The cake is a lie-but I wish it weren't

You’ve probably heard the quote, “the cake is lie” from the video game Portal. Incidentally, that is one of my favorite games, with Minecraft, Portal 2, and Mari0 (that’s Mario with a portal gun, a device which I won’t explain now). It is based on the false promise of cake from a sadistic robot called GLaDOS if you finish the tests which will more than likely kill you. That is funny on so many levels.

For one, cake is not an adequate reward for completing life-threatening tests. You eventually learn that the recorded (supposedly) robotic messages from speakers were originally designed for orphans whose self-esteem and expectations were intentionally lowered through insulting videos about their “lack of parents”. I guess that cake would be a good enough incentive for them.

For two, the producers obviously designed this quote so that it stuck in your head like gum on a steel trash can. It is so catchy that it has been on t-shirts, the backs of books declaring nerd supremacy, radio shows, everywhere. Seriously.

For three, the producers actually made it possible through the developer’s console to input a code (noclip) that allows you to fly through walls to the surface, or even to a chamber where you can find cake. It is possible to get to the cake room and the surface without cheats through a glitch in a portalable surface.

 I would love to be the story artist who came up with that one. Not just because he’s probably rolling in cash, but because it would give something to talk about at parties.

Am I crazy, or am I just cake-deprived? Is there a difference?

Lacrosse

Lacrosse is a sport that, if you’ve never heard of it, involves throwing rubber balls using aluminum poles with baskets on the ends. The baskets are endlessly customizable, which makes it attractive for fashionistas. Actually, the women’s side of the sport is just as recognized as the men’s, if not more.

I play goalie most of the time, being the only player on our 14-person team who has any training. By the way, you need 10 players on the field at a time-3 attack (yes, it’s actually called that), three defense, three middies, and a goalie. When I’m not playing goalie, I’m mostly playing middie.

This is my first season of lacrosse, and my mom was skeptical about signing me up after she realized the lacrosse was a full-contact sport, including stick-to-body and body-to-body. In fact, we are encouraged to hit (whack, slam) the other team in order to make them drop the ball, push them out of bounds, or just annoy them. In fact, we recently learned about the coma slide, a move that our coaches said, and I quote, “involves putting the player with the ball in a coma”.

How are you feeling about sending your kid/going to lacrosse camp now?

life without puctuation

what if language had no punctuation whatsoever it would be really confusing dont you think i have had problems with remembering to capitalize letters because i type so fast some of my teachers have noted this especially my 6th and 7th grade teachers and sometimes my dad makes me capitalize stuff so this is a relief to not have to do any capitalization this is an open ended post comment about the things in punctuation that drive you nuts

ps if my teachers get ahold of this please tell me immediatley so that i can flee country i can speak a little latin and spanish

ola means hello

donde esta means where is

videre mallus bestina means i see a horrible beast do you think insulting people will help me survive cause i dont

Annoying things at night

        Many things annoy me at night. I just have these pet peeves that I can never deal with. Here are a few:

        The light at the end of the hallway. At the end of my house’s hallway there is a little box that appears to do absolutely nothing except make a little red light. At night, that light can scare the bejabbers out of you. I used to be terrified of it.

        The temperature of the pillow. The pillow I use is engineered (or at least I like to think so) so that It’s always to warm on one side and to cold on the other. Why can’t someone just invent pillows that have a little remote that makes the pillow warm or cool?

        Flushing the toilet. This one causes a huge dilemma. Our toilet flushes fairly loudly. So when I occasionally make a nighttime jaunt to the loo, I find myself trying to figure out how many people I would wake up in the process. Can they really hear it through 2 doors and a hallway? If they can, is it loud enough to wake them up? Is it appropriate to not flush the toilet and then try to explain myself to my parents the next morning? By this point I’m just not flushing it and promising myself I’ll be in the bathroom first tomorrow. 514^th time lucky, you think?

        Running out of water. I always sleep with a water bottle next to my bed. But when I drink some, I somehow always end up drinking half of it. I also get an uncontrollable urge to drink some when I fill up my bottle right before bed. This usually causes it to be empty by midnight. Usually I’m asleep through the night. But sometimes I get thirsty in the middle of the night, but I don’t want to get up to fill my bottle. Sometimes I suck it up and do it, but most of the time I just lie there in bed, hoping that I won’t die of thirst by morning. It’s not a good feeling, let me tell you.

        This may have been funny, but beware. One of these things will probably start happening to you approximately…now!

50 years in the future

I often try to imagine what life will be like 50 years in the future. Remember now, so far in my life I am an Optimysticist.

        50 years from now global warming will have decreased dramatically, but will still pose a threat. Cars will drive themselves, be able to fly and float, and be equipped with marshmallow cannons. Scientists will breed gummi bears with dogs and create Canis gummis, the tasty beagle-sized gummi bear that plays fetch and doesn’t mind when you nibble on his ear. Nerds (me) will hold all positions of power. Bullying will become extinct. Computer games will be 3d, 360 degrees. The ipad 6 will wash your clothes and invest for you. Music will become less popular after the death of Justin Bieber (as an aside, that day will become a national holiday).

        Too much?  

Hacking email (true and false)

        About 3 months ago I started using a Facebook-like social networking system called Google+. It went well with my email since they’re on the same system, and two of my friends were on it.

        Background for the rest of the story: I had recently started playing lacrosse, in which the practices lasted 2 hours and went straight through dinner. I had and still have no idea what the word “hung” means in the following context.

        After lacrosse practice one day I was on Google+ and I sent out the following message, and I quote:

        “lacrosse is fun, but it makes me effing hung”

        No period. That is because I had meant to write “hungry”. I was slightly annoyed, but I commented on it:

        “HUNGRY! HUNGRY! Stupid google+”

        I knew that the only people who would see it would be my friends who would laugh about it but understand. It was not until the next day that my mom told me that she had received an email from my grandfather, in response to an email he received from my great-grandmother, in response to an email she  received from me. Can you guess what the email said?

        Apparently in the settings, under the gearbox whatever, there is a setting that sends your posts to everyone on your email list who isn’t on Google+. My grandmother thought my email had been hacked.

        It took a while for my grandmother to even entertain the possibility that I had sent the email. But anyway, that whole affair eventually got sorted out after a scolding about the use of the word “effing” from my mom.

        On an unrelated note, recently afterthat fiasco my email was hacked for real, from Russia. But the hackers didn’t do anything other than change my screensaver.

        I guess that’s karma.