Are You In Good Hands?

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ALL-STATE TOMORROW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Since my choir is performing at the convention center in Baltimore, I have to get to the hotel early, do my part check for all-state at 9 (and hopefully pass), and then walk over. Assuming I do pass, my weekend will be spent at like 8-hour rehearsals to practice six or seven songs and perform them on Sunday. Crazy time, but so much fun. I was in Junior All-State (7th-, 8th-, and 9th-graders) last year and it was incredible. I'm assuming that everything at Senior All-State is gonna be better. Just like in Texas. But not so southern.

My friend John has decided to follow in my footsteps and revive his failed blog from two years ago. He's good at writing and stuff, and has a...unique sense of humor, to say the least. Check him out at http://myboringlife-john.blogspot.com/.

I took a field trip to the Capitol with my government class today. We took a 20-minute tour of the building itself, then we went to see Congress. First, we went to the House of Representatives. A Representative from Illinois was talking about terrorism, then a Representative from Florida talked about health care. Man, you never hear about those topics in this country. Then, we walked across to the Senate, where we sat in silence for about ten minutes until Pennsylvania Senator Robert P. Casey came out and started talking. It was a great experience altogether, and I have a (somewhat) greater appreciation for our government because of it. Doesn't mean I'll watch C-SPAN instead of ESPN from now on.

It was my Illinoisan friend's birthday yesterday. Happy birthday Cailey. It was two of my friends' birthdays today. Thanks for the pie. It wasn't my birthday. Oh well. Maybe tomorrow.

In all, I went to school two days this week. I never went to math. Let's hear it for rotating schedules!

Because of All-State this weekend, I'm not going to post anything for until Monday. Possibly Sunday night. Don't count on it, though. For all of you who have a blog addiction, get some help. Please. You're hurting more than just yourself. Think about how it affects your family and friends. Do the right thing. I believe in you. I also believe in Harvey Dent. Goodnight, Gotham City.

Wrath of the Teenage Girls

The 2009 movie Avatar was both a revolutionary movie in terms of CGI capability and a box-office success like no other. Director James Cameron (of Titanic and Terminator fame) first developed the story in 1994 by writing an 80-page screenplay for it, with hopes of a 1999 release, directly following Titanic (1997). However, he did not feel that the technology at the time was advanced enough to fully convey his vision of the film. After fifteen years, his movie was finally released, raking in $24 million domestically in the first weekend alone, and $242 million worldwide, making it the highest-selling movie in history. One month later, though, Dear John topped it with $36 million. Thank you, teenage girls of the world, for totally destroying James Cameron's dream.

(P.S.: If you didn't catch that Avatar was just complete propaganda against the U.S. involvement in the Middle East, watch it again. It's completely true.)

Today was Mads Fest in Howard County. All the madrigals from all over the county come together in a competition/festival thing. Three songs per group, short clinic thing by guest adjudicator from Towson University, repeat. Not too bad, though. Saw some great performances. Got to see my friends from other schools perform. Got to miss school.

I get to miss school Thursday and Friday, too. Thursday, I have a field trip to D.C. to the Capitol. We take a tour (yawn) then we get to see the House and Senate in session. Pretty cool. Again, I get to miss school. I'll take it any day. On Friday, we're performing at some clinic in Baltimore for music teachers across the state of Maryland. My director is amazing and has some connections, so he's pretty much showing off, saying, "If you do what I do, this is what you'll get." From there, we walk over to the hotel for All-State. 26 people from my school made it, so it should be a fun weekend.

I just found out today that ice skater Evan Lysacek and gymnast Nastia Liukin are dating. Which means Lysacek isn't gay. Woah.

The United States beat Canada in hockey last night. Were you watching? Thought so. Even if you don't follow hockey at all, you could appreciate the close game and the performance by the U.S.

Weezer. You love them. Don't deny it. That is all.

My video for Spanish was finished today. It's the best. Ever. Once it's up on YouTube, I'll post the link. Until then, goodnight.

Do You Believe In Miracles?

I haven't written in a while. I truly apologize to all those who have developed an addiction to my blog and are now suffering from withdrawal due to my temporary hiatus. Consider it rehab.

I finally got my Zune working. This is my first week with music in about two and a half months. Words cannot express how amazing it feels to listen to simple three-chord punk music again. Here's a sequence of events from when I ordered my Zune to when I got all my music onto it:
1.) Order on 2/7
2.) Stuck in customs in Anchorage, AK.
3.) Arrives on 2/16
4.) Computer does not recognize Zune
5.) Laptop does not install software
6.) In the process of restoring the laptop to factory settings, battery dies, screwing up the computer.
7.) Install Windows 7 onto laptop.
8.) Zune and software install properly, but I can't move the music.
9.) Music is put onto an external hard drive, brought to the laptop.
10.) Music is moved successfully, Zune syncs, Ted has music.

Tomorrow is the 30th anniversary of the Miracle on Ice, when the amateur United States Olympic hockey team defeated the powerhouse Soviet Union team of professional players in what is often considered the greatest upset of all time. The reactions of the crowd, the country, the team, and Al Michaels (Do you believe in miracles?! YES!!!) have developed a legacy of their own, but people often overlook the fact that that game was only a semifinal; they had to beat Finland to win the gold medal. You can't help but wonder, What would have happened if they had lost?Would we still look back on the game against the USSR with the same joy and pride as we do today? Fortunately, we don't have to (the United States won 4-2). Even thirty years after, looking back upon the game still brings an amazing sense of joy to Americans and only brings one word to mind: Miraculous.

Another Snowy Day. Surprise.

Fidel Casbro
Broseph Stalin
Brozo the Clown
Napoleon Bronaparte
Shaquille Bro'Neal
Broasis
Bro.A.R
Apolo Anton Brohno
Alex Brovechkin
Bro Theismann
Shoeless Bro Jackson
Seth Brogen
Bro Montana

I ordered a Microsoft Zune HD on Super Bowl Sunday. On the website, it said "Order by midnight PST on 2/7 to ensure 2/14 delivery." Today is 2/15. Now, one day doesn't mean that much to me, especially with all the snow we've gotten. Still, I decided to call up FedEx. Apparently, my Zune is in a big crate with other orders from Microsoft.  This crate is stuck in Anchorage, Alaska because Microsoft in China messed up some paperwork. Now it won't pass through U.S. customs. If all goes well, it should get loaded on a plane at around 4:00 this afternoon, and I'll get it by 10:30 tomorrow morning.

Last night, I downloaded a Taylor Swift album. Does that make me any less of a guy? I don't think so. Even if it was the platinum edition.

Olympic men's hockey starts tomorrow. I'm REALLY excited. People criticize the Winter Olympics a lot, saying that they're not as exciting as the Summer Olympics. I think that they have the potential to be much more exciting, depending on what sport you're watching. Of course, you're not gonna see great down-to-the-wire action in ice dancing, but already we've seen some pretty good endings to both the men's and women's moguls. In the women's, Canadian Jennifer Heil executed an almost flawless run which landed her in first place with only one competitor left, hoping to become the first Canadian to win a gold medal during a Canadian Olympics. However, these hopes were crushed by American Hannah Kearney, who stole her spot atop the podium within five minutes. The next night, another Canadian, Alexandre Bilodeau, was in the same position: a perfect run as the next-to-last competitor. Guilbaut Colas, from France, went down the slope in an incredible time, nearly two seconds faster than Bilodeau, but it wasn't enough. Colas landed himself in sixth place, leaving Bildeau in first and ending the Canadian drought. I don't know about you, but I'd take that over a complete blowout by Usain Bolt any day.

It's snowing out. Again. How is this much snow possible? Come on. It's Maryland, for crying out loud.

Boredom Strikes Again

RAMIREZ! TAKE OUT THAT AC-130 WITH YOUR TACTICAL INSERTION!
RAMIREZ!  DESTROY THAT NUKE WITH YOUR AKIMBO THROWING KNIVES!
RAMIREZ! FOLLOW MY BLOG!

As the week slowly draws to a close, I find myself having less and less to do. Because of the holiday on Monday, I have three days left until I get back to school. I finished all my homework about a week ago, so I've been bored lately. My Zune, which I ordered on Sunday (my iPod Touch broke over winter break), hasn't come yet, so I'm without music for the most part. Our three-month trial or HBO and Cinemax ran up last week, so there aren't many movies to watch without actually going out and paying 10 bucks to see one. And even Call of Duty gets old after a while. I'm feeling a Star Wars marathon one of these days.

I have the chorus to a song written so far. Verses suck. I'm just going to leave it as-is for the time being and write more as I get more motivation.

I was going through my Facebook pictures earlier and came across something I made a couple months ago. I think it accurately reflects my thoughts at some times. Here it is:

Yup. See it. Live it. Love it.

O Canada, eh?

Well, the snow stopped. Finally. The roads are plowed, places are open again, and driveways are shoveled. Still, there's hardly anything to do. Right now, I'm eating sushi, playing Call of Duty, and writing songs. Why? Because I can.

Even though the snow isn't causing as much of a hassle as it was, say, five days ago, there's still over three feet of it everywhere. The kids in my neighborhood did the only logical thing to do: have a snowball fight. No matter how old you are, there's nothing quite like pegging one of your best friends in the face with a baseball-sized chunk of cold, wet snow.

With all this time off, I've had time to read most of Catcher In the Rye. Not just because I have to for school, though. I've actually really gotten into it. Granted, I doubt I would've gotten around to reading it if it weren't required, but I like it nonetheless.

The opening ceremony for the Olympics are tonight at 7:30, and an estimated 8 billion people worldwide are expected to watch. To compare, this year's Super Bowl, which was the most-watched TV show in U.S. history, drew in 106 million viewers. Multiply that by around 75, and that's about what you'll get for the Olympics tonight.

Let's here it for Canada, eh? Now that the Olympics are going to be held in Vancouver, dare I say that people will actually care about it? It's certainly gotten a lot of attention lately, especially in the previous few weeks. I guarantee that last year at this time, around half of the nation's population had never even heard of Whistler. But here's to Canada for finally making a name for itself other than hockey and maple leaves.

Simple.

Not much to write about tonight. I'm just kind of in an all-around good mood. Sort of... sentimental, if you will. I think everyone feels like this at sometime or another, and it's hard to really dislike it.

With every breath that I am worth here on Earth,
I'm sending all my love to you.

Who dat say they gonna write this blog? Who dat? Who dat?

THREE FEET OF SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yup. Thirty-six inches of frozen water falling from the heavens and piling itself across the east coast. This snowpocalypse has caused trouble everywhere it's hit, including cancellations of events, delays and closings of school, and a WIDESPREAD INVASION OF SNOWMEN!

We were off school today. They canceled it for tomorrow this morning, too. It's supposed to snow 3-8 inches tomorrow, starting at noon. Any chance of going in Wednesday is pretty much shot. Thursday is a half day, with very little importance. If Wednesday is called, I'm guessing Thursday will too. Then no school Friday. I'm going out there and saying it now. We're not going in at all this week.

I woke up this morning at 9:15, went downstairs, and ate breakfast. Raisin Bran. After that, I got on the computer to check my email, expecting to see my daily Pearls Before Swine strip there. Instead, I got a pleasant message from my science teacher describing the assignment we have over this break. I'm angry. I don't want to learn about meiosis when there's snow outside. Therefore, I won't. Not today, at least. I want my Pearls.

So... anyone ever heard of a hockey team called the Capitals? Thought so. They're at the top of the National Hockey League, nursing a 14-game winning streak. Their next three games are on the road (Montreal, Ottawa, St. Louis). If they win those, they'll tie the NHL record set by the 1993 Pittsburgh Penguins, with a win over Buffalo to break it. It's been a long time since I've been proud to be a fan of a local team, but this year I've found myself wearing my UVA and Caps apparel with a great sense of pride.

I'm not sure if you watched that football game last night, but wow, was it good. It was a hard-fought game by both sides, and the Saints came out on top. Unless you were a lifelong, hardcore Colts fan, how could you not root for the Saints? They were America's feel-good story, and even President Obama chose them. Drew Brees proved himself to be, without a doubt, one of the greatest quarterbacks in the game today, and the city of New Orleans finally has something to cheer about. Who dat say they gonna beat them Saints (besides the Cowboys, Buccaneers, and Panthers)? That's right. No one.

That's MY Tosis!

Sitting in science. Supposed to be doing a worksheet on stem cells. No one is working. Ha.

X Marks the Spot. Not cos24°.

MEGAN FOX.

Now that I have your attention, it's February 3rd. Although it'll be two days after Groundhog Day, we're watching the movie Groundhog Day tomorrow in English. Something about the call denied in the hero's journey. I don't really care why we're watching it, I just know that I don't have to worry about doing much work early tomorrow morning.


Another Wednesday. Another night of chorale. Another set of oddities. I've just come to expect them now.

I don't enjoy math class. Precalculus, period 4A, Mrs. Barbieri, room 330. All the way on the third floor. I always go the same way up, so today I decided to take a different staircase. I got lost. Change isn't always a good thing. I got lost in my own freaking school that I've been in for over a year and a half. I want my old staircase back.

The one thing that's unique about having a three-story school building is the workout you get by going from class to class. My schedule is:

Third floor (English);
First floor (FOT);
First floor (Mads);
Third floor (Math)/Second floor (Bio);
Third floo (Government); and
Third floor (Spanish).

"Up and down, up and down, I will lead them up and down." One of the only quotes I remember from A Midsummer Night's Dream from last year. Puck said it. Up and down, up and down. Now, I am in no way out of shape, but by the time I get up to my class, I want a rest more than I actually want to learn. Up and down, up and down.

My electric guitar has a string broken and I haven't yet gotten around to replacing it, so I've been playing my acoustic a lot more lately. In fact, I've been playing guitar in general a lot more lately. Before Oklahoma! rehearsal every day, there's about a half-hour gap until we actually start, so I've been going to the guitar room and just playing there. I may not like precalc, but I love music. Unfortunately, I've been without an iPod since the start of winter break. I went sledding with it in my pocket, it worked fine when I got home, but the next day it just decided to stop working. I'm considering getting a Zune HD to replace it, though. 10 bucks more, but twice the memory. I just need my music. Every time I get on the computer, my iTunes shortcut calls to me, "Ted! Ted! Sync me! Listen to me! Love me!" Okay, no. It can't talk. And if it could, I'm sure it would be much less cliché. It would be cool.

Throw Up Your Arms Into the Sky

Today was a good day. My classes were easy, I didn't have much homework, and I leveled up three times in Call of Duty. Okay, no, I'm not THAT obsessed. But seriously. I did.

In other news, Punxsutawney Phil's 2010 prediction was that we're in store for six more weeks of winter. And of course I believe this, because, like Facebook and Michael Martin, America's favorite Pennsylvanian sciaphobic groundhog is always right.

My English homework for tonight is to write a detailed paragraph about how we were personally "enlightened" from reading Siddhartha. Because it was just that life-changing of a book. Jeez. I honestly have no clue what I'm gonna write about. But I do know one thing- it won't be true.

For Christmas, we got an Internet radio from my grandparents. It picks up the live feed from any radio station that broadcasts online. I found some '90s station from somewhere in Miami that I absolutely LOVE. A lot of Green Day, a lot of Offspring, a lot of blink-182, a lot of Nirvana, a lot of Bush, a lot of Cake, a lot of other great music.

AMERICAN IDIOT IS GOING ON BROADWAY ON APRIL 20!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG I can't freaking wait.

Pinch and a Punch, First of the Month

So, it's February 1st. The first day of February. A Monday. I don't enjoy Mondays. You don't either, do you? Didn't think so.

Last week we got a new TV for one of the rooms upstairs that we just redid. We haven't put cable on it, so I'm doing my homework with the soothing sounds of Judge Judy in the background. Stupid Lady GaGa-haired girl who's blaming her boyfriend for using one of her debit cards for gambling, because he "has a gambling problem." However, she didn't remember that she gave him the PIN number to use it. Oh, by the way, she got arrested a month before that for selling crack. So, who's guilty? Stupidity, that's who.

It snowed Saturday night. It wasn't too much- about 5 or 6 inches- but it made everything outside look nice. They're calling for more snow tomorrow. But they're just weathermen.

I stayed after school for about an hour today, because we were supposed to be working on a movie for a Spanish project. Unfortunately, one of my partners was at the dentist, two more had a football meeting, and the last one just left because no one was there. So my friend Brady and I went around school looking for something to do. We found some guitars and started playing. His taste in music is probably the best of all my friends. His iPod is mostly smooth English/indie alternative stuff, and who doesn't like that?

I started this blog about two weeks ago. Seems like I started a trend, because every day now I see people posting links on Facebook to their own pages. Copycats. No matter what anyone says to you, I'm the best.

Last night, I was switching between the Grammys and the Virginia/North Carolina basketball game. I couldn't watch the Grammys much, though, because I was furious that the sellout Kings of Leon beat out both Green Day and U2 in Best Rock Song with their awful overplayed attempt-at-a-hit-single Use Somebody. They also won Record of the Year. If you agree with these awards, please enlighten me. The good news is, Taylor Swift took home three awards, Green Day won Best Rock Album with 21st Century Breakdown, and VIRGINIA BEAT NORTH CAROLINA BY 15.

I've been trying to write a lot more than when I started, because my friend Alyssa, who thinks she's all that (and sort of is), complained to me one night after reading my posts, saying that they weren't long enough. So, Alyssa, I'm going out of my way to write more stuff. JUST FOR YOU. So you better be happy with this.