December 30, 2008

New Years Resolutions

At the start of every year, we're all pressured into having New Year's Resolutions that we all know we won't keep or remember.

I wonder who came up with New Year's Resolutions to begin with. I say it was some teacher with no life who wanted to keep kids "working towards a goal," or some rubbish like that.

Maybe it was created by some old-time person who thought that the world would blow up (or something along those apocalyptic lines) at the end of the year, so when it didn't, he thought it a miracle. He then decided to be a better person, since God saved him. (Of course, he forgot all about the resolutions made and was struck deceased in March. R.I.P.)

Another Theory (according to Goals Guy): The mythical King Janus of Rome in 153 B.C.E. was on the head of the calender for the beginning of the year. Two of his heads, actually. One looking forward--to the future--, and the other, backward--to the past. I suppose they took from this that they should hopefully make the future better than the past, one step at a time.

Ridiculous! The first two are much more probable.

Hey, I know it's off subject, but look what I just learned to do!!
{Nadia Murti's Crazy Little Thoughts}
I didn't know I could do that!! Now I'll have to go back and create a link for EVERYTHING.
Okay, back to our topic.

I mean, what kind of weirdo would believe THAT?! It's obviously created by a Roman mythology nerd who was trying to prove to someone that he isn't a geek because the cheerleaders' favorite thing about New Years is the resolution, so if the Romans invented it, then the geek will be less of a geek for being interested by them. Or so he thinks.

Well, wherever it's from, it's merely a recipe for disappointment. I remember my five NYRs from January 1st, 2008. I didn't succeed with any, and I am ashamed of myself.

Although, like always, I'll be pressured into having a resolution, and I will go through the entire process once more. So I don't think I'll try to fight it at all.

'Til next time (which should be on January 10th), au revoir, children.

December 29, 2008

Mini-Blog: Quick Question

Quick Question: Is it possible to see how many views your blog has gotten? I know it's possible for your profile, but not everyone who looks at your profile goes to your blog, and vice versa.

So is there some magic button to press? Magic words to say? Magic things to do? Magic...crap, I ran out of things to say.

December 28, 2008

Imaginary Friends

I recently met a little kid with an adorable imaginary friend, and it made me think of my old ones.

It's funny how when we're small our minds are our only friends. Now we're so different; sometimes we don't even bother to use our brains. I remember my imaginary...acquaintances.

Look, I wasn't like all the other kids when I was little. I didn't have imaginary friends. I had imaginary enemies. My enemy was actually a large clique. They were all pretty much joined at the hip. They were in a circle but faced wherever their leaders faced at all times.

Their Alpha Commander's name was Leena, and her second banana's name was Emily. (I named all of my characters Leena and Emily.) Leena looked like my older sister. I wasn't imaginative enough to create the looks of all the other girls. They were colorless and featureless; only outlines.

Leena and Emily were so mean to me! They called me names and pushed me down stairs! They also made messes and I always got blamed for them. Whenever I got in trouble or Leena said something mean, the girls who had no names all started giggling. Oh, their laughs were so annoying!!!

I always used to tell on them to my mom, but she just thought I was crazy. I heard her talking to my dad about sending me to therapy. She also thought I was seeing violent ghosts.

I think that the world would be a better place if we still had imaginary friends. (Not Imaginary Enemies. You're weird in the head if you have those. But you have to admit, they're a lot cooler than plain imaginary friends. I cringe at the mundane-ness.)

"Are you kidding me? The world would be filled with a bunch of crazy people! How is that good?" asks that revolting reader.

Well, have you ever heard of imaginary friends who gave you bad advice? No. Emily and Leena were mean to me, but they never gave me advice, good or bad. And they always gave me company, which I needed so I wouldn't go crazy. Actually, I think they're the reason I am who I am today. It may well have made me think in the way I'm given example of in these posts.

I think that as I grew up, Leena and Emily would have matured and we'd have become friends. They would have helped me through thick and thin, and they'd encourage me to do the right thing.

So what I wonder is why parents think that keeping an imaginary friend is bad. It just doesn't make sense.

December 26, 2008

The List

If you look at any magazine, they've just published their End-Of-The-Year issue. This issue always has lists of some sort, and occasionally why. So here are my lists:

Worst Movie Of The Year: The Clone Wars. It RUINED Star Wars. They made it for little kids, and had it animated! Everyone knows that when you make another movie long after the series is dead (especially in this decade), it sucks. Example: Cinderella 2 and 3, Fox And The Hound 2, The Ring 2, The Grudge 2, The Eye 2, and Beauty And The Beast 2.

Best Movie: Twilight. Twilight-Haters, not a word. I held my breath for half the movie, I was so blown away. (No joke, I had a major headache afterwords. And then I got a sore throat from yelling.) But now that I think of it, I didn't have to see the movie; if you put all the sneak peaks in order, you've seen the it.

Worst Book of 2008: Breaking Dawn by S. Meyer. Don't even get me started. I wrote a three-page essay about why I hated it for a Critical Reader Essay, and I still didn't get to write everything I wanted to get down. It had bad editing, everyone was out of character, it broke rules Meyer set up for the Twilight world, (SPOILER!) the happy ending was NOT well earned, etc...

Best Book of 2008: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landua-Banks by Emily Lockhart. Frankie is a different kind of girl, she stands up for herself. The book is well written. The characters act like people. It's hard to find a book like that, so The Disreputable History is a good, refreshing, find.

Worst Song: Soulja' Boy by a dumb person. I swear, the next person to sing that obnoxiously repetative song will be pained.

"Soulja' boy, I'm in the--oh! Watch me crank tha--" that anymous reader says.

"ELVES, ATTACK!" I command. (Santa came by I stole his elves since he stole my plans. Plus, I'm now a member of S.P.E.W. They're being paid, don't worry.)

Now, where was I? Oh, yes.

Best Song: Flightless Bird, American Mouth by Iron And Wine. The song is so sweet, and heartfelt, it pretty much tears my heart out. It's SO good! The lyrics are good as well.

Worst Blog: Um...I can't find any truly horrible ones, so I pick...Liza. She subscribes, and doesn't even have a blog.

Best Blogs: I can't choose just one, so I'll make a list:
#1-Maureen Johnson's Blog
#2-Dahlia's Eclectic Mind
#3-The Everchanging Lives of 13 and Co.
#4-Twilight Girl's Stuff
#5-Ally's Diary
(I'll link in the side)

Worst Fashion Trend of 2008: The Uggs. UGGS. UGG-ly. There's a reason they're called what they are, people!

Best Fashion Trend of 2008: Babydolls. I loved them so much. It was a little ridiculous. I think I only had 4 non-babydoll shirts in April.

Best Day: November 4th! GOBAMA!

Worst Day: Black Tuesday. That was a very suckish day.

Fictional Man of The Year: Wesley Gibson. Oh. My. God. He's a millionaire hit man, he's good looking, and he stands up for himself. Or Edward Cullen. He's definitely had a very good year.

Fictional Woman of The Year: Sam Puckett. Even though her best friend, Carly, is such a goody-goody, and so different from herself, she hasn't change a bit. I honor that kind of strong character.

That's all I can think of. :D

Remind me of anything I forgot to sort out into Best and Worst.

December 24, 2008

My Question For Maureen

Today, my family and I watched Mama Mia, and my mom is a big ABBA fan, and my dad just likes to sing during musicals. So, I was in the kitchen, and my parents and an aunt of mine came upstairs singing Dancing Queen. I asked them to stop.

They sang louder.

I begged them to stop the audio terrorism.

It wouldn't end.

So I went over to Maureen Johnson's blog, and she's doing this Live Blog thing, where she takes questions from the comments and gives a funny answer. Well, I posted one. I was the 60th or so to post. Look what I saw on her blog 10 minutes later:

QUESTION SEVEN, 11:35 PM

Nadia Murti said...
What should one do when confronted by loud parents who refuse to stop singing ABBA? When these parents cannot sing?


WHERE DO YOU LIVE? I WILL BE THERE IN TEN MINUTES.

My question was chosen! Isn't that so cool!!! (I know, I'm a nerd.)

December 23, 2008

Santa's Motive

Hmph...I suppose it's that time of year again, which means time to speculate.

"About... ?" prompts that odious reader from four entries ago.

About why Santa really sneaks into your house at night.

First of all, who would be stupid enough to invite a creeper like Kringle into their home with cookies and milk?! Do you want to see that diamond ring again? By the way, if you lose a sock on Christmas Eve/Day, it means Santa's elves took them because they're not paid enough to buy some of their own.

So once he gets in, he a) eats your cookies, b) lets his elves steal your socks, c) sets his reindeer on your presents (the ones your parents got you). And finally, he kidnaps everyone 7 years and under to work in his "toy factory." It's really a sweat shop!

I mean, have you ever seen in any Christmas movie the elves getting paid? No! What about eating? I think not! They are unpaid, unfed slaves!

"Are you sure? Don't you think they'd have revolted against him by now?" says my demonic reader.

"Yes, I'm sure, you insufferable know-it-all." (Who knows where that line is from?)

You see, even though I don't celebrate Christmas, Kringle/Nick/Santa came by my house and swooped up my written world dictation plans, therefore knew how to keep his "elves" in check. All you have to do is wait for one elf to make the smallest mistake and make a scapegoat out of him.

So, do you still think he's an innocent, happy, jolly ole' guy? Let's hope not.

"So, Ms. Murti, what do we do now with you oh-so-important revelation?"

Nadia, try not to strangle her, says Gregor.

Well, now you need to camouflage all of the children under seven years old as lawn gnomes. Also, instead of leaving cookies, leave him spinach. (Have you seen him! It would do him well to cut back on the sweets. Plus, he might smell it and immediately be put off his game.) Keep your socks in a high, hard-to-reach place. Remember to keep your presents in a safe. Lastly, and most importantly, keep your world dictation plans in a safe place. With them, he could become unstoppable. And that would be bad.

Okay, kids, hope that didn't scare you!

December 22, 2008

Where Do The Socks Go?

A constant question to my brain. There are so many places they could've gone! They could have left to the secret town of LostSockaton, or their sanctuary, the incredible under-the-dryer, or they might have dissolved!!! Actually, that dissolving theory would make a lot of sense...except, I don't think cotton or spandex or whatever crazy material they're made of is dissolvable.

That's it! The thing it's made of! It can't have gone under the dryer, because it would need either a) a secret back-door, or b) a large crack. LostSockaton is in Lesotho (a country in Africa) (I know! That's the genius: no one would look there!), and you can imagine how hard it would be for a sock to get onto a plane to Africa unnoticed. I mean, don't you think people would get a little suspicious if random lone socks were in their suitcases? (Ha ha.)

But dissolving...hm... Well, according to my research on Wikipedia, socks can be made from any of these: cotton, wool, nylon, acrylic, polyester, olefin (sounds like a name for an elf!), polypropylene (weirdest word ever!), and SPANDEX!!

Now, which of these is dissovlable? Since I'm too lazy to actually research, and I know that if I do, I'll have no explanation for where the socks go, because science will get in the way, I'm going to have to use my intuition on this.

Well, spandex definitely won't dissolve. Have you felt it? You can't break those strings apart from each other.

Polypropylene can dissolve, from the sounds of the word, but it would take years. So, unless you wash your polypropoleen socks for years at a time, it's not the answer to our little mystery.

Olefin, I'm guessing, won't dissolve.

Polyester can't be dissolved, but can be destroyed. It can be destroyed by the water weakening the strings and pull them apart. Other than that, polyester is not the answer.

Acrylic is also a kind of paint, and paintings can be destroyed by water. Possibly even dissolved by it. So yes, acrylic socks can be dissolved. So if you have any acrylic socks, then I suggest you don't wash them, rather than take a chance having them dissolve.

Nylon: No way! Only light can destroy nylon! (Just don't even ask how I came to the conclusion. It was just the sound of the word, and when I heard it, it sounded like something that glowed in the dark.)

Wool is a definite possibility, but if it dissolves, that means that the fur on sheep dissolve in the rain.

Cotton does dissolve in water, while in its simplist form.

So there you have it. THAT is where your socks go. I don't know what you'll do with this information, but I am going to stop washing my socks altogether. And I'll never move to Lesotho.

Bye!

December 20, 2008

Mini-Blog: Gallagher Girls 3-First Chapter!

OK, I was at Books-A-Million today, and they ALREADY HAVE Cross My Heart And Hope To Spy in paperback, so I was (probably) the first person to read the first chapter of Don't Judge A Girl By Her Cover! (Not including publishers and editors and stuff.) I don't even know why they had it three days early, but thank God they did. The first chapter is AWESOME! I love Macey! She is the second ultimate Gallagher Girl. Bex is first. She has nearly everything it takes to be a Gallagher Girl! (Hmm, I think that'll be a blog entry. "What It Takes To Be A Gallagher Girl." Watch out for it.)

Tell me if I should tell you about it.

December 14, 2008

Mismatch Day

Ah, mismatch day. It's torture to me, but a great good thrill to all those geeks out there. Finally! they think A day where we're normal! A day where we look just like everybody else.

I think Mismatch Day is either a day where we want to do one of the following:

A) Be just like the dweebs out there since we're just so sympathetic.

B) Make fun of nerds of the world, in which case it's very mean and stupid. Stupid, because since it's nerds of the world, they will build bombs and weapons of pain to torture all who celebrate. Since it's mean, and it destroys the already-crumbling self-esteem of those pitiful
beings, it really should have been stopped years ago.

C) We want to be like them, because they are so cool, they're uncool. It's like when you get the mega-high-score on a game, it takes you back to zero, and you're like, "NOOOOOOOO!!" Then you kill yourself because you're a failure at life. Then of course the video game company shuts down. People lose money from the falling stocks. Better to not play at all, methinks.

D) We're all nerds on the inside, and this day is meant to let it shine bright. Shine, inner nerd child thing!!


I'm SO weird!! Okay, bye bye now, kids.

December 10, 2008

People Particles

I'm learned about the exact science of dissolving. I feel that it is much like people, in a certain scenario. Let me paint you a picture.....on a computer......with words.....in a blog......which isn't painting....nor would it be a picture.... Oh, whatever! You know what I mean!

Alright, so the new kids (the solute (A.K.A. the solid)) are dropped into the school, which is filled with so many people who all are of the same kind (the solvent(A.K.A. the liquid)).

The old kids* are all apart of groups, or cliques. The pound at and cluster and pester the new kids**. Finally, the clique/group sucks them in.

The group's girls surround the new kid, so they're the only one the new kid can see. The Clique Girls influence her, because their values and attitudes are the only ones she can see. Then again, what does it matter that they specifically are the only ones to be seen when every Group Girl is exactly the same, no matter the group?

After some time, the new kid, or the solute, is one of them. (S)He is one of them. They are Group Girls/Guys. (Groupies?)

You no longer see the new kid.

The solute is gone.

Metaphor partially over!

Isn't that just like human behavior? Our minds are clouded with characteristics and traits of a certain person, whether it's a friend or boy or whatever, and we end up losing ourselves. And like dissolving, the only way to find yourself is if the solvent/person disappears.

"Disappears?" a reader says. "The solvent doesn't disappear! It just evaporates."

The new kid must make the old kids disappear by causing themselves to no longer care for their opinions. (Or they have to kill 'em, either way works.)

"Yeah," my obnoxious reader says, trying to poke holes in my well-written and thought-out stories and comparisons, "but since it only evaporates; it could come back."

That's the sad thing. It comes back. But you can no longer be harmed by them, you see. Your experience has taught you a lesson, and now while you can physically mix with them, you won't dissolve. You are a new product.

My reader says, "Well, but--."

"SHUT. UP. You little--."

Let's keep this blog PG, now, Nadia, advises the dumb little voice in my head.

I listened to Gregor (the voice in my head) this time, Reader, but I'm still watching you.

Okey-Dokey, hope that helps with your next Science test! Or psychology....whichever.


*I love a good oxymoron.

**That's redundant.

December 03, 2008

Easy Foods

I said, "Easy as lemons," today, and my friend was like, "What's that?" Of course, it's a phrase. She had never heard it used and didn't think it was a phrase. We got into a big fight about foods that can be used in that phrase. So that got me thinking: What foods are easy?

Yet, that is not the question. The real question is: How do you classify "easy?"

Well, there's a series of ways to classify it. Here are the ones I've thought of so far.

1. You could say that if they're easy to eat, they're easy foods. In this case, lemons would not be in the "easy" ranks. Instead, the easy foods would be cheese and waffles.

2. Or you could classify it by how easy it goes through your digestive system, in which case cheese would not make the cut (Ba dum bam!). What would make the cut would be oats and...Lactaid or something.

3. Another possible way to classify would be by how easy it is to burn off the calories gained from the food. In this case, celery would be the easiest food ever! People would be saying, "Easy as celery," like there was no tomorrow. But, in case people didn't like that--though they would have no reason not to--the back-up food is watermelon.

4. Or is it ranked by how easy it is to make yourself eat it? Like, would you really eat a banana when there's a banana pie right next to it? In this case, pie would be an easy food. Hm..."Easy as pie..." Nah, that sounds weird. Who would ever say "Easy as pie?!" I think "Easy as ice cream" is ultimately better.

5. Maybe it's based on how easy it is to say. In this situation, zucchini simply cannot win. Neither can tomato, or potato. Spaghetti just automatically loses. The best ones I can think of are kiwis and bread.

6. The Last. In this scenario, the question is "How easy is it to make?" In which case, spaghetti wins, rather than getting automatically disqualified. Or it may be, easy mac. "Easy as easy mac." That might work.

I, personally, am endeavored of, "Easy as waffles." You? What's your favorite rule? phrase? What other phrase did I exclude? Anything else? To voice your opinion, leave a comment!

December 01, 2008

Snowy Stories

I told an online friend that I would write a little winter-time story for her. How would one go about doing that? I'm not very familiar with "winter fever" or whatever it's called. I mean, I'm very familiar with the "winter cold fever," but not the spirit, cheeriness, mood, or any other silly little phrase like that. Here is what I have so far: there's a party that Ally is not supposed to be at, because her parents told her not to go. She gets snowed in.

That's it. What are the characteristics of a good winter story? Um...friendship? That can be worked in... Ugh, I have a real urge to make this an action, adventure, horror, fantasy, but anything but a fuzzy winter story.

I know what you're going to say, so don't say it! (Especially you, Chrissy/Vampire Girl.) Don't say that if I don't feel it, that I shouldn't write it. I want it to be a fuzzy winter story, and I want to write it. It's just hard. I have practice with making it lovey or gruesome. I need to learn how to make it...snowy. Yeah, that's the word. But the powdery kind of snow. None of that frozen crust stuff.

Sorry, I'm making no sense.

LEAVE COMMENTS with help in them! (Movies to get into the winter "spirit" are helpful.)