My weekend

So, it’s Monday and last weekend I decided to visit a friend’s house and have some fun.

He lives at a place called Paraparaumu, which is about an hours train ride up north. We arranged a time for me to hop on, and I’d give him a message when I got there. At first I was pretty worried, because when I got to the Wellington station to get my ticket, the old ticket seller told me that I had missed the last train by about 3 minutes, with the next train coming at 10:30 in the morning. That was at around 7ish pm. He almost seemed to take some sort of Schadenfreude in my suffering, and I think he’s a bitter old bastard. I was pretty downhearted, because I’d forfeited a couple of really cool invitations from various people in favour of this particular outing (apparently my presence is in high demand; gooooo ego!). After fretting for about 10 minutes and frantically texting my friend, I decided to bother the old codger again and make sure he’d heard me correctly when I said Paraparaumu. Turns out he hadn’t, and thought I had said “Masterton” for some bizarre reason. To be honest, he actually seemed pretty disappointed that he was selling me a ticket.

The ticket booths have this fucking stupid piece of security plexiglass between the staff and the customer, which is okay in theory, but really isn’t implemented properly. The microphone is just absolute shit; it cuts out about half of the time, and the other half is still barely comprehensible. That was pretty annoying.

So the next train arrived at 8 pm, which means I had about an hour to kill. I just wandered around the station, went to the supermarket and got some dinner, realised I wasn’t actually hungry and was just eating to pass the time, threw half of my meal away (meal is a generous term seeing as it pretty much consisted of junk food, and sigh @ my lack of parsimony), and not a whole lot else. I noticed that they had a big banner which, in Harry Potter-ish script proudly proclaimed that this wall was not in fact a wall, but “Platform 9 3/4″. This just seemed like a total sellout to me, and really didn’t make sense given the fact that the wall was between platforms 6 and 7. All around it was fucking horrible to kill that time, but I scrounged around the local info stand things and got myself some crappy tourist reading material.

When the train actually arrived, it was what was to be expected. A pretty boring ride (the scenery is usually beautiful, but of course I couldn’t see anything given the time), and the people in the train, god. There was a group of teenage girls (about 5-ish of them), who put on really atrocious Irish accents, shouted at one another, and goddamn, whoever designed mobile phones with the ability to play music through the speakers should be dragged out onto the street and shot. They’re called headphones you inconsiderate fucks, I suggest you invest in a pair before somebody cracks some skulls. They all collectively got off at a stop about half an hour into the journey, so I was able to get some peace and quiet in the end.

When I got off at the station I was greeted by my friend, and all of that stuff. We went over to his house so I could grab my beers and he could put on a warmer jacket (was pretty cold), and while doing that we met up with two chicks who were going to the same get-together as we were. When we arrived at the beach we saw the fire (and the total fire ban signs, hah) and just settled down. There were 10 of us in total sitting on logs around the fire, which was pretty small and contained. We generally just relaxed and let the fire burn down to the embers so we could start cooking on it.

Just as we started cooking about an hour since we’d arrived, the fire warden arrived. I’d had a couple of beers by this point and could feel them starting to take effect, which was pretty good timing. I would have felt a lot more insecure if he had come later on in the night when I’d had a bit more to drink. Also, since we were cooking at that point we didn’t really have much of a fire, just a bed of embers. So he saw that we didn’t really have all too much booze, a tiny fire going, made us promise we’d leave the beach tidy as we found it and left us to it. A really cool guy all in all, and I’m grateful that he wasn’t an arsehole. =p

As the night went on and on we cooked more and more food and had more to drink. We baked potatoes and kumura (sweet potatoes), had some salad, the omnivores had sausages, and then we roasted marshmallows over the fire! It was really good fun, and I can’t remember the last time I’d roasted marshmallows over a fire.

About 3ish hours after we’d arrived, or around then, about half of the people left and I was left with my mate and 2 others. I should note that all of these people were new to me aside from my friend and one of his friends, and both of these people were left with us which was good. At this stage I’d had quite a bit to drink, and somebody at some point had taken out a pipe, so we were all lightly baked (quite lightly, I should emphasise). We pretty much just chilled out, and decided to call it a night at about 1 or 2. When we got back I was offered a few bourbon and cokes which I accepted, which in hindsight wasn’t the best of ideas. I felt pretty smashed at the end, and was pretty glad to be able to get some sleep.

When I woke up the next day, I really didn’t feel well at all =p I was not 100%, that’s for sure; a disagreeable headache, and an overall feeling of seediness was with me for the rest of that day, which is a shame. In hindsight I really did drink too much I think. I didn’t lose control or anything remotely similar; felt quite grounded in reality throughout all the night, but was not too keen on the hangover the next day. I don’t think I’ll be drinking again for about a month or so, because I was put off quite a bit after that hangover. I can have a good night without booze, and I won’t feel like shit the next day. =p

My hair still smells of woodsmoke as do my clothes, which is awesome because woodsmoke is the best smell in the world (cologne that stuff plz). All in all a really fun weekend aside from a lacklustre day-after. Nice to meet some new faces and enjoy the really beautiful scenery which my country has to offer, and just take a break from “city-life” so to speak. And that’s my story, so sorry for wasting your time. =P

Mock Exams are over!

Fucking woo. I’ve got this Thursday and Friday off, which is going to be awesome. I’ve got 2 more weeks for this term, however, and there’s a shitload of work to do in those two short weeks. I’ve got to program some stupid crap for my class, and right an English seminar/speech thing. I’m sure I can get it done.

I did English and Japanese exams today – English was pretty smooth, we had some pretty good questions. Japanese was as difficult as I expected it to be, but that obviously wasn’t all too much of a shock. I’m glad that these exams are over for the moment, because I’ve got quite a while to study for my real exams.

I don’t know my results back, but I was told by my physics teacher that got I got an E in wave systems, which I’m pretty pleased about. So far I’ve always tried to express the A, M, E system in terms of A+ and whatnot, but I don’t know if that’s entirely accurate. Perhaps I’ll try and get some actual data to give you percentages of what an E actually means, etc, because at the moment I feel that it’s sort of hard to convey what they mean (I only really know what they mean through experience, hence my reluctance to express them in terms of A+ and whatnot. Also, I don’t really know what an A+ is either, aside from the fact that it’s the best score).

So post exam reflections, I can say that I’m pretty pleased with how I did at this time of the year, but I will have to study to get the marks I want to at the end of the year. Wish me luck! ^_^;

Another update – involving television!

Another update! :O

I’ll get right into it.

Had a physics exam yesterday (well, today, but by the time you’ll have read this it’ll be yesterday), and I think I went pretty well. Certainly didn’t get the marks that I’d want at the end of the year, but we’ve got about 70 days until then, so I’ve got lots of time to study. I think that given this fact, I did pretty well!

We sat 3 papers (2 and a half, really, because we hadn’t learned some stuff in one particular paper), which were demonstrating understanding of wave systems, demonstrating understanding of mechanics, and demonstrating understanding of electrical systems. My weakness is definitely electricity; I never really did quite get my head around how the fine details work, and this certainly reflects with the more advanced curriculum this year. Due to this, I feel that I should focus quite a bit of attention onto this particular paper, because I know I can ace it if I really put my mind to it.

Today (tomorrow, w/e) I’ve got a calculus exam, which also has three papers: integration, differentiation, and complex numbers / algebra. I feel pretty damn confident about integration, slightly less so about differentiation (mainly due to the fact that we finished differentiation a couple of months ago), and complex numbers are a mixed bag for me. I was pretty ill while we were all learning complex numbers, so I missed out on the whole subject more or less. I’ve been learning it in my own time and I certainly feel proficient enough to get at least a pass at this stage in my study, but I don’t think I’ll do quite as good as I will in the other two papers.

The day after that, I have two exams – Japanese and English (interesting juxtaposition). English I feel relatively confident about, although I always hated how English is marked. There are no real “definite” answers, like there are in maths and physics, but instead there is a subjective system where how the teacher interprets your work is a major influencing factor.

Japanese is my bette noir – I’m atrocious at it, frankly. I don’t see myself passing it this year all too well, and that’s a shame – but it isn’t really something I can remedy in the immediate time I have. Because learning a vocabulary is a cumulative process, it simply isn’t something which can instantly be bolstered – the repertoire takes time to fill. I think I’ve just been gradually slipping behind with each passing year, and this year is no different. Ah well. See, the thing which really does depress me about this is that obviously I don’t like failing, but I’m not even able to say “I tried my hardest, and it simply wasn’t for me”. Thing is, I really -didn’t- try my hardest, and this is what causes the problem in the first place. I get melancholic about the subject because I don’t try hard enough, so I don’t try any more because I think it’s more or less hopeless, which only adds to the problem. I think Japanese is an important lesson, and it’ll definitely be a major regret of my high school experience. I think that, looking back, two years ago I should have dropped Information Science (the most bullshit joke of a class you could ever come across) and Japanese, and replaced these with Biology and Chemistry. There’s most likely room for this stuff as an idle interest in university next year, but I do think that I would have enjoyed these last few years of high school a lot more if I had done the aforementioned changes (not that I haven’t enjoyed the last few years of high school; quite to the contrary, but you know what I’m saying).

So, on to the television stuff.

I don’t really watch television very often, but I try to make it interesting when I do. This is my general modus operandi.  I temporarily abandoned this tried-and-true rule of the thumb to watch “New Zealand’s Got Talent”, which was an interesting experience. Based on what I saw, we really don’t. XD

There were a couple of people who were impressive (a showdog and her trainer who did all sorts of amazing tricks, a matron who did a nice Opera piece, a group of self-proclaimed cheerleaders who did a really cool routine (especially given the fact they’re all 9-15 years old), and a couple of blind brothers and their best friend who did a pretty decent rendition of James Brown’s ‘I feel good’), but for the most part the entrants were simply atrocious. Not that I could do any better, but surely you can spare us your crude parlour tricks and barbaric singing. I suppose I do enjoy these entrants, because none of them are really serious, and just want to have a laugh (I know I certainly had a laugh, mostly at their expense =p). I suppose the show was entertaining to watch, although I know that I could have been doing many a thing that would have been more beneficial to me (like studying! XD). One thing which really annoyed me though is that whenever anybody made it to the next round, they’d lower the fps of the camera, show a scene of the people hugging one another or whatever, and played “It’s a beautiful day” in the background by U2. It really wasn’t called for XD

Actually now that I think about it, that show was pretty awesome. There was this one contestant who had these tap gumboots on, and was dressed as a farmer doing a little jig (aiming for the Kiwiana angle), and that wasn’t received too well by the judges. But then he got a tiny black kune kune pig called Porkchop and had it nudge a rugby ball off of a tee. How fucking awesome is that.

I was then alerted to the fact that immediately after this show, there was a mini-series rendition of “The Colour of Magic”, by Terry Pratchet. I read the book and really enjoyed it, so I figured how bad could this be.  I watched it, and it was fantastic! Quite hilarious, and it even had John Cleese as a magic talking sword! They’re going to show the second part, “The Light Fantastic” at some later date in the near future, so I’ll make sure to watch that.

And because YouTube is television of a sort, and you’re all into Anonymous and stuff, I’m sure this’ll rile up a few feathers:

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/09/massive-takedown-anti-scientology-videos-youtube

I look forward to seeing the internet’s universal outcry.

Updated for Autumn

So yeah, this is an update for you Autumn, because you asked. I should be studying, but this is calming, and I really feel pretty stressed and scared at the moment, so this is a time out.

So yeah, I think I’m going to change the writing style of this to a more sort of diary-shared-between-you-specifically-and-I because you’re the only person who actually reads it XD ( And of course, I like it that way – I don’t know what I’d write about with other people in mind; this way it’s more personal =p )

So you’re into music in pretty much all varieties, whereas I’m mainly only into listening to it. I’ve always wanted to learn how to play a musical instrument or two ( I read somewhere that everybody should know at least one joke, one card trick, and how to play at least one musical instrument), and I think I’ve found something which would sort of fit the bill to a degree. It’s called the [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melodica"]melodica[/url], and it looks easy to learn, and to play. I’ve got a feeling that you hate it Autumn, but I’m not sure why XD Here’s a video of it being used (awesome song btw):

I’ve never really been musically orientated or talented – I was apparently alright at timing, and I was told that I should experiment with the drums, but I was told that when I was around 10 or so by our music teacher, and at 10 years old, compliments aren’t worth a lot, are they =p But I suppose I just like the sound of this, and it looks simple to play. Failing learning the melodica, I really wouldn’t mind learning to play the harmonica, but I imagine I’d take that as a second option.

I messed around with producing stuff with programs like FL Studio, but they sound really horrible. I tried to make a tune for your last birthday Autumn but my computer died and all this stuff happened and it really sounds quite awful and it’s unfinished and gosh XD But it’s the thought that counts right? XD

So for your listening pleasure here’s a half finished “song” (generous use of the term), which falls within the “ambient” genre (once more, a generous use of the term).

http://boomp3.com/listen/c0qcz0h41_8/autumnambient

So yeah. I was going to call it “The Rayleigh Scatter” (that’s the phenomenon that makes the sky blue, if you didn’t know), but I decided it was <i>far</i> too shit to be given such an epic name XD

If you hate it and you think it sounds like a hyena being raped (I do!), I hope you can at least get some enjoyment out of it XD Just keep telling yourself it’s the thought that counts XD And for your next birthday, <i>so</i> making you a crayon picture book, with some other goodies inside!

Ok, I think I’ve settled down a bit and feel better, and here’s your update, so I hoped you enjoyed it Autumn. XD

<3

Is the Bible worth reading? And other essays.

Found this on a website, which is a real shame, given the fact it’s going to distract me from my rather important tests =p

But when you start off with such awesome quotes as “The cross everywhere is a dagger in the heart of liberty”, how can you not read it!?

http://www.infidels.org/library/historical/lemuel_washburn/bible_worth_reading.html

Me vs Cooking

In the battle of the century, and perhaps an installment in a possible future series, I decided to try my hand at cooking some food.

It was truly in an act of desperation – with literally nothing for me to eat in the house, I had to resort to my survivalist instincts and try and cook noodles. Now, when it comes to cooking pot noodles, I’m truly a chef de cuisine, but this was a whole new bette noir; noodles which came in some plastic packaging which required me to fry them.

I decided that I couldn’t be bothered using the wok, so decided on trying out a regular frying pan, which is probably not a very good idea.

It went to shit from the very first minute; the block of noodles was a solid break, and refused to break into smaller, more manageable fragments. As a result, each side was well and properly seared, whereas the actual crucial centre of the mass was unheated.

I decided that the only way to separate the block was to simply cut it to ribbons, so I went around doing that. In the mean time, I decided that I would try and make some sort of egg foo yung thing, so I got an egg and whipped it (although unfortunately didn’t get a chance to remove the clothing from a young woman with a bullhide whip. If there was more of that stuff in cooking, I’d totally cook more often). I then decided that I’d cook this like some sort of barbaric omelette and assume it was foo yung-y enough to pass as a foodstuff

This is the noodles being cooked, with the egg uncooked in a bowl beside it. Please note that the empty bowl which I will be eating out of is currently touching the rotting organic garbage.

The noodles have been hacked to pieces to fit in the pan, as you can see. I cooked them for more than the packet directed me to, but at the end of it they were only mildly warm, with some being cold.

The egg which has been cooked and then cut into strips. Measure twice, hack into several misshapen forms once has always been my motto!

It was time to combine the cthonic components to create a meal which would forever haunt me.

The meal, with a helpful, preemptive big-fat-fuck-off thumbs down.

Note the fossil in the background amongst the clutter – aren’t I awesome?

Conclusion:

The mean, once I ate it, was actually surprising: it tasted pretty good. Sure, the noodles were lukewarm at best, and the egg wasn’t uniform in consistency, shape, flavour, or any other variable, but it was filling, didn’t take much effort at all to make, and was surprisingly tasty.

Effort: Sweet fuck-all. 8/10, 1 being equivelent to a mountain hike, 10 being equivelent to sneezing.

Taste: Not too bad. 7/10.

Appearance: Dog vomit, 2/10. I was thinking of garnishing it with parsley, but thought it’d be tragically ironic.

Overall: 5.666~ / 10

So yeah. That’s it. I’ll make sure to update a new post when I devise another “meal” (using the term generously), with more pictures perhaps. And no, you can’t have those 5 minutes of your life back.

First Post

Ok so this is my first post. It’s half past midnight or so and I really should get to bed, but screw it.

So yeah, this girl in my English class is a bit funny; this is sort of a rant, but at the same time it’s a rave. For all of my “study” of logic, if you could use such a generous word, I learn quite a lot but rarely get a chance to flex it. I was given a chance recently, which was a rather welcome relief.

So yeah, we’re doing some stuff on Shakespeare, and the play is Othello. At the end, Lodovico implies that Iago is going to be tortured (assuming you haven’t read it, Lodovico is someone in charge, and Iago is a manipulative villian who’s responsible for 4 people’s deaths). So, this girl starts talking to the teacher about how he deserves more or something, and I said that I personally think that Iago shouldn’t be tortured, or even put to death. She seemed to disagree, and my friend piped up that yeah, torture is everywhere and torture is always wrong, etc. She doesn’t think so, but we tried to give her a talk on the ethics of not so much the death penalty, but torture.

Anyway, she disagrees until the end, so yeah. So about half an hour later, as an exercise to get us thinking, the teacher asks us to define what a tragedy is, and she gives us a list of events that we are to put in order of most tragic to least tragic. The list is, if I remember correctly, as follows:

2000 Wellingtonians die in an earthquake

2000 Chinese die in an earthquake

A healthy and independant 89 year old woman dies of pneumonia

A healthy and independant 89 year old woman is raped and later dies

A horse gets the flu (it’s implied this doesn’t kill it)

A child is killed

A cat is run over.

A child dies of leukimia.

So we’re asked to rank these, and this girl is asked to read out her ranking, and it’s a bit messed up. She ranks both 2k death toll earthquakes as equal, but then goes on to say that a cat getting run over by a car is as equal as a single person dying.

So we all sort of wonder, you know, wtf. She says that she is simply unable to discern between what living organism has more “value”, which is fair enough if you’re looking at it from a completely detached, inhuman, unbiased viewpoint, which we obviously aren’t – I mean, if we were, then I scarcely see how any amount of death could equate to a tragedy if you held such beliefs. So we try to talk to her about the capacity to suffer, and other points like that. We establish that a cat is perfectly capable of feeling pain, with the possibility that they can do so more than humans. But we talk to her about the whole idea of looking into the future, and how that can influence suffering – the knowledge that all of that is going to be cut off. We also talk about the relatives that the human leaves behind, etc (obviously a pet dying, for example, leaves a wake, but it isn’t quite as harrowing as a human in most cases). She says that we don’t “know” that cats aren’t sentient, my friend says something along the lines of “Uh, well, all we really need to do is cut its brain in half, and we can get a pretty good idea”.

So the teacher asks her that if she was driving along the road, and there was an infant in one lane and a cat in the other, and you didn’t have time to avoid them both completely, you had to hit one of them, what one would you hit given the choice? She said she’d close her eyes and leave it to chance because she can’t make that choice or some rubbish, so then I said that each time we step on a blade of grass, use disinfectant, eat a piece of food, take a breath of air, we’re pretty much comitting genocide in terms of killing organisms(my figures may be off, but you get the picture). I also pointed out that she thought Iago should be tortured to death for being responsible for the death of 4 people, and how she couldn’t make a differentiation between living organisms. Now, obviously I wasn’t insinuating that she should be, but by her own logic shouldn’t she be put on the rack or something to that effect? I asked her to consider her position, but she didn’t really reply. I don’t know, she’s crazy.

Either way, it’s late and I’m tired and I’ll write more later.