Ramblings of a Constipated Mind

...I last updated this blog. Things have been way too hectic and busy around here.

And yes, I know I was supposed to post my review of The Last Samurai this past Saturday. I just haven't had time. It's written, just not online yet. Speaking of movies, I have seen a few lately. I'm not going to post reviews of them on my site (I don't have time and I just don't want to), but I'll sum up my thoughts here:

Open Range - Kevin Costner's new western/drama. It wasn't as good as I had hoped, but some people will probably love it. As for me, I thought the acting was horrible (though it improved as the movie went on) and Costner just doesn't have a good accent. Some parts of the script are horribly written. It's slow moving (not necessarily a bad thing, but it will discourage some people) and only has one big shootout. As a whole, it's not bad, and I give it a 6/10.

Whale Rider - One of those artsy Sundance films. It follows a girl named Pai who belongs to the Maori (or is it Mauri?) tribe. Supposedly destiny was messed up because she was born instead of her twin brother, who died and was supposed to be the next chief. She starts learning the customs of the tribe, and challenges its rules and institutions. There's really so much more I could say, but it would take too long. It's a pretty good movie, and provides an interesting look at the beliefs and customs of a different people group (and I thought Salvadoreans could be weird). I give it an 8/10.

S.W.A.T. - Based on the old tv show, it follows members of an elite SWAT unit (what did you think?). They have to stop an international terrorist and an ex-SWAT member gone rogue. It's just a good, fun movie. It's not trying to win any awards. The acting is solid and some of the action scenes are pretty inventive. If you're looking for a movie that doesn't demand much from its audience, this is a good choice. It deserves an 8/10.

There are so many other things I want to mention about the last few days. For instance, I was going to post the links to a few new Jeffrey Ford stories, but I don't have time to find them now. Oh, and Julieta, I was glad to hear you finally read The Empire of Ice Cream and enjoyed it! I sent that to you what, eight months ago?

I will mention this: Peter Jackson won the Golden Globe for Best Director. Yay. That's really all I wanted. But Return of the King also won Best Drama, so that's good too. Bill Murray deserves credit for the funniest acceptance speech. Although that British guy from The Office was pretty funny (he hadn't written a speech) - "As you probably guessed, I'm from a little island called England. We used to rule the world before you did."

Less than a month until The Passion of the Christ. I decided I'll go see it even if the subtitles are in Spanish, since they were considering releasing it without subtitles in the first place.

Not much happened today. Oh, except I finally found out my grade on a huge Spanish report I had to turn in weeks ago. I don't even want to think about it. How is it that I can score an 84% on the oral presentation, but considerably less than that when the exact same information, and perhaps more, is just written down? I could go on and on about how horrible my Spanish teacher is, but I've done that before. I'm guessing you already got the point.

Let's see. I wrote a review of The Last Samurai. It should be up on my site some time this weekend. Speaking of movies, I saw the new trailer for The Passion of the Christ. I hate the title (the Christ? You mean there could be confusion about which Christ was meant?), but I can honestly say now that this is the film I'm most looking forward to seeing so far this year. The trailer can be viewed on the official site. I also recently saw the trailer for Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind here. This movie looks really weird, but good. Hopefully this new Jim Carrey drama will be at least as good as The Truman Show (one of my favorite movies) and better than The Majestic.

What, not even one comment on my previous post?

No, not really.

It's been a while since I posted, so I thought I might as well jot down a few thoughts and events. Not much has changed in regards to school. Oh, except supposedly (I myself haven't seen them) the girls' costumes for the circus are a bit suggestive. By that I mean skin. Cleavage. Lots o' leg. You get the idea. I know that some girls (such as Souwa and Clau J.) just will refuse to wear that type of clothing. In case any of those girls happen to be reading: I support you. It would be like me running out in public shirtless and wearing a leopard skin thong (fine, so maybe not that bad). I feel your pain.

Other than that, not much has happened to me lately. Except I did update my website (finally) with a review of Intolerable Cruelty. And last weekend I watched The Last Samurai starring Pretty Boy Tom Cruise. I was forced to watch it alone after a friend couldn't make it - there was a huge political demonstration or something that caused a big traffic jam. But the movie was good enough that I didn't mind. Hopefully I'll have a review written and posted by this weekend. (Mental note: Remember to write reviews of Edward Scissorhands and Finding Nemo as well).

Hm. Other news: Lucy has begun menstruating. She goes through huge mood swings. Sometimes she's really hyper and wants to play, while at others she just lays in a "ho-dog" position (on her back with hers legs spread). My dad thinks we should let her have a litter of puppies. He seemed to think the poodle a few houses down would make a good father since Lucy is half poodle. But whenever I think about it I just want to shudder at the mental picture. That dog is so old he can barely walk, let alone impregnate Lucy. I think it would be best if we let her keep her virginity. For now.

Church was good yesterday. Humorous yet thought-provoking statement: "The Israelites saw Goliath and thought, 'He is so big that it would be impossible to fight him.' David saw Goliath and thought, 'He is so big that I can't miss.'"

I've been thinking I should probably post something on my site about how exactly I rate the movies. I already have some idea of what I look for, but lately I've been pondering what might make a movie bad, specifically in regards to the elements some people might find offensive (and comments on what I'm about to say would be much appreciated). Let's face it: Hollywood, for the most part (there are exceptions) is not exactly one of the world's bright spots in terms of morality - and by that I mean from a Christian point of view. Entertainment today - and I mean in all mediums, not just film - is filled with violence, profanity, sexuality, nudity, drugs, etc. etc. Many Christians have the idea that because of Hollywood's immorality there is no way Christian principles or ideas could be spread by any of its productions. And they have a point - it is hard not to watch a movie without being confronted (and in some cases, overwhelmed) with what we would consider "sinful" practices.

However, I've done a lot of thinking about the issue, and I disagree. Yes, movies are filled with sin. Yes, I agree that sin is not a good thing. Yes, I agree that movies show characters taking part in immoral practices. However, does this mean that nothing good can come from them? No. For I also agree that this world is filled with sin. Sin is not a good thing. In this world people take part in immoral practices. I've found that many movies are immoral but that this is okay for the following reasons:

1) They serve as a wake-up call to people by shouting, "What have we become?"
2) They show real people living in the real world facing real problems. People truly relate to these characters, and when the positive ideas, themes, and messages are displayed they are then more easily able to apply them to their own lives.

This is what makes film such a powerful, and in my opinion a good, thing. Would, for example, The Deer Hunter have such an impact on people if the violence was any less extreme? Would the characters be as believable if instead of using a lot of profanity they all talked like highly educated pastors? No. Even though it might make some Christians happy, the average person would not be able to relate as much to the movie, and would soon forget it instead of actually thinking about what it had to say.

As HollywoodJesus puts it: Christianity is not morality. Although they are linked, they are not the same thing. Morality centers on morals. Christianity centers on Christ. If a movie contains material offensive to Christians, does this mean God can't use it? No. Does this mean people, even non-Christians, can't see hints of Christ shining through? No. Just look at the Bible: here's a book filled with violent wars, sexual immorality, and people rejecting God for their sinful natures. Sin sin sin, everywhere you look. And yet through it all, Christ gets through. Christ came to save real people, and real people are sinners. Movies are about real people, and therefore real sinners. Can the two combine? Without a doubt.

Basically, what I've decided: a movie cannot be considered good or bad based solely on the morals it displays. A film might be filled to the brim with sin, but still a movie that arguably has Christ at its center (eg. the film Thirteen, I've heard). On the other hand, it might be squeaky clean but a complete waste of time (The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, anyone?). Other factors must be taken into account: the entertainment value, the dominant themes, etc.

Once again, I would apreciate your comments. Some people will agree completely with my idea that morality doesn't determine whether a movie is worth seeing or not. Others will think I'm completely wrong. Bottom line: I want to know. Oh, and don't think that I've forgotten the argument about not letting sin get in your mind. That is a separate issue, and one that is different for every individual. Paul said to think only about things that are good and pure. Some people will be able to watch tons of sin without having their minds start to become "impure". Others will only be able to see a little - and I'm not saying one is better than the other. In the end, these are issues that will be dealt with differently by each person.

Ugh. It's late. Nighty night.

I'm writing this during my free period at school. I could do work, but I don't really have much to work on. I'll do Spanish tonight (I have a bad habit of saving Spanish work until the last minute) and maybe read some more of Frankenstein.

Yesterday was not a very good day for various reasons. I didn't do as well on my history essay as I'd hoped, and the circus has been driving me nuts. I turned in the final script on Monday, but discovered that a group of girls was working on a completely new script because they thought mine sucked. The script that I've worked on for months has been completely rejected in favor of theirs. Now, I don't mind if they hate my script, but there are some things that really get on my nerves:

1) Supposedly we (Carlos and I, the only two people who volunteered to work on the script) didn't develop the ideas properly. They told us what to write, we wrote it, they approved it, and now suddenly they've changed their minds about it. Yes, some of the ideas might have been jumbled up a bit, but that was only because we had to come some ideas together because there simply were too many. I personally think that in most cases this turned out well, but obviously they didn't.

2) The timing. They've had months to give us ideas and let us know what should go in the script. Now they act as if we haven't been doing our job. Carlos and I went to every meeting and have been working on this thing for months, doing our best to please everybody. I honestly think we were the most committed people involved with the circus. Now, suddenly, with only 6 weeks until we perform it on stage people have decided to do something completely different. If it was just a few elaborations on the existing script, I wouldn't mind as much, since I'm sure ours could have been improved. Instead, they've tossed away the basic idea we decided we would use and have been developing for weeks, and are doing something completely different.

3) The majority of them don't seem to understand what's wrong. I think maybe two people sympathized with Carlos and I and apologized, for which I am grateful. The rest of them don't seem to care that they've just taken weeks of work and essentially trashed it all. They claim they used ideas from our script, but I've read their script and it really bears nothing in common with ours at all.

So, in a sense, I've just wasted a few weeks of my life working on something that's just been scrapped. But oh well. Today things are much better. I've realized that I did my part and what they asked me to do, so in a sense there's nothing for me to worry about. Maybe our script sucked, maybe it didn't, but if it did God knew it would suck and turned things around. And it's not like the new script is completely terrible. There are some good ideas (although there are a few I absolutely loathe) and hopefully things will turn out well. Life is still good. I don't plan on doing any more for the circus. I'll act/dance in what scenes they tell me to act/dance in, but I'm not going to volunteer for anything more. I did my job already.

On another note: yes, I know I haven't updated my website in a while. I've been very busy. I've written a review that I need to post, and there were several reviews waiting to be written. To the one or two people who actually visit my site: be patient. I will update it as soon as possible.

Also, has anyone heard anything about the various "Google bombs" that seem to be popping up? By a "Google bomb", I mean the following: you go to Google and type in something and then click "I'm Feeling Lucky", which takes you to the page that Google thinks most clearly relates to what you're searching for. People have been messing around with their sites (I don't know all the details) and making it so the results of such a search are rather humorous. Most of them have to do with politics. These are the ones I know so far:

"weapons of mass destruction" - be sure to click the links for added fun
"miserable failure"
"french military victories" - again, click the link
"elgoog" - not anything to do with politics, but I still think it's funny. Try searching for something.

Just type in the above without quotes and click I'm Feeling Lucky. If anyone knows of any more, please let me know. Also, Google has implemented an Easter Egg into their calculator program. Type in "the answer to life the universe and everything" and click Search. You'll only understand it if you've read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams.

That's all for now.

Today actually went pretty well. I found out that I made in the 98th percentile on the PSAT. This means one of two things:

1) I really am a pretty smart guy.
2) What people say about America is true. I'm not that bright, it's just that the majority of Americans are stupid.

The only really bad thing that happened was that I found out that I did my Spanish work completely wrong. So did the rest of the class. The teacher chewed us out like we're all a bunch of morons for not being able to understand an assignment she didn't even explain how to do. Now, if only a few students did it wrong, then I might be convinced by her implication that it's all our fault. But if nobody did it right, it seems like she ought to examine her way of teaching instead of our way of learning. It took her 45 minutes today to explain the assignment she discussed for 20 seconds before the break, and some people still didn't fully understand. Surely that says something.

Other than that, life is good. Really good. I feel happier and more at peace than I have in weeks. Who knew school could actually be something positive?

A random chain of thought I had: the phrase "thank you" should not exist. The only reason people say it is because it's polite. It's polite because it implies that the person being thanked has done something good. The deeper connotation: the world is such a horrible place that good deeds must be formally acknowledged. Does that depress anyone other than me? In an ideal society good deeds should be so common that no recognition of them should be necessary. The words "thank you" should have no meaning. It's a pity that the phrase is still required even among Christians, isn't it?

In other words, if anyone who reads this one day meets me and I don't say "thank you" for something, don't consider me to be rude. All it means is that at the present moment I'm feeling rather idealistic.

Yawn. Time for bed. Hopefully tomorrow will be as good as today.

Today was the last day of Christmas break. In approximately 9 hours and 40 minutes I will once again be at the Academia Britanica Cuscatleca. My three weeks of freedom have come to an end.

*sob*

Hold me.

As I write this, I am sitting at a friend's house in San Miguel. We finally made it.

The trip here was almost completely uneventful. We brought Lucy along since we didn't her to be lonely. Wait wait wait. Back up. Let me start again.

Two weeks ago we had two dogs. Pepsi was a cross between a labrador and doberman. About a year ago we got Lucy, a mix of maltese and French poodle. Pepsi was recently stolen, so now we just have Lucy. All clear now?

Anyway, this was Lucy's first real car ride. Whereas Pepsi loved to go for rides in the car so she could stick her head out the window and feel the breeze in her face, we discovered today that Lucy is completely the opposite. Before the halfway point she threw up, and spent the majority of the trip walking all over everybody and shaking uncontrollaby becauses she just wouldn't settle down. We opened the window, thinking she might like some fresh air. Unlike Pepsi, she wasn't a big fan of sticking her face out into the open air. She just kinda of stared outside and her head would follow the motion of the cars that drove by in the opposite direction. We stopped to get a bite to eat and then resumed our trip. Once again, Lucy was not having fun.

This is where things got interesting. My dad was in the passenger seat up front and Mr. Preston (the friends I'm currently with) was driving. My brother James was on the left side of the back seat, I was in the middle, and Andrew W. was on the right. Lucy still couldn't sit still, and once again my brother put down the left window so maybe she would at least get distracted and sit still for a while. Lucy took a few steps towards the window and suddenly was gone. I can only think of two possible reasons for this:

1) She decided that the car was sitting still and the world outside was moving. Feeling that the rest of us were too boring to entertain her, she decided to join the rest of the world in all its fun.

2) She thought the ground was only a few inches below the window and not moving (and yes, technically it really wasn't moving, but bear with me here). Having a sudden attack of claustrophobia, she had to get out.

Whatever the reason, she decided to jump out the window. She was about halfway out when my brother suddenly realized, "Hey. This doesn't look normal. Maybe I should do something." He managed to grab her right hind leg before she sailed off into space, and eventually, asphalt. Someone in the car made this huge gasp (it was probably me) and Uncle Preston hit the breaks. Meanwhile, Lucy was dangling a few feet above the road scratching at the side of the car. Whether she was trying to get in or out of the car I don't know. Thankfully, James didn't drop her and pulled her back in before anything other surprising things could happen.

Lucy didn't seem to mind at all. She never cried out during the entire thing. Once she was back inside she laid down and went to sleep. Now, why didn't we think of dangling her out the window before?

However, I can't stop thinking about the one instant when she was leaping out the window. For one split second she was in midair going about sixty miles an hour. Now I can claim my dog can fly (or at least has suicidal thoughts). I hope the rest of my time in San Miguel is at least half that...er...interesting.

I finally get a chance to update this after a few days. Try not to disturb the neighbors with your cheering and applause.

Things are looking up. I've finished almost all of my Spanish work except for one last thing. I have to do something called a Collagio Literario. I don't know what it is, and the teacher didn't bother to explain. Plus, we were supposed to buy this book that would explain how to do it, but it's out of stock. Just my luck. All I know is that I have to write a poem or something using quotes from a book. Now, I've only written a couple of poems in English, and they all deserve to be burned. I don't want to imagine what an attempt at poetry Spanish will result in. Plus, the Spanish work I've actually completed is horrible and not nearly long enough. If only the teacher bothered to explain what we were actually supposed to do. But no, that would take too much time.

There's been a change of plans and I'll be going to San Miguel tomorrow. Woohoo!

I'm still reading through that Jeffrey Ford book. Some of these stories are absolutely amazing. I said I would provide links, so I will:

The Empire of Ice Cream - Quite possibly my favorite short story. Ever. It makes me wish I had synesthesia.

Floating in Lindrethool - A story of speculative fiction that borders on horror (it's difficult to put Ford in a particular genre). Basically, it's about a guy who sales jars. With brains in them. It's quite intriguing.

The Far Oasis - It's about "unnatural selection" and what happens when a man is banished on a foreign planet. Fascinating.

At Reparata - I just finished reading this one and it's amazing.

That's all for now. Enjoy!

Do you ever feel like the entire world is crashing down around you? I'm having one of those days.

I managed to finish my history essay and I just completed my portion of the script I'm helping to write for the school circus. It's either incredibly brilliant and funny, or the dumbest load of crap I've ever produced. Something tells me it's the latter. But oh well. There's not much I can do about that now. I'm too lazy to re-write it. I still have to do Spanish homework, and I don't understand part of the assignment. Right now I really want to hurt my Spanish teacher. Actually, wait...I've wanted to do that all year. This is normal.

Tomorrow my parents are making me take a practice SAT. Then on Wednesday we plan on travelling to San Miguel. In other words, I have no time to do what little Spanish work I know how to do. Could I do it now? Yes. But right now I have a massive headache and everything would turn out wrong. Can I do it tonight? No. I have Puerta. And my head will probably still be hurting by then.

I just have to keep reminding myself that on Wednesday things will change and I'll get to have fun with some friends. Then again, school starts up again in a week. In conclusion: right now my life sux.

Thankfully, I have books to get my mind off things. I'm still trying to work my way through Return of the King. I can read more of Frankenstein on the way to San Miguel. I'm also reading one of the books I got for Christmas: The Fantasy Writer's Assistant and Other Stories by Jeffrey Ford. He and Philip K. Dick are probably my favorite authors. These stories are awesome. Maybe later I'll post some links to where you can read some of his work online.

I think an anvil just landed on my brain.

Well, I just finished having a dinner with the "grupo de 12". They are basically 12 "elders" (60% of the church is made up of young people - the pastor was the oldest one there and he's 30) of the Seguidores church. I wasn't looking forward to it but it was actually pretty fun. They're cool people. We spent lots of time around the table telling Bible jokes, talking about setting off New Year's fireworks, etc. It was fun.

One thing I don't particularly enjoy about when we have big dinners at our house: my parents. They say things like, "Oh it'll be so much fun!" a few days beforehand. But when the actual event comes they get so stressed out (especially my mom) about making sure everything is perfect and the food is ready. That stress eventually works it way down to me. I still don't see why we packed these dinners so close together - just a few weeks ago we had one for the Puerta and then a Christmas drop-in.....

Speaking of the Puerta, the one in my house starts up again tomorrow. There a video about what exactly "Puertas" (translated it means "doors") are on the Seguidores web site. I've seen it before, and though it's in Spanish and the quality isn't very good, it's worth a look if you're interested. It can be found here. Check out the guy dancing - it's my favorite part.

I finally fixed the counter problems thanks to some help from Nick. Supposedly, this blog has received 1 hit today, and so has my site. And that hit was probably from Nick. It looks like I'm not the web celeb I thought I was. Maybe I'm just having a bad day.

Not much happening. I went to church, ate lunch...now I'm at a loss as to how to spend my time. I could work on my history essay, but it's on the computer I can't get to now. There's always Frankenstein, but I don't know. I think I'll just sit around and mope for a while.

I submitted my blog and site to Google, but there's no way of knowing if they'll ever show up as search results. When is the next web crawl over? You'd think with all the technology available they'd be able to find a way to crawl the entire Internet in a few minutes. Life seems so backwards sometimes. A backwards life is evil. Or rather, efil.

The pupusas were good. I ate two big huge ones with beans, cheese and meat; I saved another big one for later. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water.

After we ate we went down to this part of town where there was a really nice view of the entire city (I couldn't see my house though). It turns outs El Salvador looks pretty nice when seen from above. It doesn't have all the rolling hills that Honduras did, but it's nice just the same. Some people might call the place we were at a really good part of the city. But I beg to differ. There were people and cars everywhere, many of them drunk and/or stoned - the people not the cars. There were some interesting little shops set up where people could buy typical Latin American souvenirs, and even a band playing on the side of the road. Their music sounded kind of tribal - I think someone mentioned the word "Incan" but I couldn't be sure. Anyway, I got the impression that this place was the armpit of El Salvador. I would probably think differently if I saw it during the day.

That's about all that happened today. I read a chapter of Frankenstein for school and wrote another paragraph on my history essay. Then I talked to Nick in Singapore on AOL. Later I talked to another friend for a few hours on MSN. And now it's past midnight. It's been a pretty relaxed day.

But hey! As you can probably already see, I added a comment system, thanks to Nick and HaloScan (link on the side). Now I can receive input from all my charming but possibly slightly psychopathic readers! I'm probably a lot more excited about it than you people are, but hey, I'm easy to please (though some would disagree). I just hope it works.

Oh, and the first potato chip was invented by George Crum in 1853, so I'll give him credit for Doritos, which came about in 1964. I was way off. Doritos is Spanish for "little gold" - now I feel like a moron for knowing a decent amount of Spanish but not realizing that before. But hey, at least now I know that Jeeves is good for something after all.

I really do. I just put one on my web site one or two days go. Today I went to see how many views I had. There were 50. The first thought that popped into my skull was "Wow! Not bad." Then I realized: How many of those hits are real? There are links on every page linking back to Home - isn't it possible people just clicked them a lot? There's no way of knowing what those numbers mean. I could have had fifty different people look at my site. Or I could have had five just going back to the home page a lot.

But oh well. Maybe people are actually looking at this blog and linking to my site. I doubt it though. I haven't received emails from any strangers commenting on my blog, nor have I received any informing me that someone signed my web site guestbook. That means one of two things:

a) No one looks at this blog or my site. I am a nobody.
b) This blog gets millions of hits per day. My site gets dozens. No one bothers to tell me, but I'm a web celeb.

Hm. It's gotta be option B, don't you think? Definitely.

Speaking of my site, I added a review of The Deer Hunter. Just in case one person out there amidst the billions of those surfing cyberspace sees this and actually cares. On another note, I'll be going out to eat with my family in a few minutes, probably to go chow down on some pupusas. For those of you not from Latin America (I'm guessing that's most of you) a pupusa is basically a really fat tortilla made of dough that's stuffed with cheese, beans, pork, etc. They're delicious and I would strongly suggest buying a plane ticket to El Salvador just to have some. The salvadoreans and hondurans constantly bicker about who invented them, but everyone knows it was El Salvador. Pupusas are practically the national food!

Oh, and who invented the Dorito? Donald "Chip" Rito? I really want to know.

Ok. So I just got finished watching this movie called Adaptation with Nicholas Cage, Meryl Streep and Chris Cooper. Am I going to post a review on my site? No. I'm not in the mood. And I have tons of other reviews I need to post.

But I've just gotta say something about this movie. It's just plain weird. It's written by Charlie and Donald Kaufman and it's based on a book called "The Orchid Thief". What is it about? Charlie and Donald Kaufman writing a screenplay based on "The Orchid Thief". Confused yet? So am I. This film isn't particularly noteworthy except for the acting (Streep and Cooper won some well-deserved Oscars) and the screenplay/directing. It's like a giant circle, and it just makes your head spin. There's so many layers...

For example, you get Nick Cage (playing both Charlie and Donald Kaufman just to add to the confusion) speaking in a voiceover, followed by him saying out loud that voiceovers don't work and shouldn't be used in a movie. There's a whole lot of moments like this, where it makes you want to go, "Huh? Wait just a second..."

Also, both Charlie and Donald have distinct personalities, and since both are scriptwriters this is evident in their work (I'm talking about the characters in the movie here....I think). Charlie is more original and artsy, while Donald prefers the cliched thrillers. And a lot of this movie is original and artsy, but by the end you will have seen plenty of "Donald" events thrown in (guns, sex, a man-eating crocodile, stuff like that). So you're seeing these two characters' personalities being described on film, as well as actually seeing both styles physically present in the film's structure. It's just mind-boggling.

Some people will hate this film. Others (such as my brother) will love it. Me, I kinda like it, just for its unique and distinct style. There's nothing quite as refreshing as a movie that makes your head hurt every once in a while. There's a paradox in there somewhere, I know. Anyway, if any of you charming people (I'm sure) ever need something to do on a weekend, you might as well check this out. Will it be a rewarding time? I don't know for sure. But it will definitely be...er...different.

Besides, you'll get to see Chris Cooper wit' no front teeth and lookin' like a hillbilly.

I have just discovered how to change those links (they're those little things over on the right there, see?) I linked to my web site, because, hey, it's my web site. Bored.com is in case you get bored looking at my blog and/or web site - but we all know that won't ever happen, right? Zombo is the most entertaining waste of space on the Internet. And no, my blog is not similar (I knew some of you would automatically think that - hardy har har not funny).

Hm. What else? Today I just chilled at home, except we went out to eat with some friends. I wrote a few paragraphs of a history essay that's due when I return to school on the 12th. Why do teachers feel the need to give homework over Christmas break? They need to grab a dictionary and write down the definition of "vacation" a million times. Maybe then it would finally get through. I've practically forgotten everything I supposedly learned last year anyway. Besides, it's a break. I don't really care about those freaky little Bolsheviks in 1917 right now.

Whoa. I just discovered a new form of web communication: blogs. These little doohickeys enable you to publish your thoughts, ideas, writing, what (within reason of course) on the good ol' Net. And you don't have to learn HTML! That's great for me - coding my web site takes long enough as it is.

So I figured, why not make a blog? Just to see what happens? The result is the incredible and world-altering display of genius you see before you now. Hm. Maybe that's overdoing it a bit. Just a bit, though. I started this mainly so I could have a place to speak my mind, vent, preach, whatever. I'm still not sure what I'll end up doing with it, but oh well. My primary focus is still my web site, however. In other words: don't expect me to work on this all the time. Though maybe I will, since it only takes a few minutes to update.

And that's it for now. Hopefully I'll figure all this out and have a fully functional Blog of Doom (sounds impressive, doesn't it?) set up soon. Ta ta for now, lovely readers.