Distemper

I guess I'll just throw in a post with some links to my user-created Sporcle quizzes. I've placed a badge linking to the site in the Links section. In short, Sporcle is a site with a bunch of fun trivia quizzes on many topics. Popular ones include:
Countries of the World
NFL Teams
The Simpsons Characters
Periodic Table
Commonest English Words

They enabled the creation of user-made quizzes sometime around September last year. It doesn't have the full capabilities as some published quizzes, but a lot of pretty impressive and creative quizzes have already been made thus far by various users. Ones that are popular enough or really novel may get published by Sporcle as an official quiz.

I am already rather humbled that any of my quizzes managed to garner some level of popularity, but I'm not sure if any of them will be published. The most well-accepted ones so far are:

Shape-Describing Words
How would you describe in a single word something shaped like a cross, or a star? This quiz might help... Definite plus if you know some Latin or Greek vocab, but there are a lot of words whose meanings can easily be inferred.

Look-Alikes: Hidden Objects [pic]
I took a picture from the book Look-Alikes by Joan Steiner (amazingly creative, I read it when I was younger and loved it) and asked you to identify all the everyday objects Steiner used to create the picture. She uses objects in a way such that they "look alike" to something else, such as using slices of bread to create a sidewalk or a lemon juicer to look like a spinning carnival ride, all rather convincingly.

Pokémon Trainer Classes (Gen I)
Pokémon Trainer Classes (Gen II)
Hopefully if you played Pokémon Red/Blue/Yellow back in the day, or even the Gold/Silver/Crystal versions, this might give you a nice nostalgic blast. Can you remember all those annoying trainers from the game who stop you in your tracks, walk up to you to say something completely non-sequitur, and then challenge you to Pokémon battles?

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Here are also some of my other quizzes. There is a bias on Pokemon-based quizzes since those were mostly the ones I started making first before branching out to other topics. I do have some more pending release, like "Accidental Inventions/Discoveries" which I'll release soon...

Classical Mythology Lovers
Identify the lovers from famous classical mythology couples. For example, the woman whose face "launched a thousand ships"...?

Common Drug Delivery Forms
You'll find examples of all of these around the local pharmacy or hospital somewhere. What common methods exist to deliver medicine/drugs into the body?

Pocky & Pretz Flavors
If only I was able to try all of these flavours...Mmm Pocky.

Pokémon by Cry I
Pokémon by Cry II
This was an interesting idea to put together. Can you identify the Pokémon based on the sound they make in the game? Too bad it's not what they say in the anime, since that would make the quiz rather easy. ;)

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And now, all the really niche quizzes/rest of the many Pokémon quizzes.

Non-Evolving Pokémon
These Pokémon defy the laws of evolution. Then again, so do the ones that do evolve since individuals do not evolve. Oh well.

Pokémon Supporting Characters (Game)
No single quiz would be able to encompass all those supporting characters from the anime, so I compromised with supporting characters from the games.

Pokémon Without Footprints
Pokémon by Footprint
Ever wondered what it's like to be a Pokémon forensic podiatrist? ...Me neither. Yet these quizzes exist!

Foreign Pokémon Names
It seems English Charmanders say "Charmander!" while French Charmanders say "Salamèche!". Weird.

Digimon Partners (anime)
Strange that all the world-dominating digital supervillains always seem to show up at Japan first.

Word Disassociation Lyrics
This quiz is flouncy, panicky redundant.

HyperText Mark-Up Language

I dug up this really old book in my bookshelf called "You Can Surf the Net!" by Marc Gascoigne. It's from way back in 1995, and I don't remember how I got this book, and I'm not sure how much of it I read. I have a feeling it was from one of those bookorders from primary school.

There's a section called "It's the TLAs" which descibes the TLAs - "Three Letter Acronyms". Basically they're acronyms used while chatting, supposedly, although I'm not sure why they used to be called TLAs since most of them are not three letters (the author mentions this too). It may just seem funny because the list was published so long ago and just seems silly today. Some of them seem too contrived to ever really work. It's believable that the more complex acronyms could have been used occasionally but were simply done away with due to their rarity and length. Most likely, the list is just the author's suggestions of possible acronyms that could be used on the internet (in 1995).

AFAICT --------- As far as I can tell
AFK ------------ Away from my keyboard
B4 ------------- Before
BAK ------------ Back at my keyboard
BCNU ----------- Be seeing you
BFN ------------ Bye for now
BRB ------------ Be right back
BSF ------------ But seriously, folks...
BTDT ----------- Been there done that
BTW ------------ By the way
CUL8R ---------- See you later
DYJHIW --------- Don't you just hate it when...
EOF ------------ End of file
FAQ ------------ Frequently asked questions
FOAF ----------- Friend of a friend
FOC ------------ Free of charge
FWIW ----------- For what it's worth
FYI ------------ For your information
GAL ------------ Get a life
GIGO ----------- Garbage in, garbage out
HHOJ ----------- Ha ha, only joking
HHOS ----------- Ha ha, only being serious
IAE ------------ In any event
IMHO ----------- In my humble opinion
IMNSHO --------- In my not so humble opinion
IMO ------------ In my opinion
IOW ------------ In other words
IRL ------------ In real life
ISTM ----------- It seems to me
ISTR ----------- I seem to remember...
ITRW ----------- In the real world
IYSWIM --------- If you see what I mean
JAM ------------ Just a minute
L8R ------------ Later
LMHO ----------- Laughed my head off
LOL ------------ Laughs out loud
MUG ------------ Multi-user game
NALOPKT -------- Not a lot of people know that
NBD ------------ No big deal
NRN ------------ No reply necessary
OIC ------------ Oh, I see
OMG ------------ Oh my god!
OTOH ----------- On the other hand
OTL ------------ Out to lunch
OTT ------------ Over the top
RFC ------------ Request for comments
ROFL ----------- Rolls on the floor laughing
RSN ------------ Real soon now
RTFAQ ---------- Read the FAQ file
RTFM ----------- Read the manual (it seems a word is missing... :P)
SITD ----------- Still in the dark
SYL ------------ See you later
TCB ------------ The trouble came back!
TDM ------------ Too darn many
TIA ------------ Thanks in advance
TTFN ----------- Ta-ta for now
TTYL ----------- Talk to you later
TVM ------------ Thank you very much
VR ------------- Virtual reality
WRT ------------ With regard to
WYSIWYG -------- What you see is what you get
YCT ------------ Your comment to
YHM ------------ You have mail
YMBJ ----------- You must be joking
YMMV ----------- Your mileage may vary

For even more acronym goodness, try these Sporcle quizzes:
Common Chat Acronyms
Obscure Chat Acronyms (A-D)
Computer Acronyms

Sockets in the socket pool

One of the above is real and the other is in fact a candy dispenser. I thought it was pretty good for simply being an imitation toy, down to having the removable battery cover. In fact, you press the B button down in order to shoot the candy out from the front of the remote.

Last week I had my three wisdom teeth removed (I apparently don't have a fourth wisdom tooth) and it seems I had a lucky recovery because I didn't experience the massive swelling and pain that a lot of people get. It meant that I didn't need to take any of those painkillers prescribed. Aside from the disgusting taste left by the stitches in the wound the experience wasn't bad at all.

The recent propane blast was a bit unsettling to me due to its magnitude and having been awake at the time to feel and hear it. It's good that very few got injured in the incident. It served as a wake-up call to the fact that there was a volatile storage facility surrounded by residential areas. This wouldn't have happened in SimCity, where if you build residential and commercial areas too close to industrial areas, even if you were only trying to give them power and water, the citizens will only give the illusion of moving in but then quickly disappear in droves leaving blackened, rotting plots of land behind that will never recover again no matter what you do even if you tried moving the factories away man I was bad at SimCity.

When I visited the Toronto Zoo this summer the butterflies were actually out in the Indo-Malaya Pavillion so it was interesting to see them flying around everywhere so closely you.

While cleaning boxes of old schoolwork I found that poem I did from Gr.12, which reminded me of the awesome Doppelganger poem:

Self-Reflection

I woke up from my dream
at last.
The world still seemed an illusion.
Surrounded by tunnels,
the lobby was silent and still.
I was almost unnerved.
The seated black-cloaked man
pointed towards
a symbol above a door.
I went deeper,
but it wasn’t my preference.
A creature pointed to a green door.
I ignored it
and wanted to go another way, so
I shouted,
but a force drove me into the door.
I was uncertain,
walking deeper into the dark.
I was compelled to turn back but kept
moving to a random direction.
I ran
at last of my own will,
and there a great entity
was guarding something.
I realized that I

had found my portal.

I realized that I
was guarding something.
And there, a great entity,
at last of my own will,
I ran,
moving to a random direction.
I was compelled to turn back but kept
walking deeper into the dark.
I was uncertain,
but a force drove me into the door.
I shouted,
and wanted to go another way, so,
I ignored it.
A creature pointed to a green door,
but it wasn’t my preference.
I went deeper.
A symbol above a door
pointed towards
the seated black-cloaked man.
I was almost unnerved.
The lobby was silent and still
surrounded by tunnels.
The world still seemed an illusion.
At last,
I woke up from my dream.

Gastroenteritis

The book Mistakes That Worked outlines the stories behind well-known inventions that were created or named by accident, such as with Coca-Cola and penicillin. It has a section on Silly Putty, which is way more versatile than I thought:

It stretches. It bounces. When whacked with a hammer, it shatters. If it is pressed against newspaper comics, it will pick up the imprint. Silly Putty is truly amazing. It is now over forty years old, and was one of the first "fad" toys in America.

It has been used by athletes to strengthen their hand and forearm muscles. It can level the leg of a wiggly table or clean typewriter keys. It removes lint from clothes and animal hair from furniture.

The astronauts on the Apollo 8 spacecraft played with Silly Putty when they got bored, and they used it to keep tools from floating around after they left the Earth's gravity.

It was used by the Columbus Zoo in Ohio in 1981 to take hand and foot prints of gorillas.
- Mistakes That Worked

On another note, I can't believe I was incorrectly saying it as "just desserts" up to now.

COX

The following was inspired by those poems I saw while taking the TTC.

Fragments

.......Poetry is
............taking English sentences and
.breaking them into
....................fragments

Myriad

This year's edition, Guiness World Records 2008, had this to say about the font used in the book:

This year's edition is set in Myriad Pro, a beautifully proportioned and highly readable humanist sans serif typeface designed in the early 1990s by Robert Slimbach and Carol Twombly (both USA). Humanist fonts are those that embody the cleaness and purity of a modern, "grotesque" typeface with the natural, organic feel of hand-drawn letters; sans serif refers to the lack of serifs or flourishes - such as the small feet on a serified n or i - common to the "roman" typefaces.

That was...s-so beautiful. *sheds a tear*

Although admittedly I didn't know that bit about the sans serif.

I searched for "Myriad Pro" and it turns out that for $35 each you can choose from a whole myriad of styles of Myriad Pro, such as: Regular, Condensed, SemiCondensed, and SemiExtended, not including all the Bold, Black, Italic, Light, and SemiBold variations.

The website also adds:

Myriad also has subtle geometric shaping and monotone color, balanced by varying letter widths and open counter shapes. A readable and friendly face, Myriad works well for both text and display typography. A headline font and the playful "sketch" and "tilt" versions add versatility.

This is clearly the BEST FONT EVER.

I think I haven't had enough exposure to the world of "professional font-making".

This post is the bom

Excerpt obtained from Eats, Shoots & Leaves by Lynne Truss about Shaw's recommendation to remove the second 'b' in 'bomb':

I can scribble the word "bomb" barely legibly 18 times in one minute and "bom" 24 times, saving 25 per cent per minute by dropping the superfluous b. In the British Commonwealth, on which the sun never sets, and in the United States of North America, there are always millions of people continually writing, writing, writing... Those who are writing are losing time at the rate of 131,400 X x per annum...
George Bernard Shaw on Language, 1965

And this was in 1965. Can you even imagine how much time has been lost since then? (Apparently 131,400 X x...) Although, it does seem to take less time to type 'b' than to write it, so maybe our losses have been alleviated...

Edit: Changed the "About" section slightly.

Press any button to begin, n00b! LOL OMG

Here -> Fabulous -> Calgarian* -> Here

* - Actually from Banff.

I arrived back in Toronto on Friday morning. Seeing as I'm unable to properly put together and organize a brief yet coherent summary of the trip, I'll give you random tidbits of it.

- My chance of getting lung cancer has probably increased 60% thanks to the casinos.

- NEVER bring put anything fragile into the Fragile cargo of Air Canada. While I was "deplaning" into Toronto I watched from inside the plane as our "fragile" box was jerked from the conveyor belt and tossed unceremoniously into the cargo trailer, where it landed on its side, and remained on its side even when we went to pick it up. Luckily the only casualties were a few slightly smushed cakes and muffins.

- And speaking of food, Vegas had lots of it. (The first pic was from Bellagio's buffet.) I was quite happy.





-Got some awesome books, including (finally): Eats, Shoots and Leaves. I even visited the Calgary Public Library, which has an unnecessarily phallic logo.

- I also picked up this pretty bismuth sculpture from Banff. You can't really see its true colour due to the orange light from the camera, but it's pretty and metallic.



- "The weather in Toronto is currently about twenty-two degrees, with a flu - Excuse me, I meant a few clouds." - Flight Attendant

Finally, a clip from one of Bellagio's fountain shows. It was really amazing, but we only watched two of them before we dashed off for some air conditioning to brush off the forty degrees celcius sweat. Although I heard it was pretty hot in Toronto too.



That's all I care to post about right now.

And also:

Unnecessary Censorship

Baby Got Bible

!Xú

The Longest Word in...

Dutch - kindercarnavalsoptochtvoorbereidingswerkzaamheden (49) - meaning 'preparation activities for a children's carnival procession'

Danish - speciallægepraksisplanlægningsstabiliseringsperiode (51) - meaning 'the stabilization period of the planning of medical specialists' practices'

Finnish - lentokonesuihkuturbiinimoottoriapumekaanikkoaliupseerioppilas (61) - meaning 'apprentice corporal, working as assistant mechanic in charge of airplane turbine engines'

Swedish - nordöstersjökustartilleriflygspaningssimulatoranläggningsmateriel-underhållsuppföljningssystemdiskussionsinläggsförberedelse-arbeten (130) - meaning 'preparatory work on the contribution to the discussion on the maintaining system of support of the material of the aviation survey device within the northeast part of the coast artillery of the Baltic'

Way to go you crazy Scandinavian languages, for creating the most contrived and useless words ever. If it was only to get into the record books, you win. Based on their definitions, I don't know if these "words" should even deserve to be called "words". >_>

A Fistful of B'DaBalls

Traditional Chinese Nursery Rhymes

If You Steal a Needle

If you steal a needle
Or steal a thread,
A pimple will grow
Upon your head.
If you steal a dog
Or steal a cat,
A pimple will grow
Beneath your hat.

Little Cow

This little cow eats grass,
This little cow eats hay,
This little cow drinks water,
This little cow runs away,
This little cow does nothing,
Except lie down all day.
We'll whip her.

Funky

Thursday is Doomsday. Doooom.
At least now I only have a Chapter 10+11 Chemistry Unit test rather than a Chapter 9+10+11 Unit Test. Along with the Bio Unit test, which COULD have been today, but noooooo making a test later will obviously mean that the questions are gonna be THAT much easier. So instead it was opted to place the Bio Unit Test on the same day as the Bio Competition. Good job.

A Kent Tantrum

As you can clearly see, King Lear is nothing without dinosaurs.

Carbonade

The Camel Dances

The camel had her heart set on becoming a ballet dancer.
"To make every movement a thing of grace and beauty," said the Camel. "That is my one and only desire."

Again and again she practiced her pirouettes, her releves, and her arabesques. She repeated the five basic positions a hundred times each day. She worked for long months under the hot desert sun. Her feet were blistered, and her body ached with fatigue, but not once did she think of stopping.

At last the Camel said, "Now I am a dancer." She announced a recital and danced before an invited group of camel friends and critics. When her dance was over, she made a deep bow.

There was no applause.

"I must tell you frankly," said a member of the audience, "as a critic and a spokesman for this group, that you are lumpy and humpy. You are baggy and bumpy. You are, like the rest of us, simply a camel. You are not and never will be a ballet dancer!" Chuckling and laughing, the audience moved away across the sand.

"How very wrong they are!" said the Camel. "I have worked hard. There can be no doubt that I am a splendid dancer. I will dance and dance just for myself."

That is what she did. It gave her many years of pleasure.

__________________________________________

Satisfaction will come to those who please themselves

- Fables by Arnold Lobel

Er, how did you spell it again?

From dictionary.com:

No entry found for megacompany.

Did you mean car company?

Suggestions:
car company
moss campion
buckjumping
ski jumping
moo goo gai pan

Passion of the Tryst

The unclothed man you see was actually doing some serious RP-ing in the game. As in, role-playing the role of Mr. Honey-Tongued. He was using strange Victorian vocab and speaking style and putting the charm on the white dressed lady you see, who was obviously so amused she just had to play along. When she finally shook him off he too departed with a resounding, "Good bye, my sweet love."

Me plays the violin sadly.

BTW appearantly "tryst" is pronounced "trist", although it was a result for a rhyme of Christ. The internet fails me!

Sai Kick

Wow, silly projects.

So I recently found out the English ISP proposals were due this week, and so I decided to start finding books yesterday at 9pm. Luckily, something with a possibly workable theme came up so I wrote them down and snagged from the library today snazzy copies of Hunting Fear by Kay Hooper and Visions in Death by J.D. Robb. Reading the first chapters of both makes me more confident that they're both bearable books to read.

From what I can tell, Visions In Death is the rebel-with-no-real-cause-protagonist type book. I've named the protagonist, Lieutenant Eve, the Testostogen Lady, whom is the stereotypical: "Grrr me no like green dress hate being public with it want kill criminals now." Hunting Fear on the other hand is the intense gruesome crime story, with things like: "Her eye sockets pierced into my head, and from their pitch black centres a gharlish shadow dripped slowly and thickly down her face."

Also I was flipping to some random page near the end of Visions in Death to see how many pages it had, unaware it had a few pages at the end reserved for a preview of the next installment in the series. So the first thing I see on page 364 is:

"You and Mr. Speegal had a relationship. An intimate relationship."
"We fucked like rabbits all summer."

I demand the same calibre of writing in the real parts of the book.

Sooooo we'll see how they turn out.

He finds no door, only windows. Small windows.

School hurts real bad. University application pours salt all over open wounds.

I will not eat pickles for a long time. Not that I usually do anyway.

I really need to get going on my ISP proposal.

Only thing to look forward to is VGL in November.

Harry Potter + Substance Abuse?

Exerpts from two versions of Harry Potter: HBP.

American: "...look," said Fred, pointing at a number of weird-looking black horn-type objects that were indeed attempting to scurry out of sight.

British: "...look," said Fred, pointing at a number of weird-looking black hooter-type objects that were indeed attempting to scurry out of sight.


American: ...many flourishing potted plants in brass containers.

British: ...many flourishing pot plants in brass containers.

Deflection

Oh noes, it's my rant about first days of school post.

Chemistry - I don't know any anyone in my class, Mrs. Hubbell is pregnant, and we got some 50 mark review homework. Oh dear.

Biology - Mr. Jamieson is cool, loves biology and has a cool website. Yay.

Func and Calc - Most of my class seems rather pacified by math, Ms. Oliver is nice, but normal and bland, and we got a bit of factoring review homework. Eeeh.

English - The only class on Day One to break the dreariness of science and math. Mrs. Corry is still very good, and no homework. :o

Geo and Discreet - Mrs. Chow is really crazy, and we had a DEAR session. Although, this is probably going to be the most challenging course.

Comp Sci - Oh noes, to be dropped!

AP Physics - I did not sign up for this, but was put here anyway to keep the class running. Consequently my name in the school database has been labeled "tool". I'll have to hestiantly do my chapter of homework, and ignore the suggested ones...But it is hilarious that we have three textbooks.

Classical Civ - Sweltering, stuffy classroom + split with Gr 3 Latin = Classical Civ is hot.

Poem'd

Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.
Susie Asado.
Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet tea.
Susie Asado.
Susie Asado which is a told tray sure.
A lean on the shoe this means slips slips hers.
When the ancient light grey is clean it is yellow,
it is a silver seller.

Excerpt from Susie Asado - Gertrude Stein

...and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes
and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower
and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him
down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes
and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

Excerpt from Ulysses - James Joyce

Rotary gyrator

Meet the world's longest palindromic sentence.

Also, this has got to be the best poem in the world.

Doppelganger - James A. Lindon

Entering the lonely house with my wife
I saw him for the first time
Peering furtively from behind a bush --
Blackness that moved,
A shape amid the shadows,
A momentary glimpse of gleaming eyes
Revealed in the ragged moon.
A closer look (he seemed to turn) might have
Put him to flight forever --
I dared not
(For reasons that I failed to understand),
Though I knew I should act at once.

I puzzled over it, hiding alone,
Watching the woman as she neared the gate.
He came, and I saw him crouching
Night after night.
Night after night
He came, and I saw him crouching,
Watching the woman as she neared the gate.

I puzzled over it, hiding alone --
Though I knew I should act at once,
For reasons that I failed to understand
I dared not
Put him to flight forever.

A closer look (he seemed to turn) might have
Revealed in the ragged moon.
A momentary glimpse of gleaming eyes
A shape amid the shadows,
Blackness that moved.

Peering furtively from behind a bush,
I saw him for the first time,
Entering the lonely house with my wife.