So...Nathaniel Hawthorne was Sicilian?

I think the thing that made my day was when I discovered that Nathaniel Hawthorne used the word "inconceivable" in The Scarlet Letter.

We had a sub in English, and were assigned to read chapters 10 and 11.  Being the good, dutiful students that we are, my friends and I did the work.  We read in a happy reading circle: we sat criss-cross applesauce on the floor and switched off every sentence.

People looked at us strangely, which was the best part, but the sub pretended not to notice.  Then we came across the part with "inconceivable" and my friend shouted it, since we're all big Princess Bride fans.  The sub looks up and stares right at us, says "I do not think it means what you think it means."  Then she kept doing work like nothing had happened.

Made my day.

So, tonight, I have a presentation night for something called Humanities Scholar's Collaborative.  A bunch of students apply, and you get to be part of the group that meets with HSC groups at other schools, and goes to local colleges to hear professors talk about something in relation to the year's theme, which this year is "the family in America."  Tonight is the culminating night, in which each group performs a skit about the American family structure in an assigned decade.  We're doing the 1990s.

I get to play a neighborhood gossip woman.  I also get to wear a visor, scrunchie, and fanny pack - classic stereotypical suburban 90s mom.  This shall be exciting.

Finally, the only other noteworthy news is that Relay For Life was last Friday.  My friend and I set a goal to walk 100 laps - our track is 1/4 miles so that's 25 miles.  Originally, we actually wanted 105 laps so we could say we walked a marathon, but we ran out of time.  We actually had to sprint the last few laps so we could finish before they kicked everyone out at 6am.  We were sprinting after having walked 24 miles.

Yeah, I could hardly move my legs for the rest of the weekend.

I've started Pottermore-ing

Is that a word?  Now it is.

But before I can talk rationally and coherently discuss this new development, if you will please excuse the following:

OH MY ROWLING!  ZOMG!  YESSSSSSSSSSSSS
*happy dance*


It's official, guys.  I mean, I have a Gryffindor patch on my backpack, and my penpal made me a Gryffindor bracelet, but now J.K. ROWLING has confirmed it!

*ahem*

I have regained my composure and would like to inform the world that I have joined Pottermore.  After not getting into the Beta testing in October and clicking back every week since then to see if it was finally open to the public yet.

And finally my labors were rewarded.

Friends, my name is NifflerCauldron2980 (add me as a friend!) and I am a Gryffindor!  My wand is cedar and unicorn hair, 11 inches, unbending.  And so far I have contributed a great 14 points to my House (but I'm not sure how I did that).

Basically, Pottermore is pretty cool.  My favorite part is reading J.K. Rowling's little notes and backstories about the characters and plotlines and how it all came together.  The extra stuff, where it lets you duel people and brew potions and things, is fun as well.

But, WOW brewing potions is hard.  And stressful.  All these thoughts were going through my head:

• Which of these little bags of ingredients is snake fangs?  TELL ME NOW.
• Where the freak is my wand??!
• Who knew heating cauldrons to the right temperature was so hard? 
• I'm really good at grinding bezoars.
• What am I supposed to do for the three minutes that my potion brews?  Just stare at the screen and hope that I didn't add too many porcupine quills?

I have tried, and failed, to brew the Antidote to Common Poisons at least six times.  All of these failures are because I let my cauldron overheat while it is cooking for five seconds.

Potions are hard.  How was Lily so good at it??

Also, there's one, easily remedied issue that makes me sad:

However, all I see is:

Alas.  I shall stay with my friend-less-ness and continue to fail at brewing potions.  Wish me luck!

Colleges are pretty un-creative when it comes to photos

So I'm a junior in high school, who did reasonably well on the SATs.  So colleges are sending me things in the mail.  Also, I'm touring colleges, so I have a lot of brochures.

When I get these, I like to play a game called "Spot the Cliche College Photo."  Basically, I've noticed that the majority of pictures used in college brochures are variations on the same basic idea.  It's fun to go through and see them all.  All are actual photos from college websites or brochures.

I just find it really funny how all their pictures have the same theme.

I grouped these based on the major categories I usually find.  Some fall into multiple categories.  There are a lot of other groups that I didn't include, like "Students with Face Paint in the School Colors" or "Students Standing in Front of a Blackboard With Complicated Equations Written On It."  Let me know what ones you notice!

For example:

The "Smart Kids Wearing Lab Coats"
(this category may also contain "Students Looking Through a Microscope" or "Students Waering Safety Glasses" or "Students Holding Up a Test Tube and Peering Into It")

The "Students having Fun on the Quad"

The "Students Working Together, Because We Are All One Big Happy Community"

The "Students Doing Things With Complex-Looking Mechanical Items"

The "Our Students Have School Spirit!"

Trust me, I have an excuse

Once again, I'm doing my "Friday" 56 on a Saturday.  But wait!  It's okay!  I have an excuse!  I spent the day getting stitches.  Yeah.  Feel sorry for me.

I have this freaking epic scar on the side of my lip now.  Why, you ask?  Oh, I was just practicing my French kissing.  With a shark.

Kidding.  I was in a knife fight.

So I took the ACT this morning (running on very little sleep, having spent Thursday night in the ER).  I'm hoping i did okay.  I forgot my calculator, so I did the whole thing using just a four-function calculator that they loaned me.  Ick.  I've mentioned my rampant love for my scientific calculator in the past, so leaving it behind for this important test was kind of depressing.

But anyways, on to the Friday 56.  You guys are going to be kind of disappointed this week.  I have two books sitting in front of me, and I'm too lazy to go find another one at the moment.  I have my AP Psychology textbook, and Webster's New French Dictionary (does that mean that they have words in New French, as opposed to Old French, or that it's a New dictionary?).  And for a double-whammy, I'll give you a sentence (or, in the dictionary's case, a word) from each!  Think of all the things you'll learn about Psychology and French!

"Tens of billions of neurons, each communicating with thousands of other neurons, yield an ever-changing wiring diagram that dwarfs a powerful computer."
--"Psychology" Ninth Edition by David G, Myers


"Cantankerous [kæn'tæɳkərs] adj acariâtre"
--"Webster's New French Dictionary"


There you have it.  Now you know how to call someone cantankerous, in French!  Use this knowledge well.

Friday 56: It's actually on a Friday this time! Be proud of me

Rules:
1) Grab any book
2) Turn to page 56
3) Find an interesting sentence
4) Post it
5) Add your post URL to Freda's Voice

"Girls think they're only allowed to wear dresses on formal occasions, but I like a woman who says, you know, I'm going over to see a boy who is having a nervous breakdown, a boy whose connection to the sense of sight itself is tenuous, and gosh dang it, I am going to wear a dress for him."

-- The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

There has been too much action in reaction to political scandals. Please write to your congressman to repeal Newton's third law.

Ahh, physics.

So, I have a physics project that I have to do.  It's meant to help us learn about torque.  Basically, we have to make a mobile.  You know, those things with sticks and objects hanging from them, most often seen above baby cribs?  We have to use the laws of torque to create a mobile out of any objects we want, and make sure that it balances.

So originally, my friend and I planned to use fuzzy dice (those things people hang from their rearview mirrors) as our hanging objects, because fuzzy dice are sort of a running inside joke in our physics class.  But I told my circus teacher (yeah, I take circus classes) about the project, and he suggested that I make my mobile out of people.

It was great.  We had these 20-foot metal Chinese poles lying around, and we weighed everyone, and did the calculations, and spliced ropes, and constructed this enormous mobile.  And we put people on it.  The surprising part was that it actually balanced, and we didn't all die.

But yeah.  I wasn't sure how my teacher would react to my, erm, creative project. (Especially since the assignment sheet said a) that the mobile should be less than 100 cm tall and b) you should not use fragile or valuable objects.  I'm honestly not sure whether humans count as valuable or fragile.) But I showed him the video and he freaking loved it.

Here it is.  I'm the one in yellow, though I'm sure you didn't need me to tell you that.  It's obvious that I'm the awesome one.

That's all, folks.  May the mass times acceleration be with you.

I'm a sucker for nerd jokes.

I'm REALLY bad at days of the week

This week has been a mess.  I thought it was Friday this morning, probably because I forgot to turn off my alarm.  So, bright and early at 5:55 AM on a Saturday morning, I wake to that lovely noise.

It was a fantastic start to the weekend.  Not.

The point of that was to say, I'm sorry.  But it's okay to post this on Saturday, because my head is screwy anyways.  I liked the idea of it.

So here, you go.  This is the Friday 56 (on a Saturday)!

Hosted by Freda's Voice

Rules:

- Grab a book, any book

- Turn to page 56

- Find any sentence that's interesting

- Post it

- Add link of Freda's site

"Another time, on the country estate of Monserrate in Santa Fe de Bogota, he woke up screaming because he dreamed that while they were having lunch together, General Santander plucked out his own eyeballs because they interfered with his eating and placed them on the table."
-- The General in His Labyrinth

Gabriel Garcia Marquez

That's certainly interesting, especially taken out of context.  I haven't finished this book yet, but it's quite good.  It's about the South American revolutionary Simon Bolivar, which is funny because I have to play him in a AP World History presentation next week.

I like this.  I try to do it every Friday.  Though in that regard, I'm not off to a great start.

This has been bothering me for a while

Sorry to post yet another post about The Hunger Games, but I really need your input on this.  It's been bugging me.

So there are 24 kids in the Games, right?  12 girls, 12 boys.

12 girls.

If we say that your period lasts an average of five days, and there are 30 days in a month, that should mean that, at any given time, at least two of the female tributes should be on their period.

Right?

How the Capitol handle this?  Are there some boxes of Tampax hidden in the Cornucopia?  It wouldn't make sense if they girls' uniforms were made differently from the boys' to account for this, because then they might have an advantage in some way.  Are tributes responsible for bringing their own stuff?  So does this mean that any girl who'll be on her period during the Games would have to bring some tampons as their district token?  Cuz that would kind of suck.

Plus, it would give them a disadvantage in the games.  Do you really think a girl who's curled up with cramps is ready to fight to the death with some male tributes who don't need to worry about it?  Or what if there was water with sharks in it, and they smelled the blood?

Maybe the Capitol messes with their bodies so that they just don't have periods.  Wouldn't that make all the girls unable to have children?

I'm trying to remember if any of the female victors that we meet end up having kids.  Oh yeah!  **SPOILER ALERT** Katniss had kids!  **END SPOILER ALERT**

Clearly, that's incorrect then.  Besides, that would be unfair to the girls.  If they messed with the girls' bodies so they couldn't reproduce, they would have to cut off all the guys' balls or something, just to make it fair.  And Finnick makes it clear that this is not the case.

Anyone have any ideas on how this works?  Maybe I'm just reading into it way too much, but I've been wondering about this, and I'm stumped.

May the odds be ever in your favor (LIES)

The odds are clearly not in your favor if there's a 1 out of 24 chance of survival.  Favorable odds, to me, means that there's a higher probability of winning than there is of losing.  I'm not taking AP Statistics until next year, but I know enough to recognize that 4% is not particularly favorable.

If you don't know what I'm talking about, please go read The Hunger Games.  It's a fantastic book.  I don't feel like blogging about the Hunger Games, though, because of all the movie hype.  EVERYONE is talking about it.

Right now, I'm reading "The Hunger Pains," a hilarious parody starring "Kantkiss Neverclean" from District 12, the undesirable telemarketing district.  This book is the newest parody from the Harvard Lampoon, whom you might know as the author of "Nighlight," the Twilight parody.

It's freaking hilarious, people.  

But besides that.  Hunger Games are way too overdone at the moment (I'm seeing the movie tomorrow!)  Instead, let's talk about more awesome things, like, um...did you know it was 80 degrees yesterday?

This is pitiful.  I'm so pathetic that I'm talking about the weather.

So, do you guys remember about a month ago, when I posted about President's Day and listed all the US presidents in order from memory?  Well, that skill came in handy recently.  Sort of.  Ish.

I had a vocab quiz in American Lit, and my teacher included a random bonus question: "Who is Sylvia Ward?"*  The name sounded familiar, but I wasn't sure who it was.  So, instead, I wrote the following:

"I'm not really sure who Sylvia Ward is.  Sorry.  I instead propose a new bonus question: 'List all the US presidents in order.'" And I then proceeded to list them all on my test.

I didn't expect points or anything, but the next day in class, my teacher says "I was grading the vocab quizzes last night, and there were some...interesting responses to the bonus question.  For example, Anne said..." And she told the class my answer.

It was hilarious and my face turned totally red.  She didn't give me points, but I got a smiley face on my paper.  It was kind of funny.  Well, a lot.

Have you ever put "questionable" answers down on tests?  How did it work out?  All my friends were just like, "you're so nerdy" and I answered "yeah, I know."  One friend, who shares my history-geekiness, agreed that I was a genius, which was quite nice.

*In case you wanted to know, Sylvia Ward Dr. Heidegger's lover in the story "Dr. Heidegger's Experiment" by Nathaniel Hawthorne.  Kudos to you if you knew that!

The urban dwelling resembling the village of York in England (and SCIENCE!)

My title is a cryptogram.  Can you solve it?

(Hint: It means I went to New York City.)

Didja figure it out?  It means "New York City!"  You must be so smart.

It was pretty darn epic.  I mean, it was a school trip, to go to Columbia University for a publications conference. It was a school trip, and they basically gave us free reign to wander anywhere we wanted in Manhattan.  Crazy fun things went down.

However, as cool as it was to watch my English teachers sing karaoke to Lady Gaga, I doubt it interests you.  And I would like to keep you interested.  I think the most interesting thing is my Science Olympiad competition on Saturday.  I mean, New York is way too boring.  But science?  Now THAT'S exciting.


 I mean, you can even write "science" in a science-y way:

Sorry it's blurry; it's my friend's cell phone camera.  I wrote it.  I'll tell you what each letter is, because I'm REALLY proud of this thing.  Took me ages.
S - DNA strand
C - magnet
I - test tube
E - It says mc^2 because E=mc^2
N - a bunch of rulers
C - It says 3.0x10^8 because that's the speed of light, represented by "C"
E - Not sure what the name of this molecule is, my AP Chem friend made it

O - gear
L - fingers (you know, physiology!)
Y - inverted lungs.  Yes, inverted lungs.  Quit laughing, it was hard to draw lungs upside down.
M - triangles with angles
P - phosphorus
I - rad -1.  i
A - deathly hallows symbol.  This was an object of controversy, but my argument was that it related.  Harry Potter is geeky, science is geeky.  It works.
D - atom. In a D shape (I was running out of ideas by the end)

You'll notice that we had a chalkboard in our "home base" classroom, where we relaxed between rounds.  So what did we do? Play games!

First, chalkboard chess.  This was easy, we just made up symbols for each piece (pawn was circle, bishop was triangle, etc).  I was shaded, my friend's pieces were open.  And we erased each piece and redrew it to move.  Simple.  I won after an hour, when I cornered her king and she had no more moves.

Second, chalkboard Monopoly.  This was far more complicated.  First, we redrew the board and simplified the rent amounts and property prices.  We used the random integer function on the graphing calculator as dice, and kept track of money on the side.  It was really complicated.  For chance cards, we had a friend make up things to say.  That was how I ended up losing $2000 in one turn.  The chance cards were all mean.

Third, Pictionary.  This was exciting because I instituted the rule of "abstract Pictionary," stolen from the idea of Metaphysical I Spy in Paper Towns.  Basically, it had to be abstract.  No physical objects allowed.  That's how we ended up trying to draw things like "Neo-Confucianism," "schizophrenia," and a "Mongolian Death Worm."  Yes, we are awesomely nerdy like that.  Let's see YOU draw the "Harvard Sailing Team."

I'm on a QUEST(ion)!

So I was tagged in a Question Thing by the lovely blogger Catherine, and, even though I'm bad at this kind of thing (I mean, everyone lies to make themselves sound cooler.  Yes, admit it.  But I'll try to be truthful at least 94% of the time.) I'll give it a go.

The Rules:

1. You must post the rules.
2. Post eleven fun facts about yourself on the blog post.
3. Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post, and then create eleven new questions to ask the people you've tagged. 
4. Tag eleven bloggers, however, you can break the rules and tag fewer people if you want. Make sure you hyperlink their names/blogs.
5. Let them know you've tagged them!
6. Have fun! 

1. What is your biggest fear and why?
I'm afraid of people ignoring me.  I have way too much to say for that too happen.  I might explode.

2. What are your plans for the future?
Go to college, get a well-paying job, get married, get rich, have 2.4 children and a dog, live in the suburbs with a white picket fence.

PSYCH!  Actually, I want to live on a mountain.  In a castle (with lots of secret passages) and mountains.  I like mountains.  And beyond that, I have no idea.

3. Do you prefer a nice stomach or a nice butt on the opposite sex?
When I first read this, I thought it meant actual stomach, like that they were good at eating, but I guess it means abs.  I say, I don't care. Just be nice overall.

4. What are your opinions on gay marriage? 
Very supportive. Very.

5. What do you think about Rebecca Black?
I think she doesn't deserve the fame she got when there are so many really good singers out there who could use that kind of well-known-ness.

6. How many pairs of heels do you own?
One, I think.  Maybe?  I don't like heels, even though I'm only 5'2".

7. Share the experience of your first kiss.
Kind of weird.  Let's leave it at that.

8. List 3 things you like about yourself, and 3 things you don't like.
I like my nerdiness, awesomeness, and craziness.  I dislike my shortness, awkwardness, and craziness.


9. What is the worst pickup line you've ever heard? (check out my last post titled - Pickup lines at their worst, for ideas if your stuck)
I love looking up nerdy pickup lines, so I'm just going to list a few of those:
"If you were sine squared and I was cosine squared, together we'd be one."
"Let's do some math: add a bed, subtract the clothes, divide the legs, and hope you don't multiply."

"If I were an enzyme, I'd be a DNA helicase so I could unzip your genes."

10. How many hours a day or week do you spend blogging?

Each post takes me one or two hours, depending on how long it is and whether it comes with pictures.  And I post once, maybe twice a week,

11. Would you rather have eternal health, wealth or love? Explain.
Not health, because then I'd sit there and watch all my friends die around me.  Love might be cool, I guess.  Saying wealth would make me sound all greedy-like, but I'm torn between love and wealth.  How about I have a bit of each?


Okay, now I tag people.  Whoopee!
Quirky Screamage-ism, and such
An Abundance of Rambling
[I Am Unimaginative]
Defenestrated Feet
Tangential Bemusings
Peace. Love. Rock n Roll. Various Other Things

My Questions for You Guys are the Following:

1) What is your favorite smell?

2) Who would win in a fight: Neil Patrick Harris or Darren Criss?

3) Tell us a nerdy joke.

4) Describe a situation in which socks and sandals would be acceptable footwear.

5) How will you ever get out of this labyrinth?

6) What food would you like to have growing on a tree in your backyard?

7) Compose a poem describing the nature of a stubbed toe at 3 AM.

8) What is a quark?

9) What is the best way to eat an Oreo?

10) Feelings about Kony 2012?

11) What would you do with a superpower that allowed you to use your toes as fingers?

Am I really the only one who sees the resemblance?

This is the Puma logo:


So here's what I noticed: what if you turn the puma sideways?  Looks something like this:

Which, I think, looks something like a deranged monkey doing the Thriller dance.  This is my sister, who doesn't resemble the puma as much as I'd like, because she was pretty stubborn when I asked her to pose like a deranged monkey doing the Thriller dance.  But seriously, am I really the only one who sees what's going on here?

Well, the point of this post was to teach you that a new way to look at a puma logo.  Go forth and share the enlightenment with the world!

It's a nice thought, but...

So I happened upon this comic:

It's a nice thought.  Aww, how sweet.  Math love.  The only problem is, it's a nerdy joke that wouldn't actually work on real nerds.  I read it, and I couldn't help visualizing the scene that would play out if anyone ever tried this trick on me:

...Yeah.  Not quite the intended result.

In other news, I spent the weekend on a ski trip in Vermont.  A great deal of the weekend was based on this comic, which I find hilarious:

So my friends and I would break out in song on the chairlifts (often freaking out the strangers riding with us) and throw our palms in each other's faces.

Um...Yeah...

I SET FIIIIIIIIRE TO THE RAIN, WATCHED IT POUR, AS I TOUCHED YOUR FACE

*virtually touches your face*

Snow Day!

This is what I put on Facebook yesterday, when it started snowing, and people were predicting the statistical likelihood of a snow day:

After that, I did notice there were fewer statuses that looked something like "It's snowinngggg!"  or "Guyz, its lyk snowing rite now!!!1!111!"

But whatever.  I'm not here to criticize annoying Facebookers.  I'm here to share the results of my snow day with you.

Did I start my history essay?  No.  Did I finish my history outlining?  No.  Did I research my forestry topics?  No.  Did I call my Gold Award project adviser?  No.

I had a great list of all the things I would do today.  Very few got done.  However, I made this!  IT'S A SNOW DALEK!

Who says I'm unproductive?  Psshh.

I enjoy messing with people

I went to the bank to get money the other day, and the bank teller guy asked me how I wanted the bills.  I said "Um...how about in two-dollar bills?"

He paused, and looked at me with a face vaguely resembling this:

But he didn't say anything, and proceeded to pull out a little official-looking envelope from a little cabinet, and counted out a whole bunch of $2 bills.  The other tellers sort of looked at him weirdly, and he didn't say anything, just handed me my stack of two-dollar bills.

Great.  My bank thinks I'm a freak.

But this doesn't matter, because I am dancing around with my fresh stack of two-dollar bills.  I love these things so much, for several reasons.

1) Sometimes, people don't know that you can just ask for them at a bank.  They think $2 bills are rare.  Therefore, if you're convincing enough, you can persuade your friends to buy them off you for $3 or so.  I haven't had any success yet, but I'm working on it.

2) My brother likes to spend them all the time because he says he's "trying to bring them back into circulation."  I love spending them too, but for a different reason.  First, the cashier always looks at me, and the bill, really weirdly.  In some cases, I've heard that cashiers vehemently accuse you of counterfeit (or just refuse it), because they don't believe there's such thing as a two-dollar bill.  Hasn't happened to me, though.  But here's my favorite part.  See, cash register have specific slots for different types of bills and coins, and they don;t have a $2 bill slot.  So their hand sort of hovers between the $1 and $5 slots, trying to figure out what to do with it.  It reminds me delightfully of the spork scene in Wall-E.

It makes me crack up every time.

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!

My friends and I are really cool

However, blogger isn't making my image easy to see.  Find it here http://imgur.com/lhUMs

Yes, this is my friend and I on Facebook.  Yes, we are really awesome.

Better late than never, right?

Today is February 7.

Five days ago, I meant write a lovely rant about Groundhog Day.  Well, you're about to be subject to said rant, because instead of the five-second rule, I follow the five-day rule.  Groundhog Day is still fair game.

Speaking of fair game, it's not like you would prefer me to write about the Super Bowl, right?  *cue groans and screams of agony*

...

After that introduction, I'm worried that my lovely rant cannot live up to such high expectations.  You're thinking that this rant had better be INCREDIBLE to be worth posting five days late.

It isn't incredible.  It's average.  Mediocre.  Practically incoherent.

I just realized this whole post is a big fat wad of disappointment waiting to happen.

BUT

Even disappointment can be a good present if it looks nice.  I shall wrap this disappointment in shiny wrapping paper, with glitter, and all will be right in the world.

How shall I accomplish this?  Friends, allow me to present: The Illustrated Rant - Groundhog Day Edition