rock on.
P.S. Oh, yes! Good news, good news! I got my letter from MIT today. They also sent me another application, which is good, since Mrs. Brown told us that we should have two. It's been a good day.
Plus, tonight is the West Wing premiere, in addition to Enterprise and Joe
2.0, a show which kind of looks interesting. But duty calls, and I must post
this entry. Au revoir!
Well, I finally figured out what the problem with Max was. I had made a huge tarball of all of my important files on Ziggy, and it took up all of Max's hard drive. I've also figured out where Max could come from. You see, my other two towers are named after computers from TV (Ziggy from Quantum Leap and Sandy from MacGyver). I was trying to come up with one my third, and Mary suggested Max. Well, I just remembered a TV computer called Max: Max Headroom! OK, so he wasn't actually a computer so much as a computer program, but hey, it works.
(My-brain-was-made-for-playing-six-degrees postscript: The voice of Max
Headroom was done by Matt Frewer, who, in addition to playing that character-
whose-name-I-forget on the show, also has appeared in The Fourth Protocol,
Episode "A Matter of Time" of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and is a
regular on Psi Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal, a show hosted by Dan
Ackroyd...)
Well, I've been hard at work doing nothing today. I finished last week's personal journal, anyway. Lots of homework and Key Club stuff remain, so I'd better be getting back to it.
Kyle and I went to Microcenter yesterday. We mostly just wandered around. He didn't buy much. Blah, blah, blah.
Homecoming is next weekend. Woohoo!
Hmmmm, I need to talk to Mr. Finke about VICA. Hmmmm, I also need to pay Key Club dues.
Yada, yada, yada.
Be sure to pick up a replacement. Oh, and get some jewel cases while
you're at it.
Hey, you know what's cool? These new post options let you set a date in the future for a post, and then it won't show up until that date. I've already posted on my twentieth birthday. Now I'll never forget to give a shout-out to anybody on their birthday!
P.S. Avast! Happy Birthday, Joe!
Totally forgot about Talk Like a Pirate Day until I was in programming today. I actually didn't do anything in programming today, just surfed the web. It's so nice to know more than anybody, especially Kevin Franzen.
Watched The Cable Guy tonight. Now I have a whole new arsenal of crazy quotes.
Our little presentation in English went pretty well. I slept through chemistry and calculus, though.
I considered going to the football game tonight, but I didn't because I slept all evening. Because of the whole fiasco at AT, almost their entire varsity team was out, so we better have won. I finally got my dresser, though.
I've had a sore throat all day. I hope I'm not getting sick. I'm going to sleep all weekend, just in case. Oh, how I wish I could. But I have all of this wonderful homework and college applications and Key Club stuff to do, so I can't. Bummer.
I have to do two weeks of personal journals for Mr. Blair. I guess I'll just get last week's from what I posted to my blog. Joy.
Watch for flurries of craziness with a 30% chance of total insanity.
Come, Watson. It's time for another grand adventure. The more I read Brit Lit, the more I realize that I should have taken French.
Buenas noches!
I knew the song was on the album "Spaced Out," but I didn't know about
this.
Darn. So busy, I forgot Enterprise was tonight. It sucks anyway. Travesty!
Board meeting went well. I'm not overwhelmed. No, course not.
Don't have too much homework tonight, which is good, considering.
Yada yada yada.
I had some of Mom's birthday cake, and now all is right with the world.
However, if anyone would happen to know where I might find:
A customer for SamAMac
A time machine
The meaning of life
I'd be much obliged.
wbkeyclub.org back up. I'm depressed.
What have I accomplished today? NOTHING. Nada. Zip. This sucks.
Now that wbkeyclub.org is screwed up, I'm considering moving it to SamAMac.
I need money, I need time, I need sleep.
Now wbkeyclub.org is down. Weirdness.
Back up. Now I can do my homework.
samamac.com down. I hope I didn't do it. I was working on the Key Club database, and I had just tried to execute a query when it went down. interAdvantage has been having a lot of trouble with reliability lately. Ramble, ramble.
So much to do, so little time.
I just learned my cable modem has a web interface. Cool. Now I can mess with it when it goes down, and if I need to call tech support again, I will sound more intelligent. The things they don't want us to know....
Today was an OK day. I have a lot of stuff to do, though, so I'd better get back to them.
Maverick missing for two days.
I get points!!!
Whoever was DJ on Oldies (they changed it back, by the way) 104.3 this morning intoduced "Pleasant Valley Sunday" like that.
Straight up. With an olive. What did I tell you?
Guess what I got done today? Right! Nothing! Well, actually I did get the Key Club Member Database online, but nothing in the sense of the homework I have to do. Renee was shocked I haven't even started the essay due Monday, but I figure that I never really start essays till the day before, and why should I start now?
Kyle called me up, wanting to do something. My dad had gone to this church
thing, so we went to see a movie. (Funny story: Kyle parked in our spot since
16th Street is all torn up, and he was only there for a couple of minutes, but
when we left to see the movie, the security guys were there. My dad had come
home and found Kyle in his spot and run into the security guys who patrol
Brandywine in the space of maybe 5 minutes. Weird.) We saw Matchstick Men, and
though Kyle said it had no plot (absolutely untrue) it was great. I give it 4
stars. I'm going to have to start my own movie rating service. Hmmm....there
we go. Maverick's Movies!
I just bought chocolates from a sixth-grader. I feel old.
Kris told me at lunch that John Ritter had died, and I didn't believe it until I read it in Programming. So sad.
I am so glad that it's Friday. I was up almost all night working on my chem HW, and I had a Civitas meeting this morning, which I had to walk to because my dad was taking my mom up to Mundelein, where she will be babysitting for the weekend. She suggested that we send out for a pizza; I suggested this to my dad (who doesn't like ordering pizzas) when he got home, and he suggested we go OUT for a pizza. This is a trend: whenever my mom isn't around, my dad and I go out to eat. 2 to 1 he orders a vodka martini wherever we go.
I have now lost all faith whatsoever in the WB Technology Department. Today I sat down at my usual computer in programming. Soon enough, I noticed a strange quirk: the space bar acted like backspace. Ms. Meier called Technology, and soon enough a guy came down with another keyboard. He immediately made it clear that he didn't speak English very well at all, but he connected the new keyboard, and waited to make sure I could log in. I could not, and I soon noticed why: the "v" did not work, which prevented me from entering my password. Though I made several attempts to explain this to the guy, he kept telling me to "try again," finally telling Ms. Meier that I couldn't log in because I didn't log out, something that was A)untrue, I had logged out before he had reinstalled the keyboard, and B)not something that would prevent me from logging in from the same machine, something which a Technology guy should know, considering I know that simply from experience. I finally moved to another computer and logged in successfully, and the guy left. Upon further examination by Josh, the keyboard proved to have a fully non-functional bottom row. I planned to swap the keyboard from the other computer, but Ms. Meier told me not to, saying, "They have to do it." If anything works in that school, it's because a student took a little illicit initiative. I wonder why the administration, in all of their cost-cutting measures, hasn't done something about them. Matt Y. tells me that he spent most of his time up in Technology making network cables, so obviously they aren't terribly overworked.
Enough of that diatribe! What else do I have to say? Not much.
From ZDNet Anchordesk:
The RIAA defended the action, even as Sen. Dick Durban, D-Ill., poked fun at the group. "Are you headed to junior high schools to round up the usual suspects?" Durbin asked RIAA President Cary Sherman during a Senate Judiciary hearing.
Makes me sorry I missed it when he came to Willowbrook.
Oh yeah. AMD up 5% today. Too bad I dropped my remaining shares this morning.
I hope it drops at the end of the month, because I'll get charged extra if I
do any more trading this month. Sucks, doesn't it?
Early dismissal today. No time for Mrs. Butler to give calculus homework. Rock on.
Went to Open House to supervise. Prediction made last year about NHS encroaching on Key Club proves prophetic. Must defeat evil organization. Or maybe join 'em.
Got back and had email from Princeton Review. Interesting #4 on list of colleges where "Their Students (Almost) Never Study". Also, #1 on "Their Students Never Stop Studying".
Still have AP Chem homework to do. I am masochism incarnate.
Oh, I almost forgot the thing I wanted to blog about the most. After the
meeting, Nina told me that she was getting email, and I sobbed "Thank you!"
and embraced her in a big bear hug, which I needn't mention is anomalous
behavior for me. I think she was a little frightened.
AMD down 8% today. I knew I should have bailed out yesterday.
Hey, new features! Something about a draft, and spell check! Coolness.
Got called down to the principal's office today. I'm "88's Best." Rock on.
Rest of the day kind of sucked. Chris is convinced I have ADD.
The Key Club meeting went all right, I guess. I think it looked like we were totally disorganized. It seems I spent the summer putting all my ducks in a row, but at the first meeting I forgot my duck.
Check out Italian Ghetto for two new quotes.
Tomorrow's an early dismissal. I can't wait for this week to be over already. Heck, I can't wait for the year to be over already.
Back to derivatives.
P.S. Had to record Enterprise, but am now convinced that Gene Roddenberry
would be turning in his grave had he not been cremated and his ashes launched
into space.
Chemistry: the science of what SHOULD have happened.
Guess how many messages I have in my Inbox. That's right...
And you thought Italian Ghetto was funny.
Today sucked. I hate Mondays.
I have a lot of stuff to do, so I'm going to get at it. Finding less and less
time for blogging.
Joy. Kyle came over tonight to screw around with his computers again.
Giving blood tomorrow. Yay me.
My mother insists that I need a job, but each place I suggest "would make me work too many hours."
You are hereby requested and required to visit Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie's MP3.com site and download all sorts of songs.
Now back to our regularly scheduled Key Club agenda, and National Merit and
college applications.
Woohoo! It's Friday!
AMD up 40 cents a share today. Evil incarnate!
The network administrator won the $1,000,000 Jeopardy! Masters Tournament. Nerd Pride!
I had some new quotes for the Italian Ghetto, but I can't remember what they are.
The Key Club Meeting is on for Wednesday. It's because next Thursday is Open House. I finally met with Ms. Engel today. She was all ready to have the meeting yesterday. Too bad, if I'd gotten in touch with her a little sooner, we might have been able to keep the schedule. Now we're starting after NHS. That sucks.
Top Ten Reasons Key Club is better than NHS
We're not elitist. You want in, you're in.
We're student-led. The officers run the club, not the advisor.
We don't make you get up early on Monday mornings for a pointless meeting.
We actually do stuff AS A CLUB.
We have an annual banquet.
We go to conventions.
We have stupid little chants and stuff.
When you go to college, you can join Circle K!
If we need money, we just beg Kiwanis.
AND THE NUMBER ONE REASON KEY CLUB IS BETTER THAN NHS...
It's like Communism!
Anyway, the regular meetings will be on Thursdays.
Also, I checked the Copyright Office, and I could not find "Andrew Isaacson"
in their records. That's something to make you go "Hmmmmmm..."
I haven't blogged for a little while. I plan to make a more comprehensive post later, but right now I want to lament the fact that (I thought I was being savvy) I dumped 75% of my AMD stock a couple of days ago. Today it shot up 6 percent. Oh well. I'm sure that it can't sustain this meteoric rise much longer, and I'll come out ahead in the long run. Besides, that's why I left 25% of my stock alone. :-)
To clarify, Mr. Isaacson did not write the book to which I've linked. The joke
is that Mr. Isaacson was the origin of the whole "Italian Ghetto" thing, and I
thought it was kind of funny that somebody had written a book with "Italian
Ghetto" in the title. I've searched Amazon.com several times for Mr.
Isaacson's "published book" to no avail. I just had a thought...I should check
the records at the Copyright Office. They're accessible online and should
contain the book, if it does indeed exist.
So this is the "published book" Mr. Isaacson was always bragging he had
written.
| < August 2003 | Matthew Loar > Blog | October 2003 > |
