Author: mbg.gold

I’m back as well!

Wow, after so long waiting for Darren’s blog to be put back up, it’s finally up!

During the time that this blog was down, I actually created a new blog on WordPress, which this blog is based off of. It’s at deathgleaner.wordpress.com

But now that this blog is back, I don’t know what to do. Should I keep my blog on WordPress? Or should I post here? My previous preference before this blog went down was to post on this blog, but for now, you can find me active (more or less) on both my WordPress and this blog.

Update (3/6/09 17:15PST): I have made up my mind. School-related stuff will go here and everything else on my other blog at WordPress. Of course, I’m flexible, so keep updated!

Update (9/6/09 20:15PST): Maybe not just school stuff will go on this blog. I will decide at my own will which blog I’ll post to.

This weekend was..

…read on…

On Saturday, I had a piano competition. To be specific, it was the Green River Piano Competition. It was held at Kentlake High School.

When I got to the campus, it seemed so new compared to my high school, which is about the second-oldest in the district. I’ve seen some of the Bellevue schools which look just amazing, and this is right next to them in quality. Apparently, there was a judo competition going on there, which really doesn’t go well with classical music.

I heard a mixture of composers, including Liszt, Beethoven, and Bach. I played a Bartok sonatina and a Bach prelude, and got a score of “1”. Four other people were able to get that score.

Sunday, we had a Christmas musical. I was to play Pachelbel’s Canon with two others as a prelude to the Christmas service. So, why have the service in January? Well, what stops us from having Christmas in January, or for some, June? Besides, there was so much snow in December that the service was canceled.

The play was about a young boy named Foster who forgot the meaning of Christmas and all  he wanted was presents. One of the cool parts in the story was when they turned off all the lights and the actors were wearing white gloves. They turned on ultraviolet lights, making everything that was white, including the gloves, glow. Quite a show.

After the service I headed down to Snoqualmie Falls. One of my mom’s friends told her that the falls were absolutely enormous. I had been their once, but when I got there, I was blown away, quite literally.

The falls, raging with all that floodwater, sprayed fine sea mist into everything it could reach. The sea mist created a thick fog, making photography there notoriously difficult. I did manage to get a few pictures where there was mist and where I didn’t get sprayed by it.

Now, I’m in a library, writing, or rather, typing this post. I wonder how this chaotic weekend will end…

Polar Graph racism?

This joke surfaced while I was talking with Darren yesterday. He claimed that polar graphs were racist. It sounded absurd at first, but just wait and you’ll find out more about this.

After hearing that statement, I decided to Google search this. The only result I found was that “polar graphs…show patters of racism”. That was the only explanation I got, so I decided to go to the Wikipedia Reference Desk for Mathematics.

I posted my question there, and waited. After a day, here’s some comments I got:

There is nothing inherently race oriented in the definition of polar graphs. Specific instances of polar graphs might be considered racist.

Presumably because they are based on Poles – that’s as worthy of the word “joke” as the likelihood that Fermat had a solution to the Riemann hypothesis.

Did a manic-depressive invent those ?

I would have said that Cartesian graphs are more racists than polar ones.

Clearly a revolutionary approach is needed.

If you want to read all the activity that question has generated, go here.

Peace out and ha-ha!

–DEATHGLEANER

Black Friday Shopping

On Friday, my dad and I went to Wal-Mart at 7:30 Friday morning.

Upon arriving at Wal-Mart, there was a line stretching for about 500 feet. We waited for thirty minutes just to get in the door.

When we got inside, the store was less crowded than I expected. We went to the Electronics section to look for a Toshiba laptop. Unfortunately, both the Toshiba and the HP laptops were completely out. Considering that the store opened at 5A.M. and everybody was buying TVs, it was reasonable that they sold out. We did however buy a GPS and a HP printer.

Along with the two electronics, we bought a few kitchen supplies. My mom didn’t like them, so the next day, we returned the items.

The return line that day was practically as long as the waiting line the previous day. It seemed that everyone was so dissatisfied by the products there. Some people were even returning TVs!

That’s all I have to say.

Peace out.

–DEATHGLEANER

Is “Ezbco” a word?

The answer: of course not!

Apparently, in World History class, we were doing a crossword that had to do with European Exploration and Colonization of the World. One of the questions on the cross word was:

11 (Across): Hernando Cortez conquered which Mexican tribe in 1521?

We already knew that the second letter was a “Z”, but didn’t know the answer. In fact, I didn’t even read the question. This one guy, by the name of Reggie, asked me what the answer to 11 Across was. I looked at the row and made up the word “Ezbco”. It doesn’t make sense that Hernando Cortez conquered the Ezbco tribe, but Reggie actually believed it. He even asked the teacher if the answer was “Ezbco”. At that point I broke into an uncontrollable laughter that lasted ten minutes.

Hernando Cortez conquered the Aztecs.

I made up other words for some of the crossword answers like “Macon” (Question was “Which port did Columbus sail from?”). They actually believed me a few times even though they knew they fell for the first one.

Peace out,

Ha ha!!!

–Jeff

UPDATE:

I did a Google search on “Ezbco” and guess what? It searched, and our blog was the FIRST ONE on its list of results. :-O !!!

An egg experiment gone wrong

In science class, we were to perform an experiment to test how hypertonic a solution was to an egg. A hypertonic solution has less water in it than is in the egg.

We first peeled off the shell by immersing the eggs in 90mL of vinegar for three days. When we got back, all of the shell of my egg was removed. We decided to test how hypertonic laundry detergent and VitaminWater were to the egg. We immersed four de-shelled eggs, two into each solution.

After the first day, the results were quite obvious. The eggs immersed in VitaminWater were beginning to expand because water had been moving into the cell; apparently, the concentration of water in VitaminWater was greater than it was in the egg cell. The opposite happened to the eggs immersed in laundry detergent.

When we first saw our eggs, there was a one-inch thick membrane of semi-solid laundry detergent surrounding the eggs. It made the egg take on the appearance of an embryo. Upon taking the eggs out, we realized that almost all of the laundry detergent had taken on this solid form.

We proceeded to wash our eggs and our hands, but had no idea that the laundry detergent was notoriously difficult to wash off our hands.

When we examined the eggs, the surface was wrinkly and calluses were starting to form. But this would compare to nothing as we observed the next day. It was the first day’s results, ten times worse. The egg’s membrane had become so loose that we could lift the egg by the membrane and shake its contents around. The calluses were so abundant that the membrane had become a thick wall of bumps. On the other hand, the eggs immersed in VitaminWater were filled with the orange liquid and looked like they were ready to burst.

Eventually, we popped our eggs. Unlike some, where the contents exploded out of the hole, ours leaked out slowly. We had to squeeze our eggs to get the contents out. What was left was a membrane that I swore could have been converted into a small sack for storing things.

Never repeat this experiment, unless you want your hands to have a gooey feel and if you want to see what I mean by a one-inch thick membrane of semi-solid laundry detergent. I don’t think you would want to try this, considering that all my classmates cringed at the sight of my egg.

Peace out,
Deathgleaner

Opinion: Onekopakaspace Blog

This is another one of my opinion blog entries.

Not intended to be mean or condescending.

Biased, you could say that.

At the time of posting this blog, I discovered that the site admin changed the theme. Now the CSS or whatever runs really slowly, even when I’m using Firefox 3.0.4 on a Mac PPC. JavaScript would be a better alternative for adding effects to this webpage, including that pop up navbar you will see if you scroll down the page.

One of my friends by the name Dylan has a blog at www.conduitzone.com. He uses Joomla (whatever that may be) and enhances his page with JavaScript and Google Ads just for the purpose of earning money. His site runs just fine and smooth, except for the fact that it is quite slow to load.

Overall, the theme and asthetics of this blog are great, but needs some improvement on the code and technical part. Also, the “Log In” link could be a little more conspicous, I had to use the word find to find the link, which was hiding in the “Meta” section.

Since this topic is highly controversial for some people, everyone is welcome to post their comments about this and the Onekopakaspace Blog.

I hope to see many improvements being made in the near future.

Peace out,

Deathgleaner (aka mbg.gold)

OPINION ADDENDUM:

November 22, 2008 @ 3:14:15pm

The column on the right is sometimes very lengthy. At the end of some posts, it extends about a mile down the page, leaving a football field of blank space. The site admin needs to trim off some of that fat (no offense).

November 25, 2008 @ 12:40:09pm

I see that the theme has changed. now, the background is static. Good Idea. it just makes your blog run even slower.

Opinion: Obama or McCain?

Everyone here is voting Obama!

It seems that everyone in my school is voting for Barack Obama. Here’s some of the things that have been going around that relate to this presidential election.

  • A kid held up a sign saying “OBAMA BIDEN 2008”
  • Another kid held up a sign saying “MCCAIN PALIN 2008”. Gross.
  • My friend by the name of Tyrone said that McCain would die in office and Palin would take over
  • There has been much discussion about the election. All of my friends are voting for Obama

Please remember that Election Day is November 4th this year. If you are registered, don’t forget to vote!

And vote for Obama if you don’t want a president to get Alzheimer’s in office.

Change for the better.

Peace out,

Geoffrey Liu

ELECTION DAY UPDATE:

People are beginning to wear their campaign shirts and signs, I’ve seen equal numbers of both. After school, there was this huge crowd with Obama and McCain supporters all arguing about how good each of their candidates are. I have never seen anything like that.

According to CNN, Obama has won the presidential election. Good thing otherwise our country would get a lower average IQ (John McCain does not promote science) and McCain would have a heart attack if he jumped up and down because he won.

Notebook Software 10: A piece of crap?

The new version of Notebook Software, Notebook Software 10 is out. And it sucks as much as Windows Vista when it came out. Or maybe more.

For those of you who do not know what Notebook Software is, I will give you a quick summary:

Notebook Software is software that enables you to use a board, called a Smart Board, to click on objects on your screen. The Smart Board also allows you to use digital pens to draw in programs like Smart Notebook and right on the screen. It’s sort of like a touch pad.

I was trying Notebook Software 10 out today. Here is a short summary of how much it sucks:

  • In 1st period French class, I saw the transparency layer of the new Notebook Software. It was frickin crap bloated like hell. The frame looks heavy, and it’s VERY hard to use
  • At lunch in the library, I was testing out Smart Notebook. I drew a freeform shape and tried to fill it with color. But guess what? The damn software wouldn’t let me fill it in.
  • The splash screen for Notebook Software reflects on how bloated the software is. Sure, looks modern but is nothing but a load of bull.

After that experience, I wish that my school hadn’t updated to the new and crappier software. It’s so freaking bad, it makes MS Office seem good.

Like heavenly good.

Peace out,

Deathgleaner

PS: All school related posts will be filed under the tag “Kentridge” from now on as well as any other applicable tags.