The remains of the baked potato that I just ate.
What I’m Reading
For my readers that have stuck with me for a long time, you may or may not remember this section I used to have called “What I’m Reading” where I described books that I was reading. I haven’t had this section of my blog since the end of the summer, but for those of you that were actually interested in this section, I have good news – I will most likely be bringing it back soon.
The main problem was that I wasn’t able to find a generic library here on my university campus. I know of several libraries, but all of them are specific libraries dedicated to specific topics. Simply going to one of these libraries wasn’t sufficient for finding some good books to read for entertainment. That, in addition to my increased busyness, made it more difficult to read for fun.
However, a few days ago, I managed to get a hold of electronic copies (which may or may not be legal) of books that I was interested in reading for a while. I have six in total – two of them are The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, and the other four are the four books in the ever-so-controversial Twilight series. I actually have not read a single Twilight book before, but regardless of the implications reading the books may have, I feel it’s important enough to read a book that has gained such popularity in modern-day culture.
I’m not quite sure when I’m going to start reading, but hopefully it will be soon, and hopefully I will finish my first book in a few days. I’ll have my normal “What I’m Reading” section in my blog when I finish the book.
This post is over 15 years old and may contain information that is incorrect, outdated, or no longer relevant.
My views and opinions can change, and those that are expressed in this post may not necessarily reflect the ones I hold today.
Picture of the Day
The remains of the baked potato that I just ate.
What I’m Reading
For my readers that have stuck with me for a long time, you may or may not remember this section I used to have called “What I’m Reading” where I described books that I was reading. I haven’t had this section of my blog since the end of the summer, but for those of you that were actually interested in this section, I have good news – I will most likely be bringing it back soon.
The main problem was that I wasn’t able to find a generic library here on my university campus. I know of several libraries, but all of them are specific libraries dedicated to specific topics. Simply going to one of these libraries wasn’t sufficient for finding some good books to read for entertainment. That, in addition to my increased busyness, made it more difficult to read for fun.
However, a few days ago, I managed to get a hold of electronic copies (which may or may not be legal) of books that I was interested in reading for a while. I have six in total – two of them are The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, and the other four are the four books in the ever-so-controversial Twilight series. I actually have not read a single Twilight book before, but regardless of the implications reading the books may have, I feel it’s important enough to read a book that has gained such popularity in modern-day culture.
I’m not quite sure when I’m going to start reading, but hopefully it will be soon, and hopefully I will finish my first book in a few days. I’ll have my normal “What I’m Reading” section in my blog when I finish the book.
The remains of the baked potato that I just ate.
What I’m Reading
For my readers that have stuck with me for a long time, you may or may not remember this section I used to have called “What I’m Reading” where I described books that I was reading. I haven’t had this section of my blog since the end of the summer, but for those of you that were actually interested in this section, I have good news – I will most likely be bringing it back soon.
The main problem was that I wasn’t able to find a generic library here on my university campus. I know of several libraries, but all of them are specific libraries dedicated to specific topics. Simply going to one of these libraries wasn’t sufficient for finding some good books to read for entertainment. That, in addition to my increased busyness, made it more difficult to read for fun.
However, a few days ago, I managed to get a hold of electronic copies (which may or may not be legal) of books that I was interested in reading for a while. I have six in total – two of them are The Hunger Games and Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins, and the other four are the four books in the ever-so-controversial Twilight series. I actually have not read a single Twilight book before, but regardless of the implications reading the books may have, I feel it’s important enough to read a book that has gained such popularity in modern-day culture.
I’m not quite sure when I’m going to start reading, but hopefully it will be soon, and hopefully I will finish my first book in a few days. I’ll have my normal “What I’m Reading” section in my blog when I finish the book.
Back on topic. In City of Glass, the main character, Clary, continues her journey to try and break the spell cast on her mother that put her into a deep state of unconsciousness. Along the process, Clary tries to solve her other problems, including the relationship issues she has with her friends and family, the dangers brought to her and the people around her by demonic forces, and the restrictions placed on her due to her young age and inexperience. By the end of the book, we learn something revolutionary about another main character, Jace, and we find out if Valentine in fact succeeds in taking over the Shadowhunters.
City of Glass was originally intended to be the last installment in the Mortal Instruments series, but the author decided to add three more books to the series due to its massive popularity. Back when I read the first book, City of Bones, I said that it wasn’t as good as I wanted it to be, but for some unexplainable reason, still made me want to keep reading; at the end of the first book, I liked it. The same situation slightly continued during the second book, but it got better and better, and by the third book, it had secured my interest. I still don’t know why I feel so attracted to this series, and still cannot explain lucidly why I like this book so much. From its literal value, it seems like an average book, but it has something mysterious about it that makes it far superior than many other books I’ve read.
Like the other books in this series, I would highly recommend it to anyone interested in fantasy themes, and recommend it to just about anyone that wants to read an enigmatically good book. Like all other series, I suggest that if you decide to read this book, you should start with the first book in the series so you understand the background of all the characters; the third book makes references to things that happened in the first and second books that are necessary to fully understand what is happening.
… then checking back in ten minutes and noticing that the text was changed to:
So apparently there was a unanimous decision by the jury that the former governor is guilty of supplying false declarations to an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigations, but was no final decision made for the other 23 counts that he was tried for.
What I’m Watching
Earlier today, I watched Knocked Up, a movie featuring Seth Rogen and Katherine Hiegl.
Knocked Up is about a man named Ben Stone who lives in an apartment with four of his male friends. He doesn’t have a job, and aspires to be successful via a website he and his friends are creating called Flesh of the Stars. One evening, he goes to a club where he meets Allison Scott, a reporter for the E! channel. They go home together, have a one night stand, and think that everything is going to be fine…
… until Allison discovers that she is pregnant with Ben’s baby. From that point on, mass chaos breaks out as Allison and Ben’s personalities clash, and the unstable relationship of Allison’s older sister makes the situation worse.
I thought this was a pretty good movie. The relationships between the characters are well developed. The plot has a comical twist to it that takes an emergency-level situation and makes it funny while still having the characters act sincerely towards the problem.
What I’m Reading
After reading and being intrigued by Malcolm Gladwell’s books Blink and The Tipping Point, I went on to read Outliers.
Outliers is a book about the special people in the world – the people that are different enough to be noticed as different when placed in a regular societal setting. These people have gifts and advantages starting from birth that define who they are and how much they will succeed later on in their lives. The main concept of this book is that the fortunate opportunities that affect these people are what makes them so special, not the individual effort they put into their work. Although effort and determination is important, luck is the catalyst for success.
Gladwell goes on and gives examples of how this is true, like the explanation behind why people born in the last quarter of the calendar year should not even bother trying out for professional hockey. He also follows the story of the lives of famous people like Bill Gates, who, due to a bit of luck, was able to fall under the 10,000-Hour Rule for programming and become the successful founder of Microsoft.
Like all of Gladwell’s other books, I recommend this book to everybody, as it gives insight on a facet of life that not many people realize is important. The ideas of this book may explain to some people why they are unsuccessful, and how they could change they way they live to place themselves in the path of luck. The time invested in reading this book could result in massive benefits in the future.
As you can see from the picture, I’m busy at work stacking my pieces and sending lines to my opponent. This screenshot was taken by my opponent, who had a glitch on his side – he couldn’t see any of his pieces. That meant, even if I sent lines to him, he would never get them, because lines only flood after the next piece is dropped. Because of the glitch, we effectively were put in a never-ending Tetris match.
Fortunately, my opponent was a good sport and said that because it was his side that had the glitch, he would close his browser window to forfeit the match and give me the victory. I decided that I would post his screenshot on my blog and tell the story to show how appreciative I was for his generosity.
What I’m Reading
After reading Blink by Malcolm Gladwell and being satisfied with it, I decided to read Gladwell’s other books. Earlier today, I finished reading The Tipping Point, a book about the the top of the mountain – the point that something reaches and becomes an epidemic.
The book goes on to describe three key things, among others, that turn something into an epidemic: the Law of the Few, the Stickiness Factor, and the Power of Context.
The Law of the Few states that there are a handful of very special people that can set off an epidemic because of their social status, may it be because they are extremely popular or extremely convincing.
The Stickiness Factor states that in order for something to become an epidemic, it must stick to the general population. Without it being sticky, or memorable, it will never last an extended period of time in a successful state.
Finally, the Power of Context states that in order for something to have a maximum effect, it must take place at the right time. The environment has a more significant effect than many believe it does, and could be the difference between an epidemic and a failure.
Similar to Blink, The Tipping Point brings insight to some interesting and intriguing topics that could be put to positive use in real life. However, the writing itself from an entertainment viewpoint isn’t as good as Blink was; although some good anecdotes were included in The Tipping Point, I feel it wasn’t as attention-holding as Blink.
What I’m Watching
By recommendation of a few different people, I watched I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry earlier today. The movie stars Adam Sandler, Kevin James, and Jessica Biel.
The two main characters, Chuck and Larry, are best friends and are firefighters in New York who have been partners at work for a long time. The main conflict of the movie is introduced when Larry tries to change his beneficiaries after his wife’s death, but is denied because over a year has passed since his wife’s death. After saving his partner Chuck’s life, Larry knows that Chuck owes him. Larry devises a plan to form a same-gender union with Chuck so Chuck can become his beneficiary. However, something that seemed simple turned out complicated when the state government began sending out investigators after suspecting that neither Chuck nor Larry were homosexual and were only united for benefits.
After watching Brüno two days ago and getting enough homosexual jokes to last me a long time, I was discouraged before I started watching I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry. However, as I got several minutes into the movie, I knew that it wasn’t as crude as Brüno was. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry quickly became comedic and interesting, and I enjoyed the entire movie. I would recommend it to anyone who likes a good movie – the great natural personalities of Adam Sandler and Kevin James make the whole movie hilarious.
While I was editing the audio and video, I noticed that it didn’t really sound as good as I wanted it to sound. I thought the guitar and vocals were fine, but the bucket drum and the cello parts were the biggest problems.
It’s obvious that I didn’t have a real drum handy, so I grabbed a large aluminum bucket, covered the outside with three sheets of letter-sized paper, and put the top back on. When I used that to play the basic beat of the song, I thought it would at least sound decent, seeing as I wasn’t doing any complicated fillers or combos. What I didn’t realize is that when the microphone picked up the bucket drum, it interpreted it as a dying fish flailing against a wall, and recorded it that way. The final product made the bucket drum make a plopping sound instead of a thumping sound.
As for the cello, this was the first time I had even touched a cello for anywhere between three and four years. I couldn’t even get the cello tuned correctly, so everything that I played was either an eighth of a step sharp or an eighth of a step flat. When I rendered the final product of the video, I had to lower the sound of the cello as low as possible so the horrible tuning and my horrible performance wouldn’t detract from the overall playing. It did anyway.
I decided that I was going to keep the guitar and vocal parts, but rerecord the drum and guitar parts. For the drum part, I planned on either using a better container, or to use the surface of my guitar as the drum, and play a few secondary guitar parts when the drum part wasn’t significant. For the cello, I was going to actually get my cello tuned properly, practice a little bit, then actually play it right. Ends up, the drum and cello parts aren’t the only parts that I have to rerecord.
When I finished recording each part, I uploaded them to my laptop and deleted them off my camera. All the files were on my laptop, and after I finished the final product, I didn’t back it up or save it anywhere else. A few days ago, I got myself a new laptop, and decided to give my old laptop to my parents. My parents wanted the laptop in factory condition (without all my random files and software on it), so I saved everything from my My Documents folder to my new laptop, then formatted the old laptop and installed a fresh operating system onto it. After all that was done, I realized that I didn’t save my Project Four-Panel videos in my My Documents folder, but had them in a folder named Proj4P on my Desktop that I had overlooked when transferring files.
Yes, that means the old recordings are gone forever.
If I get some time tonight, I’ll try to rerecord tonight. If not, it should be done within a week or so. There are a few changes I’m going to make before recording the new version. The first one is that I’m probably not going to record in front of a plain white wall, and instead do it where there’s some background scenery. I thought the white walls would make it look cleaner, but it instead made it look more boring. Second, I’m going to wear a darker-colored shirt so my face doesn’t look so dark. And third, my earbud will not be hanging out in front of me, but will be placed inside my shirt through the back, so it doesn’t show up on film.
Finally, I decided to make a note that if I remember correctly, I never publicly announced the title of the second song I’m going to do for Project Four-Panel. If you’re truly interested in finding out what it is, here’s a hint: The title of the song, in its entirety, has already been mentioned in this blog post. It was used in context of the actual word’s meaning, not in the context of a song title.
What I’m Watching
Two days ago, I watched 
Although I heard a lot about how this book was deceiving, and that the publisher even offered refunds to everyone who felt tricked by this book, I didn’t do any in-depth research about this book before starting to read it so I could get as neutral and unbiased of an experience from the book. However, even if this book was 100% truthful, I still probably would not have liked it, and do not know how this book became so popular that it was feautred by Oprah.
The main story of the book revolves around the author, James Frey, in his quest to become drug-free. Supposedly, Frey had been a drug user and addict since he was ten years old, and has been arrested multiple times for various reasons. Frey is placed in one of the best rehabilitation centers in the country, and is put on a schedule to help him remove his dependancy on substances.
Throughout his time there, he states that the drugs he used have induced severe memory loss, and he does not remember many specific details about things that happen in his daily life. On the contrary, the book is written in extreme detail and covers events that seem like ordinary happenings.
Apart from the questionable and insignificant plot, the style of the book’s writing makes it seem like the author was in elementary school when he wrote it. There is no indentation or quotation marks, and sentences are short and choppy. I realize that this was most likely done for effect, but it was done so excessively that it detracts from the overall reading experience. I’m not sure if James Frey did this for this novel only, or if he did this for all his other published works too; I’m afraid to even find out how the other books turned out.
Another noticeable thing about the writing is that particular phrases are randomly and unnecessarily repeated. I know it is a writing technique (called parallel structure or anaphora) to repeat particular statements for emphasis and effect. However, there is no scheme and no apparent reason for the things Frey repeats; sometimes, entire sentences are repeated in places so odd that I have to read back a few lines and wonder why that sentence was important enough to be repeated.
I probably wouldn’t really recommend this book to anybody, unless they are a third-grade teacher and are used to reading this kind of writing, or just want to read the story that incited so much arguing.
I tried scrubbing it a little bit with my finger, but nothing happened.
Still curious about what it could be, I started taking a shower.
Suddenly, random floating droplets of water appeared in front of my face.
I realized I forgot to take my glasses off.
I took my glasses off and the spots on the floor disappeared. It makes me think that these discolored spots were always on the floor of the shower, but I never knew about it because I have horrible eyesight and I couldn’t see them.
I fear the unknown.
(Please do not email me suggesting that those spots are made out of semen.)
Quote of the Day
“What the fuck does wtf stand for?!”
What I’m Reading
After being satisfied reading City of Bones, I read the next book in the Mortal Instruments series, City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare.
We see the return of the characters from City of Bones, now faced with a new problem. The next of the Mortal Instruments is revealed, and like the previous one, it falls in dangerous hands. Clary, the main character, starts losing those around her to the dark side as she struggles to straighten out her life.
If you’ve read the first book in the series and you liked it, I recommend that you read this one as well. If you haven’t read the first book in the series and are interested in reading this one, I recommend reading the first one first. At the end of the this one, which is the second book, it reveals that the answer to something that troubles Clary will be revealed in the third book. I will be reading the third installment of the series, City of Glass, once the person that has it checked out returns it to the library.
