greybeta | In other random news...

stealthcomic, I am biased against English teachers because they ruined me at a young age. My seventh and eighth grade English eachers just sat there assigning multiple choice quizzes. That's literally all I remember doing. Ninth grade teacher was fun. Tenth grade English teacher was evil. Pure evil. Junior AP English teacher hated me because I used too much passive voice. She broke me of the habit of using passive voice, but I am sad to say that my opinion of English lowered signficantly anyways.

Then there was Mrs. Kropp, my senior AP English teacher. The slavedriver Mrs. Kropp. The slavedriver who pounced upon unsuspecting seniors by forcing us to do a timed writing on the very first day of classes. I grumbled and silenty thanked God this would be my last English teacher ever. My scheming roommate (this was before I knew he was to be my scheming rooommate) was whipped by her lashes to the left at me. Lucky Andy and Random Jameson were to the right at me. But not matter how far back you sat, you could not escape the mind numbing pain of literary ~~over~~analysis. Sure, there is a metaphor in Heart of Darkness where Konrad is saying Africa is getting raped by Europe. Shakespeare wrote about sex in the most poetic ways...to both women and men. Poetry turns on the dime thanks to scansion, synecdoche, and metonymy.

I. Hate. English.
(but I'll get certified to teach English anyways, just because I can...and the fact that I owe Mrs. Kropp a large portion of the development of my writing abilities)
----------------------------------
In high school, Quiz Bowl was my favorite extracurricular activity by far. By the time I was a senior, I had become a bona fide Quiz Bowl ace. I was so good other teams called timeouts just to regroup after I went on a streak of six or seven questions on a row. Sometimes, the other team would be as good as me (My senior year, I was often a one man wrecking team because the my teammates were afraid to buzz in and miss something that I knew) but I was just a hair bit faster. Allow me to provide you an example.

Moderator: This John Paul Sarte work...
[buzz]
Moderator: Southside, Daniel.
D2: No Exit.
Moderator: Uh...correct! Next question.
Moderator: When a filibuster occurs in the U.S. Senate...
[buzz]
Moderator: Southside, Daniel.
D2: Cloture.
Moderator: Uh...[has to look down at the bolded answer] correct! Next question...

Even the judges went OMGWTF!!!111!!!1 in some of my matches. It's almost like I knew the questions before hand. Advice to those who do Quiz Bowl type activities: Read up old questions. The pool of possible questions is fairly limited. The trick is to have an eidetic memory that you can recall things at light speed with.
----------------------------------
The Democrats will take back the House of Representatives in 2006. They're too far behind in the Senate to make up ground. For now.

McCain stands the best chance for the Republicans to maintain their hold on the Oval Office. But the current Republican establishment doesn't want a moderate like him in power because *gasp* the Democrats might be able to get some work done. And we all know that liberals are teh 3V1L!!!!

The Democrats will select...Clinton? I have no freaking clue.
----------------------------------
Explanation of new default icon:

visgoth said his gift of a paid account gave me 100 user pics. He lied. I can only have 15. Guess not, athough I do randomly have 1 GB of photo storage on livejournal. I should learn how to use that.

It did make me want to get a new default icon, as I've been using Tylor for awhile.

sundancetango showed me this excellent chibi making site. I was just messing around with it before, as usual, I started putting too much thought into it. It's the little things in life that I care about, I suppose.

I have decided to name my avatar "Angemon". He's an angel and a demon. I know, I know, not very original. I'm only good for rehashing old ideas, my fine friends. First off, he's got blue hair and grey eyes. Blue and grey are my favorite colors. He has grey eyes because he can peer into the souls of others, but few people can peer into his old soul. He wears an outfit because it's comfortable and easy to clean. His angel scarf grants him the ability to hide his emotions and feelings from others. His angel shoes allows him to be quicker on his feet than most people. His angel gloves let him get a good grip on things. His angel bracelet gives him the time of day and keeps him in contact with others.

His black demon wear represents his offish nature. He does not let people get too close to him, as he is sort of a shadowy hedgehog that way. Even if they did, they could only see emptiness. That's how good he is at hiding who he really is. And while he has angelic qualities, his weapon of choice is a demon's three pronged pitchfork. Each prong is a sticking point of his personality that he uses to stir others up, and if he's not careful he can hurt then. For one thing, he is a very arrogant person. He is so confident in his ability that God has to humble him from time to time. For another, he is a very stubborn person. He is so obstinate that God has to place the right people to rebuke him in Christ's name. Lastly, he lacks remorse for his actions. His life of no regret often forces God to pain him with compassion so he can be sensitive to others.

It is very unusual to find a person who can wield both angelic and demonic powers, switching back and forth between good and evil personalities. Angedemon is one of the rare exceptions. He can dual wield both his angelic guitar and his demonic guitar at the same time. Like all creatures of God, he must be able to play a song that makes him in tune with his creator. He has the super rare (and fantastic ability) to play the two guitars at the same time. If Angedemon translated the song he played to you, you would understand he would be singing about a song about balance between light and dark (cue FFVI theme from World of Balance here). He believes in the First Law of Alchemy: To obtain, one must give up something in return. He believes that to save one life, you must kill another. He'd be make a terrible doctor, but he'd make a powerful philosopher. Or a terrific teacher...
----------------------------------
Random Jameson: Could we have won the Revolutionary War without alcohol?
D2: Could we have won the Vietnam War without alcohol?