June, July, and August 2003 Archive

• Weblog. Blog. Captain's Log. Website. Homepage. Webpage. Information Superhighway Roadside Attraction.


• Behold the power of an away message. After leaving "you know what really annoys me? when people don't update their blogs. yes, tony trumbo, i'm talking to you." as my away message, Tony added this to his blog.


• An email from Bill: "I disapprove of your making me go to another page to criticize your page. Granted I didn't actually need to type anything since I could copy and paste the page address, go back to get the email address... Anyway, I noticed that in one of the strongbad emails you listed four things. All of them, however, were plural. this would mean that, at the very least, you had eight things. This would make the next sentence incorrect as you stated that there were four things. I expect better from you. Maybe that is the problem. You so realize that Brandt has a much bigger tv than you. you could use you dvd player and his tv, but that would lead to you going out of your room and all the way accross the hall. It might be worthe the effort to see if you can penetrate his defenses. He boasts that he has not one, but two doors. This means that, even if you manage to enter one of the doors without it being slammed in your face, you still have another door to get past. No one has successfully entered thus far with the exception of the spiffy one himself. This challenge might be enough to inspire you to make the trek accross the hall, or to lock yuor doors and enjoy the fact that there are then four doors between you and him eliminated one person from the potential people that might try to interact with you."
  
  Bill realizes he had a typo:
  Speier70 (6:31:21 PM): eliminating not -ed
  Speier70 (6:31:42 PM): probably more
  Speier70 (6:32:10 PM): should also be a comma before that


• Is it so unreasonable that I feel I should have been knighted by now?


• Just ordered a progressive-scan DVD player for my room. It will be hooked up to a 13" TV. If anyone would like to donate a large plasma, let's say about 60" or so, please contact Wysz.


• The talking Wiz Kid. Now THAT is a cool toy. I still have it, and it still works. And some games are still too hard for the Wysz.


• There is another ice cream place I remember, and it's still there.


• I can start dreaming almost immediately when I fall asleep. I don't have a normal sleep cycle because I have repeatedly gone for extended periods without sleep, but at least I get to dream even if I take a short catnap. Or Wysznap.


• I just remembered an old ice cream place that had a flavor called Superman. It was rainbow-colored. I don't think the store is there anymore.


• Speaking of dreams, I haven't had one of those ones where I know I'm dreaming in a long time. They are fun, but can be frustrating.


• So recently I've been having dreams in which my teeth fall out. They don't rot away after years of abuse, they just fall out. The first few times this happened, it really bothered me, and I would spend most of the dream trying to prevent it and then trying to get them back in. The last time it happened, I didn't really care. I just held my teeth in my hand, and then I can't really remember, but I think I just threw them away and figured I would get fake ones. I guess you can get used to anything.


• Blake thinks that he IS responsible.


• I miss spring. Maybe I just miss the Claritin. I just don't know how those small pills actually work. Next year I want to get the kind that dissolve on your tongue.


• HDTV coming soon!


• Octopus: 2 YES 7 NO


• And the access card installation was... PAINLESS! No, really, it was.


• Discussing everyone's departure for college:
  Skier Wysz (10:59:15 PM): i guess im in charge of turning off the lights and locking up
  Miltime63 (10:59:35 PM): y?
  Skier Wysz (10:59:58 PM): cause i'm the last one... (well except for blake, but he's not responsible)


• We lost power today, just after they installed our new T.V., so I couldn't play with it until tonight. Now I have to wait for a new access card to experience it without grainy cable. After that, I will look into Comcast's HD service to experience the display's full digital capabilities, and of course feed the HD to the Runco downstairs as well. Overall the installation went well, but we still need to paint the ceiling downstairs.


• Spiders should not be allowed to jump.


• I was looking at JHU's on-campus housing page, and noticed that instead of pictures of the dorms, they have pictures of lily pads.


• Nice to know that Apple has a sense of humor. From their "Panther" site: "Panther will include a final X11 window server for Unix-based apps, improved NFS/UFS, FreeBSD 5 innovations as well as support for popular Linux APIs, IPv6 and other important acronyms."


• "But the earth actually quaked?"
  -Sara


• So... that's what an earthquake feels like. At 2:24 PM on August 26th, 2003, I was sitting in my room and my chair shook. My mom and sister, who were both in different rooms, said that they felt something as well. One of my first thoughts was "earthquake," but we never have earthquakes here. My sister and I decided that it was probably a local quarry, even though we have never felt the blasts before. Well, I left an away message that said I was investigating the cause of house shaking, and Meghan told me it was an earthquake. I checked the local news site, and, sure enough, there was an earthquake in New Jersey at 2:24 PM. Magnitude: 3.8. I'm sure you all find this entry fascinating. I can't wait for the aftershocks! Maybe I could have an aftershock-party.


• On the flight back from Madrid, I read some Dave Barry, which I haven't done in a while. He is hilarious.


• Google's interface has been translated into almost 100 languages, including Klingon.


• Remember Devil Dogs? I have them. Yum.


• Speaking of old classmates, I have a story to tell. I was at work with a room full of campers, making sure that they didn't injure themselves or others. I looked in the window of the door (all classroom doors today are required by law to have windows) and I saw Jon West waving at me. As I waved back I noticed that he wasn't wearing a shirt. As the door handle turned, I had a sudden feeling of panic as I thought to myself, "Oh no, he's probably drunk and nude, and he's going to walk into the room full of kids. And I'm responsible." Fortunately he was neither drunk nor naked, it was just a hot day.


• I don't know how some of my thoughts pop into my head, but five minutes ago I had an urge to learn if and where Steve Cooke goes to college. You kids remember him? I think he moved to New York after 7th grade.


• For a few hours, one of the new pages on my site had a broken image. I am so ashamed. If you notice any broken links or images on my site, please let me know.


• I know a guy in the USSSUD who guards a corner of the Oval Office. Anyone get the joke?


• Mbg1116 (1:23:53 AM): i like being in peoples profiles


• Pez Man40 (12:31:50 AM): i hate profiles


• So... this is Canada's fault right?


• About this blackout thing... wasn't this supposed to happen 3 and a half years ago? Y2K must be running a little late. (I hope I'm the first to make a Y2K joke about this.) At least the Internet seems to be completely unaffected.


• Remember when we used to be careful with CD's? (Hold them by the edges, put them in cases, don't throw them.) Remember when you couldn't go over a bump in the road without your car's player skipping? We've come a long way.


• Blaster doesn't scare me. Bring it on! No, I'm not brave, and no I'm not an idiot when it comes to viruses or worms. I simply use a Mac.


• What does a nerdy insomniac do? He defragments his hard drives, and then copies his Geocities website to his .Mac account.


• I'm going to miss summer, and at this point I'd like to thank some of the people who made it a good one. I shall list them in alphabetical order, by first name or nickname (that means "B" for "Bill", not "W" for "William", and Ted not Edward).
  Thanks to...

  Bill for helping me make fun of Ted in public, bringing a beverage to Dilly's, and stopping in to make sure I wasn't working.
  Blake for Erin, providing plenty of video material, and introducing me to the thrill of paintball.
  Christine for flipping the tube, frozen orange juice, and going to the playground.
  Elise for fresh cookies, jumping in my pool fully clothed, and giving me a break from being the photographer.
  Emily for braidable hair, unique video collection (including her early modeling career and the green E.T. tape), and the perfect blankets and pins for a fort.
  Matt for not being able to "handle the circles", driving to New Jersey, and amazing tactics in trench warfare.
  Meghan for movie nights, sparklers, and helping me in my quest to find Ted's true height.
  Sarah for excellent fort-building skills, convincing me to roll down the hill, and not living far away.
  Ted for winning the JBL speakers, yelling on the lift hills of rollercoasters (and then taking funny pictures), and kicking off the Summer of Wysz going to the Movies.

• This post may be redundant, since this happened back in May, but I can't remember if I ever wrote about it on my website. I probably forgot about it since I was so happy to be home. Anyway, I got unlucky with our housing lottery system (we are forced to live on campus for the first two years) and ended up in the second worst building. I lived in the worst building during my freshman year. I actually lived where they send you if you're kicked out of another dorm. When my dad came to pick take me and my truckload of stuff home for the summer, two bored security guards (neither one was the hilarious drunk one who walked past my window at 5am every day) made conversation with us as we packed up the Suburban. Here is an excerpt from the conversation:

  Guard: Do you know where you'll be living next year?
  Me: Yeah, Building B.
  Guard: As a sophomore?
  Me: Yeah.
  Guard: Oh, so you're going to be an R.A.?
  Me: No, actually I'm just living there.
  Guard: Wow.
  Me: I got a high lottery number.
  Guard: It must have been a VERY high number.

  Oh well, at least it's a single.


• I ate my dinner in the wrong order tonight. The items on my plate included some Oriental pasta and grilled salmon. Without putting much thought into my meal, I ate the pasta first, and then the salmon. This was not good. You see, if you have fish, you should always eat it first, because fish doesn't taste as good as regular food; it tastes like fish. If you eat it first, you don't know any better, so you can say "Mmm, this salmon tastes pretty good with the barbeque sauce." Then, when you eat the pasta or other food, you think the other food tastes even better. When I ate the pasta first, I started with a good taste in my mouth, but then I ate some salmon, which tasted horrible by comparison. Fish is just a different category.


• I may not be champion of the universe, but I was Citizen of the Week. You can never take that away from me.


• Another great search term.


• Oh Google, you make me laugh. Page Stats.


• I went to the hardware store and bought 2 big bottles of citronella torch oil, and a big cop-style Maglite flashlight. I am awesome.


• Not many people know this, but "No man has ever been shot while washing the dishes" is only a partial quotation. The full quote is actually "No man has ever been shot while washing the dishes and lived to tell about it."


• I'm The Wysz in:
  Mini Golf, Unreal, and the Copter Game.
  Copter high score: 2128 (achieved while at "work")


• It's August and I still haven't archived this page. Maybe next month I will be able to find a free 35 seconds to do it.


• Mbg1116 (12:53:05 AM): i want to be ted


• PRchica422 (12:29:47 AM): okey dokey
  Who says "okey dokey" these days? And who types it? I think that's the first time I've ever seen it written. It looks pretty weird.


• No more <blink> tag? Well, at least Netscape still interprets it.


• Tony Trumbo the day Ted got his Zippo:
  "I went with Ted this afternoon as he bought a Zippo lighter. I have a great fear that tomorrow I will see a story on the news about a Vanderbilt dorm burning down."
  "he was just a bit too excited"
  "dude he was obsessed with it. He was talking about it thursday when we went to the movies then called me first thing this morning when he woke up."


• You know those Listerine PocketPacks? The things that dissolve in your mouth? Well, never put one in your eye. Believe me, after you do that it is very hard to drive home. Don't even ask why I know this. (Yes, by "don't even ask" I mean ask me next time you see me.)


• Some kid from the day camp punched me the other day. He will not appear in the highlights video.


• One of these days I'll get around to making a new thoughts page and throwing this one into the archives. Maybe I'll just put the entire summer on one page and wait until September to start a new one. I am the master procrastinator.


• How to have a great day: Sleep in. Enjoy a powerful thunderstorm from the comfort of your home, then go outside and admire the rainbow. Go for a drive, but remember to pull over and watch the amazing sunset. Conclude the evening by going to a movie with a friend, and you just made your day! (True story.)


• Click here for Ted.


• No more trivia nickels?


• Your auto-render is complete. Sweet.


• I am the Unreal Tournament Champion of Everything and All.


• Got a FREE PEPSI today! I put 75¢ in one of the Common Room vending machines, and it gave me two very cold cans of sweet nectar.


• I wouldn't be so skinny if there was a meal somewhere between 3 and 4 AM.


• I think I'm supposed to make a new archive page since it's July, but I'm too lazy.


• Skier Wysz (12:31:22 AM): wouldn't it be kinda cool to be an ant
  Skier Wysz (12:31:50 AM): cause like you know how water has that effect with surface tension or whatever
  Skier Wysz (12:32:17 AM): so like you can have a drop of water sitting on the table and it doesn't flatten out
  Skier Wysz (12:32:25 AM): or you can fill a glass more than full
  Skier Wysz (12:32:47 AM): well if you were an ant you could just walk up to a drop of water, but it would be bigger than you
  Skier Wysz (12:33:15 AM): like imagine just seeing a wall of water, and it wasn't in glass or anything. it's just there. and you can touch it
  Skier Wysz (12:34:03 AM): the other cool thing is that you don't have to worry about falling
  Skier Wysz (12:34:08 AM): cause you're so light
  Skier Wysz (12:34:25 AM): so if you fall off of a cliff or even a counter or whatever, you just float down
  Skier Wysz (12:34:37 AM): and besides your feet stick to stuff anyway
  Skier Wysz (12:34:51 AM): so you probably wouldn't even fall in the first place
  Skier Wysz (12:35:07 AM): but i mean you don't have to worry about falling if like say the wind blew you away


• According to the 1000th episode of The Tony Mendez Show, Tony Mendez uses a Mac!


• John, discussing my school-year self:
  ironviking 60 (4:12:00 PM): you are either working on your website, complaining about things related to hopkins, or sleeping


• Remember the Extensions Manager? On that note, yesterday I looked for "Quit" in the File menu. What year am I in? 2000?


• I want Strong Bad to answer my email!


• Here's an excerpt from a recent and typical conversation with JY, but I must ask, since when are computers base 10?:
  ironviking 60 (7:18:41 PM): so I have a meet the parents night thing tomorrow for my job
  Skier Wysz (7:19:31 PM): i really like computers
  ironviking 60 (7:19:41 PM): ok...
  ironviking 60 (7:19:58 PM): I wonder if fish like the taste of bait
  Skier Wysz (7:20:26 PM): um yeah i dont think that they're thinking about the taste when there's a hook shoved in their mouth
  ironviking 60 (7:20:44 PM): yeah, but it has to taste good from them to want it
  Skier Wysz (7:21:13 PM): yeah i guess so
  Skier Wysz (7:21:35 PM): but my thing is, why does the post office close at 3:30?
  Skier Wysz (7:22:10 PM): and why do government workers like people as much as i do?
  ironviking 60 (7:22:40 PM): would all the works of man be diffrent if our number system was based on 8's rather than 10's?
  Skier Wysz (7:22:53 PM): no
  ironviking 60 (7:23:31 PM): I beg to differ
  Skier Wysz (7:23:53 PM): what is your reasoning
  ironviking 60 (7:24:46 PM): well like everything is based on the system of 10 numbers, computers, etc. if it was based on 8's everything would be diffrent
  ironviking 60 (7:24:56 PM): all measurement would be diffrent etc.
  Skier Wysz (7:26:29 PM): um not really though, cause i mean just look at feet/inches as opposed to the metric system.
  Skier Wysz (7:28:15 PM): the world can't be changed because of a way of representing numbers. i mean the physics and math and all will still exist the same anyway. it doesnt change depending on how you look at or represent it
  ironviking 60 (7:28:32 PM): it would be diffrent
  Skier Wysz (7:29:38 PM): yes! i was just unpacking (i've only been home since may 3) and i found a bag of chips that are guaranteed fresh until july 1st!
  Skier Wysz (7:29:45 PM): score


• Auto response from ironviking 60: I'm off some where contemplating one of the great questions of our time: how much can a gorilla bench press?


• Pez Man40 (7:08:32 PM): objects in mirroe are closer than they appear
  Skier Wysz (7:08:43 PM): almost, but you had a typo loser
  Pez Man40 (7:08:57 PM): so what it is mirror, nerd


• Erin arrives on June 21 and is here until the 29th. I can't wait. Blake, you better be nervous.


• I was in the grocery store the other day, and walked past the greeting cards. The category that caught my attention: Humorous Accident.


• Elise is devious.


• I'm always yelling at Ted when he claims that he's 6'11", and he hates it. The reason why I care so much is that he lied to me about his height for years, until finally at his graduation party he revealed that he is only 6'11" with his shoes on.
  
  Recently I spent a day at an amusement park with him, and it was fun to see people stare. When people waiting in line for a ride would ask how tall he is, he would tell them that he is 6'11". I would correct him every single time, and each time I did that he would hit me. By the end of the day when we got on the Chocolate World ride, I was really sore. And he even lied then! He told a girl that he played "a lot." I of course informed her that he actually warmed the bench all year, since he red-shirted.
  
  Frustrated by the day at the park, Ted finally admitted that he doesn't even know his true height. So how tall is he really? Without shoes on, he is 6 feet, 9.5 inches (which he says is the same as 6'10"). So to get to 6'11", he would have to put 1 inch shoes on, and then round up. But the "I play a lot" comment at Chocolate World is just a complete lie. He tried to justify it by telling me that he "meant to say, 'I will play a lot.'"


• I went downstairs at 1:20 AM and found my sister staring at a blank computer screen. She has a 10 page history paper due tomorrow. Looks like an all-nighter. I'm so proud. Uh-oh here comes a tear!

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