Alex's Notes

Have any of you heard about that video of a marine throwing a puppy off of a cliff?  Apparently the marines are taking action about it.  Good for them, but I mean, how did this even really happen?  Seriously, killing a puppy like that is up there with child rape and burning kittens.  The guy in the video, even if it is a joke, basically just shrugs off killing a puppy.  There's absolutely no justification of that, joke or not.  If it is a joke, it's about as funny as... oh, I don't know.  I would guess it would be about as funny as watching someone throw a puppy off a cliff!  I hope he drops the soap every time he's in that prison shower, the sick SOB.  Hey Captain Asshole, guess what?  Everyone hates you!  I don't even care if the video is authentic or not, that guy deserves a nice steamy shower in prison with a 6'-8" bald convict with the nickname of 'The Soap Jockey.'  Every day.  For the rest of his life.  With the soap pre-slippery every time he gets in.  With the shower lasting an hour.  Again every day.

Went over to a friend's house for the first time yesterday.  Went to the EMP and the Sci-Fi Museum before that, and it looks like me and my friend are making a band.  I've got guitar and he's got keyboard (and possibly drums later on), but we're thinking about who to ask for new members.  Both of our vocals majorly suck, but we might have to go with them for now.  Just sittin' here watchin' TV at the moment.

Two and a Half Men is possibly the most unfunny show on television, I swear to God.  I have never, never laughed at ANY of their jokes.  Want to know what keeps me up at night?  The realization that someone, somewhere, at some point has laughed hard enough at one of their jokes so hard that they've actually recorded one of their shows.  It's up there on my list of things not to think about, along with Ann Coulter's likely lack of virginity and Hannah Montana.  Just a tip: Please, for the love of God, don't even try and enjoy Two and a Half Men.  It's terribly, terribly unfunny.

Looks like Sunday's all booked up for me; I have to not only complete a poster presentation due on Monday (I haven't even finished the notes yet), but on Thursday I have a second revision of the JFK paper I did in Kael's History class.  I swear, these things never die no matter how many times you kill them.  Oh well, it'll be fine.  Just some punctuation errors or something.  Plus, the poster is on the relationship between Cougars and Deer.  Surprise!  Cougars actually eat Deer!  Isn't that just the most surprising thing you've ever heard?  No, but Cougars are like my favorite local animal, if not my favorite animal period, it'll be cool.

I've been playing around with my new Baby Taylor (guitar) for the past few days.  Yesterday I went to Mills Music with my uncle (who flew back to his house in Southern California last night) and picked up:

• Three Fender guitar picks
• A beginning guitarist book thing
• An automatic tuner (which, as it turns out, tunes my guitar to absolute crap.  But hey, it was cheap.  I just wish it would work for once)
• A chart with all (and I do mean all) the guitar chords on it (the Mills Music guy recommended a poster of the chords, and I wanted one, but they didn't have any at that location)

I still play like a dork of course, it's been like a week since I started fiddlin' with it.  BUT at least I can play a song by now (it's a dorky version of "Ode to Joy" since it's an easy song to play), so I am making some progress.

Went to Barns & Noble today and read part of Lies and the Lying Liars who Tell Them.  I know it's a few years old, but thanks to the professional-grade degredation of America by its own political beaurocratic bumbling, the book remains, for the most part, very relevant, except Ann Coulter wrote another book not worthy enough to be flushed down Karl Rove's toilet.  Bill O'Reilly still looks splotchy enough to pass off as a dying leper, and he still lies enough that if you take everything he says and believe the opposite, you'll generally be right.  And somehow, through some universal fluke (and I feel we need reminding as much as possible), despite all the crap he put us through in the first term, we managed to vote in the dumbest president ever into a SECOND TERM.  Personally, if I could vote, I'd vote for myself. But I'm not 35 yet, so instead I would vote for Ron Paul (libertarian republican).  Isn't being an independant grand?

Hope everyone had a great Christmas!  I know I did.  I got the best present since the Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle BB gun with a compass in the stock and a thing which tells time: A Baby Taylor Guitar!  It's the same kind my friend Miles has, and it's been great so far.  It's a travel-sized guitar so I can take it to school with me, and the hard case is coming tomorrow.  It sounds fantastic.  No more buzzing sounds when I play chords like my old nylon-string classical guitar (a hand-me-down) does!  I'll get some pictures to you guys some time soon (assuming anyone reads this at all, really), but rest assured, it's awesome.

Wow, it really HAS been a long time.  Anyways, I'm getting a Baby Taylor acoustic guitar, and I'm getting lessons for Christmas.  I sold my Wii for $150, that's how much I think it's worth, really, so it sold within literally five minutes.  The day after tomorrow is the last day of my first History class with Kael, the class notorious for being the hardest in the school, and it IS.  I literally have never been so busy in my entire life, but I'm almost through.  All I need to do now is get through the final test and revise my paper using Kael's full comments.  Ah well.  Snowed today.  Lots of it but it didn't stick as well as I had hoped, and it's rained today as well so the snow's sadly gone.  Well, that's about it for right now.  I'll post later.

I swear, Two and a Half Men is the most completely un-funny show since Frasier.  Maybe it's just me (and I know for a fact from many testimonials it's not just me), but there really isn't anything about the show that's funny in the slightest, and I have no clue as to how it keeps ratings up, I just don't.  Here's the show's outline in my terms:

• Wussiest man in the world (and, coincidentally, also the most delusioned about what is "cool," where the "cool" used on the show is the "cool" of people living five years ago) moves with son in with a half-witty, handsome brother.
• The housemaid is fat.
• The kid is more like his uncle than his dad.
• The ex-wife of the wussy guy is both a lesbian and also blackmails her ex for money with the threat of her lawyer.
• The wussy man attempts to be cool.
• The wussy man does not end up cool.
• In the end, nobody learns a lesson though it's not in a good way, because the lessons they WOULD have learned would be basic social clues.
  

Okay, this is for everyone living in the state of Washington: PLEASE vote to approve R-67.  Please.  I'm begging you right now, we need this.  We need insurance stability.  I mean it.  I'm a 14-year-old and I've had no input from anyone about this, but I am telling you, approve.  I'm not uninformed about insurance policies in Washington, and I'm pissed off at the reject R-67 commercials.  It's bull.  Just... Just approve, okay?  Recjection means that insurance corruption (and it are corrupt) can go on unchecked.  The truth it we do NOT have the proper rights, and we need this.  Please.

Over a million iPhones have been sold.  Have you: bought one, considered it, or decided it's not for you?

Ah, the iPhone.  Wonderful idea, isn't it?  However, after looking at what's to come, I'm pretty sure the iPhone is sort of... let's say a sample.  A look at what's coming down the road.  I've tried one out at the Apple store, and I have to say, it was pretty cool.  However, as you may have seen (the commercials have just begun), Apple has something called the iPod touch out, or, as I call it, the Poor Man's iPhone minus the Phone.  It's basically just an iPhone that's been stripped of a number of features.  This, along with rumors of an iPhone 2 or whatever, plus the undeniable fact that everything has been upgraded at one point or another, makes me hesitate to purchase the iPhone just yet.  It may be in quite a while, I may change my mind, but still, the iPhone is not "the greatest thing ever," though it may be the predecessor, who knows?  Anyways, I still love my little fifth generation iPod, and I spent part of my $600 on a Wii, so I'm not buying one any time soon.  Sorry, Apple, maybe in a few years.

Hey guys, it's been a little while but not to worry (if in fact you care), I'm still alive. and I now have a shiny, brand-spanking new Facebook account!  It's true, it's far better than MySpace, which was pretty bad to begin with, to tell you the truth.  They finally put Hillside in their list of High Schools!  FINALLY!

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For Halloween this year I did a thing with my friends where we all stood on the lawn really, really still and then moved right when the person got to the door.  It didn't always work, but it was sort of fun, I guess.  We did four houses worth of Trick-or-Treating just for the hell of it.  One of my personal rules:

Well kids, I finally have a Halloween costume not just in mind, but partially completed already.  I'm going as Thy Dungeonman.  Though I still don't know when the parties are going to be, and to tell you the truth it's not really that... well, scary.  In fact, it just isn't.  At all.  It's kind of anti-scary, in fact.  I mean, come on, Vikings are awesome, especially those that come from Homestar Runner and the ones that Get Ye Flask.  I'm looking at the fake muscle shirt and the viking helmet next to me right now!

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In an unrelated note, I've been doing a lot of Kingdom of Loathing playing lately, and that's been pretty good.  Saw the Family Guy movie on Friday night, and last night I saw Evan Almighty.  Thought the Family Guy one was more engaging, but Evan Almighty's a good rent (though definitely see Bruce Almighty before you do, it's far better).  Try it sometime.