Halloween Movies

Last night, I went to a friend's house for a Halloween hang-out thing.  We wanted to watch a Halloween movie, but half the people wanted to watch a horror movie (like, The Omen or The Exorcist) and half were terrified of that and wanted to watch Ghostbusters or The Nightmare Before Christmas (which I'm not entirely sure if it's a Halloween movie or a Christmas movie...).

So we compromised and ended up watching this hilariously terrible 80s movie called "Killer Klowns from Outer Space."  It was horrible.  Like, you have no idea.  It was entertaining solely because it was so horrible

There were these clowns from outer space that shot popcorn at people, and then wrapped them up in cotton-candy cocoons to eat.  And the main characters were so stupid that we were rooting for the clowns.  It was bad.

BUT we had a good time.  Several of my friends are likely going to sleep with their lights on for a while.  We got to criticize it and scream at the screen and make fun of the continuity flaws.  Like, how the girl takes off her pants by pulling them UP.  We were confused.

I'm trying to imagine what would happen if we had killer clowns descend upon Earth.  Mostly, I think it would be awesome.

Oh, and then we watched half of a movie called "Troll Hunters" which was in Norwegian.  I'd already seen it - it's actually quite good.  In a weird sort of way.

I'm thinking I might post about this whole hurricane thing next.  I can either tell you about how awesome it was, or how much of a disappointment it was.  If I have power.  See ya then!

HAPPY Washington, Adams (Sr), Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, Adams (Jr), Jackson, Van Buren, Harrison, Tyler, Polk, Taylor, Fillmore, Pierce, Buchanan, Lincoln, Johnson (Andy), Grant, Hayes, Garfield, Arthur, Cleveland, Harrison, Cleveland (again), McKinley, Roosevelt (Teddy), Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Hoover, Roosevelt (Frank), Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson (Lyndon), Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush (Sr), Clinton, Bush (Jr), Obama DAY!

Yes, that was from memory.

No, I am not sorry for having such a long title.  Blame our abundance of presidents.  Now, for some...drumroll...PRESIDENTIAL TRIVIA!

I'm sorry, I just really, really love trivia.  Especially about the presidents.  The following are facts I just happen to know:

• John Tyler (president 1841-1845) currently has 2 living grandchildren.
• James Garfield (president 1881) could write in Greek with one hand and in Latin with the other - simultaneously.
• Milliard Fillmore (president 1850-1853) is the only U.S. president whose first language was not English - it was Dutch.
• Milliard Fillmore's last words were "The nourishment is palatable."
• Teddy Roosevelt's last words were "Please put out the light."
• JFK's last words were "That's obvious."
• Both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died on the same day, July 4, 1826.  Adam's last words were "Thomas Jefferson still survives," which is incorrect because Jefferson had actually died a few hours earlier.  Jefferson's last words were "It is the Fourth?"
• William Henry Harrison died after 31 days in office because he refused to wear a jacket during his inaugural speech and caught pneumonia.  His campaign slogan was "Tippecanoe and Tyler too," which, in my opinion, is far more catchy than "Yes We Can."  On that note, James K. Polk's slogan was "54-40 or Fight," which had to do with claiming Oregon territory.  I vote Romney's slogan to be "Romney or Fight." So much more interesting!
• Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms.
• JFK was not actually the youngest president ever.  He was the youngest elected president.  Teddy Roosevelt was younger when he took office after McKinley was assassinated, and by the time he was re-elected, he was older than JFK.
• Rutherford B. Hayes (whose election ended Reconstruction) was the first president to have a telephone.  His phone number was 1.
• Lincoln ($5 and 1 cent), Jefferson (5 cents and $2), Franklin Roosevelt (10 cents), Kennedy (50 cents), Eisenhower ($1 coin, no longer in circulation), Washington ($1), Jackson ($20), Grant ($50), McKinley ($500, no longer in circulation), Cleveland ($1000, no longer in circulation), Madison ($5000, no longer in circulation), and Wilson ($100000, no longer in circulation) are all portrayed on U.S. currency.
• Speaking of which, the only people on U.S. currency who were never presidents are Susan B. Anthony ($1 coin), Sacagawea ($1 coin), Alexander Hamilton ($10), Benjamin Franklin ($100), and Samuel Chase ($10000, no longer in circulation).

Yeah...so I just realized that was a lot of facts (I never knew that I knew this much! And I know SO MUCH MORE too!), so I won't keep going on, or go look up other facts.  I mean, I just spent half an hour poring over Presidential Fun Facts.  Jeez, I like knowing this stuff.

But, yeah.  All of the above was stuff I already knew, though I Google-checked some of it to make sure I was right.  Happy President's Day!

P.S. If you don't live in the USA, I apologize.  Feel free to leave angry comments, which I will ignore.  Good'ay!

Happy Alaska Young Day!

This message brought to you from 6th Period Marketing class.  Just to let you know that I am awesome.  You must admit, it's an important fact to note.

Happy Alaska Young Day!  If you don't know who that is, go straight to your local library and check out "Looking for Alaska" (in your pants) by John Green.

Do you know how I'm going to celebrate Alaska Young Day?  That's right, I'm going to meet John and Hank Green!

You have no idea how difficult it is for me to stay coherent at this moment, and not dissolve into a fit of babbling.

You see, for those non-Nerdfighters amongst you, today is not only Alaska Young Day, but the release date of John Green's new novel, "The Fault in Our Stars."  And I, flyergirl13, will be attending the first stop on John's book tour, the Tour De Nerdfighting, which is right here in Massachusetts in about 5 hours.

Yes, you are all very, very jealous.  

Whoops, class is almost over.  Have fun with your mundane evening plans!  DFTBA, yo.


UPDATE:
I'm sorry if you didn't understand that, I was slightly crazed with excitement when I wrote it.  John Green is one of my favorite authors, and I went to the book signing for the release of his new book, The Fault in Our Stars (which I already finished and is absolutely incredible.  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.)
What I liked best about the event was, obviously, John and Hank, but also all the other people there. Imagine an auditorium of over 800 people, and you could (and we did) walk up to ANYONE (literally) and start a conversation, and become friends.  And don't get me started on the vast number of awesome, infinitely nerdy t-shirts present.
This is getting to be a long update, so I won't go into the details (you know, Hank in a tutu, TFiOS waving, all that jazz) so peace out, dudes.

Buy your very own hipster, only $58

My sister got her very own hipster for Christmas!

Seriously, Vera Bradley makes a kind of purse called a hipster. My sister got one for Christmas.  All night, my brother and I were making hipster jokes.

"She's going to wear it ironically."

"She wore hipsters before it was cool."

"Normal purses are too mainstream."

And things of that nature.  I kind of want my own, just so I can tell people I have my very own personal hipster.  It stays by my side and carries my things for me.

The only problem is, Vera Bradley doesn't offer "vintage" or "ironic" patterns.

Coloring Books are EVVVIILLLL (not really)

"Evil" spelled backwards is "live" and coloring books are life.

I purchased a coloring book this weekend.  My mind went something in this procession:
I see a shelf of coloring books!
They're 50% off!
I must look for a Harry Potter one.
They don't have any.
Look!  A Lion King coloring book!
Must have!
Purchases.

After all the multiple Black Friday discounts, it cost a grand total of 50 cents.  Ouch.
I don't get how all the store manage to get into the black on this day if all they do is price all their products way lower than usual?

Anyways, I was extremely proud of my coloring book, until I realized I have no crayons.
Then, life was very sad.

We also got our Christmas tree today.  It took forever, due to the discrepancies in opinion between family members.  I had fun comparing trees to math.  "That tree trunk looks like a cubic function.  That one looks like a tan line."

I visited Niagara Falls, and stood on the shoulders of giants (just like Newton!).  Only one giant, Nikola Tesla*.  Then, my mom yelled at me and told me to stop climbing on statues.

*In case you don't know who he is, he's the namesake of the Tesla Roadster and Tesla coils.  Did cool stuff with electricity, including Niagara hydropower.

Over and out, dudes.  Have fun with all that leftover turkey.  (Hint: Turkey pancakes.  Not as bad of an idea as you'd think.)

I would tell you I'm a ninja, but ninjas never tell you they are ninjas. It's part of their ninja-ness. So I'm NOT a ninja

Nope.  I am clearly not a ninja at all.  In the slightest.  Everyone knows that ninjas never say they are ninjas.  IF you say you are a ninja, it means you are really not a ninja.  Because ninjas will never reveal their identity.

That's why I'm totally NOT a ninja.

But I acted like one this weekend.  Long Island, New York, to visit family over Memorial Day weekend.

First, came the epic games of Ninja.  You know, the game.  The one that you play.  Yeah, that one.  My brother and I played it.  First, we played in the front yard.  He beat me in like five seconds.
Blarg.
But we kept playing and after like half an hour, I finally killed one of his hands!
And then while I was rejoicing and celebrating he beat me.

Did I mention my brother is strong, like strong?  As in, he takes pride in the fact that if you try to punch him (which I do.  I'm not mean, I just see a lot of Volkswagon Buggies), it will guaranteed hurt you more than it hurts him.  Which can be annoying sometimes.

But Ninja on the ground was too boring.  Blah.  So we took it a step up and went to the local park, which they have all around in dense suburbia.

RANDOM TANGENT:
Speaking of suburbia, awesome APUSH quote today:
"How do you expect me to draw white suburbia?" - Claudia
Basically, we were designing an emblem for our presidential candidate and tried to...never mind.  Ignore me.

Anyway, we went to the playground.  First, I got to learn Parkour!  Which is basically learning how to climb and jump on things and it looks cool.  Watch this video to see cool people do it a hell of a lot better than I will ever be able to, ever.

Then, we played Ninja.  Not normal Ninja.  High-stakes Ninja atop the monkey bars.  See diagram.

It was difficult, but I did not fall.  I lost many many times, but i survived with all appendages intact.  I even won a few times!  Happy day.

Finally, we also did circus in the park.  On Long Island, the parks become the nighttime teenage hangout.  My brother contact juggled, and I would like you to his awesome YouTube videos, but the whole Internet safety things and blah.  And I normal juggled, which I can't do very well but I am trying to learn.  We also did some partner acro stuff, which is basically when I get to climb around on him and look pretty.

We attracted the attention of a gaggle of teenage girls, who came over and started swooning over my brother as soon as they had established I was his sister and not his girlfriend.  It was actually highly amusing, because he had no interest in them other than he liked the attention.  It was, again, very hilarious.

Anything else?  Oh yes, Happy late Memorial Day.  I honor all the veterans and members of the armed forces.  *Salute*

I Missed Easter!

You may notice I have a thing for posting on holidays.  Automatic subject, without even thinking!  But I missed Easter.  Oops.  I was too busy going on Facebook.

I gave up Facebook for Lent.  Lent is the 40 days before Easter where you give up something you like, to show God how much you love God and are willing to make sacrifices for God.  And so on.  So I gave up Facebook.  It was a long, trying 40 days, with my friends getting mad at me because they had no idea how to communicate with me now.  I lived in a lonely little cave in the Arctic Circle for 40 days, for all they knew.

But I got back yesterday.  Oh joyous joys!  It was exhilarating.  Profound.  I found new meaning with my life.  Everything changed as my pinky hovered above the "enter" key as soon as I had keyed my email and password into the little blue box.

Not really.  It was cool to be back.  Things changed.  I had 263 pending notifications.  Yay!

Do you like my short sentences today?  Some are fragments.  Good.  Useful devices.  But it can be easy to overuse them.  Not that I'm guilty of that.  Nope.  Not me.  No way.

A few updates:
- I dyed the tips of my hair pink!  Except, I have brown hair, and I didn't beach it first, so it's pretty dull.  I like it like that better.  Not as shocking.
- I have a ridiculous amount of homework.  I shouldn't be here right now.  The APUSH exam is in 11 DAYS!!! I might just implode from the stress of it all.  Oh yeah, and I have to make a hot air balloon for chemistry.  Out of tissue paper.  This is so stupid.
-  I will go now, and study for APUSH, because I'm a nerd with no life.  After the exam we've planned a party where the whole class can come to eat ice cream and cry.  It'll be exhilarating.

I'm Not Even Going To Try

I could try to be all cool and sneaky and get out some lie about such and such but it's not going to work.  You know it's April Fools Day.  We all do.  I won't get anything past you.  I'm not even going to try.

It snowed this morning.  We all thought it was some huge prank pulled by the weathermen, but it wasn't.  but school wasn't even canceled.  Bummer.

So yeah.  This is a boring post.  Go somewhere else for funny pranks.  Yes, you can leave now.
But wait!  Look what I found in my paper this morning!

I'm not Irish, but you can kiss me anyway

Seriously.

But yes, today is the excellent day devoted to St. Patty.  He is Irish.  And a saint.  And likes the color green.  And that's about all I know.

Actually, I don't know much about the Irish in general either....I will list all the facts I know about the Irish.  Here:

• They like the color green
• They are short and have red beards, and give away gold at the ends of rainbows
• They once had a notable lack of potatoes
• They like beer
• They dislike the Brits
• They have a Boston basketball team named after them

Any Irish readers out there, I wouldn't mind a couple Irish facts to add to my collection!
Today is the day to honor the Irish.  We all wear green.  We might do other things too, but I don't know what they are.  I'm not Irish, remember?  I just used toady as an excuse to wear my fantastic bright neon green tank top.  And some green bead necklaces that I borrowed from my friend.
Other than that, I can't recall anything that made today very Irish-y.  What a ripoff.

P.S.  To see an amazing, beautiful Venn Diagram depicting my feelings on this holiday click this link right here.
P.P.S.  On a very random note, I wonder who Mr. Venn is, the one who invented Venn Diagrams.  I'd like to meet him sometime, he seems like an interesting guy.

Happy Singles Awareness Day

Ha.  I guess I forgot to put up any sort of Valentine's Day post.  Meh.  Hope you had fun playing footsie or kissy or lovey-dovey or whatever you sickenly sweet couples do on holidays made just for you.

Bah humbug.

Here's a math valentine.  It's called Sierpinski.  I think that is some guy's name.  It's, like, infinite hearts.  Seriously.  Zoom in on the thing if you don't believe me.
Probably symbolism to infinite love, yadda yadda.
Can you tell I'm bitter?
Let's just get this over with.  Here ya go.  Now don't bother me about Valentine's Day.  Maybe someday I'll tell ya why.

I didn't draw this, obviously.  I don't generally sign my pictures with the name of a website, ya know?

 UPDATE:
So I found another picture that I had drawn for my Valentine's Day post while trying to clean up my desktop.  Hope you like it.  Hope I don't have any Irish people at my house with swords tonight because I made fun of St. Patrick's day.  I'm sorry, people, I'm not Irish.  I am, however, American, and I still think Columbus Day is stupid.  Poor guy, he probably thought he was all that.

Groundhog Day

Ever seen that movie? It's pretty good. I like the part where he falls in a large puddle.
But Groundhog Day is more than just a movie. It's a significant part of our culture. Where would we be without worshiping a large Pennsylvanian rodent? Probably right where we are right now. Except that Punxsutawney, PN would be minus world-wide fame.

But this year it doesn't matter anyway. Because if you read my last post, you would know that Punxsutawney Phil is dead. The ground froze over his underground hideout. I'm sorry. I bet that rodent had a special place in your heart.

But if he's dead, then it means he didn't see his shadow. So spring is coming. I'm waiting.

*waits*

It's still not here yet. It's still sleeting and being completely winter-ish outside. What a ripoff.

I think the only good part about this snow day is the dinosaur mac n cheese that I had for lunch.

"See, no shadow! Maybe spring is finally coming!"

Kudos To Crowne Plaza

I love the Crowne Plaza. In case you don't know, they're a hotel. They might be a chain. Probably. But I only know of one, and its the most epic hotel ever. I know this even though I've never stayed there.

The particular hotel in question is on top of the Mass Pike, which happens to be in the wonderful state of Massachusetts. Ya know, hence the "Mass". That's the first epic thing about this hotel. The Mass Pike goes under this hotel. Which is cool for a person from Nowhereville, MA, like me.
Sure, Shaw's is on top of the Mass Pike too, but who likes Shaw's??

But the position of this hotel is not even the reason I'm writing this, even though it is rather amazing. No, the reason is this:

Can you even figure out what this is a picture of? Yeah, I thought not. My friends, this is what a hotel looks like when you take a picture of it with a cell phone camera while going 70 mph on the Mass Pike.

This is a picture I stole from Google images. I'll apologize in advance for any copyright whatevers. But, believe it or not, the following picture and the picture above are of the very same hotel on the very same day:

I'll add, that "very same day" happened to be just a few days before Christmas. Those little boxes of yellow light are hotel rooms. For the literacy challenged, they spell the word, "JOY".
Can you now see why I love this hotel?

So my mom and brother and I, we oohed and ahhed as we drove under the hotel. We were pretty impressed. I took a picture. And I would have forgotten about this experience, except...

This one is also awful, and I couldn't find a Google replacement, so I will have to set the scene for those who cannot decipher my poor cell-phone-camera photography.

Date: January 2, 2011
Time: Nighttime. Hence, you know, the darkness.
Place: Crowne Plaza Hotel. Mass Pike.
Description: One day after New Year's, a girl, her sister, and her mother were driving on the Mass Pike. The girl was moody that her Radio Privileges had been revoked after they heard the same song three times (It was a good song!). Her sister was singing in the backseat to some pop song. She grouchily stared out the windshield only to be dazzled by the beauty of the thing before her. Behold! The Crowne Plaza hotel, which she had seen just a week earlier, now back with a new message! She frantically dug out her phone and took a crappy picture to commemorate the moment forever. The End.

And that, my friends, is why I love Crowne Plaza hotel.

Holiday Cheers

I'll try not to mention the C-word in this post. Being politically correct is important, of course, so it would be very bad to refer to this time of year as anything but "holiday season". I will call the holiday coming up six days before the end of this month as "That-Holiday-Starting-With-A-'C'-That-I-Can't-Say-Because-That-Would-Be-Mixing-Religion-Into-Other-Things-And-I-Don't-Want-To-Offend-Anyone", or just The-Holiday-Which-Must-Not-Be-Named for short.

I celebrate You-Know-What. My mom got into our tree the day after Thanksgiving, for [insert-deity-of-your-choice]'s sake! We went out and hacked the feet off of a large evergreen shrubbery and tied it to the top of a large contraption that moves on it own thanks to multiple small explosions occurring right near you every second.

You know it's this time of year when two days after Thanksgiving there are large ornaments the size of basketballs hanging from the ceiling in the kitchen and any anti-holiday sentiment warrants an accusation of being called a "grinch", "scrooge", "grinch-scrooge", "weirdo", or "platypus".

I need to go shopping to get presents for all my relatives, friends, family, and pets. I only have one pet. My pet rock, Westley.

On a different note, I always find this a funny time of year. Jewish kids get presents on Hanukkah (forgive me if I butchered the spelling there) because their parents don't want them to feel left out because Christian kids get You-Know-What presents. But Christmas is supposed to be Jesus's birthday. Even though Jesus was technically born in March, back in the day they changed it to December, to make it easier to convert people. They already celebrated the winter solstice at that time, so it's easier to change the course of a holiday than make a new one.

Speaking of changing the course of a holiday, it has been. This is no longer about religion, it's about presents and Santa. I read a story about a kid in church who was asked whose birthday was on Dec. 25. The kid replied, "Santa Claus".

What is our world coming to?

What is Halloween, really?

Halloween. ah, how we love you so. The only much-anticipated day between Labor Day and Thanksgiving. And who really cares about Labor Day except as a day off of school?

But who here actually knows what Halloween is?
Since I can't actually see you, because this is a computer screen and my spy cameras are temporarily disabled, I will assume that no one is raising their hands, and continue with my definitions of Halloween.

1. All Hallows Eve/All Saint's Eve
The day before All Saint's Day, according to Christians. How boring.
"Come on, let's go pick out our costumes for All Saint's Eve!" Yeah, right.

2. An Excuse To Pig Out On Candy
Don't deny it, we all use this. "But Mom, it's Halloween! I'm supposed to be eating candy!" Personally, I think this is the most important reason to have this holiday.

3. DID Appreciation Day
Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) is a condition in which people display multiple distinct identities. I'm guessing that this is where the whole dressing-up-as-something-else thing came from, and Halloween was started as an appreciation day for this disorder.

4. Anti Stranger Danger
Maybe it was started as a rebellion against Stranger Danger programs. You know its true. What other day of the year can you accept candy from strangers? Just don't go helping them look for lost puppies.


5. Therapy For Serial Killers
This isn't isn't about the holiday as much as the strange practice of carving pumpkins. I'm guessing that this started as a rehabilitation for knife murderers.
"We need to get the negative energy out of them, but we don't want them actually hurting people. I know! Let's let them stab some pumpkins!"

What do you think is the meaning of Halloween?