Achievement Unlocked!

Well, this is the final day...

I've survived, sanity more or less (Probably leaning towards the latter) intact. Apart from a disturbance on the first day, I haven't missed a single day. Whoo!

At this point, I think that I've found the direction the blog is headed, as well as how often I should post. The blog will definitely be aimed at making you laugh, or at least snicker in your thoughts. The rants won't disappear either. However, I doubt I'm going to do daily posts; maybe every two or three days I'll post something new. At least, until the end of the school year. Once I've gotten rid of all the work that teachers are loading on around this time, I'll set another challenge for myself, hopefully to your delight.

Also, in about a week and a half, I've got over 200 hits. O.o Lots more than I expected. Many thanks to all of you for that too.

Keep on reading, and I'll keep on posting!

To Write An Essay

There are many components needed to write an essay in high school. I'm sure many of you have experienced writing an essay, but you can't call yourself a true high schooler until you can write an essay like a pro.

How? Well, first you'll need your materials.

-Essay to write, preferably due the next day, or that day

-Snacks

-Computer with internet access

-Spot next to window

So, how do we go about this? First off, get your essay started. Look over the topic. Got it? Now open word up on the computer.

Damn, it's taking a long time to load, isn't it? Here, in the mean time, open up chrome. Hmm, better check your email. And facebook. And twitter. And your other email. Oh look, facebook's loaded. Check Farmville (Oh, you're a good little cow, aren't you, oh yes you are! I'm going to harvest you tomorrow, aren't you happy?), and Mafia Wars, and, oh look, 300 new status updates. Comment on each individually.

Well, now that word is booted up, type your heading in. Oh, crap, you left double space on. And you don't remember how to turn it back to single spacing. Better check the internet for ans- hey! I've got a new email! Oh, just spam. Back to...whatever you were doing.

Oh, right, the essay. Hm. Time to make a thesis. How about an outline instead? Yeah, that's a good idea. And you can make it on paint, too. There's a circle for the middle, we'll save that for a B.S. thesis for later. Now, make lines stretching from it. If you're a true nerd, increase the hex code of the color for the lines by FF each time. Now, make bubbles attached to each of those. Now it's starting to look like an engorged octopus. Hey! It's a mutant zombie octopus! Kill it with fire! Call in the army (Draw stick people with guns, and some tanks)! Fire! We have vanquished the mighty zombie octopus! Yes!

Crap! Soldiers are going AWOL! We must kill them for....some cause you'll fight for! Onwards! Blam, blam! Ah, there we go. Now your screen is filled with fake blood, and badly drawn, too.

Great outline you've got there.

Ah, screw the outline. Let's just try to do the essay from the start. Okay...type a few lines...hey! Another email! Better check it in case its something important, like the death of your professor! Nope, just spam again. Come on...

Back to....HOLY CRAP A NEW PENDULUM ALBUM I MUST GET IT AND LISTEN TO IT FOR FOUR HOURS!

Once you have been drum & bassed up (or some other sort of music, it doesn't matter), go back to your essay. But damn, it's hard to concentrate on an empty stomach. After falling into a music-induced trance for four hours, you're pretty hungry. How about some Doritos. Yeah, that should do it.

You know what, those Doritos are probably pretty lonely in your belly. They'd go great with some dip. Yeah, dip, yum. And while you're at it, might as well make some sandwiches. After all, chips and dip are only an appetizer. You might be up here for a while, so you might as well make your dinner too.

Okay, okay, you've eaten enough to last yourself for a few days. Now, ummm, now what? Right, the essay. Yeah, the essay. Wow. You've gotten a heading, and a title. Good job. Look at the time. You have one hour before it's due. Oh crap. Quick quick quick stress stress stress! Oh crap oh crap oh crap! Good thing you've got that window right next to you to relax yourself. Ah, isn't that peaceful? You can watch that bird chirp and fly by, and watch that boat cruise across the lake, and holy crap it's been fifty minutes. Quickly! Find the relevant wikipedia article, copy-paste it, and print! There you go, essay done, with eight minutes to spare. Phew. Now you can relax, and check your email, facebook, and twitter and oh crap there's another assignment due isn't there.

Omgwtflol (aka Annoying Internet Denizens Pt.5)

You've seen them before. Even on the most literary-based forums with the snootiest posters, they will be there. The one who doesn't contribute jack, and yet somehow has the most posts of anyone on the site. They are not hard to find, because they are in every forum, with a "lol" or "wow". And nothing else. Oh, good for you. You've got 20k posts? You've also typed in 20k words on the site. Isn't that interesting?

Sample:

OP: Hey think about this rather interesting thing. [3 paragraphs of text which are semi-enlightening, probably took an hour or so to type]

theomgwtflol: lolwut? first!

The omgwtflol's can be characterized not only by their one to two word posts, but also the overuse of strange, obscure acronyms, half of which were probably made up on the spot, inability to find their shift key (As opposed to the caps lock rager), completely meaningless posts, and frequent immaturity. At times (in other words, all the time) omgwtflols will fill their posts with acronyms or contractions (and not grammatically correct ones, either) only. Then exclamation mark spam thereafter.

Sample: omg rly???!?!?!??! lol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Good job. For every keystroke you would have saved yourself by using acronyms and false contractions, you lost in excess punctuation. And that sentence made me sound like a real douche. But still, if your goal was to save yourself time, I don't think you did. If you really wanted to save yourself time (and us, as well) just don't post. Truly lazy people don't go out of the way to say they're lazy; that's too much unneeded effort. So follow the same line of thought, and we'll appreciate you for it. Or rather, hate you less.

Apart from "first"-ing threads, and "omgwtf"-ing everywhere else, what do omgwtflol's do?

--Bump every thread they can.

Do you not understand that there is such a thing as a dead thread? Or that it may have purposefully have been sent to the next page? Oh, yes, of course we should resurrect this thread except for the fact that nobody has posted in it for a year and the original poster was banned for giving links to trojans! If you're that desperate to increase your postcount, make your own thread, lock it to everyone but yourself, make a bot that posts in it, and run the bot. Voila. You get your posts, we stop hating you. Problem(s) solved.

--Make threads as pointless as their posts. Then "first" it, appending a "lol" for irony at the end of their post.

Okay, a link that says "watch this rly fnny vid i found!!!!!!!" linked to "the 100 best lolcatz EVAR!!!!!" is just what I needed, of course. My life would not have been complete without it. And yes, of course I need to see "top 10 sk8bord trikks" or I will die a sad man. Chances are that by the time the omgwtflol dies, they will have linked every youtube video to the forum they lurk in.

--PM Spam

This is potentially the most annoying thing omgwtflol's do. You wake up in the morning, check your inbox, and find over 1k messages. All from the same person. All titled the same, and all containing, "hi!!!!!!"

Yeah, I really laughed at that. Hurr hurr. That was pretty damn genius of you, too.

--Randomly Post "i lost the game lol"

Everywhere. In topics which don't even vaguely mention any sort of activity.

Oh, and yes, you did just lose the game. Live with it.

So, what can we do against this particular case of AIDS?

There is only one option. Nukes.

Oh, if only. But really, here's what you can do:

The Dangerous Solution: "First" every thread before they do (Yes, with a capital 'f'), and spam their inbox until it's full. With any luck they will become bored to the point that they will find a different forum (hopefully one you aren't in) to harass. Beware that you do not become an omgwtflol in the process. To prevent against this, I suggest typing a three-page essay using proper capitalization and no contractions whatsoever, slapping yourself with a cattle prod each time you don't do so for each day you are enacting this solution.

The Douche Solution: Spend ten hours typing a multiple-page PM filled to the brim with hatred attacking them, their family, and their little dog too, send it, then make it public. If it works, they'll never be seen again. If it backfires, you'll be banned. Take one for the team, come on!

The Blogger's Solution: Err, blog about it. That's about it.

The Passive-Aggressive Solution: Figure out the poster's IP, and use that to find their country, city, and home address. Then, write several nice notes asking them to "kindly cease posting inane gibberish on [insert forum name here]", mailing them at one week intervals. Follow this up with notes that sound slightly miffed, growing in anger with each week, (But always ending in, "Thanks, [your name here]") until you finally mail them a paint bomb, and laugh hysterically for an hour after mailing it out. Alternatively, spam their computer with viruses. If you know them in real life, give them the evil eye every day.

To cap off this post, I would like to say that it is only the severest offenders who qualify as omgwtflols. If you happened to lose your shift key after putting your computer in the wash, or happen to agree exactly with the person who posted above you, and can post nothing but "I agree", that's fine. But if your keyboard only has the 'f', 'i', 'r', 's', and 't' keys on it...

Yeah, you're dead.

I would also be severely disappointed if someone doesn't take this rather perfect chance for irony...

Protesting Laws

Protests are all good and fine with me. Usually.

Politicians, while not the most esteemed people in my eyes, are the same.

But at times, I get to the point where I just want to nuke the offending person, usually when they're in the midst of shooting something down.

Recent examples include Obamacare, Cap And Trade, and the Arizona racial profiling law (I'm going to receive a fair amount of flak from a certain ginger for mentioning this...), to pull from both parts of the Left-Right spectrum. Well, that is, examples which annoyed me.

Politicians attacking bills which do something they don't like is fine. Protesting obviously unfair laws is also fine. For example, repealing the DADT bill. This prevents completely idiotic things from passing, or if they are somehow passed, from remaining in effect.

What gets me is when bills are presented to solve a huge problem that exists (as opposed to say, providing for something that isn't a problem at all), and they are attacked, and (yes, run-on sentence, I know....I hear the pained screams of a hundred grammar nazis...) the attackers do not have a better alternative, or an alternative at all, for that matter! It is better to solve a problem badly than to leave it unsolved. Better to get a 58 on a test than skip it and get a 0, no?

When you attack something just to deny another political capital, or because it wouldn't sit well with your voters, you better have a damn better solution than the one being presented. Filibustering something which is an attempt to solve a problem will only increase the pain to those suffering, and is especially pointless if the bill will inevitably be passed. Being the House of No just puts you out there as total pricks fishing for votes. (Rant to be posted later on career politicians...) I'm pretty damn sure that your voters wouldn't stay if they would unplug their ears and uncover their eyes to see that you're hurting them by delaying a solution you have no alternative to. So if you're going to protest something that solves a problem (or attempts to) such as the economy, the environment, or illegal immigration, come prepared with your own plan to counter with. Don't make some page read a bill whose pages number in the thousands just to delay it. Pull your crap together and make your own solution.

Just to delve further into this, when you run out of arguments against a bill you don't have a counter to (or even one you do), stop arguing, and formulate more arguments. Or accept that the bill is a solution, and pass it. Don't worry, you won't lose votes once your voters realize that the bill will help them. What you don't do is attack the people presenting the bill. No, Obama is not a socialist Nazi. And even if he was, that does not mean everything he does is aimed towards killing the Jewish communities, or promoting socialism. Obama wrote out a March Madness bracket....does that mean we should all stop watching college basketball during March? No. Does it make said basketball Nazi, or socialist? Hell no.

On the same page, a few days ago I saw a protest at the UW against Arizona's newly passed law. What did the signs they were holding mostly consist of? Insults. Personal attacks. Wow. Real mature guys. (And this is coming from a teen who can't suppress a smirk when certain words are mentioned...) Among the signs? "Boycott Nazi-zona!" and a cactus shaped like a middle finger, are the only two I clearly remember. And their chants were none too nice, either. (Except for "Si se pueda", which really, doesn't fit, when you think about it. Also, forgive me if I mangled the Spanish.)

So, just in case this was a tl;dr for some of you, my message is...

If you're going to attack a solution to a freaking huge problem, you better have an alternative, damn it. And if you run out of arguments, personal attacks are a sign of your inability to compose an argument valid by even the lowest standards. So please, shut your mouth until you bring back something of substance.

The Glass, Revisited

And the half-filled glass of water is back again, to challenge the minds of various occupations (some of which aren't quite jobs)!

The politician has been left off, lest I cause redundancy with my last post.

Lawyer: Objection! That isn't water! (And that will be a $75 fee for those words...)

Judge: The verdict is ten hours in the digestive system of the plaintiff.

Preachy Guy: Judge not lest ye be judged.

Psychoanalyst: Well, really, it doesn't matter what it looks like. What does the water think it is?

Guy-Who-Lives-In-His-Mother's-Basement: Well, if it works on its hydration skill for another 24 hours, it'll be empty. Can I get back to killing boars now?

Environmental Alarmist: It's less than a half glass as the water, if you would examine it with this overly complex machine, it contains 1200 ppm of atmospheric pollutants. This is a 100% increase from the last glass of water! If we don't shut all the factories down at once, soon our water will be completely made of pollutants!

Economist: The market says the glass is half-empty. Quickly, short all your H2O stocks to me!

Scientist: Well, this glass could easily be an outlier. I will need to be supplied with two more like glasses at minimum to give any valid results.

Philosopher: Is the water?

General: Nuke it, problem solved.

Cheap-Ass Bartender: It a'int free, that's for sure. Pay up.

Druggie: Woah....when was the last time you noticed, like, how watery water is?

Guy-Not-Too-Grounded-In-Reality: I'd tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.

Serial Killer: *kills you*

Guy-Who-Hangs-Out-At-The-Water-Cooler-All-Day: It doesn't matter, fill it up so you can dawdle here longer.

Gamer: Is that a healing potion?

Blogger: I could make this into a blog post. Be right back.