Sunday, October 7, 2007

Oct 7

Two for the price of one.
Category: Music

To commemorate my making it one full week into Blog-a-day month without missing a day and without cheating either, I'm going to present two different blogs in this one blog. Yay!

Blog 1
Music has been a strange, yet driving force for much of my life. I was a band geek all through school, a music major (turned minor) in college. I often pride myself with liking good music and hating sucky music and reasonably understanding why. And songs, many good but some sucky, tend to bring back memories, many good but some sucky. This summer I tried to regain my music roots by purchasing a piano. More on that in another blog, methinks.

But sometimes music goes weird on me. What I mean by that is that I need to do something that I hate when other people do it. It's song repetition. I like to hear a good variety of songs. When there's a new song that I hear and enjoy, I might listen to it a couple times to get the feel for it, but I don't like to overplay it and kill it. For example, there is no possible way that I could count the number of times I sat through "Satellite" by the Dave Mathews Band while visiting certain friends in college. Not that it's a horrible song, but it's already a repetitive song. And they played it over and over every time we were there. And there was also another song by Sophie B. Hawkings (or something like that - google could clear it up for me, but I'd rather type this thought) with lyrics that went something like "Now I lay me down to sleep, blah blah blah, you can hold me tight, blah blah" (Those that know me know that I rarely know the words to songs. I prefer to make them up as I go). They played that song over and over and over. And it was certainly a sucky song.

So every once in a while, I have to play out a song. I hate it when others do it, so I don't subject others to that. I prefer to do it in the solitude of my car. Once in college it was "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" by Elton John. That was a weird week. It's often triggered by some emotion, but that's something for another blog, or perhaps for none of you to hear.

Right now, I have two songs. And that's making it kinda weird, since I play one for awhile, then switch to the other, then back to the other, and back, and back. So join me, if you will, in listening to these songs over and over with me:
Weezer "Burndt Jamb" (from Maladroit)
The Strokes "12:51" (from Room on Fire)

Blog 2
I like reading, as well. It's good for you. Possibly more healthy than veggies, and tastes better than that vile weed broccoli. But you shouldn't eat books, you should read them. And in reading them, that is what makes them better. But I tend to find that I need to get into that "reading mood" sometimes. Last few months, it just hasn't been there. When Potter 7 came out, I finished that off pretty quickly, though I wanted to stretch it out more. So I have a list of a bunch of books that I'm trying to read. And since Blog-a-day month was my excuse to force me to start writing, I'm going to use it to force me to start reading, as well. That's right - it's now Book-a-day month as well. Wait... that's a bit extreme... OK, how about here's my list of books that I have started in the past, 6 months (OK, more for some, but who's counting?), and I am pledging right here to finish 8 of these 14 books by the end of 2007. Why 8? Because it's one more than half. Also, if I try to figure three a month, and October is already close to 1/3 done, it works out. Here are the books. Wanna join the reading club?

Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand

1776 – David McCullough

His Excellency – Joseph J. Ellis

Little Children – Tom Perrotta

Alexander Hamilton – Ron Chernow

Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut

Until I Find You – John Irving

The Taking – Dean Koontz

The Killing of Reinhard Heyorich, the SS "Butcher of Prague" - Callum MacDonald

Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

And these last three I haven't started yet, but they look interesting to me, and they are sitting next to my bed:

This Is Your Brain On Music - Daniel Levitin

Fiasco - Thomas E. Ricks

1491 - Charles C. Mann

Oct 6

High Def
Category: Movies, TV, Celebrities

High Def is pretty sweet, but it depends on the channel. Many of the network channels show some pretty lousy HD. That's one of the (few) negatives about a 62-inch screen. When the HD is weak, you notice. Now when I'm not watching HD, such as when I watch me some TiVo, that part of my brain turns off. I have to learn to watch TV with the expectation that the image won't be as purdy. But when I'm watching something that should be in HD, the emphasis is on the H. I just finished watching SW:EPIII:ROTS on HDHBO. Since I pay extra money for it, I'm glad that it's such a purdy picture. But while watching a few HD shows on NBC or ABC or FOX, some things have extra bits and pieces around them. However, bad HD is like having a wrinkly thousand dollar bill. It's still better than a penny. Take that to the bank and smoke it. Something slightly cool about HD is that Astound HD just got the History Channel in HD. But then I was reminded that it's now the Modern Marvels channel instead of actually showing cool history stuff. "You don't know me; you've just seen my penis."

Oct 5

Turning to drugs to help you sleep will only lead to sleep.
Category: Parties and Nightlife

'Tis late. It's about 10 minutes after 10 as I begin to write this. Friday night. Now I wasn't a party person in college by any stretch of the imagination, but I remember back at SDSU when 10 o'clock Friday night would be the beginning. Certainly in high school, 10 would be the start of the second movie in a stupid movie night. Now here I am, 33 1/2. And I'm spent from the week. In fact, if it wasn't for blog-a-day month, I would have been in bed about 2 minutes ago now, but I feel that I must rant about something. And for those of you without the joy of insomnia, as tired as I am, i have no idea if I'll even sleep tonight. I've had some uneasy nights recently, but I've mostly been sleeping. The insomnia usually hits me about once every five weeks or so. Then it's often four or five nights in a row. Good times. Last summer it happened at the same time that I got the flu, making that even more miserable. Now that I'm getting a bit sick (though I'm not sure if I'm getting sick of just allergies - TO THE EXTREME!) , and I think it's been a little while since I've had the insomnia, it's going to hit me soon. Yeah, this super cool hacking cough is sure to keep me up. Remember kids, always think positively!

I've been forgetting...

I haven't been forgetting to blog-a-day during Blog-a-day month; I've been forgetting to copy the blog-a-days to this blog. So I'll just plan to do it every few days and if you want to be up to date, find the other blog.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

2007 movies so far?

For the past few years, I've been listing my top 10 movies for the year. I usually start on 1/1 and list them for the next 10 days on my blog. Not that anyone else is actually anticipating the exciting order and I need to drag it out for 10 days, but I like to write about each movie. That gives me the chance to do so.

In each of those years, there has been one movie that stood out as my obvious number 1. And I saw all of them in the Spring. They all left me a bit excited to see a movie that would beat them, but then mildly disappointed when nothing quite did. But then again, by that point, those movies would be out on DVD, so I could enjoy them again. The three top winners the last few years were Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Sin City, and Thank You For Smoking. This year, I was REALLY hoping to like 300 a lot more than I did. But it just didn't click with me.

This year, I've seen a lot of good movies. If you look at my myspace, I keep track of them and give them a grade. Lots of A- movies, because I enjoyed them while watching. But I'm not sure if any of them are sticking out as the top movie. In fact, of the 13 movies I've seen (which is really low, considering there's less than 3 months to go), 5 are A- movies. I'm not sure what order I'll even rank them.

So I'm going to be optimistic that I will see several EXCELLENT movies between now and 12/31. I haven't seen any movies since Superbad, so it's probably time to head back to the theaters. There isn't anything out there that is really drawing me out, and I haven't seen anything upcoming that has me too excited.

And as a side note, with this being Thursday, I think I can honestly say that I've enjoyed The Office more than any movies for the past year and a half. I don't think of that as a knock on movies. I just think The Office has been that damn good.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness

Allow me to preface this with a disclaimer that I have no idea where I'm going with this. I don't have a specific point; I just want to throw out some thoughts and see what sticks.
Today we covered the Declaration of Independence, day 1. The idea that I need to get across is that those words, "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness," are seven of the most important words ever. As a properly socialized citizen of the United States, I'm supposed to have that embedded inside of me. And to be honest? I believe it. It defines the cornerstone of what this nation is supposed to be about. And in choosing to live here, it's the cornerstone of what we want for ourselves. While it's only a partial reality for most and not real for some, that's what we still have. Life and Liberty are the easy part. We aren't shooting our protesters and cutting off their access to the outside world to tell the story (Myanmar - I'm looking at you, you sick bastards.) Yeah, we got started totally off the track with the whole slavery and Indian slaughters and Women's Suffrage (and everyone who wasn't a white man). But we were headed in the right direction. And yeah, we complained about the immigrants, about how they took everyone's jobs, how they wouldn't learn to speak English, and how they brought their strange customs, rituals and foods and refused to assimilate into American culture. But we got over that stupid argument a couple hundred years ago, right? It's the "Pursuit of Happiness" part that tends to throw people off. We only see the words we want, so we skip the "Pursuit of" part. I tried to emphasize that in class today, that no one is guaranteeing Happiness to anyone, just the chance to go get it. (And for the record, there is no Y in Happiness. Movie grammar and spelling doesn't count, kids.) But throughout my emphasis and discussion, I think that most of the little punks were taking advantage of their Liberty. There's a Simpson's scene (and several similar ones) where they show the thoughts inside Homer's head and the song "Turkey in the Straw" is about all that's going on. I doubt these kids know that song. I always remember it as the "Murphy's Oil" song from way back in the day, as the kids refer to history. (Quick internets search: "I've been using Murphy's Oil on this hardwood floor of mine. Now the dirt is finished, but the finish is fine.") And then it's the same song that plays in Steamboat Willie when Mickey cranks the cows tail, I believe. What song is going on in their heads these days? That could be a topic for another day. What's my point? There isn't one.

Greatest. Moment. Ever.

I forgot to copy this post from my other blog yesterday:

A blog EVERY day? Whose stupid ass idea was this? And what's with all these rules? Lame. I did appreciate the suggestions that some of you sent for me to blog about. There were four or five ideas that I will actually use.

There's this show Beauty and the Geek. I watched an episode this summer. The idea is that these dumb hot chicks team up with these super geeks and then it's reality show action from there. Not any more lame than any of the other reality shows, I guess. On this episode I saw, I was taking a look at the clothes that the geeks were wearing when I noticed that the shirt that one of them was wearing looked familiar. And then I recognized it as a shirt that I also had. And then I noticed that I was wearing that shirt. Greatest moment ever? Possibly.

Monday, October 1, 2007

No more Mascots

Dressing up as a team mascot seems like something that has passed its time. I had always thought that mascots on Pro teams was pretty lame, with the obvious exception of the Phili Phanatic. This is something that I had thought about writing about some time ago, and it was going to cover NFL team mascots, which just look lame. At the time, I didn't think it was enough of a rant to write about. I was reminded of this while watching this MNF game where there is this stupid Bengal banging its head against the goal post when the opposite team scored. Not stupid - lame. A pro team just shouldn't have a live cartoon character representing its team. It distracts from watching the cheerleaders.
But while that reminded me that I wanted to write about it, that's not what I want to focus on here. This weekend, I came to the conclusion that not even amateur teams should have mascots. I came to this particular realization soon after watching an idiot in a Concord High Minuteman costume get picked up, turned over, and dropped by a moron in a Northgate Bronco costume. He got suplexed by a donkey.The CHS Minuteman decided to wander over to the Northgate side, even though CHS was losing to NHS. And the mascots fought. Just like in the game, Northgate won. Not only that, but the Minuteman had his costume confiscated by a Northgate VP.
Let's save the costumes for costume parties and Halloween. NO MORE MASCOTS.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

October: Blog-a-day month.

Reposted:

October shall be Blog-a-day month. Why? Because I declare it so. Rules to follow. Feel free to give me suggestions for things to blog about. Also, you should join in too. Why? Because that's what all the cool people are doing. You do want to be cool, don't you?

Blog-a-day Rules:

1. As there is no prize or reward for following the rules, you may bend all rules. But because if you break the rules you aren't playing the game, no breaking the rules. Example of bending the rules: You go to bed at 2 AM, so before you go to bed you blog for the previous day. Breaking the rules: Skipping four days and blogging five times to make up for it.

2. Every day, a blog entry must be made. More than one blog a day is encouraged.

3. No copy/paste blogs. You may copy/paste as back up or supplemental information, but not as the blog itself.

4. No journaling. If anyone wants to know how your day was, they are kindly making small talk. You must talk about shit. It CAN be about something that happened to you, but it must be an interesting or unique event OR used as a springboard to a discussion.

5. Every blog must have a subject or title.

6. Every blog must have substance. Can't post "I'm tired" and count it as a blog (hate people that do that). That can be a start, but you had better tell why and it had better be fascinating (or at least mildly interesting). I don't want to put a minimum number of sentences or words - make it worth clicking on your blog.

7. The occasional blog (and I leave it up to you to define occasional on your own) can be strictly photos if they are photos that you took and if they tell a story or show several things of special interest. Make it worth more than a glance.

8. The rare log can be a video blog. But because I can read faster than you can talk, make it short and interesting.

9. If you use more than one blog, either double post or dedicate one blog. Don't make people search to see if you are cool enough to be a part of Blog-a-day October.

10. Proper GRAMMAR and SPELLING should be used as much as possible. Typos and errors, OK. Being an idiot, not OK. None of this text talk shit. If you wouldn't say it in real life (stupid commercials don't count), don't blog it. (BS is OK. OK is OK. IDK is not). Emoticons are OK.

Any more rules? Let me know.

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Nerd King


NerdTests.com says I'm a Nerd King.  What are you?  Click here!


Pretty accurate, I think.

Friday, September 7, 2007

Friday Yep

Tired. I sleep a lot.

Sunday, September 2, 2007

Chain Reaction

What is worse? That the person gave the clue for dinosaur as "What reptile is distinct?" or the fact that the other person got it right?

Friday, August 31, 2007

Friday, Dude

I have taken on a new committee at school. Actually, I'm sharing it with another teacher (and owner of the new fantasy football team, Sweet Potatoes). We are the TGIF coordinators. That's an after school Friday coordinated thing where we pick the exact day and place, and teachers from our school go to hang out and enjoy some beverages that we aren't quite allowed to enjoy at school. Being the end of the first week, we decided to have our first one on the first week. Also, our office manager retired today. So we had the shindig to celebrate her retirement and a successful first week. Prior to being the office manager, she was a classroom aide. In my first year, the half year where I took the job from another guy who sucked, she was in my classroom. And she is really the reason that I got the job. Our principal was sick the week I was subbing, so Deb was the only person that actually saw me teach. And I got the job. We had a really good turnout tonight. Had a few drinks. Had a good time.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

TV theme song meme

Your Final Score Was 92%

Wow! Either you googled those lyrics or you are a TV theme song genious! You must watch a lot of TV.

Guess the Theme Song
Take More Quizzes

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Late Friday update

Two days late. Ah well. I had my second Fantasy Football draft yesterday. I don't feel that this one was as good as the other, and I'm not too confident that I will do well.

Superbad was Supergood.

I tried the Elk Burger at Fuddruckers today. Better than both the ostrich and buffalo - cool beans.

Teachers started on Wednesday. Wednesday was fairly painless because we did more small group planning and discussing, and the people I will be working with this year are pretty cool. Thursday was a lot more sitting and listening, which sucked. But we got out early. Friday was an unbearable two hours in the morning, then we were done. I got pretty much everything ready, with the exception on my gradebook. I spent today getting that totally set up. I just need to make a day one seating chart before I go to bed. Shouldn't take too long.

I've been watching Return of the King on TNT is Hi-Def. Looks REALLY sweet, EXCEPT for the stupid logo in the bottom right corner. It's worse than usual. Not only do they have the little TNT in a circle, but next to it they advertise upcoming show and movies. On a smaller TV, it would be less noticeable. But on this TV, the whole thing would fill up my laptop screen. But they just had the scene where Aragorn jumps out of ship and the ghosts follow him. That's cool.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Draft Day #1 - CFFL

touchdown_tattooDrafted my new team today.  As the current champion, I face the tough task of going back-to-back.  I pulled out all of the good luck charms, starting with the temporary tattoo.

 

Since my team is "Clobberin' Time," I had to have the mascot present.  clobberin_figure I think that I have some good starters.  I don't know if the team has depth right now, so I need to make a few little changes to prepare for bye weeks. But technically, I am ready to go week one.

Friday, August 17, 2007

Friday Update

I'm changing the name of my Friday posts, as you can see from the title. I originally was planning to use Friday to make a list of small topics that I had thought about during the week. The problem is that I can't ever remember them when I sit down to do this. I then feel pressure to list some stuff instead of just blogging. I will, therefore, change the intention of the Friday post. It is now just to make sure that I am posting something at least once a week.
carlton_oaks Right now, I am in San Diego. Actually, that's a lie. I'm in El Cajon, just outside of SD. Tomorrow is the draft in one of my fantasy football leagues, so I am here for that. Today we had some predraft festivities, beginning with the annual golf tournament. We went to Carlton Oaks; it was pretty nice. Next we headed downtown to Hooters to enjoy wings and hooters. Then we walked to Petco Park to see the Padres lose. Actually, we were there while the Pads lost, and we kinda paid attention every now and then. Full day. Now I'm tired. Sleep is desired.

Monday, August 13, 2007

Da Gym

I finally started getting my butt back to the gym. I had been going regularly for about a year, and I had great results. Then February, due to some of the happenings, I stopped for awhile. That was enough to stop the momentum all together. The only time I was back in the doors was to pay for the next year, which I was sure was going to motivate me to get going. I didn't. Having the last month off to mostly keep to myself, isolating myself at the right times, and some other changes, I think made a big difference. All very vague, but too bad. So since school starts soon, I need to start living again. I went back last Thursday and Friday. then a small setback over the weekend, but I was back again today. I worked pretty hard, and if felt good. Since I'm heading to San Diego this weekend, I know I'll miss four days. Missing two days is tough to return from, three even harder, and four is nearly impossible, especially this early. The following Monday school does begin, so that might be tough to continue going. Gotta keep it up, yo.

Books, books

I keep buying books and I keep starting books and I don't keep finishing books. Well, I did buy, start, and finish Harry Potter 7. But here my list of books that I am somewhere in the middle, though often somewhere near the beginning) AND that I actually want to finish.

Atlas Shrugged – Ayn Rand

1776 – David McCullough

His Excellency – Joseph J. Ellis

Little Children – Tom Perrotta

Alexander Hamilton – Ron Chernow

Breakfast of Champions – Kurt Vonnegut

Until I Find You – John Irving

The Taking – Dean Koontz

From a Buick 8 – Stephen King

The Killing of Reinhard Heyorich, the SS "Butcher of Prague" - Callum MacDonald

Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold

Friday, August 10, 2007

Friday Quick Shots

it has been awhile, kids. Heading off to Europe took the momentum out of my blogging, as well as some stuff I've been dealing with since getting back. I hope I'm finally getting myself back to "normal," or at least functional. Yeah vague, but that's all you're going to get.

My Europe trip is online. I need to finish he last few days. Maybe now I can get to that. I'm thinking I might finish it in San Diego next week.

I think I'm going to start a movie club at ED this year. Both for watching and making movies. I'm more interested in the making part, but some movie watching would also be interesting. It might be two different clubs. Who knows.

If I had seen Little Children last year, it would have been number one on my list.

I will be more regular from now on. Blog Fiber.

Thursday, June 21, 2007

encyclopedia

One of the volumes of an encyclopedia over at CHS is:

Menage-Ottowa.

That can't have been an accident.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Classical Music

"I love classical music. It makes you smart. And you know who hates classical music? Dumb people. Because it's like the sunlight to a vampire. When you're dumb, you void all things that are smart. They hurt. You don't want to listen to this, and then you label it for Poindexters or idiots. You get to get a lot done to classical music. If you put classical music on, you can write, you can clean, you can do everything you need to do. You can take care of business. That's why it's smart music that was written by super smart people, as opposed to the popular music which is dumb music written by who? Retards. So do you want to listen to something Britney Spears creates, or do you want to listen to something a genius creates? Which one do you think will make you smarter?"
Adam Carolla

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Carolla

Just some things I jotted down on a piece of paper and I don't know where else to save it at this particular moment, because I need to throw away everything in my classroom, pretty much. Both from Adam Carolla.

"We're a country full of religious retards."

"You respond to the familiar, even if it's bad."

Saturday, June 9, 2007

Test Answers (II)

Why was there a Civil War? Describe the causes and events leading up to the first shots.

Answer: There were two battles before the war; the Civil War was a tie breaker, To see who wins for slavery to be gone & s bunch of other laws.

Friday, June 8, 2007

Friday Quick Shots

Tis Friday once again. This quick shot will be short. Yearbook delivery today. Went mostly smoothly. Four more days of school, mostly just screwing around. No more zero period. No more 6 AM wake up. For a few months, at least.

Tuesday, June 5, 2007

Test Answers

I hope I don't have to post often with these. I'm grading Civil War tests, so I am compelled to list the "Best" answers. Enjoy

What advantages did the North and South have, and why did the North win? List at least three advantages for each side.

Answer:
they (North) shot abraham Lincoln so the south was upset and they did have anymore reinforcement.

Widget

I've wanted a way to put my blog right onto my website, while being able to post to it from anywhere. It looks like this Widget thing will provide an acceptable substitute. I worked on the page again tonight. www.scottcharris.com
And now I'm avoiding sleep once again.

Sunday, June 3, 2007

Three years in the making...

I've finally started updating my website. I gave the look an overhaul, though I don't plan to keep it looking exactly that way forever. I don't like the Mac looking buttons, but I didn't want to wait on the whole thing until I finally created one that I like on my own. So what's there is fine for now. Next I need to get all of the old stuff updated to the new look. If I'm lucky, I'm updating it in a way that will make it easier to change the overall look in the future. That's kinda cool. I want to get it going before I head to Europe. That's in less than three weeks. Sweet!

Friday, June 1, 2007

Friday Quick Shots

Yesterday was the GATE Newscope all stars competition. That’s always a fun day. We ate at Red Robin and the mall and take a lap around the mall. Pretty exciting. Today was the eighth grade picnic. That’s always a fun day as well.

I went golfing after school. It was a fundraiser for Alhambra high school girls basketball or something like that. It was a tournament too, but I don’t think we won.

Still haven’t been to the movies in a while. Spider-Man 3 was the last I saw. That might have ruined me from watching any of the part threes this summer. Oh well.

Only two weeks of school left. Actually, nine days. We get out on Thursday this year instead of Friday. And for yearbook, this is the last week. We don’t have zero period at all during finals week. But then again, this is the weekly pass out the yearbooks, so is the second most stressful week of the year in that class. For middle school, it should be are really easy last couple weeks.

Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Voice results:

I guess it wasn't too bad. Sure there were few mistakes but that's to be expected.

All in all, I think it might, in the long run, helped things. As long as the one where the sewing microphone. Perhaps of you'll find something better to use a laptop.

Anything you can understand in this post I blame on Roy. That's what I call the voice recognition software. Too bad I can't figure out how to have that type in a name like Roy. Well that time it recognized it. Bastard.

Voice recognition

Now on trying out this voice recognition software. Sure it's a real pain in the butt, but once I get the computer trained, it should work much better. Or, I guess I need to train myself to work with a computer.

Right now, and tried to enter all this using the microphone. I'm keeping my eyes closed, that will make the post interesting.

I hope you've enjoyed reading this lovely post as much as I've enjoyed saying it. Thank you, and have a nice day.

Monday, May 28, 2007

more blogs!

So I got myself a wordpress and a twitter today. Certainly, I must be missing more blogs. With my livejournal and myspace, that's not enough! I must have all the blogs.

Friday, May 25, 2007

Friday Quick Shots

Friday, which means I have to remember to post here. Let's see what I'm thinking about...

Happy birthday Star Wars. I might watch some of it tonight before I go to bed.

Season finales this week. Heroes and Lost. Spoilers if you haven't watched. Heroes second to last episode was so freakin' good that there's no way they could have matched it with the finale. How is it that nobody took a look at the shot of Hiro stabbing Sylar and didn't notice that it was lame, and then watched the fight between Peter and Sylar and noticed that it needed just a bit more use of powers? I wonder if the production schedule was just too tight to fix things like this. I think that if they had combined those two episodes for a 2 hour finale, it would have been pretty kickass. Much like Lost, which was a 2 hour finale. And it kicked my ass.

Glory. Pretty much watched it every time for the first couple days. Today for the last part I had work that I had to finish, so I didn't watch every second of it. Great film, though.

Wii has been pretty fun. I haven't had time to just sit and play for hours and hours, so everything I have is still pretty fresh.

How come there's only one movie showing at CineArts?

I just booked my hotel for Austria. My trip is totally all set, minus the packing and actually going. I don't think I need to get too many things before I go. Sweet!

Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Glory

It's that time of year again, when I show Glory in class. I'll be watching it six times this year instead of just two. And it's going to take three days instead of two. That will certainly disrupt the flow, but I'll make due. By my best and imprudent calculations, this will be viewings 24 through 29. I think I'm going to officially make it the movie that I have seen more than any other. Star Wars might be close, but I don't think it's been that many.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Friday Quick Shots

Bowling banquet tonight. Tons o' fun. As fun as a bowling banquet can be. We didn't win, so no trophies.

I've actually had halfway decent sleep the past few nights. I'm still waking up as tired as ever. Perhaps if I do OK over the weekend, it will continue through next week.

Three day weekend coming up. Groovy. And then two and a half weeks more after that.

End of the year means that my summer vacation is coming up. I actually need to start thinking about my trip and thinking about what I still don't have.

Heroes and Lost season finales next week. Should be cool.

Taught Civil War stuff this week - some of my favorite lectures to give. More next week, and then we watch Glory. Good times.

Friday, May 11, 2007

Friday Quick Shots

Second week, and I almost forgot my Friday post. Yeesh.

  • Got my Wii yesterday. Paper Mario is pretty cool, innovative. Best of all I can play it sitting down. I have barely tried any Wii Sports because they involve physical motion. Maybe when I'm feeling more active. And to follow up on my previous Wii post, Wikipedia states the following: "Nintendo has stated that the official plural form is 'Wii systems' or 'Wii consoles.'
  • I'm still pissed about Spider-Man 3. Dammit. I need to see a good movie to cleanse the palate. Perhaps I'll try to catch Hot Fuzz.
  • Star testing is over for the year. In honor of my new Wii, I brought my GameCube in to class and they played that when testing was over each day this week. My classroom was a Mario Par-tay.
  • I like the sample labels that blogger lists right down below where I type this. I can enter labels for this post, and it give example of "scooters, vacation, fall." So those are the labels I have given this post.
  • Saw Clerks II this week. Had some funny moments, but underwhelming.
  • Speaking of Clerks II, I found another oldie that 8th graders like. "ABC" by little Mikey Jackson and the other 4.

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Spider-Man 3

I had intended to write a full review of the movie, but every time I started, I became enraged. Not really, but I like the image or me tossing my laptop out the window of a tall building just because I think about the train wreck called "Spider-Man 3." So allow me to summarize that three villains didn't work. Dancing Emo Parker didn't work. The movie is the unmet potential of two movies. And that makes it so much more disappointing than if it were just boring or bad.

Monday, May 7, 2007

Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!


A couple Wii notes.
First, star testing has just proved fruitful for the first time. It has given me the chance to keep pressing refresh on toysrus.com, which has made some Wii units (I prefer to call them Wiis, but that just looks wrong, and I don't think the apostrophe rule for letters works here) available about every hour. So I just bought a Wii. It's going to be fun on my 62 inch TV, though I know it won't take advantage of my hi-def capabilities. Still, it should be cool.
Second, I just noticed that Vince Young will be out some part of this season with injury. It hasn't been announced by the NFL or the Titans, but I saw it as announced by Wii, in the picture to the right.

Saturday, May 5, 2007


Finally! A here is a Post Secret that we can ALL get behind!

Friday, May 4, 2007

Friday Quick Shots

I'm returning to blogging after being off for a couple years. I'm not even sure that my other blog was extremely successful, but I do want to get back into it just a bit. So I'm deciding that every Friday I want to post a few quick thoughts, perhaps pose more questions than I will answer. but mostly just a few things roaming through my head.

  • Spider-Man 3 comes out today. I'm worried about the reviews. They haven't been bad, just very underwhelming. I haven't been to the theater in a while. It's May and I've only seen two movies.
  • We have been STAR testing all week. What a waste of educational time, money, and talent. There is no way that this is good for anyone or any part of civilization. And I say that as someonewho has watched the little shits taking the tests all week. They don't care. And while they don't, no one else should either.
  • David Hasselhoff "admits battling alcoholism." If he was still driving KITT, that's a battle I would be interested in seeing.
  • My high score in Solitaire is 5152. What's even worse is that Windows Vista keeps track of how many games you have played. I won't share that number.
  • The bowling season ended yesterday. For us, it actually ended last week when we were officially eliminated. Yep, the defending champs are not returning to the playoffs. A week ago I had a 177 average. It dropped one this week, and probably another this week. Ah well, still quite an improvement.

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

First post and STAR testing.

Congratulations, and thanks for finding my blogger blog. It sure was tough, since I use the exact same name for everything, eh? Thanks to the Mount Diablo Unified School District's tyranny, and their overall lack of support for a little something that I like to call Amendment 1 of the United States Constitution, livejournal has been blocked by the district. Instead of trying to find a way around their evil iPrism blocking system, I have made a new blogger poster thing. Plus, I rarely post to that livejournal one anyway, so what does it matter? Right now, we are STAR testing! Isn't that just a kick in the pants? That means that all this week and next week, I am officially on baby-sitting duty. Fantastic. You can bet your bottom dollar that all other posts will be as amazingly exciting as this one.