I haven't much to say,
though dare I note,
this is no eBay,
and I shall not gloat.
(though this, in and of itself, may be classified as such)

(hee)

(Edit: I like the MC Froehlich, by the way. don't know who did it, but it stays)

Today, I bring you Paul's facebook, without the lies and m(d)isinformation that it usually contains. I did not alter these images, this is only what I stumbled upon today. Who could have guessed?



And for those of you that fail to see exactly what's been corrected, go here.

Go look for yourself (requires Facebook + friendship)! It's true!

At least until he notices, anyways.

The attic has completed its first stage of awesome. I've attempted to capture the results.

The main area of attraction:




I'm planning on putting a quilt over the window to keep bugs out and provide ever greater privacy. It's the same thing that's on the opposite window, seen momentarily. Note the fridge in the bottom left (barely visible).

The stuff:


The fridge is off the screen to the left. On the left is the subwoofer, then I've got about ~800 CDs of music in those booklets. To the right I've got all my N64 and SNES games. The baskets contain the various game systems and peripherals. To the right of the TV you can see my MP3 player and the jack - I've set it up so you can put whatever audio device with a headphone output up to the system, although it only outputs to 3.1 speakers. I also brought up my brother's collection of DVDs (after taking the picture), so there's a decent selection of movies up there as well. This is where bigger TVs are needed.

Oh, and that big black thing is a VCR. You wouldn't believe how many people asked what that was.

The other side:


That's where I need more rugs/carpeting.

The stairwell:


I switched out the single rung of colored lights with white lights, as well as the hanging lights. This works a lot better - those lights are good for (a) finding the lightswitch when the lights are off and (b) finding/navigating the stairs when the lights are off, so it's better to go with the more simplistic colored ones. But, fear not, the colored lights are not out of the picture.

The whole room:


The roof:


I would have preferred the disco ball over the blacklight, but the disco ball decided that it no longer wants to provide its disco-tastic light anymore, which may or may not be fixable. All of these lights and the fridge came from Ben, and a few new posters came from Zach (most notably the Ocarina of Time poster, visible in the first picture). So, basically all we need now is more posters, more TVs, more rugs, and then it's truly where I want it to be. I'm gonna see if I can get my old computer up there (Christopher has it right now, I don't think he's using it), and then hopefully I'll be able to connect to our wireless network, or drag this 50ft ethernet cable from the house to the attic to get connectivity. That would be beyond hot.

My hopes are high.

So, the attic is fixed again, after my brothers and father ripped it apart (I still haven't received any kind of apology). The stereo system works (with surround, although the source must be designated for 5.1 to work fully), and I got it hooked up to any gaming system I have up there (currently I have my Xbox, PS1, N64, and SNES up there).

Basically, we need stuff. We (Benjamin, Emma, Daniel and Kylie, and later Paul and Ben) pulled a ton of empty boxes out and made lots of space throughout the garage, and now we need to fill that space. Let me list what we have now (bulleted list!!1).

• One TV (25")
• One Xbox, One PS1, One N64, One SNES, One VCR
  
• One stereo system (4.1)
  
• One good couch, one bad couch, one recliner
  
• One coffee table
• One Ping Pong Table, One Foosball table
  
• Various assortment of various signs + posters
• One small disco ball
• One blacklight
• One very old vacuum cleaner
• One very old microwave

What we NEED is a pretty hefty list.

• TVs, preferably large (>= 27")
• Fridges (small fridges only)
• Games + game systems (not necessarily current - Sega varieties, original Nintendo, Atari are all fine)
• Furniture (Bookshelves are of high value, but tables are also quite wonderful, as well as couches and chairs - MUST be fluffy/comfy)
• Posters (movie posters, anything interesting/amusing that's clean - e.g. not pron)
• Colorful/flashy things (Christmas lights are great, but lava lamps, anything that doesn't make noise and isn't annoying)

Those are the basics we need to make it go from really makeshift to an actual worthwhile place to spend many hours of time. As is, it's nice, but it's not comfortable enough to spend hours upon hours in. Part of this is mere cleanliness - I still need to add some bugproofing measures, and clean it up some more, but that's not a lot. The walls are mostly barren and the corners are filled with boxes and fiberglass.

If we ever get all of the aforementioned stuff, there's still more to do to improve things. I highly doubt any of the following will happen, but it's nice to think about them.

• Floor-to-floor carpeting. I don't know how we'd do this, but the wood in there is not nice. We've got rugs, but rugs are only good to an extent.
• Pool table. Pool is infinitely superior to Foosball and Pingpong.
• Paint the walls. Drywall is the ugly.
• Cable TV and/or Internet connectivity. Need I say more?

If you think of more stuff that is WITHIN REASON, please do let me know. A lot of this is gonna have to come from garage sales, most certainly always second-hand. If you buy something for this, I'm not gonna reimburse you. If you bring me something, remember that this is intended for use by multiple people, and accidents happen. Nothing's gonna get stolen (the last robbery in my neighborhood was like 20 years ago), and as I improve the attic, it's gonna get more well established (and therefore safer). DON'T just show up at my house with large crap. Tell me first. Organization ftw.

Anyways, if none of you feel like doing anything, that's fine. I'm just throwing this out there. We'll see what happens.

I'm on the verge of finishing this school year, and by that, of course, I mean my English portfolio.

I hate writing reflections. I do them occasionally here, except they're on things that matter. I honestly could not care less about which piece of writing I think is best, and I hate having to go through the process of explaining that I learned absolutely nothing this year. It's a complicated explanation, one that requires a complex series of sub-explanations to ensure that I'm not insulting the teacher, but still getting the point across that I've done less in the past two years than I did my in my freshman year, which was a freaking semester course.

The results are almost in: I'm guaranteed at least one F this quarter (in English - I never handed in that paper I was always talking about). I don't even want to care, I just want to move on. I just hope they don't pull me out of AP Lang (I got in, btw) because of this. The test for that was way fun.

Unrelated: I've been running a lot recently, generally about 2 or 3 miles a night. It's a lot of fun running with music, but it's starting to hurt because my shoes are so bad (they're like two years old, at least). I've got the money for new clothes and whatnot (and man do I need them), I just have to get to the store. Salvation Army FTW!

I'm going to make a pseudo-prediction of my SAT scores, based on how well I think I did. I'm really hoping I did as well as I think I did, because that test was long. Really, really long.

Reading: 725-760
Writing: 735-775
Math: 625-650
Essay: 9

I only omitted three or four questions, all of those being math. I managed to fully finish each section, so I didn't have to omit any on account of not having enough time. The essay wasn't as hard as I expected it to be, but it came out a lot more disorganized than I wanted it to be - I had the right ideas, but it lacked drive/purpose. We'll see how much they care in the two minutes they grade the thing. Scores come out June 26, so I've got a while to wait. I sent scores to CMU, RPI, and IC. Honestly, I don't know if I want to go to any of those - CMU is probably out of my grade range, RPI might be cool, and IC has the benefit of being free (parental employee benefits ftw), but I don't want to stay in Ithaca. Basically I just sent them out because it's something you're supposed to do, I guess.

I added some new pictures that I took on Saturday, some of which I like, but they're generally the same as the others. I handed in this set of pictures for my travel project, along with a reflection on the pictures and the general focus of them. I felt okay about it, although she didn't seem super happy about having to download each one of them at a time (apparantly she'd not seen a .rar before, which I should have accounted for). Oh well.

Other stuff - I finished Kare Kano and Fruits Basket, and started on Fushugi Yuugi. Both Kare Kano and Fruits Basket were good, and Fushugi Yuugi seems alright. Ranma's still downloading, along with season 5 of 24, which will be followed by the episodes of Lost that I haven't seen (about half of season 2).

And now, a shower.

I've been out and about taking pictures. Here are my results so far, placed onto Flickr. Not all of my shots would fit onto Flickr, and they have, of course, been massively downsized, so I've got the originals and the extras. Pre-warning: other people are seeing the Flickr too. Relatives, parents, people that you would do well not leave...shall we say, questionable comments around. Keep comments clean, for my sake.

Flickr, ftw.

The ones that aren't on Flickr, raw form.

All pictures, raw form.

This stuff is fun.