I Blew Up A Peep

Yes, I was bored. I had a peep. I had a microwave. I had an idea. You now have a picture of the outcome.

I'll Be Gone This Week

Ahoy, it's Friday evening and I'll be gone all Spring Break so don't expect any blog entries. I'm going to Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, Maryland, Connecticut, and all sorts of other places. The main reason for the visit is for college visitations. We're hitting MIT the first day but since they aren't offering tours I get to just wander around and explore for myself. I'm really excited for that! Then we're going to Johns Hopkins for an interview for my application, and then finally we're going to Cornell for a tour. To finish off the trip we're touring Washington DC on, get this, Segway scooters at night. An evening, lighted tour of all the monuments on Segway scooters. In New York my goal is to a) Find the cash cab and b) Visit all the places from Seinfeld. In Maryland I'm gonna visit Camden Yards because the Orioles rock!, and in Massachusetts it's really only about MIT! I'll fill you in on how the trip goes when I get back. . . .see yall later! I'll take tons of pictures and get some posted. Ciao!

Licking my head?!?!?!?

Yesterday was the second installment of the district qualifying rounds for state but this time it was all debate. It was definitely an experience, and most of the experience had nothing to do with the debates I did. I have a couple of stories, so I'll tell them one at a time.

1. DEBATE OUTCOMES: I do Lincoln-Douglas debate, which is a one on one debate over a resolution (topic) that is predecided. You research and write an affirmative and negation case and have to debate both sides at the tournament. At this tournament three people were elegible to qualify for state competition. The reason 3 were able to qualify is because 6 people were debating LD, but there's trickery behind that. Of the 6 debating, three were just there as "sacrificial lambs", destined to lose in order to send more people to state. I was one of those lambs. I can debate and can hold my own fairly well, but I don't particularly enjoy debate as much as some, I'd rather go for the indirect competition like sock monkey speech than go head to head with somebody else. Anywho, I was approached and asked to do this on Tuesday. Yes, I had 2 days to write my cases, including research. After a lot of help from the other debators on my team (thanks) I had two fairly decent cases. So, now for the debates. One girl that was competing had qualified for Nationals in debate, so it was a given that we were going to lose to her and it was a fight for 2nd and 3rd. So, we debated. My first round seemed to go well, I felt confident and it wasn't a massacre or anything, I thought I made the better arguments. That's the same as my third round, I was pretty sure that I had that one in the bag because I pretty much ripped apart my oponent's case. The second round however, can be best described as "Hello, my name is Michael, and I've been raped by a five foot nothing cute blonde girl that is going to Nationals and, although nice looking, is as vicious as a shark and will eat you alive, then pick her teeth with your bones. How are you?" Yeah, it was ugly, she dissected my entire case and turned all my contentions before explaining rather efficently how all of my contentions actually supported her case and that my case was, essentially, a steaming pile of cow dung. I left that round feeling, well, like a steaming pile of cow dung. There were only three rounds, so at awards I found out that I had come in 4th of six and was an alternate for state. Of course, all three people that did qualify will be going, so I won't be pulling my alternate duty. Here's the weird part, ready? I lost my first and third rounds. I, actually, got smoked my first and third rounds. The second round, the raped by the shark round, I won. WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME?!?!?! The sacrificial lamb loses to two random people and then is the only person that beats the national qualifier? Sigh, I just don't understand these things. Oh well, it works out well for me, because now I don't have to debate at state (which I didn't want to do in the first place), I get a certificate, and I beat a national qualifier, so I'm happy. Yay for weird coincidences.
2. UNO!: So, on the way to the tournament we stopped at the grocery store for food but instead of food, I bought UNO! OMG, what a great game! It is the official speech and debate team game now. 7 people all huddled around playing Uno and insulting each other so as to warm up for their next round is really fun! I've never heard more creative bad mouthing and more delibrate backstabbing! "Ooooo! Draw 4 B_t_h_s! What now?!?!? Uh oh! Stack that you J_w, draw eight! Oh yeah?!?!? I made my own card so now you draw 20 you M_T_E_ F_C_E_!" Keep in mind, I wasn't the one cussing like a sailor, but it was funny. The debate crowd can get lively.
3. HEAD LICKING: All right, this is a weird one, so get ready. I was sitting there and a girl named Sasha came up and rubbed the back of my head. I have short hair so the hair on the back of my head feels cool when rubbed, so it wasn't a surprise when she rubbed my head. A lot of people do it. Anyways, she says "Sorry, I had to feel your head, it feels really cool." I politely agree and let her know it's ok and that a lot of people do it. Here is the really quite creepy part. She says, to my utter shock "You know what feels really good, both for both of us? If somebody has a cowlick there on the back of their head and you lick it. It feels really cool both for the person licking and the person being licked, but I won't lick you because I don't know you. . ." [pause, I just kinda sit there, stunned]. "Um, yeah" I say, finding words, "you don't know me so that wouldn't really be a good idea." That's it, that's all I could say. WTF do you say to that? She was practically asking if she could lick the back of my head! After she left, I whipped around and asked my girlfriend (who was sitting there the whole time) "Um, that was weird, wasn't it?" "Yes" "Normal people don't do that, right?" "No" "Did she seriously want to lick the back of my head? How would she ever know how that would feel? Does she lick peoples' heads?" "Um, weird" "Wow". Yeah, it was definitely strange and I'm not sure I'll ever let anybody lick the back of my head, but if anybody has experienced this type of activity then I'd like to hear from you and know if it actually does feel cool, because I probably will never experience it.

Yep, there it is, debate for me. I am done debating for the year, so now all focus is on sock monkey. That should be fun. Ok, that's all for now, thanks for reading!

Yay for Sock Monkeys!

So, Districts was yesterday, and I'm proud to say that sock monkeys held its own. True, there were only 3 other people in my round, but WHATEVER! First place is first place! Now sock monkey has a 1st place, 2nd place, 3rd place, and a 4th place. That's pretty sweepy. I have pictures of my ballots, just like my impromptu entry, but first I wanna talk a bit about my speeches. I gave two, so let's go over the first one first. I spoke last and I was really comfortable so I started to make parts of my speech up. That was a mistake, because my coach was working in the judges room and after my round he came out and said "Snively, next time ask for time signals." Uh Oh. This type of speech is 8 minutes long, but they'll let you go up to 30 seconds late, so the MAX is 8:30. I had spoken for 8:37. Not good, especially considering that my speech has been hovering around8:02 the entire year. Oh. That's right. I remember. I improved stuff and added things. Oops. Let's not do that next round. So, I didn't and I asked for time signals from 1 minute down and finished up at 8:15, a great time. Ok, now, a bit about my ballots. Two of them are stupid. Two of them are not. The one with the purple pen is stupid because

• She wants me to make two more visuals AND cut my speech down
• She thinks I have more than 100 quoted words (read my speech, I have 99)
• She got "seasick"
• She gave me 3rd place in that round for going over time and having too many quoted words (which I didn't!)

The other one that's stupid is the one that gave me 30 speaker points (yay!) but didn't give me a ranking, so I'm not sure what place I got. So, here are the ballots, hope you find them as exciting as I do! Oh, click on them to make them bigger so that you can actually read them. Also, notice the timestamp on this entry. I am tired. I went to bed at 3 AM last, um, morning I guess, and it is late now, so the humor may be lacking from this entry, but bare with me, humor will return to my blog once I figure out how to sleep again.

Oh, and in reference to another of my entries, the hamster wheel tipped me out today and then ran me over repeatedly until my brain felt like soggy cornflakes. Mmmmm, school. I will beat you school! I WILL WIN! p.s. I hate english Ooh, just remembered (wow, please ignore the huge organizational issues in this post, it's ridiculous) that at the tournament I saw my ex-gf. I also noticed that she never actually smiled at me and whenever I looked at her she was glaring at me. I asked somebody to verify, just to make sure I wasn't biased or anything, but sure enough, they agreed and said that she would glare at me and then whip around and whisper to somebody really quickly, who would look over at me and then whisper back. I'm not sure what all that means, but I do know that I was wearing a very cool new suit so they DEFINITELY weren't making fun of my outfit. Ok, now I think I'm done blogging for the night, unless I think of something else. Which is likely. Bye. Oh, I used 1337 in my speech. That was cool.

Sock Monkey Finale Approaches

So, tomorrow is it, Districts for Sock Monkey Speech. If I do well in districts then I go on to State. I have a good feeling about this, and here's why. Only two people get to go to state from my district, right? Doesn't sound good, until you consider that only 4 people are competing, 3 of which go to my school. I have beat the other two people that go to my school at every tournament I've gone to, so I'm not worried about them. I've never met the person from the other school, but I figure even If I just beat the two from my school I don't need to worry about the person from the other school. Wish me luck, notice the time stamp on this entry and you'll realize that it's time for me to get ready for tomorrow. I'll let you know how it goes! Ciao!

My Homework Analogy! [UPDATE]

The goal in everybody's life is to move forward. This is also true in the case of homework. It is best to finish one assignment, move on to the next, finish that one, and then continue until all assignments are completed. Simple enough, right? Well, elementary school was easy enough to succeed in that, seeing as assignments weren't even actually graded. If you didn't do one it wasn't a big deal, and they all got smiley faces on them. I equate this to ice skating, skating along and maybe sometimes having a rough time, but you just keep going forward no matter what. Every once in a while you hit an edge but you never fall, just keep going as if nothing happened. This is easy and quite lovely, because who doesn't like ice skating? Then comes middle school. Middle school got harder. You actually got grades on assignments and the assignments actually took work. I would equate the middle school workload to running on a hot day. It's hard, uncomfortable, and tiring, but you still move forward and end up someplace different. Also, that wonderful drink of cold water/graduation is Oh So Sweet that it makes the whole thing worth it. Again, some patches of the course are harder than the others, uphill and challenging, maybe even impossible-looking, but manageable. Now, we encounter High School. I have decided that the homework load in high school is similar to a screwed up demon hamster wheel from Hell. Here's my reasoning behind this. I have yet to be done with my homework this year. I can work on homework all day and all night, yet I will still be sitting in the commons the next morning working on homework for some reason, because it never ends. In class I'm doing homework, at home I'm doing homework, and in the morning in the commons I'm doing homework. Do I ever finish? No. Do I get any satisfaction in knowing that I have completed a certain task or set of tasks? No, because I'm doing something else. So, hamster wheel. Not getting anywhere, constantly running my butt off, and the faster I run to get ahead the harder I have to work until *BAM!* I fall flat on my face and swing back and forth for a little while until I get back up and start running again. Does this not seem cruel and unusual? Does it not seem maybe a lil inhumane? Maybe? Maybe? What do I have to do to get the wheel to just fall off and let me run free? When will I get to do homework that means something and that I can actually finish and feel as if I have accomplished something? Everything right now just drags on and on and never finishes. HOMEWORK WILL BE THE DEATH OF ME!!!! Now, I'm off to do it. Wish me luck, but know that your luck will be wasted because I won't finish. Ever. and ever.ever. The End.

[UPDATE] All of the animations I had are now broken links, so they have been removed, causing this post to become a giant, 1 paragraph rant. Enjoy.

Mirrors, Wax, and Bagpipes

Did the title of this entry confuse you? Good, that was its job. All three words describe one of the best physics classes I've had this year. It started with a lab. I love physics labs, they're just plain fun. This lab was absolutely fascinating. Place a candle on one end of a meter stick, a paper on the other end, and a lense inbetween them. The trick is to move the candle and the paper until the flame and candle are displayed on the paper in focus. It was really easy and very fun because we kept shining the light through the mirror and focusing it on people, trying to burn stuff, and just generally enjoying the magical world of optics. Well, we discovered that when candles melt they create wax (profound), so then we started playing with the wax. It was dripping all over the table before we discovered something productive to do with it. We folded our labs into envelopes and sealed them with wax. Yes, easily entertained. Now, for the bagpipes. Our teacher plays the bagpipes, and he brought them today. So, after waxing and burning and lighting we were serenaded by bagpipes for the last ten minutes of class. He was dressed up in the Scottish gear just like the guy in this picture and he played all sorts of stuff for us. Bagpipes are very loud in person, I had no idea. All in all, it was a very relaxing and nice day in physics. That's all.

Conducting

Well, the picture is small (click it, it gets bigger), but yes, it's true, I conducted a band. . . all by my self! Chalk this down as a happy moment for the Snively. Let's start from the beginning, shall we?

Every year my school hosts a band concert for all of the elementary and middles schools that feed into it. That includes the (this year massive) 5th grade beginning band, a band from each middle school that feeds into my school (three), and two bands from my school. 6 bands, one gym, a lot of chairs. This isn't about the chairs though, so we'll skip that part. Remember, there are multiple bands from the schools, so there aren't enough directors to cover them all, so this year our director said that if anybody would like to try out that they could conduct a band in the combined closer. Combined closer=everybody in the gym (400ish) playing the same song at the same time. Well, I haven't mentioned this in my blog yet, but I wanted to be Drum Major SOOOOOOO bad last year that it wasn't even funny. This next year I'm absolutely determined to make it. Any opportunity to conduct and show leadership is one more apple in my basket, so I jumped at the opportunity. About 15 people auditioned for three spots. Most of the people auditioning had no conducting experience and went in fairly unprepared. I, however, attended a Drum Major leadership camp last summer and spent 4 hours a day conducting to such classics as Bohemian Rhapsody and the soundtrack to Crimson Tide. I was fairly confident. My audition went very well, I conducted to a recording of the combined number and our assistant director (who rocks) adjuticated me. His only comments were not to bob to the beat, reach my arms out farther, and turn my hands in a bit. I didn't make any conducting mistakes, I hit all the cues, I changed styles for the snare solos and the slow part, and I nailed the cut-off. Nothing I could have done better really. This was 2 days ago. Today they posted the results and sure enough, I made it! Our two Drum Majors and three of us would be conducting tonight. This may just be me being happy, but the list wasn't in alphabetical order, nor was it in "order of audition" order, and I was at the top. I'll just tell myself that that means I did the best, true or not, it's an ego boost. At the concert our director introduced all of us and we got to stand and bow, and then we went to our respective bands. The other folks went to various middle school bands, but I got picked to conduct the Wind Ensemble, the top group at our school. Yay! So, we conducted the song (see picture, I'm the one in the tux waving his arms around). It went really well and the bands only pulled away from the tempo once, but they caught on to the slower tempo we were giving, so it turned out ok. We finished, stood up, bowed, and everybody clapped.

I have decided that I really enjoy conducting. It's something that's still musical, but so much more rewarding and just plain neat. Leading 50 people and creating live music however you want. . . .haven't you ever been listening to the radio and just wanted the song to speed up just a bit, or slow down and take more time, get louder or softer? Conducting is like the ultimate live and adjustable radio! I hope to conduct more, but I'm not sure when. Our assistant director said he'd tutor me and help me prepare for drum major tryouts so that I stand a better shot. I'll update you on how that goes. That's all for now, ciao!

Taco Time

If you haven't read the below entry, do so. It explains how I ended up at Taco Time.
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Done Reading? Ok, so here's the next Taco Time story. Consider the following picture:

This picture is "art". What happened to me was not. 5 of us were sitting at Taco Time eating. I had some type of enchilada/burrito thing that I had to eat with a fork and a knife. Alas, there were no knives, so I was cutting my burrito with a fork, no big deal, doesn't require a lot of skill, or so you might think. So, I'm sitting there, cutting along, when all of a sudden *SNAP*!!! The fork shatters in my hands, eliminating the the only barrier between my hand a plate full of food. That means that my hand was now fully submerged in burrito. It also meant that what food was on said fork during the snappage was flung through the air in my general direction, and let's remember that I'm in a tuxedo. Now there's more burrito on me and my hand than on my plate. Cue laughter from all around. Everybody just sits there laughing as I sit there in disbelief, covered in burrito and my hand in my burrito. Not cool. Finally somebody got up and gave me some napkins to clean myself up with, but I think there is still some cheese on my tie. Anywho, the lesson to be learned is that platic forks do break, and often in an extravagant manner, so be warned. It could happen to you!

Secret....AGENT MAN!!!!

There's a man who leads a life of danger
To everyone he meets he stays a stranger
With every move he makes another chance he takes
Odds are he won't live to see tomorrow

Secret agent man, secret agent man
They've given you a number and taken away your name

Today was a band concert in the morning. That meant waking up at 4:00 AM, getting to school at 6:00, and then sitting on a bus in a tuxedo for over an hour to get to the concert. Once there, we played to an audience of *listens expectantly but only hears cricket chirps* nobody, did some sight reading, listened to another band and then left. Yes, w00, what fun (excuse me, I think some sarcasm just dripped onto my keyboard). But, the thing that made it all worth it was the Taco Time experience. After the concert we all hopped in the bus and went to get lunch. A group of 5 of us went across the street to get Taco Time. As we walked there a friend of mine, we’ll call him Jake for anonymity’s sake, made an off hand remark that he felt as if he were being protected by secret service agents. I looked and sure enough, I was wearing a tux and the person on his other side was wearing a tux too. We laughed, and started touching our “earpieces” and talking into our wrist “microphones”. All of a sudden we heard gunshots so we dove in front of Jake to “protect” him, quickly shuttling him into the front entrance of Taco Time. After lunch we had to get our client back to the bus. Recall that there were 5 of us, meaning there was another tux-y and another plain-clothes. The three of us took it upon ourselves to protect Jake and, we’ll call her Alyssa. The secret service agents left first, making sure it was safe. All of a sudden Alyssa made a run for it and just ran away! My co-agent and I started sprinting after her, yelling into our wrist “microphones” the whole time. Eventually my partner tackled her and knocked her to the ground. He rolled away and she stayed down long enough for me to cover her. Cue homeless guy. He comes over and says to Alyssa “Are you ok? Did you just get stiffed? I think that kid is drunk, are you sure you are ok?” Alyssa just stood there, trying to be polite until the crosswalk turned to walk. It did. She took off again, us in hot pursuit. This time we stopped her without tackling her. She escaped again, but we had to let her go so that we could focus the rest of our efforts on Jake. Walking Jake back to the bus we passed the entrance to the parking lot we were in and a car was trying to turn in. We yelled and dove in front of Jake so that he wouldn’t cross (just a reminder, we’re definitely in tuxedos this whole time). The lady in the car waved at us, saying we could pass. We quickly nodded, touched our earpieces just to make sure it was clear, and then grabbed Jake and quickly hustled him across, me turning around and covering the rear with my hand in my jacket in case force was necessary. We eventually made it to the bus and quickly shoved Jake on board. Mission Accomplished! Good Job Team!