more pointless stupidity

You've got to hold at least a little admiration for idiots.

Football games are a fabulous place to hear them in their prime.

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Girl: So are you a sophomore?

Guy: [about 14] Naw, I'm out of school.

Girl: You're probably just in like special ed or something.

Guy: [looks around] WHO's in special ed?!

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At Barnes & Noble [Yes, there are some idiots in bookstores, too.]

Kid 1: Mommy, are you and Daddy still fighting?

Kid 2: Yeah, do you still hate eachother?

Mom: Yeah...[in direction of "Daddy"]...because he's a DIRTBAG!!!

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Okay, that one was just kind of depressing. As is this one:

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At our school's Constitution Day:

5th Grader: [to Betsy Ross impersonator] So how many times have you been married?

Betsy Ross: I've been married twice.

5th Grader: HA! My mommy beat you. She's been married THREE times!!!

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And finally, one of my friends, of another girl at the football game:

"She has a gap in her teeth and a gap between her brain and her spinal cord."

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Have a lovely day!

i'm in an edgar allan poe sort of mood

A recent project for our Honors English class was to research the Spanish Inquisition, since we had just read The Pit and the Pendulum, a not-so-short short story by Edgar Allan Poe. Being the overacheiver that I sometimes am (and being bored), I stumbled upon a website where one can download Poe stories for free. Naturally, I did just that.

Also, I found some of his most famous quotes, which I found quite lovely:

-All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.
-Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
-I have great faith in fools; self-confidence my friends call it.
-I have no faith in human perfectability.
-I think that human exertion will have no appreciable effect upon humanity.
-Man is now only more active - not more happy - nor more wise, than he was 6000 years ago.
-I wish I could write as mysterious as a cat.
-It is by no means an irrational fancy that, in a future existence, we shall look upon what we think our present existence, as a dream.
-Man's real life is happy, chiefly because he is ever expecting that it soon will be so.
-Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.
-Take this kiss upon the brow! And, in parting from you now, Thus much let me avow - You are not wrong who deem, That my days have been a dream; Yet if hope has flown away In a night, or in a day, In a vision, or in none, Is it therefore the less gone?
-The true genius shudders at incompleteness - and usually prefers silence to saying something which is not everything it should be.
-They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.
-We loved with a love that was more than love.

My favorite work by Edgar Allan Poe is "The Raven," a poem which can be read here.

In my research I also found that when you have to research torture in the Spanish Inquisition, be ready to find some very strange articles on torture. Very creepy.

We also watched a documentary about him, and he happens to be a very interesting person. Here is his Wikipedia article, and one on the Spanish Inquisition.

ummmm...

After browsing some blogs that other people keep [I hear your cries of "NERD!!" from here], I realize that a lot of people have far too much time on their hands. Some of these people seriously write pages and pages a day. Of course, this is my fourth post of the day. But it is the weekend, and I'm waiting on my stupid computer to finish downloading a song...so what else could I do?

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Anyway, I hope my blog's not awfully boring like some of these that people dedicate their lives to. I just like to write and since there aren't any magazines or anything around to work at, and our "city"'s paper is...[insert adjective here], I take out my writing whims on the internet. So there.

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And now iTunes has finished with my song, but still - I type. The patter of keys fits nicely with my current serenade of The Beatles.

Hmmmm...so that this post has some sort of purpose, here are the lyrics to another of my favorite songs.

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"YOU OWE ME AN I.O.U." by Hot Hot Heat

He was in the habit of taking things for granted

Granted, there wasn't much for him to take

And the only thing constant was the constant reminder he'd never change

Tight fisted with his compliments, it didn't seem to bother him

that talk is even cheaper told in bulk

And the only thing constant was the constant reminder

He'd never change

And so she yelled at him:

You owe me an IOU - owe me an IOU

You owe me an IOU

Don't think that I'll forget

You owe me an IOU - owe me an IOU

You owe me an IOU

Don't think that I'll forget

I know what I should get this time

She was in the habit of reapplying makeup

Makeup eaten up by crocodile tears

And the only thing constant was the constant reminder she'd never change

Overtly individual - covertly traditional

She couldn't seem to make up her mind

And the only thing constant was the constant reminder she'd never change

And so he yelled at her:

You owe me an IOU - owe me an IOU

You owe me an IOU

Don't think that I'll forget

You owe me an IOU - owe me an IOU

You owe me an IOU

Don't think that I'll forget

I know what I should get this time (yeah)

Oh...What is it real?

I don't know

But, I'll act as if it is

What's the deal? I don't know

But, I'll act as if it is what I think that it is

If it is, then this might just work

They were in the habit of taking things for granted

Granted, they never quite knew what they had

And the only thing constant was the constant reminder they'd never change

And so they yelled out loud:

You owe me an IOU - owe me an IOU

You owe me an IOU

Don't think that I'll forget

You owe me an IOU - owe me an IOU

You owe me an IOU

Don't think that I'll forget

I know what I should get

Yeah I know what I should get this time

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Gotta love that...and them. A bunch of Canadian guys...I like the twangy sort of accent.

Well...it's about to storm. So before I die from being shocked from the computer or anyone reading this dies of boredom, I had better get off and go...do something.

Until next time...

japantown? no.

Sarah did a post not that long ago about stupid things that she's overheard...always fun. We both read this book called Overheard in New York that was full of these overheard wonders.

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Our school is a goldmine for stupidity.

For example, I overheard the following during Algebra Thursday:

GUY 1: So you're going to Chicago?

GUY 2: Yeah.

GUY 1: Are you gonna go to Chinatown?

GUY 2: No. What's that?

GUY 1: Where all the Japanese people go to, like, feel at home.

GUY 3: No, it's just where the Asians go, or something like that.

ME: [unable to contain myself] CHINAtown is where the Chinese go, and China and Japan are BOTH in Asia.

GUYS 1,2,3: Oh.

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If you want to be at least mildly entertained, click here for the OVERHEARD website.

newsworthy?

I'm getting very tired of the news. It's always a conglomeration of the most pathetic criminals and their pathetic deeds, and a moment cannot be taken to glorify the small margin of good remaining in our world.

At our school yesterday, there was a program honoring the shipmates of the U.S.S. Garrard, a ship named after our county that was in WWII. The veterans were there and a painting and model of the ship were dedicated, there was music by the band and others (I played my violin...) and some students made speeches. All very nice...but was it on the news? Of course not. Too cheery.

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This is why I've started watching Katie Couric when I do watch the news. She at least lets a little light into the news.

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However, I usually just fill my news whims by watching latenight tv. What could be better? Funny AND informative.

In a good way.

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UPDATE: I recently found a site that was full of good news. I thought that it was a really neat idea to have a blog that's just all good stuff in a world full of depressing things all around the news. The url is www.goodnewsblog.com . Check it out!

my kind of answer

I thought that this was really funny. It was forwarded to me and this was the explaination:

Blonde Geometry

Attached is problem 3 on a geometry examination. It is the solution submitted by a beautiful blonde student.It is our understanding that after careful scrutiny, the student was given credit for the answer by the teacher. When hearing of this the Board of Education warned math teachers to be more explicit in the wording of examination problems but was hesitant to suggest how.

superflous!

This came from a job interview help site and it was talking about how you shouldn't use too many big words to try to seem smart during an interview.

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I like big words. [That sentence did not include any...]

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Here it is:
Next time, in promulgating your esoteric cogitations, or articulating your superficial sentimentalities and amicable, philosophical or psychological observations, beware of platitudinous ponderosity. Let your conversational communications possess a clarified conciseness, a compacted comprehensibleness, coalescent consistency, and a concatenated cogency. Eschew all conglomerations of flatulent garrulity, jejune babblement, and asinine affectations.
Let your extemporaneous descantings and unpremeditated expatiations have intelligibility and veracious vivacity, without rodomontade or thrasonical bombast. Sedulously avoid all polysyllabic profundity, pompous prolixity, psittaceous vacuity ventriloquial verbosity, and vaniloquent vapidity. Shun double-entendres, prurient jocosity, and pestiferous profanity, obscurant or apparent!!
** ** In other words, talk plainly, briefly, naturally, sensibly, truthfully, purely. Keep from slang; don't put on airs; say what you mean; mean what you say. And, don't use big words!"

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[I don't know the URL of this...I have to ask my brother because he's the one who sent it to me. It might even be on his blog.]

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My nana ends every meal by exclaiming:

"I have masticated sufficiently, any more would be superfluous!"

You see the source of my fetish...

...and my poor violin doesn't get to come!

See - I'd like to go to Hawaii, but my poor violin couldn't even come! [See previous post]

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From Yahoo! News:
Standing under a pair of palm trees, people watch the weekly Waikiki fireworks show put on by the Hilton Hawaiian Village Resort Friday July 14, 2006 in Honolulu. Though Hawaii is notoriously expensive, crafty travelers can easily revel in much of what the state has to offer while holding tight to their pennies. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia)

I can't buy a ticket for my cello?!

This infuriated me a little when I saw it on the news and now I was just reading about it on the internet. Someone had a bomb plot involving an instrument they were carrying on a plane, so...

You're no longer allowed to carry-on an instrument on a plane. This means that you have to check it. I've never taken my violin anywhere because I didn't want to carry it on, much less have it put under the plane. Things get broken all the time, which is too big of a risk to take with an instrument that costs thousands of dollars and, at least in my case, has a very significant sentimental value on top of its monetary worth.

For somewhat obvious reasons, this has enraged many professional musicians who have to travel overseas with their instruments. It can't be with you - there was even a case where they wouldn't let a cellist buy an extra seat just for his cello. Honestly!

Anyway, this is the picture that went with the story on Yahoo! News. I thought that it was kind of a neat picture.

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From Yahoo! News:
[A violin. A group of top classical musicians has warned of the threat to artistic life from a hand baggage ban introduced after British police foiled an alleged bomb plot against transatlantic airliners.(AFP/File/Jeff Pachoud) ]

monty python

I think that I should just give up on numbering the list of my favo[u]rite Brits/Scots because this is getting ridiculous to have to keep track of...because now I've remembered 6 more...

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MONTY PYTHON is a group of British comedians known for their sketches on 'Monty Python's Flying Circus' and also their movies, which came after the show but are probably better known. (I, personally, prefer the show.)

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Top Row (L-R): Graham Chapman, Eric Idle, Terry Gilliam

Bottom Row (L-R): Terry Jones, John Cleese, Michael Palin

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Wikipedia has a huge article on them. See it here.

For the original Accents list, click here.

on the tenth...

My birthday is tomorrow, and I share the birthday or someday with these people:

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Births
1169 _ Alexius II Comnenus, Byzantine Emperor (d. 1183)
1487 _ Pope Julius III (d. 1555)
1550 _ Alonso de Guzman El Bueno, 7th Duke of Medina Sidonia, commander of the Spanish Armada (d. 1615)
1588 _ Nicholas Lanier, English composer (d. 1666)
1624 _ Thomas Sydenham, English physician (d. 1689)
1638 _ Maria Theresa of Spain, queen of Louis XIV of France (d. 1683)
1659 _ Henry Purcell, English composer (d. 1695)
1714 _ Niccolò Jommelli, Italian composer (d. 1774)
1758 _ Hannah Webster Foster, American author (d. 1840)
1788 _ Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes, French archaelogist (d. 1868)
1836 _ Joseph Wheeler, Confederate Lt. General and United States General (d. 1906)
1839 _ Isaac Kauffman Funk, American publisher (d. 1912)
1839 _ Charles Peirce, American philosopher
1844 _ Abel Hoadley, Australian confectioner (d. 1918)
1852 _ Alice Brown Davis, Seminole chief (d. 1935)
1861 _ Niels Hansen Jacobsen, Danish sculptor and ceramist (d. 1941)
1866 _ Jeppe Aakjær, Danish writer (d. 1930)
1886 _ Hilda Doolittle, American poet and novelist (d. 1961)
1890 _ Elsa Schiaparelli, French couturiere (d. 1973)
1890 _ Franz Werfel, poet and author (d. 1945)
1892 _ Arthur Compton, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1962)
1896 _ Ye Ting Chinese military leader (d. 1946 )
1896 _ Robert Taschereau, chief justice of the Supreme Court of Canada and Governor general of Canada (d. 1970)
1897 _ Hilde Hildebrand, German actress (d. 1976)
1898 _ Bessie Love, American actress (d. 1986)
1898 _ Waldo Semon, American inventor (d. 1999)
1904 _ Max Shachtman, American Trotskyist politician
1907 _ Alva R. Fitch, American World War II and Korean soldier (d. 1989)
1914 _ Robert Wise, American film director (d. 2005)
1915 _ Edmond O'Brien, American actor (d. 1985)
1917 _ Miguel Serrano, Chilean author and diplomat
1920 _ Fabio Taglioni, Italian motorcycle engineer (d. 2001)
1922 _ Yma Súmac, Peruvian singer
1924 _ Ted Kluszewski, Major League baseball player (d. 1988)
1928 _ Jean Vanier, Canadian humanitarian.
1929 _ Arnold Palmer, American golfer
1931 _ Philip Baker Hall, American actor
1933 _ Yevgeny Khrunov, cosmonaut (d. 2000)
1934 _ Charles Kuralt, American journalist (d. 1997)
1934 _ Roger Maris, baseball player (d. 1985)
1938 _ Karl Lagerfeld, German fashion designer
1941 _ Stephen Jay Gould, American paleontologist (d. 2002)
1941 _ Christopher Hogwood, English conductor
1941 _ Gunpei Yokoi, Japanese inventor and video game designer (d. 1997)
1942 _ Danny Hutton, American singer (Three Dog Night)
1943 _ Eldridge Coleman ("Superstar" Billy Graham), American professional wrestler
1945 _ Jose Feliciano, Puerto Rican singer
1946 _ Jim Hines, American athlete
1946 _ Don Powell, English drummer (Slade)
1948 _ Tony Gatlif, Algerian_born director
1948 _ Bob Lanier, American basketball player
1948 _ Margaret Trudeau, former wife of late Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau
1948 _ Judy Geeson, English actress
1949 _ Don Muraco, professional wrestler
1949 _ Bill O'Reilly, American journalist, author, and commentator
1950 _ Joe Perry, American musician (Aerosmith)
1952 _ Vic Toews, Canadian politician
1953 _ Amy Irving, American actress
1958 _ Dan Castellaneta, American voice actor
1958 _ Chris Columbus, American film director
1958 _ Siobhan Fahey, Irish singer (Bananarama and Shakespear's Sister)
1959 _ Peter Nelson, American actor
1960 _ Colin Firth, English actor
1960 _ David Lowery, American musician (Cracker (band))
1963 _ Randy Johnson, American baseball player
1966 _ Joe Nieuwendyk, Canadian ice hockey player
1968 _ Big Daddy Kane, American rapper
1968 _ Guy Ritchie, British film director
1969 _ Jonathon Schaech, American actor
1972 _ Ghada Shouaa, Syrian athlete
1972 _ James Duval, American actor
1973 _ Ferdinand Coly, Senegalese footballer
1974 _ Ryan Phillippe, American actor
1974 _ Ben Wallace, American basketball player
1976 _ Gustavo Kuerten, Brazilian tennis player
1980 _ Robert Green, English football player
1980 _ Mikey Way, American bassist (My Chemical Romance)

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Deaths
918 _ Count Baldwin II of Flanders (b. 865)
954 _ King Louis IV of France (b. 920)
1167 _ Empress Matilda, wife of Henry V, Holy Roman Emperor (b. 1102)
1197 _ Henry II of Champagne (b. 1166)
1308 _ Emperor Go_Nijo of Japan (b. 1285)
1419 _ John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy (assassinated) (b. 1371)
1519 _ John Colet, English churchman and educator
1559 _ Anthony Denny, confidant of King Henry VIII of England (b. 1501)
1591 _ Richard Grenville, English soldier and explorer (b. 1542)
1604 _ William Morgan, Welsh Bible translator (b. 1545)
1607 _ Luzzasco Luzzaschi, Italian composer and organist (b. 1545)
1669 _ Henrietta Maria, queen of Charles I of England (b. 1609)
1676 _ Gerrard Winstanley, English religious reformer (b. 1609)
1680 _ Baldassare Ferri, Italian castrato (b. 1610)
1749 _ Émilie du Châtelet, French mathematician and physicist (b. 1706)
1759 _ Ferdinand Konšcak, Croatian explorer (b. 1703)
1797 _ Mary Wollstonecraft, English author (b. 1759)
1801 _ Jason Fairbanks, American murderer (b. 1780)
1851 _ Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, American educator (b. 1787)
1867 _ Simon Sechter, Austrian composer (b. 1788)
1898 _ Elisabeth of Austria (assassinated) (b. 1837)
1915 _ Charles Boucher de Boucherville, Premier of Quebec (b. 1822)
1931 _ Dmitri Egorov, Russian mathematician (b. 1869)
1935 _ Huey Long, American politician (b. 1893)
1937 _ Sergei Tretyakov, Russian writer (b. 1892)
1948 _ King Ferdinand of Bulgaria (b. 1861)
1961 _ Leo Carrillo, American actor (b. 1880)
1965 _ Father Divine, American religious leader (b. 1880)
1966 _ Emil Gumbel, German mathematician and pacifist (b. 1891)
1971 _ Pier Angeli, Italian actress (b. 1932)
1975 _ George Paget Thomson, English physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1892)
1976 _ Dalton Trumbo, American writer (b. 1905)
1979 _ Agostinho Neto, Angolan politician (b. 1922)
1983 _ Felix Bloch, Swiss_born physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1905)
1983 _ John Vorster, Prime Minister of South Africa (b. 1915)
1985 _ Jock Stein, Scottish football player and manager (b. 1922)
1991 _ Jack Crawford, Australian tennis player (b. 1908)
1996 _ Joanne Dru, American actress (b. 1923)
1997 _ Jack Adkisson, professional wrestler (b. 1929)
1998 _ Carl Forgione, actor (b. 1944)
1999 _ Alfredo Kraus, Spanish tenor (b. 1927)
2000 _ Zaib_un_Nissa Hamidullah, Pakistani journalist and writer. (b. 1921)
2004 _ Brock Adams, American politician (b. 1927)
2005 _ Clarence Gatemouth Brown, American guitarist and singer (b. 1924)

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Holidays and observances
Calendar of Saints _ Virgin of the Wonders; Nicholas of Tolentino
Also see September 10 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
Gibraltar _ National Day
World Suicide Prevention Day
Teacher's Day in China
Day of the Child in Honduras
Grandparent's Day (US)

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Other
10 September was the name of a communist faction in Turkey.


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I copied this from Wikipedia.
It can be found in full here.

A Familiar Letter

This is probably one of my favorite poems ever. It's long, but I like it anyhow.

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A Familiar Letter

YES, write, if you want to, there's nothing like trying;

Who knows what a treasure your casket may hold?

I'll show you that rhyming's as easy as lying,

If you'll listen to me while the art I unfold.

Here's a book full of words; one can choose as he fancies,

As a painter his tint, as a workman his tool;

Just think! all the poems and plays and romances

Were drawn out of this, like the fish from a pool!

You can wander at will through its syllabled mazes,

And take all you want, not a copper they cost,--

What is there to hinder your picking out phrases

For an epic as clever as "Paradise Lost"?

Don't mind if the index of sense is at zero,

Use words that run smoothly, whatever they mean;

Leander and Lilian and Lillibullero

Are much the same thing in the rhyming machine.

There are words so delicious their sweetness will smother

That boarding-school flavor of which we're afraid,

There is "lush"is a good one, and "swirl" is another,--

Put both in one stanza, its fortune is made.

With musical murmurs and rhythmical closes

You can cheat us of smiles when you've nothing to tell

You hand us a nosegay of milliner's roses,

And we cry with delight, "Oh, how sweet they do smell!"

Perhaps you will answer all needful conditions

For winning the laurels to which you aspire,

By docking the tails of the two prepositions

I' the style o' the bards you so greatly admire.

As for subjects of verse, they are only too plenty

For ringing the changes on metrical chimes;

A maiden, a moonbeam, a lover of twenty

Have filled that great basket with bushels of rhymes.

Let me show you a picture--'t is far from irrelevant--

By a famous old hand in the arts of design;

'T is only a photographed sketch of an elephant,--

The name of the draughtsman was Rembrandt of Rhine.

How easy! no troublesome colors to lay on,

It can't have fatigued him,-- no, not in the least,--

A dash here and there with a haphazard crayon,

And there stands the wrinkled-skinned, baggy-limbed beast.

Just so with your verse,-- 't is as easy as sketching,--

You can reel off a song without knitting your brow,

As lightly as Rembrandt a drawing or etching;

It is nothing at all, if you only know how.

Well; imagine you've printed your volume of verses:

Your forehead is wreathed with the garland of fame,

Your poems the eloquent school-boy rehearses,

Her album the school-girl presents for your name;

Each morning the post brings you autograph letters;

You'll answer them promptly,-- an hour isn't much

For the honor of sharing a page with your betters,

With magistrates, members of Congress, and such.

Of course you're delighted to serve the committees

That come with requests from the country all round,

You would grace the occasion with poems and ditties

When they've got a new schoolhouse, or poorhouse, or pound.

With a hymn for the saints and a song for the sinners,

You go and are welcome wherever you please;

You're a privileged guest at all manner of dinners,

You've a seat on the platform among the grandees.

At length your mere presence becomes a sensation,

Your cup of enjoyment is filled to its brim

the pleasure Horatian of digitmonstration,

As the whisper runs round of "That's he!" or "That's him!"

But remember, O dealer in phrases sonorous,

So daintily chosen, so tunefully matched,

Though you soar with the wings of the cherubim o'er us,

The ovum was human from which you were hatched.

No will of your own with its puny compulsion

Can summon the spirit that quickens the lyre;

It comes, if at all, like the Sibyl's convulsion

And touches the brain with a finger of fire.

So perhaps, after all, it's as well to he quiet

If you've nothing you think is worth saying in prose,

As to furnish a meal of their cannibal diet

To the critics, by publishing, as you propose.

But it's all of no use, and I'm sorry I've written,--

I shall see your thin volume some day on my shelf;

For the rhyming tarantula surely has bitten,

And music must cure you, so pipe it yourself.

-Oliver Wendell Holmes

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For lots and lots of poems, click here.

For more on Oliver Wendell Holmes, click here.

Princess Diana

Recently, the thirty-first of August marked the ninth anniversary of the death of Princess Diana, the world's favorite royal (or at least mine). She died tragically in a car accident in 1997, about a year after divorcing her husband Prince Charles, the current heir to the British throne. He later married Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, to whom he is still married.

Click on the names of each of the people mentioned to see their Wikipedia article.

This is a picture of Princess Diana dancing with John Travolta at the White House.

[Note: The death date of Diana is disputed. Some sites say it is the first of September, whereas our school ventured so far as to claim it as the seventh of September.]

honorable mention number...?!

I'm afraid that I have yet another honorable mention for my "Favorite People with British/Scottish Accents" List...

Benny Hill: The British comedy show host. What else to say? Just that he's hilarious.

I'm very surprised that I forgot him the first time. He's great, if you ask me. I was only reminded of him when I was talking to Sarah and she mentioned that she was surprised I didn't include him. So I did.

For the original post, click here.

"Cassiopeia"

Yahoo! Photos again...
I thought this one was really cool.
In other planetary news (or not) Pluto has lost its planetary status; it's now technically an "icy dwarf." My brother blogged on this. Click here for more.

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From Yahoo! News:
This photo, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and released 29 August 2006, provides a detailed look at the tattered remains of a supernova explosion known as Cassiopeia A (Cas A). Astronomers say they have recorded a supernova in real time: the death explosion of a massive star that is typically only ever spotted days after the blast.(AFP/NASA/File)

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