Thursday, October 29, 2009

Pluto is fighting back

In Illinois, Pluto is still a planet.

http://news.cnet.com/pluto-is-a-planet-again-in-illinois/

They decided upon this about three years after the original decision. It's good to see that public opinion has some sway. But we can't stop at this! This is only the first step! We must keep fighting against those fiendish oppressors, those dastardly demons of dementia, those hideously horrid harbingers of horrendous higglty-pigglty, (yes, I'm running out of H words) the International Astronomical Union.

But, to be perfectly fair, and to bring to light a little-known fact, the entire IAU didn't condone the demoting of Pluto from 'planet' to a mere 'dwarf planet'. In fact, only 4% of the group voted on the matter. That's right, 4 percent. Maybe with a little more effort, we can change things back to their natural order once more. We need only raise public awareness.


Monday, October 26, 2009

Intrude, Confused People!

Feel free to start following me via the button on the right-hand side of the blog. Only if you can be considered to fall under the category of "Confused people", though. I need more of them in order to get this blog to live up to its name. Which reminds me, you have to be happy too. I realize that this is a burden for some of you. If it makes you happier not to be happy, then go with that instead. Whatever makes you happier.

And if you're wondering whether you're a confused person or not, then I'd like to point out that you are confused on this issue and are, in fact, a confused person.


(To you people who got informed of this post because you're already following me, haha, you make me laugh.)

Saturday, October 24, 2009

How The Magna Carta Was Really Signed

In honor of a Robin Hood week that I heard about on a friend's blog, I'm posting the only short story I've written that has Robin Hood in it. Despite the fact that I've always liked Robin Hood, I haven't made many stories about him. I do have an idea for one, though.

Anyway, since this is Saturday, I figured I'd post the story now, as the week will be over in another day.



How the Magna Charta Was Really Signed


“Many greetings, King Arthur!” Prince John exclaimed merrily, raising his cup of mead in a toast to the neighboring kingdom’s ruler. “Welcome to my castle in Nottingham.”

“Very quaint, Prince,” King Arthur replied, “But what stopped you from arranging this meeting in one of your larger castles?”

Prince John adopted a saddened look, which went well with his scraggly goatee. “They remind me of my poor older brother, King Richard, who this very moment is fighting in the Crusades.” John switched to a noble, self-sacrificial look, which didn’t look quite as normal on him. “But I shall carry on his work despite the hardships of kingly duty. Speaking of which, will you join me in a small banquet before we begin the meeting?”

“Very well. My knights and I are somewhat hungry from our journey,” Arthur said as he took a seat and gestured to his knights to do the same.

As the knights sat down at the table, Sir Percivale whispered to Sir Galahad, “This table isn’t as circular as the one back home”. Sir Galahad voiced his agreement.

The food was served, and the banquet was in full swing when a row broke out towards the foot of the dining table. Several knights were complaining about a Jew being at the table, despite the fact that he was as far away from everyone else as he could get. With the King of Camelot’s help, peace was grudgingly restored.

“Prey tell me how yonder Jew came to be traveling with you?” Prince John asked King Arther.

“We picked him up on our way here,” King Arthur told him between droughts of malt beer, “He’s traveling from Venice, where, he told us, he’s business was ruined and he was stripped of his fortune in court. Something about a pound of flesh, I believe.”

Prince John was in a good mood and raised his goblet in a toast.

“To the merchant of Venice!” he cried. Then, he continued his conversation with King Arthur about the vital importance of taxes in the economy. One of Prince John’s cohorts, a Knight of the Templar, whispered to another Knight, gesturing in the direction of the Jew.

Meanwhile, several other knights struck up a conversation with a pilgrim who was on a journey. He was received better then the Jew, as he was a Christian. In fact, Prince John once again raised his goblet.

“To this pilgrim’s progress!” he cried, and was once again heartily joined in a toast.

As the banquet continued, the beer flowed freer and a bit more cheaply. Finally, Prince John opted to finish the food and begin the land bartering that King Arthur had come for. But then, the king suggested that they watch the jester do his tumbling tricks one last time. Prince John was about to agree when he got a closer look at the jester, who was repeatedly bowing his head down until his three- forked hat brushed the ground.

“Do I… know you?” he asked, squinting suspiciously at the entertainer. Then, as the jester straightened and winked at him, “Robin Hood!”

The jester pulled off his hat and raised his scepter in the air. “Merry Men of Lincoln Green, attack!” he yelled.

Instantly, all the entertainers rose as one and brandished their swords. The bard, who was dressed all in scarlet, called to a burly performer, “Little John, guard the prince!”

But Prince John didn’t flinch when Little John held a sword to his throat. He just smiled and said, “I was expecting this. That’s why I had my friends, the Knights of the Templar, bring reinforcements.”

At that signal, many more Knights ran out from various passages. At the front was the Sheriff of Nottingham, yelling and waving his broadsword.

All the Knights of the Templar drew their own swords and began attacking the Merry Men. The sounds of clashing metal filled the large hallway. Prince John looked on, popping grapes into his mouth one by one as he did so. King Arthur and his own knights watched as well.

The fight wasn’t going very well for Robin Hood and his men. Robin himself was fighting two of the leaders of the Knights of the Templar. He was slowly being pushed back. He called to another man fighting near him, “Ivanhoe! Give me a hand here, wilt thou?”

The stout lad joined him in his fight, but the Knights of the Templar were still winning the battle. Prince John remarked to King Arthur, “Well, well. This is better then I thought. We can catch that scoundrel Robin Hood at last.”

“Scoundrel, is he?” Arthur stated mildly, “I’ve heard a bit differently. In fact, that’s why, when he met me on the way here and proposed that I help him on a little take-over plan of his, I agreed.”

“What?” said Prince John.

At that, King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table rose up and drew their own swords, joining the combat on the side of Robin’s men. Sir Kay and Sir Gawaine joined Robin and Ivanhoe in their fight, and soon had the Knights of the Templar on the defense.

Their spirits raised, the other Merry Men redoubled their attack. One, a friar, drubbed three Knights of the Templar with one swing of his quarterstaff. Sir Lancelot easily countered all of Nottingham’s Sheriff’s blows. Even Prince John was forced into action, fighting with Little John. But as the swords rang, the fight slowly shifted towards Robin and Arthur’s side. Finally, Prince John’s sword was knocked from his hand, and he cried, “You haven’t won yet! I thought this might happen. I have backup!” He pointed to the entrance to the hall.

Through it stepped a figure. King Arthur gasped as he saw it. “Morgan le Fay!”

Morgan le Fay grinned at him, then raised her hands. Blasts of green magic shot from them, incinerating all she managed to hit. Luckily, she was a bad shot, and she hit almost as many of the Templar Knights as she did Merry Men or Knights of the Round Table. One of Prince John’s men, named Yorick, was hit and disappeared instantly, leaving only a smoldering skull in his place, and prompting Robin Hood himself to say, “Alas, poor man!”

But the carnage soon ended when Sir Bedivere had the presence of mind to shove a mirror into the path of the magic, making it reflect back onto Morgan. This knocked her unconscious while avoiding the nasty business of harming a lady. The other knights were immensely relived at this.

But now the fight had been evened. It was hard to tell who would win now. But then, yet another person showed up. The sight of this one stopped the fighting entirely. Everyone stopped to turn to him.

“What’s all this?” said King Richard, walking into the hall. He surveyed the scene. Knights of both the Templar and the Round Table stood together with Merry Men. Wisps of magical smoke drifted around them. Then Robin Hood stepped forward, pulling a parchment out from his breeches.

“We came to get Prince John to sign this,” he explained, “And there was a little dispute. We’ve got it settled now, though.” He walked up to Prince John, who was sitting under the blades of several Merry Men, and said, “Just sign right here.”

“What is it?” Prince John asked as he signed.

“A little something we call the Magna Charta.” Robin answered.

Meanwhile, King Richard had spotted King Arthur and greeted his old friend. They talked together, and soon Richard was filled in on the whole story. “It’s too bad Gwenivere isn’t here,” he said.

“Oh, don’t worry about her," Arthur answered, "She’s staying at Joyous Gard with a new friend of hers named Joan of Arc.”

Then, as Robin returned, satisfied with the Magna Charta, and all the others began to clean up their mess, King Arthur added, “Well, we will have to be on our way soon. We’re heading over to Canterbury. Some pilgrims from there told me a tale of a fierce man by the name of Beowulf. He might be able to help me sort out some problems my friend Saint George has been having with a dragon. I hear he has experience in that field.”


Friday, October 23, 2009

Happy 50th Birthday, Weird Al

He's pretty much a musical genius.

That is all.

Open to Public

My blog is now open to all comers, rather then being a secret all to myself.

Although a secret blog was quite a bit of fun, I've realized that quite a few of the posts on here would be better if I had feed-back on them, and one of them, the one announcing my self-published book, is entirely useless if it's not being read by my friends. Since people tend to only comment on the most recent few posts, I'm losing potential comments.

This brings me to another point: you should all comment more.

Yes, I hear what you're saying; I see you there in the glow of your computer screen, rolling your eyes. You're muttering to yourself, "You moron, nobody has posted at all because they didn't know about it." Well, stop sounding so skeptical. And don't call me a moron, that's just rude.

I do know that you haven't been able to post, but I'm guessing that few of you will post even after starting to read my blog. But I want lots of posts. This presents a bit of a dilemma. The solution is for all of you to post a bunch of posts. Go right now, read through the twenty-five or so posts in the archive, and comment on at least ten.

Go. I'll still be waiting here.

Go.

GOOO!


Me Online #1

I've recently realized that I, despite being a reasonably unknown person, have several spots on the interwebs in which I have been recognized for some accomplishment or another. However, the interwebs being what they are, they are fairly hard to navigate, and these spots of recognition of my various talents are in danger of being lost to the general public.

There's nothing I can do about that. However, for you non-general-public people, I am starting a series of posts, the "Me Online" series, to show you those places online where I have gained public attention.

#ONE: Stone Soup Magazine

This is the earliest one, from when I published a short story in Stone Soup magazine when I was thirteen. The entire story can be read here:

Of special interest is the picture of me. I looked very similar than to the way I do now, in my opinion. Just a tad more dorky.

I would also like to point out that I named a lake mentioned in the story after myself. :D I'm very pleased with myself for that, and I wonder if any other readers of the magazine noticed it.

Wednesday, October 21, 2009


How to Do the Worm

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit
The worm is an excellent dance for various occasions. It's great for showing off when people are dancing. Its great for looking like an idiot (in a respectable way). Use the worm at your discretion.

Steps

  1. Learn that the worm is really just a two step process combining two motions
  2. Put your arms on the floor like you're ready to do a push up. Find a comfortable stance for pushing yourself off the floor really quickly.
  3. Understand that while on the ground, you should lie on your stomach, hands in a push up stance. Now kick your legs up and right before your legs would come to the ground do that push up. This will send that wave-like motion through your body. Get the rhythm down and practice getting more of your body off the ground with the kick. Once you've done this comes the next stage of your worm development.
  4. Take your arms and hold them up like you're making a field goal. Now get on the floor on your belly and do that. So you're lying down on your belly with your elbows bent, arms in front of you so your hands should be at about your shoulders.
  5. Lift up your upper torso. You're using your lower back for this. At this point you're on your stomach on the floor with your chest and head slightly off the ground. Now, from this position you repeat steps 2 and 3 and wow! Your a worm!

Tips

  • Consider doing all the above while being inside a sleeping bag. The sleeping bag will hide your human features, and you will look more like a worm.
  • Remember that this is not an easy move. It requires lots of practice.

Warnings

Do not do the worm:
  • Immediately after eating
  • In boxers (Men only)
  • If Pregnant
  • If you have heart or lung condition

Related wikiHows

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Do the Worm. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

The Other Real Problem With The Internet

The Other Real Problem With The Internet: the way this blog
gets formatted. Even though it starts out nice when I'm
typing it, the fonts get changed and words get chopped in
half when it's added to the blog. Just look at that last post.

And I'm too lazy to attempt to fix it by editing them.

Oh well.

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

The Real Problem With The Internet


I'm here today to talk to you about The Real Problem With The Internet.

It has to do with the phrase ".com", used to signify the domain of a web address. And the problem begins when ending a sentence with this phrase. You see, all sentences end with a period, saving those rare funky ones that end in an "!" or a "?". So, the Real Problem is this: All sentences look weird when ended with the webaddress.com.

SEE?!

".com." has two dots in it. This, to my highly trained eye, looks lame. It looks confusing. It looks unprofessional.

I noticed this when typing the first sentence of my latest post about my book, Quarter Moon. I ended up solving this by adding a slightly ungrammatical bit so that I didn't have to end it with a period, but segued into the web address instead.

But still.

It'll bring about the end of the internet, the universe, and everything through it's power to obfuscate and destroy brains, you wait and see.

Quarter Moon published

My first self-published book, Quarter Moon, is now available for purchase online at Lulu.com, web address http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/quarter-moon/7240018.

I mostly published it for fun, since I know that self-published books seldom make money unless the author is already well-known, or is a hard worker, or is both. Not being either, I'm mostly doing because there's no reason not to. I don't have to pay anything unless someone buys the book, and then I still don't pay anything since the purchase price covers the cost of making the book, so there's no risk to me at all.

Anyway, you readers can feel free to buy it. I know I'm not the most unbiased source, and I will admit that the book is not completely without flaw, but I do like it a lot. If you like my sense of humor and writing skills, chances are high that you'll like it too. The question is whether you'll like it enough to pay $8.96 for it. Probably not. But don't worry, I still consider you my friend.

Here's the synopsis from the website:

Life is hard. It's even harder if you're a teenager, a little small for your age, or are a cursed half-blood werewolf. In addition to being all three, Sukey Svenson has to deal with several other supernatural threats, from demonic vampires to a zombie apocalypse to a very malicious school bus driver. Her briskly-paced, smartly-written story is brimming with both action and sarcasm. Just not necessarily in that order.

I also wrote the blurb for the back cover, which is very similar:

Life is hard. It's even harder if you're a teenager, a little small for your age, or are a cursed half-blood werewolf. In addition to being all three, Sukey Svenson has to deal with several other supernatural threats, from demonic vampires to a zombie apocalypse to a very malicious school bus driver. I would go into more detail, but to be honest, since you're currently holding this book, it would be quicker for you to just open it up.

Personally, I think that the second one is a little funnier. It's a shame that I can't use it to advertise the book, since it has to be on the back cover, which no one will see while browsing online. Oh well, I guess I can still mention it on my blog.

Monday, October 19, 2009

Sage Advice #1



I was driving home from work today when I passed a sign that I see every weekday but hadn't realized the significance of until now.

It read "Prepare to stop when flashing."


I feel that this is very sage advice, and that we should all take a lesson from it. After all, if I am ever flashing, I think it would be a very good idea to be prepared to stop. And if I see anyone else flashing, then I would much appreciate it if they were to stop as well.

I feel that simply taking a small clue from this sign may help each and every one of us later in life.