Observations

Recently, I was taken to a dinner party by my grandmother. Conducted entirely in a foreign language. So, I smiled and nodded and clapped when it felt appropriate. But, then came the karaoke. So, a few observations on that.
1. Karaoke should not be done by sober, non-musical people. If you can sing, go ahead and show off. If you cannot, but are drunk, then you are forgiven due to decreased faculties. If you cannot sing and are not drunk, you are willfully subjecting those around you to audio agony.
2. If you must talk across a person at a dining table, do not gesture with utensils near his or her face. This makes the person nervous and could result in an eye injury.
3. When clapping to a song, don't do it halfway. Lazy clapping makes you look like you don't care. If this is so, don't clap, silly. On the other hand, don't be too enthusiastic. It makes you look creepy. Find the balance.
4. I apparently have a sensitivity to a certain volume. When the singer sang a little too loudly into the microphone, my entire body felt the vibration. They must have reached my resonant frequency.
Thought: If one finds the resonant frequency of a person, will a sustained sound at that frequency injure them? My thoughts go to odd places.
For example, I watched the film version of The Watchmen, which I found to be a most excellent attempt to film something that has long been regarded as unfilmable. However, there is one thing that continues to bother me to this day.
WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD!

OK. So, assuming you have read the graphic novel (recommended) you know that at the end, Silk Spectre II, Nite Owl II, and Rorschach go to confront Ozymandias about his seemingly diabolical plan. At one point in the movie, Silk Spectre gets her hands on a gun and shoots Ozy from about two feet away and aimed directly at his head. He spins around and falls to the ground, clutching his head. The three heroes peer over his body. He then springs up, revealing that he had caught the bullet.
His seemingly invincible hands aside, I just cannot stand the utter stupidity of our heroes. When he fell THERE WAS NO BLOOD. I am relatively sure that when you shoot someone, they generally bleed, especially from the head. When you want to kill someone, they should bleed. If not, shoot again. Simple. But apparently too complicated for our "brilliant" heroes who figured out the whole conspiracy anyway.

END OF SPOILERS

Well, that's the end of my rant. And I apologize for the delay in posting, since this was finished and actually published in May. Those initial observations came at 3 in the morning on the listed date, and any thoughts at 3 in the morning should be reviewed when more awake, lest something silly be spread on the interwebs. Because everyone knows that that never happens.
And on a side note, I am home for the summer! I did a happy dance and am now in relaxation mode before my job starts. Which hopefully means more idle time to post. Everyone wins!

And while you're here, check out this cool time lapse of some Watchmen murals. Cool stuff.

School's out!

YAY! I survived my first year at university. And, I'm pretty sure that I passed all of my exams. This is an excellent feeling and makes up for the anxiety and nail-biting that accompanied exams. Now, my only concerns are packing up my room to move out and using up my meal plan. The first must happen, the second is never going to happen. I have over 50 meals left and only three days to use them in. Unless I ate myself sick (highly undesirable) I wouldn't finish off my meal plan. Oh well.
Packing is kind of depressing. My walls are bare, my cupboards are empty. I recycled a ridiculous amount of paper. The fact that this year is over is finally hitting me. At the same time, though, I am totally stoked to move into a new house. I'm living with some good friends not too far from campus. I'll actually be on my own, as opposed to the semi-autonomous living I've been experiencing in residence. I'll have to cook, clean, and take care of my room. In rez, meals were cooked for me, cleaning involved vacuuming every once in a while, and anything that broke would be fixed with a quick chat with the janitor. The odd thing is, I'm looking forward to the increased responsibility. It will mean that I can survive on my own, that I'll be able to take care of myself in the future. This is a profound realization.
One thing that I hope never happens occurs in this hilarious webcomic, Johnny Wander. Written by Ananth Panagariya (also of Applegeeks) and illustrated by Yuko Ota, it is a comic about life after college, being a kid, growing up and all the people you meet and all the things that happen in that brave new world.

Or it might be about something else entirely.

Check out the ant related horror at:

http://www.johnnywander.com/comics/59

This crow has nothing to do with the ant horror. I'm not sure why it's the mascot of Johnny Wander. In fact, there is no Johnny Wander in the comic. Unless John's last name is Wander...meh.

FINALS FINALS FINALS FINALS

Aargh, finals season is in full swing. On the one hand, I am lucky since my exams are all spaced out, so I can study for them individually. On the other, I AM CONSTANTLY STUDYING. Unless I'm not. Like now. It's one of those hyperbolic phrases. A friend of mine and I were making hyperboles to de-stress from the exams. Example? Er, I can't rightly recall. But, it was funny. We were in kind of a post-exam stupor.
In order to break up the monotony and disprove the above CAPS LOCKED statement, my roommate and I have taken to going to the gym for an hour. It's a lovely, mindless break from redox reactions, proving something is linearly independent, and trying to find the freaking parse error that won't let my program go. I was curious about my weight and hopped on the scale when I went a few days ago. Turns out I've lost weight, defying the freshman 15. Yay!
I also ran around and played frisbee with some friends yesterday. The weather has finally turned gorgeous and I'm usually stuck in my room doing practice exams. It felt fantastic just to run around and enjoy the beautiful weather.
It's hard to believe that this time next week I'll be packing up my room and preparing to head home.
Meh, 'tis the future. My more immediate problem is figuring out electric fields. Why must I integrate in physics?!?!

When seen outside of calculus, this fellow is the harbinger of pure evil.

The Walrus of Skepticism

So, I'm finished all of my classes in my first year of university. Holy crap, I'm nearly 1/4 done my entire university career. O.O
Anyway, I was in my last couple of classes for the day and the profs all finish early. That said, I must let you, dear reader, know that I doodle constantly. Nearly every page of notes has at least one doodle on it. Once the profs finished, the doodles began to flow.
I drew everything my imagination could think of and a few things that compensated for some of my lack in artistic talent. My doodles grew and mutated. Looking over my notes for exams will be a trip down memory lane, since most of my best ones have funny memories associated with them.
One fellow who popped up recently but became a recurring figure in my doodles is the Walrus of Skepticism. First drawn in Calculus, he has become my response to anything bewildering or silly.
Other times in Calculus, I have drawn a random person and my friends insist it resembles our prof in various situations. A young man with a jewfro? Jonker in the 80's. A salty sea captain? If Jonker hadn't followed his career counselor's advice.
Doodles are a wonderful way to break up the monotony of class. Even if you don't have too much artistic talent, draw anyway! For a while, I was drawing stick figures and trying to give them personalities with as few accessories as possible.
So, go draw! Now!

Really, who needs power series? Not the Walrus of Skepticism!