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Would you, at any time, off the top of your head, know how many seconds there are in a year? Even if you had just read it off of something a few minutes before. Even if I told you there are 31,536,000 seconds in a year, and you read that, would you be able to tell me once you turned your head away from the screen?

What if one minute was equal to 100 seconds, one hour 100 minutes, one day 100 hours (maybe week at that point), and one year equal to 100 days? Would you be able to tell me off the top of your head then? Maybe after thinking about it for a few seconds? Would you be able to hear me tell you it's one million seconds, and then tell me again when I ask you later?

How many teaspoons are in a gallon? I could probably tell you if I bothered to look up a conversion on the net, but the fact that such is required seems odd to me. How many inches are in a yard? After all this, you probably had to think about it for a moment, although normally you might be able to tell me right away that it's 36 inches (not 37). How many inches are in a mile? Most people couldn't even tell me how many feet are in a mile. So you know, it's 63,360 and 5,280 respectively.

Why hasn't the USA adopted the metric system? It seems like everyone else has. I'm not saying we should jump on the bandwagon, but the metric system is an obviously superior system. It might take some time to get used to, but it'll work out. I guess the best way to start doing this is to just start using it in businesses and at home. Really, just start using it, it will eventually take over. Maybe not during our lifetime, but eventually. Do it for the good of mankind. Barring that, do it because it confuses mundanes.

Okay, so I'll tell this story exactly as I just told it to one of my co-workers. It's not a particularly interesting story, but here it goes.

Last night shortly after dinner, I was up in my room, and I thought "I'll just lie down for five minutes. Not going to fall asleep, just going to lie down." So I wake up at 9:30, and my leg's hanging over the side of my bed, lost all feeling in it. I get up, and it's one of the most painful experiences I've ever had in my right leg. I'm limping around my room, can't sit down.

So I say "Screw it, I'm going to bed." I get ready and go to bed. I think I feel asleep rather quickly. I woke up at about 2:00am, and I said "I'm not getting out of bed, I'm going back to sleep." So I get up at 2:30 and say "Fuck it, I'm going to play Warcraft." I'm not particularly fond of this game, but I've been playing it a lot recently. So I go back to bed around 5:00, probably fell asleep around 6:00.

Brian: 0 Insomnia: Who the fuck's counting?

You remember that old song by Alanis Morissette called "Ironic"? There was this one line in that song that went "It's a free ride when you've already paid." Short of that, nothing described in the song was actual irony. Even that line is pushing it (if you interpret it differently, it's not ironic). If the guy got on the plane thinking plane's were the safest things in the world, then it would have been ironic. An great example of irony is the Titanic. Deemed unsinkable then sunk on it's maiden voyage. That's irony.

I remember when all the Mansonites starting claiming they were goth. They weren't, but they thought they were. Most of the real goths, who were cool, quit being goths because of all the wannabes running around. Suddenly being goth was lame. Moshing is another thing that was ruined by mass misinformation. You can't mosh at a Soul Assylum concert, I don't care what they're playing.

"Man, I had the scariest dream last night," Mark said. No one had any real intention of asking him to talk about it, so he did on his own. "Let me tell you about it. I was on a bed, and there was this really hot chick, and she was just all over me. She was all like `Yeah, baby, do it to me,' and I was all like, `Hell yeah.' And then she got up on the bed and straddled me. It was great."

There was a moment of silence. Finally someone asked "So... what happened next?"

"I woke up," Mark replied.

The person, now confused, asked, "How is that scary?"

"Well, when I woke up, I was driving."

I had to post something today to appease all the post junkies out there, the people who visit my site every day expecting a post of some sort (all 0 of you). Well, this is it. I have lots of ideas for posts, but I can't think of any and it's getting late in the day.

Something is coming. It's a surprise.

I've recently (about two weeks ago) watched the first episode of the new live action series "You're Under Arrest". This is, of course, based on the successful manga/anime by Kousuke Fujishima of the same name. For some reason, only a few issues of the manga were translated into English, despite it being one of my favorite comics (I can't even find fan translations). The anime is being released on DVD either now or sometime in the distant future in the USA. Despite it being one of my favorite animes, I am not buying it because it's being released by Animeigo, whom I have a grudge against. Kousuke Fujishima also wrote Aa! Megami-sama (Oh! My Goddess) and eX-Driver.

Back to the subject at hand, the live-action show. I wasn't impressed. I would go as far to say I didn't really like it. The portrayal of Miyuki was way off, and Natsumi just seemed a shadow of the one I know. I'm not at all upset about the poor portrayal of Ken, though, because he's annoying, so the more confident version of him in the live-action was a bit welcome, although it didn't fit very well with his bashfulness toward Miyuki. That was something I could overlook. The chief I know from the anime was absent, and replaced with this really uptight old woman who's always angry about something. I like the chief from the anime. I don't think any of the characters from the shop are going to make an appearance. Well, they may be just starting from the beginning, in which case the shop in question hasn't opened yet.

The plotline wasn't all the great, either. Girl's getting bullied in school. This isn't GTO, so they shouldn't use GTO plotlines. Girl's getting bullied because she badmouthed everyone at school in emails to this guy, that guy put her emails on a forum, so everyone read about how she hated them all. So, Miyuki and Natsumi track the guy down, beat him up, and then he gets arrested for drug-dealing. Right. Well, the cameo by Ian Thorpe at the end was really cool.

Ultimately, the show's not worth watching.

I think the obvious choice is Azumanga Daioh. Just about anyone who's seen it probably agrees with me. It's probably the funniest anime I've ever seen. Even the name is funny, if you bother to learn the story behind it.

The stars shifted back and forth across her sight as her head swayed with the wind and the rhythm of the ocean waves. The stage danced with her in steps matching hers. There was a melody draping itself across the night air, with an ambience of merriment. She danced alone, but all shared in the moment.

The grasses dance in their own manner, shifting back and forth but never abandoning their spot. They are the audience that provides the applause. The passing birds suspend their animation to draw a glance.

Her hair follows her lead, a dance of water upon the air, chasing but never reaching. Her dress reels around her legs, displaced a moment out of time. Her countanance proffers affection that could calm the raging ocean tides. The moonlight contours her elegant figure, tracing it on the sands beside her.

Alone she danced, as if the divine were her companions. For certainly they were, as the shore is but a guise... and the stars shimmered like eyes.


I spent a bit of time over at Webster.com learning new words in their thesaurus. There's no link as it might appear distracting. I've been listening to the end song from Niea Under 7 (no link, same reason), titled "Venus and a Little God". It's a nice, relaxing tune, with good lyrics (even if they are in Japanese), which inspired the whatever-you-call-it you've just read. Was a bitch to find it, though. For some reason, it's not on the soundtrack. Took me all weekend. I also ended up getting this Azumanga Daioh Beach Volleyball game, which is sure to be as wacked out and pointless as the snowball game was, which I why I must play it.

I had this section in italics, but it hurts my eyes to read it, so I changed it back.

I'm watching a new show called "Friends". Well, I don't know how new it is, but I just downloaded and watched the first episode, which is only possibly a fansub. I'm really confused on this issue, actually. I'll explain why.

This isn't the "Friends" you know from NBC whatever nights it's on. David Schwimmer and Jennifer Anniston (fuck spelling) are not in this show. I think that chick from Strawberry on the Shortcake is, though. Looks, sounds, kind of acts like her. Older, though. Makes me think the show is new. No, this show is made in south-east Asia. I don't know what country is making the show, if it is even just one country.

Now, I'll tell you in what blew my mind about this show. First, it takes place in three places. It starts off in Hong Kong, but later takes place in both Korea and Japan. Second, there are multiple languages spoken.

Let me elaborate on this multiple language thing. There are two main characters, a male and female. The male is Korean, and only speaks Korean and bad English. The female is Japanese, and only speaks Japanese and really bad English. So, throughout their ordeals in Hong Kong together, they talk to each other in their own languages, but only understand each other when they try to speak English. Mind you, neither one is all that good with English. Also, when the cops arrest the guy, they don't speak Korean or Japanese. I think it was Mandarin (Chinese). Well, I guess whatever they speak in Hong Kong is what it was. I know they didn't speak Korean or Japanese because the two main characters had to try to speak to them in English.

Now, I don't know who the target audience was. When they're speaking in non-English, there's English subitles, but no other subtitles. When they are speaking English, there's Chinese subtitles. There are no other subtitles. This is why I don't know if it was fansubbed or not. And this wasn't some low-budget show. It was actually well done, which is rare for south-east asian shows. But who speaks Japanese and Korean? That doesn't seem like a wide audience to me. It was probably shown in both countries with appropriate subtitles, then whoever subtitled it in English actually had the rights to it and got to add their own subtitles to the raw. I think they show these shows in Hawaii.

Entire scenese go by in just Korean and just Japanese. I, of course, understood everything said, because I can read the subtitles. Sometimes you forget that they don't understand each other.

Well, all that aside, it was still a really cool show. It was actually funnier than NBC's "Friends", which I'm not all that fond of anymore. It was certianly more intelligent. Another nice departure was that it mostly took place outside. You don't get that on TV a lot anymore. Everything's always inside. Some sitcoms only have three rooms.

I can't wait to see episode 2. Back to IRC with me.

Yesterday, the last time I ate was around 1:00pm. I had a big lunch. The rest of the day, I went without food. So I finally get home about 20 minutes ago, kind of hungry. I put a piece of lasagna in the microwave, which takes about 5 minutes, so I make some lemonade to go with it. Then, I finally sit down and begin feasting on the leftover lasagna. About a third of the way through, I have the pleasant experience of biting through my fucking tongue.

The tongue is a fun part of the body to injure, because of the ever-presence of saliva, which makes it very difficult for the blood to clot. Even as I write this, I'm trying to get it to stop bleeding. It's not gushing out or anything, it's a rather minor injury, so it just slowly trickles out underneath a layer of saliva. But it just doesn't stop. Blood doesn't clot very easily when not exposed to air. I've found that it's very difficult to keep your tongue dry, and even when you do, the skin of your tongue is designed to be wet all the time, so if it gets too dry, it can crack. Stack on top of this the fact that every time you have to swallow (I can still taste the lasagna, and still being hungry, my mouth is watering), the tip of your tongue rubs up against the back of your teeth. With such an injury to that specific area, this becomes an unpleasant exerience.

If God really does exist, he needs to fix a few bugs in the human body. Chances are he's like Microsoft. While he knows there are bugs with his design, he's not going to ever fix them, just keep releasing slight modifications to throw us off.

It seems to have stopped. Stings like Hell, though.

It was a rainy day when she left. I don't remember the rain so much as the fog that faded her from my view as she walked away. The thing about fog is that, once you're alone, it's a lot like darkness, blocking your view of things far away, leaving you to your thoughts. Alone in the fog, you begin to dwell on anything that occupies your mind. At that time, only one thing occupied my mind: her.

I knew it wasn't going to be a good day when I woke up that morning. It's a rare thing to have fog and rain together. It was more as if the rain clouds had simply descended upon us, blocking out the sun and surroundings. Even with her still by me, I felt lonely. I've heard of loneliness described as a dependance on absent people, but if that were true, would we sacrifice so much of ourselves for those people? Perhaps I've simply misunderstood what kind of dependance they speak of. It's unimportant, really. I know the feeling, and I felt it then.

As I sat there on the steps to my door, soaking in the rain and fog, the morning turned into afternoon, then evening, and finally night, until it was grey again the next day. When I finally moved inside, I looked at the clock. It was still the same morning. How so much time passed without actually passing I cannot understand. That's the thing about darkness. It blocks your perception of your surroundings. Loneliness is like darkness.

The house sat still as it always has. The rooms already felt cold as I passed through them. There are so many rooms in my house, enough rooms for an entire family. Some of the rooms are not even furnished yet. I don't think they will be for quite some time. No one lives in those rooms. I don't need them. I wonder if anyone ever will. Perhaps I should start taking in boarders. Maybe then the rooms wouldn't be so cold any longer. The thermostat says 75°. Maybe it's broken.

My chair didn't feel the same. I thought it was just the humidity from the rain and fog, but it still doesn't feel the same. Vinyl always feels cold when the air is cold. Maybe I just never noticed it before. Maybe I had just gotten used to it, and I'm being overly sensitive today. Maybe blue vinyl just looks cold.

I'm thinking about writing another short story. Not about all this nonsense, I was just trying to paint an emotion with words. Whether or not I've done so successfully depends on the individual reader. I should write another short story. Perhaps this emotion will pass.

"Men are so arrogant," she said angrily, her voice bordering yelling. "You think you're so great just because you have a penis!"

I looked deep into her eyes and smiled. "Two heads are better than one."

My son never does anything. He just stays in his room playing video games. He doesn't get out much. When he does go out, it's always for more gaming. It's like, he doesn't want to do anything else. He stays up late playing video games, then is always tired in the mornings.

Yesterday, I asked him "Why don't you go out and do normal activities like other boys your age?"

He replied, "Like what?"

To which I suggested "You could join a club, or go outside..."

He interrupted me. "Go outside and do what? Just walk around? That doesn't seem very interesting. And what clubs would I join? There's no gaming clubs at my school. There's a math club. If you ever want to meet a bunch of really boring people, you should visit the math club."

"There's more to life than video games," I said. "What do other boys your age do?"

"Play football or basketball or watch TV. I don't like sports and I need something more interactive than just zoning out and watching TV. Besides, football and basketball are both games, so basically I've just combined both their activities into one and added the use of the brain that is the sole activity of the math club."

"Why don't you try dating girls?" I asked.

"I've got porn on the computer, and masturbation is more conventient and less risky than fucking some random girl who looks good."

"There's more to a relationship than sex. Besides, you shouldn't be having sex at your age anyway. But you can take her to the movies, go out to eat... um... go on a picnic..."

"You've named two activites that involve eating, which I see no reason to involve another person in unless I decide to take up cannibalism. The other is no different than watching TV, and really defies the point of having another person present as it is rude to socialize during a movie."

"Maybe you could take up a hobby," I suggested.

"I have a hobby."

"No, I mean a different hobby."

"What's your hobby?"

I could see I was getting nowhere with him. It was just like I had read in an article about teenagers who have problems. He's getting defensive, trying to justify his addiction. He's puprosefully giving reasons to avoid social interaction. I tried to tell him this, and that he should seek couseling.

"I interact with those online. They are real people with their own computers who also game. We converse often, while gaming. Why would I seek counseling for this?"

I told him about an invention called the telephone. He told me it was obselete, allowing only two people to converse at a time. He explained that the games were non-intrusive, allowed people to talk freely in a forum of content they were already interested in. He also wanted to know why seeing the person's face and hearing the person's voice was necessary for it to be considered social interaction.

Well, I would continue this, but I've never known a parent to even make it this far without saying something like "This is my house, and my rules" or some bullshit because they can't think of anything better. It's also very rare for the offspring to make arguments that intelligent. It's even more rare to not hear "I don't know" in one of these conversations.

There are two common problems present every time this conversation occurs. 1.) The parent can't think of anything better, but refuses to accept a lifestyle foreign to them. 2.) The offspring can't come up with reasons or justifications that are truly valid.

Intelligence is a rare commodity on the family battlefield. Damn this went on too long. I should learn to just summarize shit.

I guess it's worth mentioning that I don't have a son.

Insomnia isn't the lack of ability to sleep. It's the lack of ability to sleep when you want to. When you have insomnia, your bed and its surroundings become very important to you, because you're going to be spending a great amount of waking hours getting to know them. Also, your bedroom becomes kind of a central headquarters for your life.

I've had insomnia as far as I can remember. When I was young, I didn't think anything of it. I thought it was normal. After a while, I started getting suspicious, and when I started talking to other people about it, I found that most people fall asleep within minutes of going to bed. Some people fall asleep on impact. If any of those people told me they also had photographic memories, I'd probably have to kill them.

I've been told I have a great poker face. I've never felt that way, but thanks to the mirror next to my computer monitor, I've noticed that my facial expression just doesn't change very much based on my emotion. Anything noticeable seems to be only the obvious things, such as laughing, or yelling. Sometimes, I'll be happy as can be, and people will ask me "What's wrong?" I've been told that my regular face looks like I'm either high, confused, or someone close to me just died. That doesn't help with my social life.

I generally blame everything on my insomnia. I can't remember things, I stumble around like a drunk sometimes, I make simple logic mistakes, I put the cereal away in the refridgerator. One part of insomnia is that you can't sleep for more than a few hours at a time. I don't know if I've ever gone more than four hours straight, and I would consider that a long streak. I guess that just goes with the rest of the side-effect of not being able to stick with one thing for too long. Things should be brief and direct anyway.

I just watched The End of Evangelion last night. Now, a lot of people have told me that it's very weird, doesn't make any sense, etc. Well, it does make sense. It's very weird, yes, but it does make sense. It's just very stupid. I always felt sorry for Shinji during the TV series, but in this he was just annoying to the point where I wished he would die. Now, of course, this is not all his fault. Not once during the series do you see someone sit down with him and say "This is how it is", or anything like that. They just yell at him every time he goes catatonic. It helps that everyone involved is crazy.

One thing did make me smile. The following year, Hideaki Anno made Kare Kano. Slight change of pace.

Now I have to watch Death & Rebirth, which I've heard to not really be much of anything. Maybe there's some fanfics that make a decent end to the series. Even Kare Kano didn't have an end. Arima was starting to get on my nerves, anyway.

"Tomorrow" is, of course, a relative term. I had forgotten that the day following Friday was a club meeting day. As such, I spent almost my entire day in the Fairfax County Governement Center. No real time for a post. Yeah, they don't take very long, but I didn't get home until today anyway.

It snowed again today. I actually went out and shoveled (shovelled is also correct, not many words with two correct spellings) the sidewalk in front of my townhouse shortly after the snow stopped coming down. I learned my lesson after last time, when I had to break up the ice under the layer of movable snow. Of course it snows on a Sunday. Well, it's not like my company would close, anyway. I think they just tell us to call in to see if they're open to get our hopes up. I don't know why. It makes me feel more like they know they have the option, but just don't care about their employees well-being.

This reminds me of a story. And I'm going to tell it to you. This was back when I was in either middle or high school. Well, it snowed then, too. You couldn't see the street in my neighborhood. Now, the Superintendant, the guy who decides whether or not we go to school when it snows, lived in the neighborhood next to me. He decided we should all go to school anyway, but, of course, he let his kids stay home. I don't remember who it was, but someone called him up concerned over his decision. He said it would be fine, that there would be no problems. The person then told him they had heard of a bus sliding off the road into a ditch. He asked where. She said, "Look outside in front of your house." And there it was.

True story. I kid you not. Of course, everyone knew the story. It spread like wildfire. After that, we got out of school more easily when it snowed.

I've been watching foreign shows that aren't anime lately. So far my current favorites (I watched all of GTO last year so I won't count that) are Meteor Garden (from Taiwan) and Be Nice to People (from Japan). Meteor Garden is actually based on the manga/anime Hana Yori Dango. I don't know if Be Nice to People was based on anything or not. I'd look up something on it to link you to, but I'm lazy.

I don't have cable in my house, so I never watch TV. I've found that even when television is available to me, I don't really watch it. There's just never anything good on when I want to watch TV. The only time anything good is on is when I want to do something else. I guess there's Tivo, but I don't want to pay all that money just so I can watch The Simpsons. As for downloading shows, in my experience, American shows look like crap. I guess that's because no one wants to do quality encodes, seeing as these shows are, in fact, on TV in the USA, as opposed to the two shows I mentioned above, which are only available in fansub, and probably never will be released to us any other way.

The digital fansub distribution community is great, too. I've found it very easy to get eps of stuff (well, once you initially find the distributors).

Ah, I've run out of steam for this post. I'll do something tomorrow.

Mandrake Linux 8.2 gets my seal of approval. Mandrake Linux 9.0 does not. Why is this? Well, 8.2 installed without any problems on three computers, two of which are old (one of the two is very old). I have yet to have a successful 9.0 installation. Also, 9.0 fucked up one of my hard drives when I tried to install it, so I lost a whole shitload of stuff. Fortunately, most of it was on backup, but it was a bitch reinstalling all my applications. I also lost about 3 gigs of semi-decent porn.

This all happened a while ago. I'm only posting this now because I just had a pleasant experience with 8.2, which involved reconfiguring its network setup. It was easier than doing it in Windows. I don't know how to do it on a Mac, so I can't compare there.

For those of you at College, it is now 2003. The rest of you probably already knew that.