The Domain of Steven

Finals week (which should really be called midterms week) is over, and it went off without too much trouble. At least in the sense that I got through all of them without dying. I fell asleep during the first half of the AP Compsci final at least twice, causing me to miss a question, but I caught it when I checked my answers. I also fell asleep numerous times during the English Regents, prompting the proctor to walk up to me and ask, “Are you okay? You want a drink of water? You must be really tired…” I avoided eye contact.

I also went out twice during the course of finals week, and though there was only one web-worthy picture for the first outing, I had an armful from the second, so the second thumbnail will lead you to the album instead of the picture.

332|1

My classes turned out very well this term. Almost all my teachers have gotten good reviews from my friends, and they seem cool. Physics shouldn’t be as much of a problem, as a result. Our teacher’s actually pretty fun. In the fifteen minute class we had today, he came into class before us and tied a rope to the sink at one side of the room and went to the other side of the room holding the other end of the rope. He wouldn’t say a word, he just stood there while we filed in. Once we were all seated, he pressed play on a boombox that was next to him, and Whip It started playing.
Crack that whip *lash*
Give the past the slip *lash*
Then after the line, “Now whip it,” he ran to the board and slid one of them across to reveal another board saying “CRACK THAT WHIP!!!” We then looked to the ropes that had been strung along our tables, and we all started whipping them. This was to demonstrate waves, the first topic we’ll be covering this term .

I’m going on another College Trip Friday to Sunday. Hopefully we won’t have too much homework, as it’s the first week back and there are shortened periods, so I won’t have to make up too much on the bus ride. The long bus rides. It shouldn’t be that bad, but you never know how seating will turn out.

A lot of the colleges are too high-brow for me, like MIT and Harvard, but I’m very much interested in Wesleyan (in the sense that I actually have a shot, and it’s a good school). I’m going to be treating it more like a random social trip rather than a college trip, but that was my mindset last time, and I actually got pretty interested in colleges by the end of the trip. Almost all of that interest was washed away after the trip ended, but still .

During last year’s college fair at Stuyvesant:
Her: I’m going to go to the Upenn room. Wanna come?
Me: Nah, I don’t think I’ll get into Upenn. I’ll go in here.
Her: What’s that room?
Me: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Sounds cool.
Her: You’re going in there?!
Me: (knows MIT, but doesn’t know Massachusetts Institute of Technology stood for MIT) Umm…yea? I’ll see you.
*goes inside, sees a sparsely populated room mainly comprised of smart, nerdy Asian guys, sits down*
Spokesman: Hello everyone, this room is for MIT…
Voice inside my head: MIT? What? But I thought this room is for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology…*eyes open wide* OH SHIT!

The second college trip went very well. I lucked out again and had a lot of cool people on my bus, which meant that the bus rides themselves were fun. The hotel stays, down time, and often the tours themselves were home to a lot of random stuff, and a number of inside jokes spawned from them (the balloon, Harry Potter, videos of people dancing, Disney movies and orgies to name a few).

Day 1
-Yale: Very animate information session, but I didn’t like the look and feel of the school. Too old-fashioned.
-Wesleyan: Didn’t impress me, but it didn’t depress me. I’ll still consider it a choice, especially after hearing that they have sex parties.
-Connecticut College: Wasn’t paying attention.

After being very late to Yale, we skipped lunch and rushed to the other colleges. When we got to the hotel, it was like a wasteland. The only places nearby were McDonald’s, Boston Market, a liquor store, and Petco. We had a weird visit to Petco and then hopped over to McDonald’s to play Durrac with three decks of cards mixed together. A long game, but fun, especially when a group of kids asked where we came from and I said that we were professional Durrac players that attended Flushing High (local zone school) and walked all the way to play in their McDonald’s. Weird things happened at night, involving Lizzy McGuire sex and orgies.

Day 2
-Brown: Aesthetically pleasing. That’s all I really remember about it.
-Harvard: Aesthetically pleasing too. We had a rushed lunch, but our tour group dispersed quickly at our insistence and I got to gobble down lunch with friends at a cool bagel place.
-MIT: Now the fun starts. This place is geeky, and proud of it. I loved the place, from its architecture to its student body to its facilities geared toward geeks (large convenience store, fast food, and arcade with DDR, pool, and air hockey all on one floor). Definitely going on my application.

A couple friends and I got lost in MIT after we ducked into the bathroom, finding no tour group in sight when we got out. We wandered the campus and found another set of people that was lost, but no tour group. Through avid use of our cell phones we found out where everyone was convening to go to the hotel, so we waited there, playing chinese poker and forming a grass orgy. When we got to the hotel, we originally wanted to go to a local restaurant, but getting lost, we decided to chill in the MIT rec center we passed by on the tour. Failed miserably at DDR, did a little better at pool, and overall had a really nice time. Got to watch Mel Gibson flop around in pantyhose while I ate pizza with friends, too. When curfew came around, a mixed group of us chilled out for at least half an hour watching badly dubbed anime and laughing at Futurama. When we finally went back to our rooms, we (geekily) watched the History Channel and accidentally left it on all night.

Day 3
-Boston University: Safe school in a city. Is there anything else to be said?
-Olin: When given a choice of a business college, an engineering college, and a women’s college, there’s only one real choice for me. Time to declare my real gender. Olin was amazing. It’s a miniscule school, admitting only 75 kids a year, but I actually wasn’t really turned off by that. Until Stuyvesant, I had been in very small schools, and I liked knowing everyone and having everyone know me. The buildings were spacious, the architecture was nice, and so overall I loved the campus, if you could even call it that. Hot stuff.
-Amherst: No clue. The info session guy was very entertaining (random witty comments), but I don’t recall ANYTHING about Amherst.

Dinner was held at McDonald’s at a rest stop. We probably made them enough money so that they can take the rest of the year off. After that, we had a long, but very enjoyable, bus ride home, filled with Aladdin, falling baggage compartments, and henna holding. The convoy our bus was in actually broke up as we approached Stuy, with the two other buses going another way. Our bus got there first .

Alright, this is perhaps the first time I’ve done it on this site, so I feel I should explain a bit. When I talk about a sensitive subject, I make vague references. It’s your job to piece together those references, along with what you know about me, to find out what just happened in my life. Because really, the only time I’d make such vague references is when something interesting and sensitive has come up. You’re probably not going to get it, and even if you understand some of the clues, you’re probably not going to get the whole picture unless you understand all of them. I’m like Scytale; I have to give people a chance. It’s fun to see my puzzles come to fruition, so do tell me if you think you’ve figured it out (explanations of the clues would be cool too). Perhaps one day I’ll write up an explanation for all of them. I’d charge for access, of course .

• Chapter (Adams’ number added to itself, plus one) of the ramen lover’s manga, or Adams’ number plus 7 for the corresponding anime.
• It’s kinda odd to refer to Xinhua and QuoteDB in the same post…
• Can you half-orbit?
• if (p==87) p=86;
• The 3 doesn’t give me any hassle, but the sixtieth symbol sets off the XHTML alarm. Good thing I found the BSUC page.
• Abound indeed.

And because it’d be too insubstantial for a post in itself, I might as well tack this onto this post, to cheer you up after being confused. I’m Woodrow Wilson. I would’ve wanted to wear the Stetson hat, but it wasn’t in line with my character.
382|1
Class act: Someone who shows impressive and stylish excellence.

Edit: And if you want to see my English teacher play Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd on the guitar for the first time in years, now you can. Careful, it’s fifteen megabytes of streaming video, so commit yourself to it before you click.

The personal heating business is awfully lucrative.

So is the rapping business; even Grace has joined the bandwagon. The link leads to a page of streaming video around 20 megs large, so sit tight.

How many of you can say you spent Valentine’s Day watching Battle Royale with your girlfriend?
385|1
Didn’t think so.

It was actually her idea, which makes her just as weird as me. I liked the movie and at the same time didn’t like the movie. Yes, it still had an island of kids killing each other, with badasses and sluts and cooperations that fall apart, but it was missing so much more. The only backstory was in the form of random flashbacks, and even then they didn’t serve to do much. To take a collection of 13+ volumes of manga and condense it into one movie, they ditched the amazing personality given to each character. In the movie, a guy with a bulletproof vest gets shot at, survives, then gets his head chopped off and used to hold a live grenade that’s thrown into a window. Gruesome, yes. But in the manga, the guy is described as a musical prodigy that was born into an elite family and holds elitist ideals. He feels isolated from everyone, because they’re all worthless scum. You feel his emotions when he’s trying to worm his way out of the hands of one of the good characters, and when he takes a bullet, pretends to be dead, and silently slanders and plots to kill his attacker as the attacker approaches him to examine the kill. Characters in the manga are just plain cooler.

And since I’m on a crazy streak anyway, I’m going to explain the clues in the post two posts back, just so you know I wasn’t simply spouting random shit. It’s actually possible to figure out what I was saying.

SarcasticSteven (9:32:01 PM): i don’t get transverse/harmonic [waves]
SarcasticSteven (9:32:18 PM): oh
SarcasticSteven (9:32:20 PM): never mind
ProdigalElement4 (9:34:08 PM): eh?
ProdigalElement4 (9:34:14 PM): u might wanna splain that then
SarcasticSteven (9:34:34 PM): ok
SarcasticSteven (9:34:37 PM): think of it like this
SarcasticSteven (9:35:00 PM): you’re taking a piss
SarcasticSteven (9:35:12 PM): you’ve got a monstrous penis, so you fire it more or less in a straight line
SarcasticSteven (9:35:13 PM): now
ProdigalElement4 (9:35:14 PM): hehe, this is the weapon thing all over again
SarcasticSteven (9:35:16 PM): bear with me
ProdigalElement4 (9:35:22 PM): rawr
SarcasticSteven (9:35:25 PM): you’re feeling antsy
SarcasticSteven (9:35:34 PM): so you start jumping up and down as you water your toilet bowl
SarcasticSteven (9:35:46 PM): that movement is perpendicular to the piss
SarcasticSteven (9:35:53 PM): that’s a transverse wave being formed
SarcasticSteven (9:35:55 PM): however
SarcasticSteven (9:36:04 PM): you then feel the urge to practice some basic sex motions
SarcasticSteven (9:36:12 PM): so you start thrusting back and forth, quagmire style
SarcasticSteven (9:36:22 PM): that movement is in the same direction as the piss
SarcasticSteven (9:36:28 PM): that’s a longitudinal wave being formed
SarcasticSteven (9:36:56 PM): makes sense?
ProdigalElement4 (9:38:11 PM): yep
ProdigalElement4 (9:38:13 PM): hehe
ProdigalElement4 (9:38:22 PM): u make learning fun, quagmire style
SarcasticSteven (9:38:24 PM): i like unorthadox explanations
SarcasticSteven (9:38:32 PM): but i can’t ever be a teacher
ProdigalElement4 (9:38:36 PM): hehe
SarcasticSteven (9:38:39 PM): i’d be fired once i started making thrusting motions

Extra credit regents exam problem from our latest physics test: What physical phenomenon explains the absence of a kloomphargen in any carnistigian garbfurshken (as often seen on the planet Boolnoggin) unless in the presence of a gallanpurnachtschlagen (with a tallundagmishken kurpglargen, of course)? (2 points)
Actual answer: Resonance. Our teacher told us that whenever we see a regents physics question we don’t know, but deals with sound, answer resonance.
My answer: While the kloomphargen is most comfortable in its native carnistigian garbfurshken, the climate of such carnistigian garbfurshken is different due to the increased atmospherical pressure on planet Boolnoggin. This change can be negated if a gallanpurnachtschlagen is present because of the gravitational forces that they exert. However, for the gallanpurnachtschlagen to survive the initial onslaught of xanhydrophosphoric malenters, they must be equipped with tallundagmishken kurpglargen. Standard-issue models are fine. Physics textbooks would increase the time gallanpurnachtschlagens stay on planet Boolnoggin, because physics is so damn interesting. Word.

He circled the letters r, e, s, o, n, a, n, c and e within my paragraph, and gave me half a point, which rounded up to one. I got 71 out of 70 points.

Classmate : “Nobody ever gets mad in the book [A Farewell to Arms]. It’s like a fairy tale.”
English teacher: “They’re in Switzerland! You don’t get mad; you get neutral.”

Edit: Compilation of Crazy Conversations updated. The compilation was lost. If anyone has it in their browser’s cache, I’d appreciate any record you have of it. It was a big ass list, and I’m not going to reconstruct most of it unless I can get a copy of it.

They’re different. Undeniably different. They’re the ones I can pick out in a crowd, the ones I care deepest for, and the ones that I don’t mind embracing again and again. If I’m so close to them, then naturally I should be my truest to them. I should feel most comfortable around them, and I should know them better than anyone else. Yet on both counts, it’s oddly only half-true.

First count.

Second count.

Changing to WordPress version 1.5. Don’t worry if your soul is sucked into the computer; everything should be updated shortly.

Edit: Done. I had to work around a number of problems because index.php and wp-layout.css are no longer kept in the home directory, but I managed to fix it. You’re going to be deprived of the links I used to have on the right panel until I can find some workaround for that too. The problem was that it kept using the graphic designated as the background for the date. That in itself wouldn’t be so bad if it resized itself or didn’t make the text teeny tiny. As it stands, I can’t use WordPress’ built-in link function, but it’s not like I used it that avidly anyway. I’ll either construct a new panel on the right like I did for the Other Sections bit, or incorporate it into my About page.

Gates are gates. I didn’t see anything remarkable about them, and even though I got a sample of the material the gates are made of, I wasn’t impressed. The excursion was still pretty fun, staring off with me chilling out in Barnes and Nobles for over an hour waiting for everyone to show up. We then went to Central Park to see the gates, but also climbed the artificially placed and supported rock faces, piled on top of the seesaw, swung on the swings, and tossed around frisbees and baseballs. We went to a random coffee shop to eat (they had trouble seating us, but it was alright), then went to go see Constantine. The only problem was that even though I was 17, not everyone else was, and the theater stubbornly refused to grant us admission. So we backtracked to the one place where there’s no age restriction: FAO Schwartz. It’s practically becoming a hangout for us. We explored the top floors more this time, but we eventually settled down in the basement. After gaining a foothold in the right places, we enjoyed games of air hockey and foosball as well as the large couch in front of the wide screen television.

The following day was a mix of seemingly random events. I first went to Cerami & Associates to talk about my internship this summer. The talk was pretty brief; they confirmed that I’d be doing a lot of the same again, but I was welcome to poke around the audio-visual department if I wanted to (I had previously stuck to the acoustical department). I had some time to kill before my rendezvous with friends, so I put on the change of clothes I brought (I came to Cerami in a dress shirt) and explored CompUSA, Cold Stone (ice creeeeam), a random internet cafe (not a gaming cafe, otherwise I would have spent all my time there), and a fancy schmancy McDonalds (whose dollar menu is really pitiful). I then saw Bride and Prejudice, which reminded me of Bend It Like Beckham in that though the main problems were resolved, there was no guarantee of a happy ending. It had a lot more funny moments than Bend It Like Beckham, though, so I enjoyed it. We dined lightly at Applebees (it’s already expensive, and Manhattan jacks up the prices of everything, so…) and then went to a seemingly random New York museum for one of her assignments. It had a surprisingly cool collection of items (and not as many paintings, which I’m not as keen on), and it was nice and quiet. The only people we saw were old fogeys who shied away from us .

Edit: I later saw Constantine at home. It was a pointless movie. There were cool moments, and those moments were extremely cool, but you’re left without much knowledge of anything. There is no resolution, because you’re not even sure what the problem was. I liked the concepts, as I expected I would, but while I would see (and have seen) certain moments again, I wouldn’t pay to do so. Sorry, but there isn’t even random sex to offset the vagueness of the movie.

Mmm, 666 posts. I’ll keep it like this for a while…

Slowly and steadily I’m rebuilding the Compilation of Crazy Conversations, but since I have a shitload of logs, it’s going to take some time. I’m also increasing the quality control, considering it’s fucking huge as it is.

The links on the right panel have been brought back. I couldn’t use WordPress’ Link call because of weird issues probably relating to the CSS of the theme, so I had to sloppily plant the links there myself. As long as it works.

I’m trying to obtain ownership of this domain from its previous owner. I won it in an online auction using electronic currency, but it was registered in his name. The transfer should take place smoothly, but I don’t know when the transfer will go through or how long this site will be down (cause without the domain to point to it, there’s no way to access it…). If there are any major problems, updates will be posted at my Livejournal. The domain name has no influence over my website’s files, as I would be able to access them even without a domain, and I have contingency plans in case of a mishap. Just sit tight till the tide washes over.

You know you’re a computer science geek when you get excited and happy about the improved efficiency of linked lists with tails after learning linked lists, or the convenience of arraylists after learning lists.

I’m such a computer science geek.

You also know you’re a geek that doesn’t like American Studies when your American Studies notes have parts that look like:

I. Anti-Immigrant Hysteria
___C. Some lynching and renaming of food

___B. 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act was ineffective (we do not hold the beach, say again, we do
not hold the beach…)

I’m such a geek that doesn’t like American Studies.

Strange how it came out in the context of vomiting. No pun intended.

But she liked Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and that makes her cool in my books. Add on the interest in Battle Royale (even before I showed her the manga, but especially after I showed her the manga), and she’s got a good buffer.