Whoa. Cool. There are other people out there reading my blog. Apparently I got onto Sooperficial. Not bad, if I say so myself. I suppose if people other than friends are going to be making up a significant chunk of my traffic, I better get to making a better looking layout. Fooey. Well... that's all for now.

Damn you J. K. Rowling. Damn you for writing the literary version of crack cocaine. But commendations as well. For those who don't know, J. K. Rowling is the author of the now very famous Harry Potter books. These books, are in fact quite good books to read, and I'm now eagerly awaiting the publication of the next one. The commendations come for a number of reasons. The first is that it's great that they've written such wonderful books. Second, the fact that they've managed to get this many younger children interested in reading is amazing to me.

Anyway. I just finished book 4. It's high quality, I assure you. Definetly worth the read.

That story was sort of almost interesting. Except the ending sucked. Well, too bad.

Short story #3: Shopping with a conscience

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One Thursday evening, sometime in mid-December, there were a couple of kids roaming around their local mall, seeking out gifts to buy for their assorted friends and relatives. He was walking around, looking at all the horribly overpriced things he could buy, talking about the movie he and his friends had just seen, and all around enjoying himself. He had gotten a couple joke gifts for his friends, which he knew they would find funny, and for his family he'd gotten some various trinkets he thought they'd find amusing as well. Then he was asked the question,

"Hey man, what do you want for Christmas this year?"
"Uhh. I don't know. I'll think of something. I'll get back to you, alright?"
"Yeah, sure, just try to get back to be before next week."

So, they carried on throughout the day, and the kids went to their various homes, and went on with their lives. Later in the week, on Sunday morning, this kid was thinking about what he wanted. He didn't have any idea. Having been born and raised in a relatively wealthy town, out in the country had provided him with a pretty well paid for lifestyle. He had never been without food to eat, a place to sleep, and money to buy things with. So he hadn't really a good idea about what he wanted that he didn't already have. He didn't really need anything. Sure, he could always ask for the latest gadget or gizmo, but there were just so many to choose from, and even for him, they were expensive!

So he was browsing around online, having decided that he wanted an mp3 player, but without a clue what kind he wanted, or how much it was going to cost. He asked a couple friends who had them about what he should take into consideration in looking around, but he was starting to have doubts. In looking at just a few, he started feeling kind of guilty He had all this money, and all these people around him had all this money. He knew he didn't really need it, and that because of the horribly unequal distribution of resources in the world, that people were starving in Africa, while he feasted on some cold pizza. This really got to him. He knew that he'd be better off asking to have a donation made in his name or something, but he also thought about how that he bought things too, without a qualm about it at all.

The dilemma bothered him deeply. He spent a great deal of time thinking about whether to ask for these gifts, or not, all the while still browsing around, and with each new gadget, another pang of guilt. Eventually, he just emailed his friend saying he'd be really happy to get something like the Rave mp:2300. He hit "send." He'd made his decision. Back to living life.

THE END

For some reason, when I updated the template of my blog, this entry got screwed up. I'm too lazy to go through all the lines of this table and fix fonts, so, just click and drag over it (highlight it) to read it.

Beans, beans, the magic fruit...
/		/
Beans		Beans
U	/	U	/
the	mag	ic	fruit
U	/	U	/
the	more	you	eat
U	/	U	/
the	more	you	toot
U	/	U	/
the	more	you	toot
U	/	U	/
the	bet'r	you	feel
U	/	U	/
so	eat	some	beans
U	/	U	/
with	ev'	ry	meal
Based on the above analysis of the classic children's rhyme "Beans beans..." I believe that it follows the form of iambic dimeter, with the exception of the first line, which I think may be, a spondee, although this is debatable. Either way, it follows iambic dimeter remarkably well. As for the theme, tone, etc. Here's what I got out of it: The subject matter is beans. The theme is that beans are good for you. The tone suggests that the narrator is a big fan of eating beans. The speaker could be any avid fan of bean eating. The setting is undefined, but hasn't got a lot of relevance to the goings on in the poem. The situation is that somebody has just eaten some beans, and is now beginning to realize the tooting benefits of eating them. Some of the imagery the author uses is the word "toot" giving a sensory response to the ear, and perhaps in some cases, the nose. Poetry expert Alex Tyo gives his opinion on the figurative language present, " it represents the oppression of the working class and that the more they toil the more money the managers get, represented by the toot."

DAMNIT! My own sister, just mistook me for my dad on the phone.

I really honestly don't think I sound that alike to him.

Ok, now that I've wasted all this time today writing the below junk... I've got to get back to revising my evil poetry explication. Also, for future notice, I don't particularly feel the need to justify why I blog, so don't ask.

I think this got substantially worse each part. But then again, I don't expect too many people to take this all too seriously. Also, I don't know anything about birds. I made most of it up, and the rest was based on about 5 minutes of research on the web. In case you're wondering, a great blue heron's scientific name is Ardea herodias, meaning literally "Heron Heron." Apparently, Ardea is latin for heron, and herodios means heron in greek.

Short Story #2 - thoughts on thinking (Part 3: who am I?)

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10:14 PM - Day 1

Russell was pretty much ready for bed at this point. Having not gotten a decent night's sleep for the previous 3 days, he was definitely ready to crash. He finished up brushing his teeth, and hopped into bed. He read for a while longer, because the book he had started was turning out to be quite interesting, defeating his intention of catching up on sleep, but no matter.

12:03 AM - Day 2

Having been asleep for a while, Russell began to drift into dreams...

the "dream"

"Russ" awoke to this new world with a start. He was a bird of some sort... a heron. A blue heron he was, and he was sleeping in a nest, carefully placed high atop a tree. He started to rise from his nest, feeling slightly unbalanced on his awkward legs. It was a cold morning wherever he was. He leapt from the tree towards the marshland nearby. It was time to begin the daily routine of getting food and living another day.

At first he fell from the tree, as he spread his huge wings, and controlled his fall into a glide over the wet ground. Upon entering a slightly more watery area, he carefully beat his wings to bring himself to a stop, and began to wait. First he found somewhere to stand, then balanced himself carefully for "standing." Basically all this means is becoming motionless while waiting in a shallow pool of water for a fish or other creature, such as a frog or small mammal to come close enough to be eaten.

After a while, he noticed some stirring in the water. "Breakfast!" thought the still bird. "Closer... closer... NOW!" as he shot his long pointed beak into the water, snatching up a small fish, and immediately swallowing it. Only the beginning of today.

After a few fish more... the bird heard some rustling in the reeds behind it. Suddenly becoming very alarmed, the bird quickly pushed upwards and began to fly. Just as he did so, some sort of mammalian creature emerged from the reeds, pouncing on the spot where he just was. "Darn. Another great fishing spot ruined by some accursed critter. Well, at least I've got wings." Thought the bird as he flew over the lake towards the marsh on the other side.

Having arrived there, it again stood, and awaited another meal. Unfortunately, the meal didn't come as easily this time. Instead the heron would be forced into finding his own food. He began moving slowly through the reeds, performing the act known as "walking slowly," which is merely terminology meaning a heron will walk slowly forward, keeping their head near to the ground such that they can snatch up some food. Anyhow, in doing so, he was prone at the very least to stir up some activity from his potential meals.

Eventually, he came upon a fairly large frog. The frog, having noticed the great bird's presence, attempted to leap away, but to no avail, for the bird was too quick. Through stunning speed and precision, the birds great beak clamped down upon the frog. However, the frog was a bit too large to be swallowed whole. "Great. I'll have to carry this squirmy thing around for a while first. At least it's a big one." The bird lifted off and flew towards a patch of dry land. Upon getting there, he spat the now mostly dead frog to the ground. The frog still twitching a little, wasn't moving a whole lot. The birds beak tore through it's flesh, as it was consumed piece by piece.

Around the time when the bird had finished the frog, he heard the call of another heron. "Probably another one from my heronry... I guess I should go say hello..." And with this he began gliding towards the call. He found this other heron, and they began conversing about the goings on of the day, the coming mating season, and other things.

The other heron began, "So Herodios, how's the day been?"
"The usual... same old standing, eating, running, walking, eating some more, etc. How about you Ardea?"
"Yeah, same for me. Any good catches?"
"A few... but pretty uneventful altogether."

Of course, all this came out sounding like a series of weird guttural sounds, cheeps, clicks and the like, but Herodios didn't know the difference.

Having finished this conversation, Herodios continued on with the day in the same manner as the earlier part of it.. and towards dusk, he flew back to the heronry. Having arrived at his nest, he simply sat back down, and started off to sleep. But before he fell asleep, he thought one last thing.

"Was I before Russell who dreamt about being a heron, or am I now a heron who dreams about being Russell?"

END PART THREE

I changed my mind... this whole thing is going to bear remarkable similarity to events and thoughts that did actually occur. Consider this historical barely-fiction.

Short Story #2 - thoughts on thinking (Part 2: solipsism)

---

12:45 PM - Day 1

Having just gotten home, Russell came in, prepared some Ramen noodles for lunch, and sat down to eat. While eating, he went over in his head what homework he had to do. "Hmm... no science or math... some english and some social studies... but I can do the social studies during study hall tomorrow." So he just finished up his noodles, put his bowl into the kitchen sink and went upstairs to do his english reading. "Great," he thought, "some more 'deeply symbolic' poetry. Ugh."

1:25 PM - Day 1

Having finished his reading, Russ made his way downstairs to check his email and see if anybody was online on AOL instant messenger. Click click click. "Rats. No new email, and, nobody I want to talk to online either. Well, I guess I'll go read some more of that book I bought last week..." And with that, he began going upstairs to his room, but about midway there decided, "Nahh... I'd rather do something more mindless." Having decided this, he headed back downstairs, started up his current favorite computer game, and let his mind rot away with gratuitous digital carnage.

2:37 PM - Day 1

"Enough of that. I'm so bored. I think I'll check if anybody's online again." There were people online this time though, and immediately upon his sign-on, Russell was greeted by some friends. "Hello Russell! I have a quick question. What do you know? I have this paper to write for philosophy, and I've been giving this a lot of thought." To this, Russell responded with a fairly vague answer basically saying, "I know what I can detect with my senses."

3:14 PM - Day 1

Having spent considerable time just randomly browsing, Russell muttered to himself, "I wish I could drive. Then I could go out and do something fun, like play a game of racquetball or something. Ugh... 6 more months." He had been "chatting" a lot for the past 40 minutes, and was tiring of dealing with a bunch of random people he didn't really know. Russell found the anonymity provided by the internet to be quite entertaining, allowing anybody to portray themselves as anyone. He had given some more thought to the question about what he knew. He had seen the Matrix a couple weeks before, and now he was really thinking about it. "Well, I know that my senses can be tricked... but when do I know they are being tricked? I mean, how do I know that I'm not being tricked right now? In the Matrix, the story was basically everybody is being tricked all the time, well, almost everybody. The entirety of their lives controlled by some crazy computers. I wonder if this could all just be some figment of my imagination. The people I'm talking to merely pulses of electricity in the vastness of a world I've never even seen. Whoa." Russell continued this train of thought for a long time. Questioning whether he really knew what he did. How could he be sure what he knew? He decided to just ignore the idea and move on.

3:31 PM - Day 1

He couldn't get it out of his mind. What if he was just the figment of somethings imagination. Then again, what difference would it make? I mean, even if he was merely the pawn of something greater, should he care? Russell was boggled by the possiblities opened to him by this question. He decided he'd probably be better off not thinking about it, again.

5:55 PM - Day 1

Russell was now thoroughly bored. Having accomplished next to nothing for two and a half hours, Russell remained bored. He spent a little more time contemplating the idea that he was a brain in a jar, then decided to go read a book. He had decided that instead of worrying about whether he was the creation of somebody elses imagination, to envision his own world, and reading would be a great jumping off point for creating a world in his mind. It was going to be time for dinner soon anyway.

6:11 PM - Day 1

Dinner. Yum. Tonight, it was just spaghetti, some frozen vegetables, and some other assorted leftovers. Apparently, Russ's dad was cooking. Russell sat down, ate a little food, and pretty much did nothing throughout most of dinner. There was a little conversation, how people's days were... small talk and the like. After dinner, Russell's life was pretty boring. He hung around, watched some T.V., decided to get his homework done that night instead of during study hall, and chatted a lot online. That's about it.

END PART TWO

Yes. Part 1 is mostly non-fictitious. Parts 2 and 3 are for thoughts on thinking. I don't have time to write the rest tonight, so I decided to make this a 2+ part series. The rest should be more interesting, if I can write it correctly.

Short Story #2 - thoughts on thinking (Part 1: The Daily Drag):

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6:06 AM - Day 1

Russell had just waken up and was beginning to make his way out of bed. He ambled out of the bed, grabbed a towel, and headed for the shower. As he approached the door, he realized that the bathroom was occupied. "Crap!" He thought to himself, realizing that he'd been beaten to the shower, and would have to wait for his younger sibling to get out. So instead, he went upstairs for breakfast as usual. A bowl of cereal, and a cup of tea.

6:23 AM - Day 1

Having just finished his breakfast, and the shower now being vacant, Russ made his way back downstairs, and proceeded to take his shower. Upon finishing, he grabbed some clean clothes from the towering pile in his room, because he was too lazy to actually fold his clean clothes, and got dressed for the day. Having finished this, he went down yet another set of stairs and packed up his homework for the previous night, taking care not to forget stuff laying on the printer or under the chairs, as he had so often done before. Once done, he sat down, checked his email, and waited for the day to begin.

7:04 AM - Day 1

While sitting around and listening to some mp3s, he was suddenly interrupted by the shout of his sibling alerting him to the fact that the bus would arrive shortly. He put on a coat, grabbed his bag, and prepared to wait in close to freezing temperatures for the bus. Being one of the younger students in his grade, he was pretty irritated that he was probably one of the few juniors forced into taking the bus to school, and this was made worse by the fact that school didn't even start for another 40 minutes. Either way, he was feeling pretty good this morning because today was an early release, and that meant school was going to be out at around noon. Right about then, the bus showed up, and Russ got ready to take his daily 20 minute nap.

7:37 AM - Day 1

Ok, so Russ is sitting in the cafeteria, finishing his math homework minutes before first bell. He hasn't really been doing a lot of thinking this morning so far... mostly running on autopilot. He hasn't seen any of his friends, and he suspects that they're probably finishing up some other homework in the library. Russ would have collaborated with them in their early morning routine of sharing the answers for the questions the couldn't figure out, except he only had a couple of classes with his friends. Unfortunately, Russ had taken a bit more initiative earlier on in high school and was in some pretty advanced courses. Anyhow, in going through these thoughts, the first bell rang, so Russ packed up his stuff and headed off to first period.

7:42 AM - Day 1

"Aw CRAP! I have no idea what period is first. Quick, time to find a friend..." Russ found one, asked, and found out that he was supposed to be going to A period. As he walked into the class, he thought, "Well. I guess I should pay more attention to what's going on. Sheesh."

9:27 AM - Day 1

"DAMNIT!" Russ actually exclaimed this as he suddenly realized that he didn't have block study hall that day. This was, "like, the umpteenth time we miss block study because of an early release. This sucks." It also occurred to Russell that he dropped Computer Animation that day too. He really enjoyed that class because it was his only class where it wasn't just mindless busy work half the time.

12:04:49 PM - Day 1

"Only 10 more seconds," thought Russell. The chairs around the room were up, and the students were poised to leave. 3 seconds left, the students crowd around the door... "RING..." Controlled chaos begins. The students flow out of their classrooms and towards their various lockers, amazingly avoiding collisions in the semi-packed hallways. Russell carefully navigates the assorted middle schoolers he encounters, and moves towards his locker. En route, he encounters a few seniors intent on making his life miserable, and they harass him for about a minute, before he moves on. He grabs his stuff from his locker, attempts to persuade a friend to illegally drive him home, but to no avail, and walks out to the bus to take his second nap of the day.

END PART ONE

Well, what an interesting proposition I have recieved. I have been asked by the "Bromfield Review" to write a short story for them.

The Bromfield Review is basically a bunch of random submissions compiled into a booklet, and published within the school. Anyhow, I was asked today to write a short story, and I said... sure. Then I changed my mind. I have no idea what I would write. So, anyway, they then said I could write about anything, just complain about something or something like that, and I was all like, "Whoa! I've been publishing myself on waloo.org for ages! Just take something from there, I don't care." And now, I'm thinking, maybe that wasn't such a good idea, because they may end up going and discovering something I wrote a year ago, and no longer have any connection with besides the blog.

Anyway, I think I'm going to write a short story right now.

---

Ok, so this story begins with a kid. Let's call this kid Joe. One day, this kid "Joe" was walking around the local school building, when some people came up to him and asked him to write a short story. He said, "Sure, I have nothing better to do with my time, of course. Seeing as all the rest of the kids never do anything around here. (Yeah, right)." So, this kid kept on walking along, and eventually entered the cafeteria, and sat down and ate some lunch, and started contemplating what he was going to write. Then it hit him. Joe was a goat. He couldn't write shit. The end.

---

Well. What an amazing story. Sure, there are a couple plot gaps and whatnot... but still... high quality.

I'll have you all know, there is nothing wrong w/ reading Harry Potter. They may be somewhat silly, but they're good books to read nonetheless. Consider, at least I'm not watching Fight Club at least once per day.

Harry Potter is ruining my life. It's just not good when somebody loses sleep over a book. I mean, when that happens chances are it's a good book, and by no means are the Harry Potter books bad. In fact, they're quite good reads, however they're a bit too compelling to read, because by reading them, I've lost sleep.

Why is it that when I read good books, my life seems to take a general decline in quality. The same thing happened with Cryptonomicon, Dune, Ender's Game, etc.

Damn you good books. Damn you indeed.