info @ the P.Pole 02.27.07

5 reasons why this week is adding up to be a bottom-feeding one:

• walked rather stupidly into a math quiz on a section whose lesson I happened to miss
• got smacked by my math teacher for leaving my answer as a vector (I didn't see the magnitude signs/absolute value brackets)
  
• wrote a biology test with next to no preparation because, not uncharacteristically, I forgot about it
• answered a chemistry homework question on the board (not having done the actual homework beforehand) and had to correct the damned answer six times in front of the class
• got hassled by my math teacher for scribbling on my desk and was subsequently forced to erase the tops of many other desks as well as my own

As you can clearly see, all these are to do with school. I think after hitting some pretty good peaks in my mental health/strength cycle, I'm now on the downside of that hill. If you didn't happen to already know this, your body and mine both run on biological cycles. There are three main ones, I believe, which are our emotional, physical, and mental cycles (I'm not sure about this but I learned it from a matchmaker quiz scam that my school ran last year). Each one runs on a different period length. Not surprisingly, the physical cycle runs on a 28 day period (my female readers above the age of ten should know what I mean instantly). The other two run on periods lasting approximately 22 days and... I don't really know, so we'll say X number of days.
Anyway, the point is that at different times, your "performance" will peak and you'll hit some pretty remarkable clocking speeds (yeah I'm a nerd). Half a period later, you'll be at the trough of your biological cycle and you'll basically be getting massive ping. So let's take mental performance for instance (as this is what I'm chiefly concerned about at the moment). At some point in time, you're going to get maybe a week or so of awesome responsiveness from your brain. This is the absolute best time frame to have loads of tests and assignments as you'll fly through them and be able to make all the necessary connections to totally pwn. Awhile after, however, you'll notice your mind slowing down. You'll notice sluggishness and hardcore brain-death if you're anything like me. You're also going to become more and more scatterbrained, lazy, and generally stupid as you progress into this stupid period.
And this stupid period is where I'm hoping I just passed. Generally my peaks and troughs aren't quite as long as an entire week but sometimes they'll last longer. Either way, I don't like feeling/ being stupid. I don't think anyone does. It's not really about marks here. It's more about getting things together and not being so unresponsive to stimulation (i.e. lessons, conversations, pretty stuff). Just yesternight I whipped out my bass and tried playing. And just as I suspected, I could hardly string together a coherent Hysteria (the one here I recorded just now).

Haruhiism

I've got an addiction to a certain anime series called The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya that I've mentioned before. Well, having been linked to a Haruhi YouTube video from Tim's blog the other day, I've gotten myself hooked on the soundtrack too. Don't get me wrong, I loved the soundtrack even before then, but I'd never bothered to grab the actual lyrical tracks (as in non-background music tracks) until now. Here are two tracks for your J-Popping pleasure.

• Haruhi Suzumiya (aka: Aya Hirano), God Knows
• Haruhi Suzumiya (aka: Aya Hirano), Lost My Music
  

Do excuse the Japanese Engrish (more noticeable in the the second track) but Aya Hirano is the actual voice actress for Haruhi, and she's uncharacteristically decent at singing so I'm impressed. There are a few other YouTube Haruhis (notably God Knows w/ Gundams and the recording of Lost My Music) that are pretty fun too. There's just something about the dynamite combination of awesome anime mixed with Gundams (haha, the actual Gundam series episodes aren't the best IMO) that makes for fun times.

EDIT: Some more YouTube searching has yielded some beauties by Kurikinton Fox. He did covers/instrumental versions of "God Knows" and "Lost My Music" and both are ridiculously good. This guy's a monster.

Dr. F. Cox

That was printed in bright neon pink on a sign I saw for a clinic in the Finch and Yonge area. I happened to be on the return trip from this badminton season's first match (against Earl Haig of all schools--they were exceptionally good last year). Henry and I faced off against two mostly nondescript opponents today in Boys Doubles B, and lost. Score-wise, it was a terrible showing (the best score being 15:8 for them) but in terms of the actual rallies and overall skill level, I'd have to say we were on par if not better than them. They were... consistent. It's funny how consistency is my problem with my badminton game too.
We played a good game and held our own, but gave up our serving opportunities (and thus, points too) far too easily (which explains the ugly scores).
On another note, my talk with Arthur went poorly enough (as I'd predicted awhile ago). Without boring you with the details/flaming Arthur here, I'll just say it was an unpleasant ordeal that I won't be making the mistake of willingly subjecting myself to again anytime soon. A part of me (the less angry/bitter/brooding part) actually realizes the great tragedy that lies in a pastor being unable to connect healthily with his... what the hell am I to him? A "pastee" (or maybe a prospective paycheck... okay, too cynical)? Well whatever I am, I can't find myself being able to trust this person fully with my anything.
Sure, I'll hear what he has to say about Scripture (God knows he's spent more time studying it than I have). I'll even assume his reasoning/logic processes are valid before he even speaks if I'm in a good mood. But time and time again I find that we've been unable to connect properly (like a Pokemon Silver to a Pokemon Red) and this wreaks havoc on our "discussions".
I think Gob from AD said it best when he flipped out at Annyong with, "Augh--! Would you just --! Gaugh, this f--'n kid!" Then again, maybe I'm just a sarcastic, bitter, and unbalanced teenager who has got some major character flaws.

info @ the P.Pole 02.19.07

This happened a few days ago: I got up from bed and I was two bites into my breakfast when it decided to get up from my stomach. I threw up and I was confused. I thought I was pregnant but I didn't know what to feel. Was I supposed to be something similar to happy? Babies sometimes do that to people. But a mother at the tender age of sixteen and a half? It was too much to stomach--I like raunchy puns. I also like misusing yellow adjectives. I felt uneasy and so did my stomach. Whose baby was it? Who was the father? Of course I was. Who else could it be?! I couldn't ever digest the thought of my significant other being unfaithful. I was still bent over the bowl. Then I remembered something and a quick visual check confirmed my suspicion. Everything seemed to be in its place. Still intact I see. Good. I'll need you in a bit. I flushed. My day was beckoning. The end.

info @ the P.Pole 02.14.07

This is my Valentine's Day post. Yes, I'm surprised I acknowledged such a fluffy special day too. First off the bat, some Bible reading from 1 Corinthians 7:1-40 (longish passage). This will be the passage Hosanna will be digesting and working over this week at the church so perhaps it would be good for any attenders to read it over before coming. It has relevance to today since well, it's got to do with marriage. Since today's the day that many hopeful boys will be popping "the Big Question" to patient girls, I figure it'd relate.

3 things in short supply today:

• Roses: Boys think girls like flowers, even though they don't understand why. Girls like flowers, but don't ask me to explain why.
• Chocolates: These tasty aphrodisiacs are no doubt going to be going like hot cakes today. I never could figure out the connection between buying a girl a box of chocolates on Valentine's, but that was before I heard about this candy's magical pant-loosing properties.
• Relaxation: What can I say? It could be a stressful time for anyone with any kind of romantic expectations. Will he? Won't she? Rinse and repeat. I think we all know about that funny feeling you get in your stomach (not the kind you get when you've food poisoning and hardcore diarrhea for a week) when you're with a special someone of the opposite sex... or of the same sex if you're into that kind of stuff.
  

Today was an interesting day (not exactly full of romance... but the night is still young!). Okay, I lied, it was really quite mundane (at least up until now). Had a normal school day with a good but short badminton practice after school.
I've not posted recently, mostly because of school and Hosanna. I'll be posting later to report on this Friday's coffee with Arthur experience so watch out for that I suppose... I actually hate it when he's the one to ask me to go out for a drink since I can never tell whether he has anything specific he wants to bring up or if he wants me to talk about my life (not my forte with most people). We'll see what happens.

EDIT: And for the romantic musical types out there, here's She Is by the Fray. And as for Moyee's request, here's Question by Rhett Miller.

A Gamer's Fancy

I don't normally link to other blogs' posts, but this one I thought you would be interested in (click title for the short, nerdy post). What I enjoyed in particular was this person's (i.e. "chetho") comment:

My girlfriend plays almost all video games with me.... That's one of the reasons I started dating her. And no, she's not a man. or ugly, or fat.

I think why he had to make sure to explain that this "girlfriend" was not of the highly undesirable (for a girlfriend) sorts. To find a girl who enjoys gaming as much as yourself (or at least enough to play with you) is indeed something very special, if not nearly impossible altogether.

In other gaming news, I thoroughly finished and refinished God of War and have moved on to Final Fantasy XII. It's been slow to start but the game's really picking up speed with me. I find myself actually working harder than normal just so that I have more time for gaming. Yes, it's pitiful, but I count it as one of the few unadulterated pleasures I can enjoy.
I used to get hassled a lot by my parents (especially my mother) but after we had an experimental phase (consisting of mostly me playing a load of games and many tests over the same period of time), we found that my hours spent with my electronic mistresses had no effect on my marks. Nowadays, they abandon me to my games and I them to their... whatever they do for fun (television? clean the house?).
But to return to my original topic, I found it pretty awesome of Crystal to actually play me in Winning Eleven when she came over the other day (and not completely suck at it either!). I mean, I was creaming her the first few rounds, but she actually managed to score a couple on me near the fourth or fifth matches... Good times? Yes. Now all I have to do is find a way to get her to like Die Hard movies and we'll be set.

info @ the P.Pole 02.05.07

It's these substandard motels on the corner of 4th and Fremont Street,
Appealing only because they are just that unappealing.
Any practiced Catholic would cross themselves upon entering.
The rooms have a hint of asbestos and maybe just a dash of formaldehyde,
And the habit of decomposing right before your very eyes.

Along with the people inside...
What a wonderful caricature of intimacy!
Inside, what a wonderful caricature of intimacy!

Tonight tenants range from a lawyer and a virgin,
Accessorising with a rosary tucked inside her lingerie.
She's getting a job at the firm come Monday.
The Mrs. will stay with the cheating attorney:
Moonlighting aside, she really needs his money.
Oh, wonderful caricature of intimacy.

And not to mention, the constable, and his proposition, for that virgin,
Yes, the one the lawyer met with on "Strictly business,"
As he said to the Mrs.--well, only hours before.
After he had left, she was fixing her face in a compact.
There was a terrible crash! (There was a terrible crash!)
Between her and the badge.
She spilled her purse and her bag, and held a purse of a different kind.

Along with the people inside...
What a wonderful caricature of intimacy!
Inside, what a wonderful caricature of intimacy!

There are no raindrops on roses and girls in white dresses.
It's sleeping with roaches and taking best guesses
At the shade of the sheets and before all the stains,
And a few more of your least favorite things.

Inside, what a wonderful caricature of intimacy!
-Panic! At The Disco, Build God, Then We'll Talk

info @ the P.Pole 02.01.07

I'm currently blogging to you guys from my Windows Vista Ultimate (partitioned with XP) Firefox. I've been fooling around with Vista all day long and I've got some preliminary feedback on it.
Firstly, I don't want to come off as fanboyish, since, well, though I've never thoroughly used anything other than Windows for my day-to-day computing needs (I did have a brief Linux stint way back when my dad liked to play with that stuff), I use computers enough to spot stupid programming/design (like when I have to terminate and restart explorer.exe every time I want to see a registry change take effect in my taskbar). I'm not overly tech savvy but I think I know my ways around a computer. Anyway, I thought XP's defaults were ugly and navigation was boring. From a purely aesthetic POV, XP was quite bland. Vista's default settings, on the other hand, are quite pretty looking and it runs quite smoothly on my machine.
I've yet to run into any errors while just trying to get the hang of the OS, and I suppose that's a good sign. Did I mention how I also had a brief experimental period before with OS X Tiger? Well I did, and I found that Vista's got quite a few similar features... as I'm sure the more nerdy of my readers have already heard about from various geek blogs (Gizmodo, anyone?). Really, the "gadgets" sidebar, the program search field in the start menu, the window switching application: this all reeks of smart ideas on Apple's part and smart business by Microsoft.
Nevertheless, it's looking good and I'm not going to hate on it just yet. For now, Vista, you're on my "kinda cool but slightly rip off" list. I do have one complaint, however, and it's that Vista refuses to play my House episodes (or any other video files I've got loaded on my drives). I'm guessing that this is that dreaded copyright protection crap that was tattooed into the OS, so I'll be patiently awaiting someone to crack this... Unless it's already been done. Guess what I'll be Googling for the next little while.

EDIT:
Firstly, thanks to Herm for pointing out that it might be missing codecs (I feel retarded now). I hadn't thought that my father had not installed the necessary codecs when installing Vista (yes, I let him take care of it because I was too busy entertaining my lady friend, or maybe because I've not had to set up an OS in awhile). Now that I've found and installed the necessary codecs, House plays wonderfully.
Secondly, after a little bit more Vista-ing, well, the OS is lovely. It was lagging before and I couldn't figure out why. That's when I decided on grabbing CCleaner again and installing it on my Vista partition. I ran it, cleared 100+ megabytes of trash and deleted 60+ obsolete/useless registry keys. I also ran the disk defragger on my drives and cleared up more trash. Then I cleaned up a gigabyte of hibernation system files (useless) and that cleaned up even more trash off my drives. Now it's running swimmingly and with no lag. Sweet deal.
Lastly, I reinstalled my usual apps and reconfigured everything. I actually had to reconfigure Firefox twice (takes a long time if you run a lot of extensions like me) because my dad wiped my configuration the first time when tweaking the Vista after the first day. I would've just copied my settings over from my Windows XP application data for Firefox (like I did with Gaim) but that turned out to not work as nicely as I'd have liked (Vista uses three separate folders to do what XP's "Application Data" did). Dumb. Either way, I'm slowly integrating my needed apps into Vista (installing as I find the need for them so I avoid installing an ass-load of stuff I don't actually use).