Boredom - The Revolution

So bored. You always fantasise about all the things you are going to do in the holidays and it, incredibly, turns out that you have nothing to do. I mean, there's reading Emma and Wild Swans, and the occasional brush-up on maths because you failed it hardcore, but there is nothing exciting. Nothing to get the adrenaline pumping hard and fast.

My holidays so far has been boring. I did go to the beach at Kurnell and relatives and all. It was actually alright, as my cousins bought this boat, with a proper steering wheel and handgear, so I was cruising away, putting my land-based driving experience to the open seas. The open seas, woo! Honestly, screw getting a car! I want to get a boating licence and a fast boat. Something that can tear up the waterways and let me go fishing occasionally.

Right now, I'm waiting for Monday 2nd of January 2006. I am going up to Iluka/Yamba in Queensland to indulge in some fishing and then a quick trip to the Gold Coast for some fun in the sun. It will be a week, so no posting on this blog for that time.

Right now, I am trying to find something to keep me occupied until then. I am capped for cable so I can't download stuff. Lucky for me, Bleach isn't coming out until the 10th of something, so I'm safe there. I might start building up my music collection, so I can have a stack of CDs to listen to during the trip, to complement my MP3 player. I wonder if OverClocked Remix has something. Maybe Anime Remix or VGMix...

On a side note, I finally have a bigger fan. Sporting a 40cm diameter, 3 levels of power and a nifty remote, I no longer have to sweat out those hot summer nights with my measly 25cm-something fan. And screw you if you have air-con in your room.

Cricketing

Just came back from cricket and I'm so hammered. I almost feel asleep, but a nice cold shower woke me up in no time. It was sunny, with some clouds in the sky, perfect day for cricket. It was year 12s vs year 11, but we got so smashed. Year 12s made it up to 150+ and when I left, we still needed 100 runs or so too match. It was dismal batting on our side. Maybe it was after lunch and having stuffed ourselves with KFC. Either way, we sucked bad. I got out for a golden duck. *sob*

It was still cool though. Getting together, playing cricket, the sun and the fun. It's hard to explain, but it feels good to get together and play cricket. Obviously there will be people asking "what's so fun about cricket? Such and such is much better" I would answer "well, what's so fun about such and such?" People will have differing opinions but I love cricket and we had a blast. Mi Zhou (Goatboy) even came, but he'd shaved his goat whiskers.

Another cricket match is in the works, but this time, I might bring an esky and fill it up with Coke and ice...lots of ice. A drinks trolley is a must for these summer conditions.

Linkage, Hilter-style

I'm reading one of my friend's blog and it's all nice and stuff, then I come along to a post. It's the results of one of those personality tests. Now I'm not really into them, but I was intrigued to learn it is a "What Famous Leader are You?" test. So I do the 45 questions to get the most accurate answer. I not expecting much, it's one of those "non-serious" tests. What do I get?

What Famous Leader Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

Go figure.

Jap Happy Music

For a long time, well, a relatively long time, I've wondered why on earth people with absolutely no knowledge, or very little knowledge, of the Japanese language would listen to Japanese music. This also applies to Korean music. I can readily understand that many J-Pop and K-pop (Japanese/Korean populat music) singers, whether male or female, are very good looking. That is probably a reason for listening to J/K-pop. Sure they're hot, but you can't understand what they are saying! These people are just listening to the sounds, with maybe a faint idea of what the lyrics say, thanks to translations.

Confession time! On this matter, I'm a fucking hypocrite.

Yes.

I, too, listen to Jap music with only a very vague understanding of what the artist is singing, since I use translations.

Yes, what the fuck indeed.

To make it worse, I didn't realise that I was a hypocrite on this matter, until a few days ago, when I got my hands on the Neon Genesis Evangelion 10th Anniversary DECADE soundtrack.
This fact was furthur made clear, when I took out the Birthday of Ayanami Rei soundtrack.

So I soon sat down, horribly shocked that I was hypocrite. Never mind the fact that it was only on this matter. I was fucking hypocritical.

So what did I do to remedy this situation?

I got some lyrics translations and indulged in both soundtracks.

Well, shit.

It's no more!

MiG's World of Warcraft server just went down! Damn it! Why does have to die, right fucking now when I'm addicted to it?
Hopefully, a new test server will be up. Fuck, a Friday night wasted. Still, MTV European Music Awards...

Lost in the Cross

I wanted to post this earlier but again I didn't have time. Anyway, more important news. A couple of days ago, I did it. That's right I did it. Did what, I hear you ask? What I did was...I...skipped the canteen line.

....

No I'm serious. And it's a big thing for me.

....

Ok, maybe no that big but it's something.

WTF?!?!

Ok, so it's probably sounds kinda bad and lame, but I'm a believer that queues are the best way to get what you want. If there was no queue, there would be anarchy dammit! So despite that many friends became prefects, I never really felt right about skipping the line, bypassing all the blueshirts. Sure I got my prefect friends to buy for me, but it was sometimes and usually, it was a bottle of water. A lot of white shirts bypass the lines, so much that they just walk up say hi and step right through. Why? Because it's fucking addictive. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Imagine you are in a queue for whatever. Imagine, walking to the front of the queue, barge in and them get served. Bloody hell, I could get used to that. But it feels kinda wrong for me and so I haven't done it again...yet. Gotta control myself. Dammit, why can Nicorette make a patch or lolly for it?

Still, if you want to bypass the line, here are a few guidelines that you should abide by.

1. Watch out for teachers. They can pop out from anywhere and if they don't see a prefect badge, you're screwed.
2. It's best that you have another prefect skip the line and you follow closely. This maintains the illusion that you are important to the blueshirts. If you do know the monitoring prefects well, then walk on through.
3. As a non-prefect, you should at least say a greeting to the prefects, by their first name or whatever if possible. A simple "Hey, guys" or "How's it going?" or "Hi, Susie" will suffice.
4. During the act of skipping the line, it should be done as quickly and smoothly as possible. Remember Rule #3.
5. Don't skip regularly. It becomes a habit and you may forget basic guidelines, especially #1.
6. It helps if most of the prefects voted are your friends. Vote of them and get other people to vote for them. If you can't, be very good friends with them.

There a basic survival guide to skipping the canteen line. Of course, every school is different and rules may be different, but this is just a broad, overall guide. So start skipping.

Another Week

Arrgh...so much for my plans. What? What plans you say? To take over the world, of course! Now if only I can find those AAA batteries...

That was basically my week in a nutshell. Destined for great things but always pulled back because I forgot or lost something. Still, it could be worse.

This happened at assembly several days ago, although it's old news to most. I just want to remember this. So we had assembly in the school hall, since exams and everything were over. So it's plodding along and I'm dumping those thin Listerine thingys on my tongue to stay awake. Tripoloni was talking about the Science Olympiads and he mentioned that Yang got a HD in the Chem section. Yang was revising for our English exam later that day, so on hearing his name, immediately jumped up and walked up onto the stage. But the thing is that he already got his awards and this was just some lip service. So he got on stage and Trip was like "WTF? There's no award." So Yang had to step down and walk back to his seat, in front of the entire school. Hilarious? Absolutely, my friends. Ah school, can it get any better?

Of course, it was sprinkling this entire week and it was frickin' cold. I believe the term is "cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey." Never heard of it? Neither did I until a day ago. So a lot of people had the sniffles and I worried about catching the cold off other people. I hadn't been sick in ages and I didn't want to fall to the common cold. Nevertheless, I was well prepared and dressed warmly. It caught my attention on one day, it was so damn cold, and there were still girls wearing skirts. They were were stockings but still wouldn't it be really cold on your legs? Do you refuse to wear trousers cos of fashion...etc or what?

Still downloading Bleach 1-25 but I'm at 80%, it'll be finished tonight for sure. Bleach 25-50, look out!

Sunday Bloody Sunday

Almost a week passes and it seems that time flys right pass you. No posts for a while, but hopefully I'm back. So what's happening? Harry Potter 4, that's what.

Call me crazy, but I like the Harry Potter series. Okay, so the 5th book wasn't so hot, but Rowling does a damn good job in creating a very believable world of witches, wizards and magic. And anything that pisses Christians off cos of the witch theme is cool. My friend knows his sources and is going to get me a copy. In my opinion, the books are much better but i like the way the films turn out, even though they have to skip some of the parts.

Ages ago (not that long really) our physics group went to Luna Park for our "Physics is Fun" excursion. And it was fun, going on all those rides...all in the name of physics. But what's really cool is that Goo brought along a camcorder and was taping us Sefton students going on the rides and our reactions. He was selling DVDs of the trip for 2 bucks, which I promptly purchased and watched. Now, Goo is no Spielberg, but watching the excursion again was kind of cool. The only nag I have is that all the video credits go to Goo. It can't be a one pony show! We gotta get a couple of other people with camcorders and recording our future excursions.

Now Sunday is coming to an end, what else do I have to say? I'm downloading Bleach 1-25 cos I keep hearing how its a really cool series and currently Naruto is on a shit-full of filler eps. I managed to catch Smallville, which is pretty good. I've been interested in comics lately and while I've been getting my dose of Marvel Comics (Fantastic Four, X-Men...) I've always loved Batman and Superman for DC Comics. Obviously when Batman Begins hit the screen, I was stoked and it's a really great film. Plus with Superman Returns coming out soon next year, I really need to grab some of their comics.

Finally, most of you (yeah, i'm looking at you imaginary audience) may be wondering what happened to my ill-fated attempt at writing some short stories. Well, I've been writing them and I think I might set up a separate web-site where I can dump my stories. The Rushing Storms is turning out to be way more massive than imagined. Damn it! That's what happens when you drink Coke in the morning. The sugar and caffeine shorts out your rationality. And I have another idea in the works. It's going to be a darker, more supernatural type of thing. I'll probably try and get this idea off the ground next weekend.

Till next time.

Damned

Its been 2 days since this event happened and I deliberately waited that long for me to cool off before posting. Now we all get fustrated through life and many times we are whisked to a furious rage. Now I don't angry easily. Annoyed as hell maybe, but never really rip-your-head-off angry. But on Thursday, an event occured that threw me into such a fit of rage that I couldn't sleep, couldn't eat and couldn't think properly. In hindsight, it was like raging over spilt milk but it was very hard not to feel angry and disgusted. This is the event.

Now, the back oval is currently off-limits, since they are doing some renovations and all the soil is like upturned. So we can play on the oval otherwise the grass dies and we end up with a mini-desert in our school. So we're playing cricket at the nets, which are right next to the back oval. The inevitable occurs and a ball lands on the oval, less than 2 meters from the edge. So a mate goes to get the ball and this teacher stops him from stepping on the oval, due to the rules. He comes back perplexed and silent. Later, Zee gets a ball then step onto the oval to pick up the earlier ball. He takes around two steps onto the field, picks up the ball, then takes two steps back on to the asphalt. Instantly the teacher stops him and starts telling him off for picking up the ball. A few more friends back Zee up, using reason. The ball was a couple of meters away, and a few steps wouldn't damage anything. It's just one ball, for the entire lunch period. Instead, the teacher stubbornly sticks to the rules, then, in a move that defy all logic, confiscated the tennis ball. She said if we wanted the ball back, we would have to see Fitzy, our deputy principal. Now that creates an outrage.

It's obvious the rules say not to step on the oval, but this is just a ball on the fringes of the field, not in the middle. Zee is a light guy, its not like he's trampling on the oval to deliberately mess things up! If it was the middle of the oval, then maybe we may have left it. But it was barely 2 meters away. What, were we supposed to leave the ball there forever until work started on the oval and some workman throws it back to us? But this teacher's stubborness, stupidity and arrogance left us furious. When lunch ended, Cricketman went up to the teacher and asked for her name, so he could refer this to Fitzy when he went to get the ball. The teacher rufused to divulge her name, saying it was no of our business and when Cricketman tried to reason that Fitzy was a busy man, and a name would speed things up, she raised her nose up and then called Cricketman "arrogant". Now Cricketman is not an arrogant person in any way, and this was insulting to the point that Cricketman seemed to snap and was ready to retort but we held him back. To this date, we still do not know her name. She's definately in the English department, has relatively short curly dark hair, and speaks in a highish voice. I'm sure you guys will know here immediately. Remember her, because she is a prime example of a person who stubborness and narrow-mindedness leaves her unable to adapt to situations and this incident reflects on her teaching capabilities - crap. I'm damned tempted to throw in "racist" as it was a bunch of Asians and one Sri-Lankan. Fuck it, she's a damned racist as well. So take heed, don't become like her. Yes, there are rules, but they will NEVER be able to cover every situation and its up to you to make decisions based on your judgement and what's happening.

Stop

All quiet on the Western Front, eh? Nothing much to post about and with quite a bit homework, I didn't feel the need to post. But what's a blog without a post every now and then?
It was recently that I actually stopped what I was doing and started to feel the moment. To just sit there and not get a fuck about anything. It started when my parents were nagging me about schoolwork, the future and how come I'm not like someone else, yada yada. While I know that they are trying to look out for me, the nagging reached an unbearable point and I quickly stepped outside and sat down on a chair with Coke in one hand. I just sat there and stared at the view in front of me. And I didn't care any more. I didn't care about tomorrow's homework. Fuck it. I didn't care about the pressure my parents put on me. Fuck it. I didn't care about my future, whether I end up working in an office with air-con or struggling in a factory. Fuck it. I just sat there for half an hour, occassionally sipping my Coke, staring at the clouds.
Then the moment fizzled over, I dumped my Coke can and went back inside. Now having a moment where I didn't need to worry about any burdens or anything at all, it felt so good. I felt invigorated and ready to tackle anything. Which I did. I tackled Physics, and Chemistry and managed to take down Maths and still feel alive at the end.
Now for some fun photoshop stuff I found. All credit is to the original creators at SomethingAwful.com

Stormy Night

Just a quick post here. Yes, I know about the counter comment to my previous post, but this is more important.
My dad just came home from a protest and I would like to say that it was a resounding success. At least 15000 Viets attending the protest at Sydney Town Hall and I'm hoping this jumps on to national news. Now, let do a bit of history.
A while ago, a bunch of Viets, 5000 or so, protested in front of SBS Australia about VTV4, a Vietnamese news channel run by the Vietnam government. The point? Those communist bastards are...well...bastards and their news channel will be filled with propaganda and bullshit which will pollute the minds of young Vietnamese-Australians. The result? SBS backed down.
Now, whats happening now is that the Communist Viets have brought over a 200-women entertainment group, doing dancing and all the jazz. Except its free. Obviously those commies want to do a little persuasion to the Viets in Australia that everything is better and try to entice the Aussie government and businesses to do business with them. But we won't. So there.
So of you maybe wondering why all the fuss about commies. I mean, wasn't like the Cold War over a decade ago? That's not the point. So the commies won the war, that was a big deal, it was bad for the south Viets. But what's worse is that after 3 decades or so, Vietnam has become, for the lack of a better word, a shithole. It sucks to live there. It's so sucky that people will risk their lives and dignity to leave. There are stories of young Vietnamese women basically selling themselves as wives to men in Taiwan to get away. If Vietnam is such a good place, like those commies gov people say, why are people so desperate to leave? Something's fucked up in Vietnam.
Just a point here, we wouldn't be hating the commie government of Vietnam if it actually made Vietnam a better place. Hell, China is prolly a better place, well the cities anyway. But Vietnam is a shithole and its the corrupt commie government responsible.
To all the Viets reading this blog, get your parents to support this rally and get the fucking commie Viets outta of Australia. The fucktards can go back to Vietnam and fuck things up until the next revolution hauls them down. 100.9FM is the radio station to listen to for this stuff. It's on at 7pm, not sure of the day though, but it was on Monday.
I hear that there will be another rally at Bankstown on Friday. Viet power, people!

Barking Sands

Well, my post several days ago drew quite a reaction. Looks like L.Phill and Fish have discovered my post and have struck back! Yes, they threw insults and barbs in a crude but effective manner and I have the need to reply back. Of course, I could quickly construct coarse retort, fill with thinly-disguised crude sexual metaphors, then laugh like a suicidal, incredibly evil maniac (some people say that my laugh is evil). But that's the easy way out. So check out the comments section of that post and let me go through this, point by point.

*ahem*

"...a few tall heads and whatnot, are exarcerbating the issue and making poor blind L. Phil unable to see anything..."
Well, she's blind, of course she won't see anything. A few tall heads can't make things worse.

"Roadkill. S would also like to add, she was having non-verbal eye contact conversations with L. Phil and Fish..."
Like a combination of sign language and Morse code with eyes? Sure, simple conversations might be fine, like "I don't know" but a complex talk involving the physics of the motor effect?
Yeah, right...

"...that Modernist man has a wide vocabulary, however, he tends to exaggerate situations and use inappropriate terms..."
Whoa! Hold it there! I don't exaggerate situations. If someone invades your country, you'd be pissed! Invasion or attempted invasion by any means, whether subtle or clear, is a hostile action by the offending party and the victim has every right to be angry and call it a hostile situation. And that's not exaggerating. In other words, I gave a clear-cut explanation of the situation and it wasn't exaggerated. And thank you for the compliment.

"Anyone who describes us, two defenseless, altitude deficient females, as 'ruthless' and 'hostile'..."
So you call yourself defenseless and attitude deficient females? Please don't kill yourself due to low self-esteem. Get out some more, meet new people and face new challenges. For 'hostile', well, it was a hostile action (see above) and as for 'ruthless', you must be if you graffitied Les' pencil case, making crude sexual jokes and generally putting him down. That was ruthless.

"If [you] thinks L. Phil and Fish are ruthless and hostile, he should see us when we have PMS."
PMS rage is overrated. I'll take you on, say, next month?

"...though i assure you if we wanted to, we are quite agile in classrooms (due to our small stature) and can easily displace a certain few blobs of white-clad flesh..."
*buzz* Nuh-uh! Classroom is a small enclosed area, and if you think you can displace a few blobs then keep thinking that. But remember those PE tests in year 10? I'm sure that, at the very least, I equalled you in every test. I know for sure that I can run faster than you and navigate the agility course better than you. Displace me? Large mass x large acceleration = pain for you.

"Who, moreover, have the paranoid belief that little midgets (we prefer small peoples) are racing to steal their seats at the beginning of every class."
Not paranoid. That's what you're doing. You tried to steal our seats. Period

"We have analysed your behaviour- and have found it consistent with collected data on primordial primates."
We do share a genetic link to our ape ancestors. That includes you too.

"...that [you are] just feeling a tad left out, as he cannot as easily converse with Big K and Da Who..."
Yeah, we're separated and Big K is a really smart guy. We do miss the times of putting our heads together to solve problems. It was fun. But if you want to converse with Big K and Da Who, go right ahead. If I remember correctly, Fish likes anime. Da Who loves anime. Great guy to talk to if your in to other anime.

"You can stop fearing for your pride now as your seats are now safe."
Safe? Just because you're not going for it now, doesn't mean you'll won't go for it later. In this case, lightning can strick twice.

Well that covered most of the important points. Too bad they don't have a blog so I can reply personally, but what can you do? It seems that the main point of their anger (I'm assuming that they are, at least, mildly annoyed) is that I exaggerated the situation, bending and warping all truth out of shape. Now I don't bend or warp the situation. It was an attempted invasion. It's a black and white situation. Either you're trying to take my place or I'm trying to take yours, and this is a clear case of them trying to take our seat. Lez and Cricketman do share some of my sentiment. They don't want Fish and L.Phill to take our seats and I don't either. So don't force us out.

Rage against the numbers

Recently my friends were briefly discussing ways to protest against terrorism. Which is a bit of a dangerous thing, since when protesting against terrorism, you have to make generalisation which are not always true. So bear with me.
Now we need to make sure that the Arab and Islamic (both can be mutually exclusive) that terrorism is wrong and they shouldn't support it. Now to protest against the Arabs, we initially wanted to boycott their oil, but since they like produce 90% of the world's oil and we all need oil to function that idea was scrapped. But we've come up with a better idea. One that is totally harmless, yet gets the point across strong. Boycott Arabic numbers.
Think about it. If we boycott their number system and like use a different system, like the Roman system, then it's a totally non-violent way to get our message across. Then the Arabs will be pissed since no one is using their numbers. Eventually, they'll crack under pressure and revert to moderate Islam. Problem solved!
Shit, I should really get this idea to the George W. Bush. His adminstration have no idea on how to get out of Iraq and fight terrorism. This should get them a head start. At least it's a much better idea that those fuckers will ever think of.

Twisted Flow

A week without a post. What happened? I hear the (imaginary) roar of readers. Just lots of homework from school. The teachers ain't kidding when they said this year would be tougher than others. I'm keeping up well with work and if there was a time where I had a lack of homework, I would post more. Anyway....
In keeping up with my "policy" of not specifically naming people in this blog, I am going to use nicknames. The setting, Physics. The plot, pure speculation and almost no logic. I'm in F4, and sitting at the 2nd row of seats. Not a bad place. However, two people are sitting in the 4th row and they're fustrated. They are good students and they must sit near the front. Sitting in the 4th row gives others the impression that they are slackers and they can't see the board very well. They want to move up. Specifically, they want MY row. But they don't want to share...no, no, no...they want a HOSTILE takeover. To the point where they want to rush into the class first and steal our seats. Now there is no way I'm letting Fishy and L.Phill take my row. It's a matter of principle. I got here first dammit. And I want to see the board clearly.
Eventually, they managed to get into a sharing arrangement with Big K and Da Who but at the cost of abandoning their friends. This is what amazes me. They have the ability to ruthlessly dispose of close friends in order to move up 1 place in the class. Not a word or even a look. Their friend is left sitting there like roadkill on a road. Still, I'm not going to let them invade my table.

Now onto Friday night. I went to the Entrance, Gosford for some prawning. We waited until around 9pm when the river started to flow out (or in, I don't remember) and we waded out there into the middle of the river. Soon, my dad, my brother and I position ourselves near deep water and start scooping up the prawns in out nets. The prawns were really good. They were at least 10cm long and 2 cm wide. We even managed to corner a couple of crabs, but they were kinda small. We ended up with a few kilos of prawns before stopping at around 11pm.
This trip was kinda cool, because I got to drive all the way from home to Wyong Rd. Did the freeway and everything in the Landcruiser Prado. It was kinda crap in a way because I'm still on my L's and limited to 80 and the limit of teh freeway was like 110. But it was still cool.
We got home at like 2pm in the morning and I'm still feeling a bit groggy, even now. I'll prolly go to sleep a bit earlier tonight...and stuff the homework. I've a free period tomorrow.

Paper Terror

Some people have been asking about my avatar, asking why I'm trying the terrorist look, especially in this climate about global terrorism, Bali and the works. It was taken a few years ago after September 11 and just before the first Bali bombings. Sure, the U.S. had been bombed, but nothing had happened to Australia. It seemed the bombings had been half a world away. Anyway, I was cooking up some dinner with my brother and cousin. Old-style sausages and steak, with a few kebabs. Roaring fire and plenty of oil over a grill. We soon encountered a problem. The fire was so hot, that we could only dart in for a few seconds before our face would start burning and air would be sucked out of our lungs to fuel the raging inferno.

Now we could have easily waited a bit for the fire to calm down, but that's the easy way. And we wanted dinner now. We weren't the only ones. Most of our family and friends were indulging in late night fishing (I say late but it was like 7pm) and they would want dinner when they got back. So we upped the fire and wrapped paper towels around our face to prevent it from burning up. The rest was history. Also it was the only photo that I had my face covered. I didn't want everyone on the net looking at my face. My friends will probably identify me, no sweat though.

Bromine Water

Not much happening at school, with the exception that the cricket nets will be back in action tomorrow. Finally, we can play cricket, without some teachers throwing a fit about playing the quadrangle. It's so inconsistent. Most teachers don't give a damn about us playing there, even though technically it's against the rules. They probably know that the crickets are undergoing reconstruction and that we're playing temporarily here. Of course, a few teachers step in to stop the match. *sigh*

Finally on to the meat of the title. It's in Chemistry and we're learning how to tell alkanes from alkenes by mixing it with bromine water. Now my Chem teacher gives out a sheet that says you drop the hydrocarbon in to the orange-brown bromine water, and if it is an alkene, the bromine water will decolourise to clear very rapidly. Almost instantly, in fact. So we're doing the experiment and when we pour out the bromine water, it's fricken clear. That ruins the whole point of the experiment. When my group notifies the teacher, she says the colour is very light and it decolourises quickly. WTF? It's clear, totally clear. How can it even decolourise? Furthurmore, bromine water is supposed to be orange-brown not clear. There's a major difference. Instead the teacher keeps telling us that the clear stuff is bromine water and we're like "No it's not!". In the end, we bugged her to get a new sample of bromine water and repeat the experiment, next lesson or whatever. *phew*

To be honest, I'm buying a whole bunch of Chem books. It's to help increase my chances of making it through this year.

Mathematical proof

Don't you love it when someone proves something mathematically. There's a massive argument on, then suddenly someone yells "I've proved it...mathematically!" and everyone will be like Aww shit! That is until some idiot finds out you forgot to carry the 1. Anyway this is something old I found scribbled in one of my books. It is mathematical proof that girls are evil.

Girls = Time x Money

but since Time is Money

Girls = Money x Money = Money²

Now since Money is the root of all evil

Money = √ Evil

And hence combining both equations we get

Girls = (√Evil)² = Evil

Thus Girls = Evil. #

What a fuck up!

My trip to Mount Wilson in Bell, out in the Blue Mountains, was a complete disaster. It was pissing down rain, with the weather trying to do it's best "Hurricane Katrina" impression. And if you think that was bad, it gets worse. The cherry blossoms had just, only just, finished blossoming. So we travelled around a 120 kilometers or so to look at cherry blossoms without all the nice pink flowers. Instead, we got some maple trees to cheer us up. Fuck.

But it wasn't all that bad, I mean it could have been worse. There were a few cherry blossoms still around and we got a chance to talk to old friends. And that iCN 635 worked like a charm. It accurately plotted out a course there and back. It has totally superseded the old "bread-crumb-trail" GPS systems. Those old systems left a trail where you went and had no road directions, just a black line on a monochrome LCD screen. I can't really think how we could survive without this. It totally takes the strain of me having to plot a course on a map. Of course, it's kinda useless if you don't travel into the deep unknown, but if you do reguarly, get one of these babies.

Now to the interesting part, photos! With captions for your viewing pleasure and hearing-impaired:

At Mount Wilson, and the weather is crappy. Rain and fog galore.

The lone cherry blossom tree at Mount Wilson.

Found another one on the way out. It was tucked in a small street.

This is at Sutton Park, a small rest area. The cherry blossoms are still in bloom there.

A shot of the adjoining cherry blossom. Just so you know, our car is the one on the far right.

Snapped another quick one before we left. It's actually raining pretty bad. I had to take cover in a small gazebo to take these shots.

One down...

First week of year 12 is over, baby! It was tough (for me, maybe not for other) but I kept to my game plan and I think good things will happen. I even did maths work for a few hours today! So taking this time seriously, I'm sure I'll get serious results.

Now for some cool stuff. My dad bought this navigation system, the Navman iCN 635 and it rocks! My dad tried it out today when he drove my brother to tutoring and it works like a charm. It uses GPS to plot your position and generate a path for you to follow. First you set the area, then the street, then the house number and it generate the shortest or quickest path to your destination. And it has voice prompts to ensure you make the right turns at the right time. Then I jumped in the driver's seat and started driving around testing it out and get some practice at the same time. My dad set it to go a boat ramp in Port Hacking and I drove all the way there. The really cool thing is that if you make a wrong turn or go a different way, it can re-generate a new path, so you don't have to stick its preestablished route. Tomorrow, we're going to test it by going to Bell (I think that's the place), out in the Blue Mountains, to see cherry blossoms in bloom. I'll post a few shots when I get back.

And this I had to post. Inventor Gregg Miller has dedicated his blood, sweat and tears, as well as countless hours designing, building and tinkering to create new balls for dogs. Not just any old balls for fetching though. They are prosthetic testicles for castrated dogs. Made from silicon, these balls are realistic recreations and comes in different sizes, shapes, weights and degrees of firmness. He even got a Nobel Prize for it. Go figure.

Rah! Errors!

So I started my second day of year 12 feeling quite well. I'd finished my homework, checked my previous notes (bah! not much notes) and I felt that I was getting better at being serious with my work. Anyway, I'm doing 3-unit maths, or as it's technically called Mathematics Extension 1, simply because I feel I'll handle it better than 4-unit maths (or Mathematics Extension 2). So you had a bunch of people doing 4-unit maths and...well..kind of showing off that they did 4 unit maths. A typical convo with someone doing 4 unit maths will have this bit somewhere:

4 unit maths person: So what unit maths do you do?
Me: 3 units, I just kept it. You?
4 unit maths person: Oh...well...I do 4 unit maths.

There always has to be this ever so slight enunciation of the "I" in "I do 4 unit maths". This is due to the perception that 4 unit maths is bloody hard and anybody that even attempts to try should be held in high esteem. Of course, this is usually among Asians at our school, as everybody else will be like "what freaks!" and stick to their lower maths, whether it be general, 2 unit or 3 unit. But I rest assured that some people will be dropping it, once they find out that's waaaayyy above their level. Those that stay probably have tutors, to help and guide them. To be honest, there is a slight elitism in the 4 units maths classes. Those slight changes that are there, the head held a fraction higher, the subtle but proud stride. While I hope that the slight elitism doesn't become more pronouced, my 3 unit class had a "clash" with the 4 unit class.

So I walk into class C4 with a few other classmates and our new maths teacher Ms Sharp. Well she's new to our class, not to the school. When Ray walks into our room, freezes and says something like "isn't this 4 units?" and we're like "nah man, it's three". Outside the two classes are frozen because they don't know if its the right room or not. Of course, it was OUR (3 unit) room from since the beginning of the year. Anyway, the 4 unit class shoved off. But that's not the point.

The point (see it has its own paragraph) is that the school screwed up again. Now mistakes will be made, but this could of easily been fixed. Two different classes in the same room at the same time? The organistion level in the school is bad, but its these incidents that take "bad" to new depths. My dad complained once when the school reported I had been late 3 times in the week, when I really wasn't and they said "it's over 1000 students!". Well, some places have over 10000 people employed or some company watches the superfunds of over 60 million people and I've never seen anyone get free money or whatever cos of a mistake. Actually this was only minor. There was another incident where my room was taken over for exams and we were sent to of G6 which had been demolished. The general reaction was like "OMFG! WTF!"

For fuck's sake. Could it get any worse?

First day

First day back to school and it rocked! Mainly because I got my Chem prac, Biology and Bio prac back and I did pretty well. In fact, I'm almost "there". And where is "there" I hear you ask? The mystical 90%+ area, which is where I'm aiming to raise my marks. I mainly got 80%-85% which is close. Next is 90%+ and then hopefully I'll manage to reach the god-like 95%, at least for one subject.

The weirdist part was the study period. I'm only doing 11 units and that gives me 3 study periods every two weeks. I finished off my maths homework and I was stuck with nothing else to do! So I started to scribble some ideas for stories and chatted quietly with some friends. I might bring my GBA SP and play FF Tactics Advance while I'm there. I know a guy who has 6 of those study periods in the two-week cycle. Fuck, he can do all his homework there and just study at home. That would be so cool.

A newer direction...

Seeing that tomorrow is the beginning to year 12 for me and a whole bunch of other people, I've decided to post some of the funny and not-so-funny things that happen as I progress through the last year at my high school. Of course, my thoughts, occasional rants, and bad stories will appear from time to time. The Rushing Storms will reappear depending on homework and procrastination levels. And I have few ideas here and there for more short stories.

To be honest, I was inspired by another blog that details a Jewish guy's experiences through medical school. Check out Ah Yes, Medical School for this guy's hilarious experiences of an American medical school and laugh at his attempts to half-ass his way through it. I don't think I can be as funny as this guy, but what the hell.

Down, down the toilet we go...

• My life is spiralling downwards...and it'll keep going down..unless something happens

Looking back on this statement, I'm a bit wrong. My life isn't really spiralling downwards, my future is. Everyone's life goes through its rough patches and I'm sure my life isn't different to anyone else's that much. But the way I'm going now, I don't see much of a good, desirable future for me. I was at a wedding reception party and as I watched the fun and celebrations whirl around me, I kept thinking about the future, my future. The majority of people here were very successful or on its verge. So I began thinking of my future, all the bad scenarios and all the good scenarios. I began going off at tangents, wondering about different roads I could take. The road of being a doctor, pharmicist or lawyer had no real appeal to me. I couldn't summon any enthusiasm about it. Sure making money is always a good thing, but when you hate your job to the core...it doesn't really work.

So I jumped on the careers bandwagon that I heard about before; all that examining yourself and trying to find skills that you could use in your post-education life. And I took a long, hard look about what I wanted to do. To this end, I've been considering a career in research, something where I can sit done and do some quiet research. Maybe it's not the most fabulous dream or goal, but it's realistic and it's what I want.

I CAN DO IT...! Maybe later...

• I have massive amounts of willpower, but I don't use it

If there is something that I really want to do, usually because I enjoy doing it, I will devote all my time and effort towards, bordering on obssession and insanity. Problem is these "moments" are rare and most of the time I just don't give a shit about whatever I'm doing to put some decent effort in. That's usually why my prac reports are done the night before and usually in class. And don't even mention my maths homework. I'm lucky Mrs Chew checks it in lump sum, otherwise it wouldn't be done daily. *sigh*

It's getting better though. I've been putting more effort in when it comes to homework. Like for maths, I actually put in a solid 45 minutes work and finished it all. Of course, when I tried to start on my biology, I just couldn't bring myself to doing it. I sat at my desk, stared at it for 5 minutes, then it was like "fuck it, I'm watching CSI...". I ended up doing it at 6am the next morning. Which leads me to waking up early. There are some times, which are completely unavoidable, that you have to wake up early to do something. And during the last few bits of the year, I just couldn't get myself up. Plus the winter cold conspired against me and I spent most of the time, lying in bed because it was warmer. Now you might ask, why not pump the heater on? I could, but I'd wake up feeling thirsty as hell and I would feel dry. The sort of dryness, when you're in the sun for a bit too long. Yeah. So I stay in bed. Since summer is coming around, it's now gonna be easy to get out. But what about next winter dammit!

When year 12 comes around, I'm going to test my willpower and put effort into every bit of work, especially for the first week. Then? I'll adjust to better suit my timetable and hone my willpower. That's for sure. Really.

I'm killing myself...

• I'm self-destructive

Now I don't mean this like in a drug or alcohol way. That's not how I'm killing myself. I'm killing myself, but not giving a shit about school and my future. I kind of drift through school, getting pulled this way, pushed that way. I couldn't care less about homework and although I really want to get great marks for exams, I end up with average marks. I want to study two weeks before the exams to really know my stuff, but I end up cramming at the last minute. And to be honest, I don't see much of a future for me if I keep doing this. Everyone dreams of a nice job with lots of cash flowing in. It's one of those things everyone dreams about. And while most people don't achieve that dream, they do end up with a comfortable income. I can see myself slaving away at some manufacturing job. At this rate of self-destruction, that's how I'm going to end up. And I don't want to end up that way.

So why an I self-destructive. Why do I shoot myself in the proverbial arse? I spent a lot of time mulling over this and I can to the conclusion that it's my way of rebelling against my parents. Some teens go gothic, get drunk, try drugs, get pregnant (or make a girl get pregnant), but I fuck myself up, metaphorically of course. I'm not the outwardly rebelly type of person. On the surface, I'm a "good kid". But all that teen angst and hatred have to manifest themselves somewhere and in some way, however small. So unconsciously, I drift away when it comes to schoolwork and the future. I don't give a fuck about it. And in doing so, I screw myself up and my future is looking bleak. Fucking hell...

Of course the main reason for doing all this is to make me a better person. I don't want to end up in a shitty low-paying job. No one does. I have the chance to have a better life and I'm throwing it away. *sigh* The changes won't be easy, but I have to do something in order for me to avoid a shitty future. More next time.

The Glory of Self-destruction...it's the aftermath that sucks...

I've been pondering about myself lately. Really giving a good thought workout. I might even becoming *shock* narcissistic! But I think there is a period of life that everyone goes through where they exam themselves. Ah no..not a mid-life crisis. That's like examining your life and going shit it sucks and then trying "new" and "exciting" things to spice it up. But then it is a sort of life crisis. But after a few days of on-and-off examination, I have come to the following conclusions:

• I'm self-destructive
• I have massive reserves of willpower, but don't use it
• My life is spiralling downwards...and it'll keep going down..unless something happens

Thus I have decided to furthur examine these points and I'll post my deeper thoughts tomorrow. I have also decided to draft a will in case of failure.

Fahrenheit or Celcius...maybe Kelvin?

I've been playing Fahrenheit since yesterday, completely ignoring Sudeki. *sigh* I guess I'll finish Sudeki another day, before the holidays. My verdict of Fahrenheit? Good, but could be better.

The freedom of choice in Fahrenheit (also known as Indigo Prophecy) is quite good and very interactive. However, the director/creator David Cage must be a DDR junkie. During action sequences, you get two circles, each with a north-west-south-east indicator. When the indicator flashes, you press the corresponding button to proceed through the action sequence. To be honest, it's damn lame and distracting. You end up paying attention to the circles rather than to the action. There are also left-right moments, where you hammer the left and right key alternatingly in order to do something. It quickly ends up as hammering the keys as fast as possible. And that sucks.

Using the mouse to do different actions with objects was cool, although climbing is a bitch. It's very unforgiving with a strict time limit. I'm on a part where you have to climb a drain pipe and I lost enough "mental health" to lose the game. But the interactivity is quite good. There is also a sex scene between the protagonist, Lucas, and his ex-girlfriend, Tiffany. Say the right things and complete the DDR sequence correctly and you end up shagging her. The screen is slightly blurred so you can't see all the details but you don't need to. You just keep moving you mouse up within the time limits. What next?

There are rumors of a sequel of some sort that may utilise parts of the plot. If that's so they should name the sequel "Celcius" or "Kelvin". Temperature names are cool...in a way.

Freedom!!!

I was capped last month for broadband and the Net was so agonizingly slow, that I pretty much didn't do a thing. Of course, I had to find ways to break the boredom for the 3 days left of the month. I ended up whipping out my GBA and playing Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. According to the game clock, I've been playing for around 10 hours and its a fun diversion. I'll probably try and finish my other PC game Sudeki tomorrow. This is in preparation of Farenheit Or Indigo Prophecy which I'm hopefully getting tomorrow. Except my brother wants NBA LIVE 2006. Ah to hell with him! I'm getting Farenheit.

As for the cricket match, two matches were played. The first match we won 10 out for 68 and the year 12's could only managed a 60. The second match was fun and runs weren't counted because most of the year 11 fielders left. In the match, I took two wickets [caught out by a fielder] and caught out a batsman. Not bad at all, I have to say.

BTW: Cricket's Super Series is on next week, with the World XI taking on Australia. Can't wait.

Gone Cricketing

I'm off to play cricket today. Year 11's versus Year 12's. I'm not sure when this addiction to cricket began. Sure I had played it before and it wasn't exciting, but the recent Ashes test may have sparked it off. The Super Series is on next week, which is good. I actually may be able to catch a few games without worry. The Ashes 05 coincided with yearly exams, although Charles didn't really care and watched them anyway.

So it's off to cricket in a few minutes. Be right back.

BTW: Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, SBS, 10pm. Watch it.

Reunion was mad fun...

Went to my primary school reunion last night and it was great fun. It had been years since I last met most of them and it was really good. We met up at Galaxy World and took a group photo there. One of my friends, Noah, is a DDR freak. On the hardest level, he managed a Perfect 236 combo. Now that's fricken insane.

We made our way to Star City and met up with the last few students and our old teacher Ms Ward. When we left for year 7, Ms Ward went to Africa to teach there and it was interesting to catch up. We spent most of the time at the buffet, eating, talking and joking. There were some very funny moments. One of them was Lesley meeting Tian, a girl from our former classes. She's changed a lot. She went from "good girl" to "extremely hot, bad girl" and Lesley was...well...afraid and uncomfortable. Supposedly he had a crush on her during year 6 (no real hard evidence, but since when do you need evidence for crushes?) and meeting her again was like a real shock to him. For me? Excellent eye candy and really nice to talk to.

Year 11 Seftonites will recognise and know Lesley's rather formal manner of speech, with big words and roundabout manner. For us, that's normal. For everyone else, it was weird and fascinating. Of course, when Tian (or was it someone else? Lots of people asked Lesley blunt questions) bluntly asked Lesley "Do you watch porn?" on the assumption all guys watch porn, Lesley couldn't really answer and tried to cover up by saying neither yes or no and asking questions back (like "If you assume all guys watch porn, why ask me?") but his manner of speech just ended up making him look guilty.

So we talked to around 9:30pm and the remainder of us decided to split. Several goodbyes and hugs later, my group of around 10 tried to make our way to Town Hall. We went down the escalator and had to go back cos it was the wrong side. I made a fool of myself by trying to go up on the down escalator and stacked it badly near the top. We walked and talked and a few of us got of at Granville and I went home, exhausted but certainly happy.

I kind of wondered why we can still meet and have so much fun after all these years. I discussed it with Noah and he said it was because we were an OC (Opportunity Class, not the TV show) class and were together for 2 years, year 5 and 6. It created a bond that never really goes away and Noah suggested we should do this again every couple of years. I suggested after our HSC, as most of us would be 18 then and the beer could flow. There was general agreement there.

I'll be posting some pics of the reunion if I can get my hands on some of the photos.

Bloody rain...go rain at Katoomba!

Right now, its raining on and off. It'll start then stop, then start again. I wish it would make up its damned mind. Personally, I'd rather that it stop raining cos I'm going to a school reunion at the city and the thought of walking from the station in the rain leaves me unthrilled. Why can't it rain at the damn dams?!?! Fill the dams up to like 95%+ capacity so we can stop the water restrictions for a while, at least, until the dam falls to 40% again.

Realising that water is becoming scarce and restrictions will soon be normal every summer, my dad has instituted a water conservation program. Well its more like a water collection program. What he did was buy these 200L barrels and he's going to use them to store rainwater. Then we can water the plants using that recollected water! Furthermore, it's like $10-$15 a barrel so it's cheaper than buying a water tank. We've got 17 barrels, giving us 3400L water storage capacity. Right now, we have 7 barrels full, giving 1400L of water or 41% capacity.

Pics coming soon

Does it feel good or what?

I woke up at around 5am today and was about to roll out of bed grumbling to find my damned clearance form, when it hit me. Its the holidays! I didn't need to do a thing. So I turned around and went right back to sleep until around 8am. Thats when it hit me that it was also the weekends.
Anyway, I spent the entire morning reading the newspaper. People should know that the Swans won the AFL grand final after a 72-year drought. That's one hell of a dry spot.

Now, besides reading the newspaper, I also read those Innovations magazine. You know those catologues that offer a whole bunch of stuff and very cheap and very expensive prices? Well, they were offering a breath analyser, with the tagline about saving you life or your licence and it set me thinking. You take you average Aussie teenager, regardless of race or creed, give them a breath analyser and you give them a way to tell who has drank the most alcohol. I saw this being done before at a party. I was younger then and it had a whole bunch of teenage guys and girls. And the guys were like trying to impress the girls on how much they could drink before passing out. The breath analyser was used to see who had the highest BAC. Some guy got to 0.4 before he knocked himself out and a girl managed a 0.42 before the adults confiscated the device so they could have a drinking competition. So much for saving your live or your licence.

Finally, for some strange news. A 14-year old student was expelled from a Christian school, cos the parents were lesbians. Actually, that was kind of expected as we all know the stance that Christianity has on homosexuality. Still it was the student's fault for talking about it at a football game.

And on the First Day...

I'm sure everyone is in a good mood today. Today marks the first day of the 2-week long holidays, where we can all take a break from all the stress and to prepare ourselves for even more stress. While naturally I'm just going to relax and take it easy, I'm going to revise some subjects, just so I don't forget any of the basics.

So to everyone out there, have a safe holiday. More stuff tomorrow.

Don't You Hate the Final Week?

Arrrgh! All this paperwork is driving me crazy. Not to mention 4 Physics practical reports I have to do. Why do they make all these things due on the last week? Most of the year 10s have multiple projects due on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Well, sucks to be them.

Right now, I'm concerned about the very last day. Usual orders are to screw the last day and stay home, but with year 11s have to stay to the last damn minute...I'm wondering will we actually do anything. *slaps head* Of course, we'll do something! Those far-flung days of bludging and procrastination are now out of the window. Year 12 beckons and everyone is beginning to feel it.

And yes, I know I haven't been posting parts of my short story. Right now, I'm thinking of a proper ending and how long it's going to be. My original idea was beginning to turn out like a novel rather than a short story.

And another weird news item that can only happen in China...or not. A Chinese restaurant was serving a special dish, stir-fried tiger meat with chillies. Instead it was really..wait for it...wait for it...stir-fried donkey meat with tiger urine. Apparently, tiger urine gives the dish a special tang. Of course, the owner was fined $300. Talk about wanting a piece of ass for dinner...

Damned Paperwork

With all our exams over, we now head once more into the breach and find ourselves...up to the neck in paperwork. Ok, so that was exaggerated, but with all these signatures and returning of books, I'd say an extra day wouldn't hurt. You think some time is important in getting this stuff done, but no, they'd rather get it all rushed in a few days, rather than sacrificing a few hours on the holidays. I know there are over 1000 students in school to organise clearance forms and timetables, but rushing everyone kind of sucks. At least this time, most of the school have done it theoretically and only year 11 and a few others have to hand in the clearance forms. But seeing how FEMA mucked up the New Orleans disaster, I don't have much hope for this. This school can't plan nor organise even if their lives depended on it. I'd say the deputy principal or head of administration should get a degree in "strategic managment".

Now with all these hurricanes zooming around the Gulf of Mexico, it's no suprise that scientists have managed to link stronger, more destructive hurricanes to global warming. Bloody hell, you can link almost anything to global warming. Anyway, this means that we've all got to do something and with the rise in petrol prices, I have an idea. This German dude has developed technology to power cars using dead cats. Well not just dead cats. It's a secret recipe combining garbage, mashed-up cats and other stuff. He has managed to pull out a whooping 170000 km with this "bio-fuel". Obviously, animal rights groups are pissed, but who gives a damn? They're dead cats and they aren't getting any better. The price? 23 Euro cents per litre, which is 47 Australian cents per litre. What's the price of fuel right now? $1.48? Around there? LPG is around 50 cents/L but you can do, what, 300-500km max. We need this cat-powered bio-fuel! Put on them supertankers and send 'em over!

And on the other weird news front, this 38-year old, blonde Italian woman has been fired from her job of teaching religion to children because...she is too attractive. Of course, the local church said it was because she was divorced, but come on! What the hell? Suddenly, you can become too sexy for religion? There were also reports that fathers took their children to those classes so they could check her out. Who cares? As long as the children get their daily dose of God, about being nice and everything Jesus Christ, it doesn't matter. The woman just wants her job back. Obviously, feminists are going to have a field day.

*sigh*

Alright, Party's Over

After the exams finished on Friday, I just dropped everything and refused to study one bit. I spent most of my time watching movies and playing computer games. And damn did it feel good. It felt good just to do all these things and not give a rat's arse about exams or studies of any sort. Of course, it later hit me that the last week of school is soon and I should at least see what lessons there are. Now, I'm figuring out how physics prac reports I have to do. There goes my fun night.

On a VERY good note, the second season of House M.D. has started in America and now I'm cramming the last few episodes of season one to get ready for the new eps. It's actually out already and I envy those people in America. I could use a torrent but I'm actually near my limit, so maybe I'll wait for someone else to get it for me.

On a completely different note, those who rigorously follow the Naruto manga will now be aware that Kakashi has his own form of Mangekyo Sharingan. Can't wait for the next chapter!

Final Hours of the Exam Machine

Within several hours, I'll face the last test, chemistry practical, then emerge from the horrors either triumphant or crushed. But today, I have my last test and I'm itching to finish it. So my physics prac didn't go to well. Most people screwed it up. However, I did really well on my biology prac and so I'm in good spirits for this final exam. It's going to be so sweet.

On another note, did anyone catch Ghost in a Shell: Stand Alone Complex on SBS last night? It was at 10pm and I was going to tape it but my VCR refused to work. It's a heck of a show and kudos to SBS for showing anime. There was a time when SBS showed Neon Genesis Evangelion on and lots of other anime movies, then stopped. But a revival has taken place. The choice is good as well. The only problem is have is that it's dubbed. I actually prefer a good sub. But it's all good.

Death to the Exam Machine! Its final hour has come!

The Death of Sefton

No, Sefton High isn't dying. I'm referring to the alliance of Sefton High in the online web game JenniferNations. We had at least 10 or more nations but sadly the last powerful nations have disappeared and I'm yet to receive confirmation on the last one but it looks grim. For those out of the loop, JenniferNations is an online game where you are the ruler of a nations. Every day you receive a number of issues that you have to decide on. It may be about refugees or child labour. By responding to the issues, your nation changes, reflecting your decisions on issues. It was fun while it lasted, but exams and a high work load conspired against us. We haven't even tapped the full potential of the game. By using the game's forum, you can role play wars or other diplomatic crises. If you're interesting check it out here

Story time!

Next part of my little story. I'm probably going to continue this until I decided enough is enough. Enjoy!

*2nd Movement Part 1*

The Glissando was a large ship and was anything but graceful. While the Waalwik Federation had technological superiority of the Minerva Alliance, it lacked good technology in propulsion. This meant the Alliance ships could frequently outmaneuver and travel faster than Federation ships. It was a sore point for the Waalwik Federation. Many of their battles and been lost to the superb maneuvering of Alliance ships. The Glissando was to rectify that problem with pure firepower.

The Glissando was the only ship that could be truly said to a 360-degree field of fire. Every part of the ship had weapons precisely mounted so that no matter where the Alliance ships moved, there were no blind spots to take advantage of. Also the Glissando was armed with a large forward-mounted laser. It used enough energy to penetrate any form of spaceship or spacestation shielding. However, the Glissando wasn’t in full control by the Navy. A lot of sensitive technology had been placed on board so the ship also had a contingent of Central Security – External officers, who had the power to overrule the ship’s captain. That obviously led to a lot of tension.

“I know the specifications of this ship and we’ve been detected!”
“Look! We’re coasting through a nebula, the dust will cover us and that’s final!”
The captain glared at the intelligence officer. Stupid intel pukes swore the captain silently.
He couldn’t be more wrong.
Colonel Cassandra E. Hinamoto, the ranking intelligence officer on the ship was correct. She scowled at the captain and stomped off to her console. The massive Starfire-class engines gave off an enormous amount of heat, which could not be hidden, even in a nebula. Hinamoto clenched her left fist, and then began tapping the console furiously. A few minutes later, her suspicions were confirmed. Reports began to flood in from various stations on the ship.

Captain! We have heat imbalances!
They are ships, I am sure of it!
At least 30 ships are on an approach vector!
We’ve lost tactical surprise! They know we’re here!

Hinamoto broke off a section of her console with her left-arm. She stood up angrily shaking her left fist.
“You idiot! I told you, but you didn’t listen,” she paused then added, “Jackass!”
The captain looked away in disbelief, the nebula was supposed to cover them…
Suddenly a metallic arm picked him up. Hinamoto held him up high, her cybernetic left arm threatening to crush his neck.
“You’re relieved of command,” shout Hinamoto, “ I’m taking over your command!”
She slammed him to the ground and drove her mechanical fist through his chest. Blood sprayed upwards and the captain fell silent. The bridge was silent.
Hinamoto sat in the captain’s seat, her left arm covered with blood.
“I’m in command now,” she said quietly, “now power up those weapons!”

The Right Thing

Finally, someone accepts responsibility for the Katrina disaster and unsuprising it's President Bush. Technically, it wasn't even his fault. The hurricane management was initially the state's responsibility and FEMA's. But it fucked up so badly, no one wanted to take the blame. Even the head of FEMA, Brown, just resigned over the mismanagement of hurricane Katrina. No public apology or anything. Just disappears of the face of the US.

This is just stupid and selfish. When something goes wrong or the shit hits the fan, and you're responsible you have to take the blame and face the music. Sometimes, you have to take one for the team and say straight out "It was me. It was my fault. I screwed up. Sorry" You don't keep saying everything's all right. This is actually one of the few things that I admire Bush. He's taken the proverbial bullet and now people are going to be pissed off at him, because he's taken responsibility. He may a controversial President, but he has guts and did the right thing.

At least the good thing here is that the hurricane revealed weakness and gave everyone around the world a little slap in the face. You have to wonder whether Australia could handle a hurricane disaster or terrorist attack. Howard wants to have these new laws where Aussie security guards and bouncers will be first-responders to a terrorist attack. I'm not sure about the bouncers though. Won't they seal off the area, but still let the ladies in? To me that's not a really good idea. It's probably better to get pros.

Almost over...

Finally, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. Two weeks of tests will soon be over. Only one more to go and it'll be all good. Biology was alright, and so was English Extension. My speech was like 3 pages, because I didn't take as seriously as the other tests. I'm dropping it anyway, so who cares? For the first time in a long while, I felt quite confident about my maths test. Not "I'm-gonna-get 90%-plus" confident, but quietly confident that I'll get a decent mark at least. It was on the day that England won the Ashes, so I'm hoping it was a good sign. Biology prac exam went much better than expected and I'm in high hopes for my Chem prac exam.

The 2nd week of exams was much better emotionally than the first week. What I'm trying to say is that the first week seem so stressful and serious. The 2nd week I was more laid back and felt at ease, even when taking the maths exam. In a way, playing cricket before the tests helped a lot. It felt good to take a few bowls and bats. On Tuesday, sports was compulsory, so I sneaked off from basketball and when to the mini-tennis group to play cricket with some mates. A quick breakdown of the players:
- Charles "Cricket Freak" Luo
- Paul "You say f-off, we say flintoff" Nguyen
- Andy "Next Spin King" Ngu
- Jimmy "The Left Hander" Ly
- Tan "Shorty" Nguyen
Here I would like to say "thanks guys" playing cricket helped me a lot of calm down. It's a cool and effective method of calming therapy.

On a final note, Franz Ferdinand rocks! I got their first album (Franz Ferdinand) and immediately loved their rocky tunes. Now their second album (You Could Have It So Much Better) is out and is even better than the first. Get it! Buy it or get a torrent! P2P is cool these days.

On another final note, I'll be posting more parts to my story since Thursday is my day off.

Yawn...late post...

I know. I said I would post the next part of the series. I didn't. If you must know, my physics practical exam went completely down the drain and I was depressed. I'm feeling better now though, knowing a large number of people also failed with me. Anyway, here's the next part.

*1st Movement Part 3*

Brunker could not believe it, but it was the only answer. He stared at the large screen, with the sensors scan showing. The entire bridge was silent. It was a single large battleship, at least 15km.
Space is filled with various phenomena, such as stars, nebulas and pulsars. Filled with electromagnectic radiation, sensors could all too easily pick up interference. The electromagnetic shielding on ships radiated similarly to certain stars. But there is some thing that ships radiated that can be detected. Heat.

The hyperfusion turbines that power most ships radiated massive amounts of heat energy. And space is very cold. Unlike stars, or other stellar objects, space ships radiate heat and move quite rapidly. By taking several ‘snapshots’ of the surrounding environment and translating them to heat images, a spaceship can found by looking for relatively small, intense spots of heat that move.



The scan showed a massive thermal imbalance in that area. At first, it seemed that there was a large number of ships, but the thermal imbalance was symmetrical, indicating one ship.

Brunker ran the projections again, adding different variables but each time he ended up with one massive ship. He began rerunning weapons solutions, ocassionally trading a word to the sensor man next to him.

“Sir,” said Brunker, “thermal scan confirmed, it’s a single battleship.”
“Send that out to the fleet!” exclaimed Roberts, “they must know!”
Roberts scowled, clearly not happy with the turns of events. Brunker looked up,
“Sir, its confirmed. The ship is part of the Waalwik Federation Space Fleet, the Glissando.”

To be continued…

Arrrgghhh...Chemistry

Yep, that's right. Chemistry was tricky. Now I know that I screwed up at least one question. Looking back it was so outrageous wrong and so simple to do that I'm banging my head against the wall. No story today or the past few days in fact. Sorry about that, but I'm gearing up for final study for maths. I really want to to do well on this. It would be nice to grab 90%+.

I'll do the next part of the story tomorrow. I only have my Physics Practical test and that's at like 1pm.

That's just screwed up.

Recently, a concert was held for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Kanye West deviated from the script by saying that "George Bush don't care about black people" and a few other things that was along those lines. Now I can understand that Mr West is angry at Bush from not doing more to help people, but I think the words should be changed. It should be "Black people don't care"

Let's look at the facts.

The mandatory evacuation order meant that everyone in the area HAD to evacuate. And most people did and some took shelter in the Superdome. But a lot of people stayed in the streets and their houses, hoping to whether out, what, the single largest hurricane in US history. And a large proportion of those people were black. What happened next was that you had a massive amount of people still stuck in New Orleans, demanding that the government helped and criticising it for being too slow.

Now hold up. A mandatory evac order meant a massive amount of people should of left, but instead a massive number of people stayed behind. Of course help was going to be slow. The vast majority of people should have left, not sitting in their homes because they were like "We'll ride it out, bitches!" Furthurmore, when resuce helicopters did arrive, some were shot at by looters. What the fuck? You want help, want to be rescued and you shoot the fricken rescue helicopter? Then you have looting. The vast majority of looters, as portrayed on t.v, are mainly black and all give the same reason, "We're doing what we need to survive, cos Bush is too slow in helping us, that bastard"

That there is just stupid. You were supposed to evacuate! And if you're just trying to survive, why are you stealing...I mean looting...private property like TVs, DVDs and other highly expensive electrical items? There ain't no vitamins and nutrients in there fit for the human race. Then the police and army dudes are given shoot-to-kill orders because you have these people ransacking stores and homes. Not to "survive" but to bloody cash in later.

Personally, I think it's just the South that so screwed up. I mean you had this woman guarding her bar with this shotgun. She refuses to evacuate and if army or police try to force her, she'll shoot them. Then she starts yapping about how its her constitution right to bear arms and to defend her self from invaders. The police and army are trying to help and you get nutters like these. I mean, you have all this emphasis on the American Constitution, for freedom rights and the right to bear arms and stuff, and these idiots ignore all the other parts of it. Hypocritical bastards.

Finally, you have some Aussies trapped in New Orleans, now blaming the Australian Government for not warning them and for doing little to contact them. I agree on the 2nd point, but not on the first. The warning were distributed days ago. If a massive hurricane comes, the single largest hurricane in US history comes my way, I'd get the fuck out. Instead these Aussies are like "It'll be right" and completely screw themselves by ignoring the evac order.

Look, I'm not racist. I truly believe in multiculturalism. But there must some relationship between race and intelligence in this case. These black Americans screw themselves up then blame in on the US government. No wonder they are living in poverty. I'm so poor, it's the government's fault. Every thing is the government's fault. If after all the rescue efforts and there are still people who insist on staying behind and blaming government officials, well, I hope there's another hurricane or tsunami to wipe them out. The American population will be better without them. Hell, the average quality of humanity may jump up a few points.

Idiots.

Physics taken down

Finished my physics yearly exam. It went pretty well so hopefully, some good marks will come out of it. Now another installment of my series.

*yawns*

I'm going to sleep after this.

*1st Movement Part 2*

“Heat imbalances at 0.3!”
A rumble shook the Exultate Jubilate as the ship fired its multitude of weapons, both energy and projectile. Captain Lance Roberts grimaced, his hands clenching the sides of his command chair. The Waalwik forces had launched a partially successful surprise attack on Sector 13, catching a momentory weakness in the Alliance defences. The ships were mainly corvettes and frigates but outnumbered the Exultate Jubilate at least 15 to 1. Not a good thing. For a brief moment, the rumble stopped and Roberts looked up, his teeth gnashing.
“Recommendations?”
The security officer quickly responded.
“Use our plasma turrets to strip away their shielding, then attack with AMX-446 missiles.”
“Make it happen,” said Roberts quietly, “and run some projections!”
The security officer began tapping away at the console like a skilled pianist, his fingers dancing from one button to the next. He was a good man, that Brunker, thought Roberts. It was hard to get skilled officers like this. Roberts had read the officer’s file and found it hardly suprising that William Brunker used to be in the Special Operations Executive. Another rumble disturbed the Captain’s thoughts and he willed himself to pay attention to the screen.
“Incoming torpedo!” yelled Brunker, his sandy hair shaking, “brace for impact!”
The torpedo struck the Exultate Jubilate port side, but Brunker’s early warning minimised casualties.
“Hit them back!” roared Roberts, his face contorting.
Long golden lances of plasma reached out, striking to opposing enemy ships. The high velocity and temperature of the plasma began to strip the electromagnetic shielding of the smaller enemy ships. They tried to regroup and reposition, but the Exultate Jubilate had excellent manouevering for a battleship of her size and ten of the enemy ships were blown to pieces by the missiles. The five remaining ships managed to escape the missiles and retargeted the bigger Jubilate.
“Crap! The Sauvignon is coming on vector 33.9!” the sensor man cried out.
“Full reverse engines!” ordered Roberts frantically, “keep shooting, keep shooting!”
The Exultate Jubilate began moving backwards, narrowly avoiding a collision by the Sauvignon as it swooped in like a predatory bird, blasting the remaining enemy ships. Roberts barely managed to breathe when more transmissions blared in.

Grid 8 is not responding…
Thermal imbalance suggests unknown number of battlecruisers…
All ships, status green and yellow, move to Grid 8!

Roberts breathed out forcefully. He blinked his eyes and stretched his neck.
“Move to Grid 8, now!” he barked out.
Brunker was already setting up new targeting solutions, when his eyes opened in horrified surprise.
“No…bloody...way…”

To be continued…

Calm before the Storm? No way!

Yearlies! Tomorrow is the start of my 2-week long yearly exam, starting with Physics. I'm studying some last few points and praying to...well no one...for luck. This time I'm going to try and keep myself going from crazy by writing creatively. This is not to win any prizes but to calm me down and keep me sane. It's going to be sci-fi, my fav genre. So read on. If you don't want to, then don't read.

*1 hour later*

~The Rushing Storms~
1st Movement, Part 1

Designate as Group-1...mark
Contact in 2 minutes...mark
Lost contact with Recon-331A...

It had begun. War had returned. Humanity, having experienced horrendous loss of life, had swore never to fight each other again. Had swore for peace for all humans. No more petty internal struggles. That promise was broken. The Minerva Alliance and the Waalwik Federation. Humanity had been split into two warring factions of hatred. But nobody knew why the war started. The original reason was lost. One thing just led to another. To another war.

Sensors indicate heat imbalance at Grid 3...
Scanning lock on Grid 5...capital ships sighted...
Alert! Breach in Sector 13...all ships respond!...

The Minerva Alliance was a collection of planets that believed in expansionism, to explore and meet new life in this galaxy. Most importantly, they wanted peace with other aliens. Their goal was to find Earth, the mystical home planet, where humanity began, lost in the history of time. In short, they were idealistic peace-loving hippies.
The Waalwik Federation was diametrically opposite. They did not care about exploring. They wanted power, to ensure humanity as the most powerful force in the galaxy. Aliens could not be trusted. Deadly wars had broken out before, and the Waalwik Federation preferred a more isolated life. They also wanted to find Earth, to obtain technologies beyond wonder and reasoning. For absolute power. They were narrow-minded, paranoid bastards.
Little wonder that war broke out.

Mayday! Mayday! This is the Exultate Jubilate! There's a breach...
This is the Sauvignon! Hold on!
Massive thermal imbalance in Grid 8! Respond, Grid 8, respond...!

But little did the Minerva Alliance and the Wallwik Federation know that there was a third faction that also wanted peace..but at any cost. For them, the ends justify the means.

To be continued...

Wonkalicious

Just finished watching the 1971 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Now I need the see the Johnny Depp version. I keep hearing that it's better but so far I think the original has a lot of good stuff. Gene Wilder is so good as the crazy Willy Wonka.


Johnny Depp as Williy Wonka looks so...wrong? He looks a zombie with the pasty white skin. Well for some of the screen shots. Here's a pic.

You choose who's better.

By the way, Star Wars Special Edition was crap. You can only do a George Lucas on the special effects and remastered it so many bloody times.

Competency...have that and you're set.

Those at my high school will know that the 2006 Prefect Nominations are beginning. To nominate yourself, you grab a form, write a few sentences about why you want to be a Prefect, what you would bring to the Prefect group and a list of things you've done to deserve you appointment to Prefect. Thankfully, the administration decided to reduced the number of prefects to a mere 20 and my hopes have raised. Hopefully, competent prefects can be choosen.

The prefect life is not for me. While being a prefect is all important, the day-to-day watching of canteen lines and organising charity drives do not appeal to me. Furthurmore, if I was a prefect and watching the canteen lines I might get into a fight. I hate people who push-in. They just barge in front of you, bumping you down. As a prefect, instead of either ignoring the problem or saying "can you please move back?" only to have them push-in again, I would be like "Oi! Get the fuck back! Stop pushing in, bitch!" Of course, the probability that a fight would occur and that I would lose is like 90%. So I did not nominate myself. That does not stop me from hoping the "good" prefects will get appointed.

When you submit your nomination form, it gets passed around all the faculties and teachers will add comments saying why you should not be a prefect. The forms with the least comments are selected and the students then become prefects. Now there are some people who should not become prefects. Not because I hate them (though that is a possible factor) but from the way they work and play at school, they would be lowering the standards of prefectship and botch everything up. Thankfully, I know that at least one good prefect will be selected and that's Gough. Not only is he competent, he's reliable and I know him well. His nomination reads like a resume for a CEO at some global company. Since he will set the standard, all the crap prefect-wannabes will be dropped. Hell yeah!
By the way, check out Gough's blog.

This little rant also reminded be of a TIME article. Ali Saeedlou wanted to become Iran's Minister Oil, a very powerful position. He had no oil experience of any kind but boasted a Ph.D in "strategic management" from Hartford University in America. But some MP asked Saeedlou how he obtained an American doctorate while still living in Iran, Saeedlou had to admit that Hartford (no relation to the University of Connecitcut-Hartford) was an online university. Obviously, the Iranian Parliament blocked his appointment. My questions is "what is strategic management?" It sound so insane. I want one.

Ah the beauty of it all...

Blogging. I've finally jumped onto the blogging bandwagon. Why? Besides the fact that everyone else is doing it and I'm play catch up? My leaking thoughts. I think. A lot of people think. But like many people, I forget things. Lots of things. The sheer number of things that go through my head then waltz into the wide world is horrendous. Embarassingly, there was one time I left my local library, bumped into an old friend and had a nice chat. What next? I couldn't remember whether I was leaving or entering. I tried to deduce the fact that I was leaving because I had library books but then I realised that I could easily be entering the library to return the books. Thankfully, I kept the docket which tells me when I should return my books and was saved. The library was generous as well. I could keep the books until 20004, which was longer than I needed but nice nonetheless.

Some people may also be wondering: What the hell is entropy? Simply, it's the inevitable disorder that comes with time. Physicists will tell you that the Universe is filled with entropy. In fact, the Universe is becoming more disordered by the minute and will one day lose order and become chaotically chaotic, signalling the death of the Universe. That's why cleaning your room is useless. Your room is messy. You put energy to use and clean up your room. However, entropy will take over. Eventually your room will become disordered again unless you put in the energy to clean it up. But at the same time, the energy you burn, the calories that get used during the act of cleaning your room, gets released as unordered energy, thereby increasing entropy. See? It's a lose-lose situation. So don't clean your room, or even better, get someone else to do it for you.