The Blarg

Summer is almost over and I’m bored. I’ve finally decided to use my college degree and start marketing my website on Myspace. What better way to do this than tap into all the loser stereotypes you find on Myspace. Here is an example of my ads you will start seeing on Myspace.

Not only is it true, but it’s very clever. People will read this and think "who is this Blarg?" or maybe they’re a loser that wears big sunglasses and gets impregnated by men with trucker hats and they will think "hey, that’s me!"

Since I just posted an annoying loser person on my blog, I decided it would be a good time to follow up. There are two specific types of people that drive me utterly insane with their loserness and idiocy.

Girls with sunglasses so big they take up their whole face

Mostly seen at CSULB my last semester and also on myspace, these girls annoy me beyond words. Much like the girl in the post below, all those sunglasses tell me is that you are much more likely to be whorish than most girls. You’re also more likely to get drunk at random parties, hook up with loser guys, and you probably want to go into liberal studies or nursing (let’s see how many people I can offend in one post!).

In case you do wear these kind of sunglasses, let me clarify that there are other qualifications beyond the sunglasses. They are in no specific order: bleached blonde hair, wife beaters, smoking, working at hooters, thinking you’re on The O.C., bragging about the numerous children you’ve fathered to guys with trucker hats, and you probably will never actually finish college and get a real job because you’re too busy thinking you’re a porn star.

I wish I had this intuition back in High School.

Gangsters with shaved heads that all wear white shirts to their knees and roam like a pack of wolves

There is a reason you don’t see successful people in life doing the above: it makes you an idiot gangster by default. Stop bumping your crappy music in your obviously leased Escalade and do something with your life. Instead of walking around like you’re about to rob a liquor store, get a job and learn how to dress! At least get clothes that fit, and buy a comb and get a hairstyle. Even worse than this is the gangster that doesn’t know how to use a condom and becomes tied down by a kid. Faced with this obvious life change and responsibility, do you lose the gangster look and attitude? Of course not, you just go along being an idiot gangster setting a horrible example for your children to follow in your footsteps.

You’ve been epitomized in gangster movies and rap music for so long now, aren’t you tired of it? I am.

**If you belong to either of the two groups, please respond and tell me why you make the decisions that you do.**

Saw this at JC Penny and I love it. Too bad it’s for girls. (Though I’m still wrestling with why exactly I like it. I enjoy people caring about my blog, but the fact that blogs have gotten big enough to warrant t-shirts making fun of them amuses me.)

As I face my denial that summer is quickly fading away, I’ve decided I want to become a "smarter" teacher. While yes, I want to know my subject matter well, I really want to be an efficient teacher. I figure the more tricks and cool ideas I can come up with, the easier my job will be.

First thing I did today that made me feel smart was a little contraption I rigged up in Stacie’s classroom. Her ceilings are very high (probably 15 ft) and in order to hang anything you need a ladder. This means that every year myself or her dad has to get a ladder, climb up it 20 times, and hang something (not to mention cutting 20 pieces of yarn, and looping each end). This year I came up with a better plan.

Because the ceiling is so high, I knew we had to somehow bring it lower so a ladder wasn’t needed. To do this I bought some fishing wire from Big 5, tied it to hooks at the ceiling, and then tied it again to clothespins about 8 feet off the ground. Now she can hang things from the ceiling with ease! I even learned how to tie a clinch knot (a square knot wouldn’t cut it with fishing wire). Learning how to tie a new knot was actually a lot of fun. I don’t know if this was the best knot for the situation, but it sure did work.

The second "smarter" thing I worked on deals with pencils in my classroom. Why students come to school without a pencil I will never understand, but they do. Part of me wants to say "no pencil for you," but then the next five minutes consists of that student asking everyone around them for a pencil. To prevent this scenario I’ve decided to have community pencils available to whoever needs them.

Another teacher I know sort of does this, but to make sure the pencils come back, she puts a flag on all of them. This way she can see who has them, and it’s a reminder to the student not to take it home. So how can you make a colorful pencil flag with ease? Electrical tape. For $3 you can get a 60 ft. roll of blue, green, yellow, red, orange, black, or white electrical tape. Something this simple could save me 5-10 minutes everyday, and never again do I want to hear a student ask me for a pencil. All-American also had "plastic tape," but it cost more and you only got about 10 ft. in a roll. Now I just have to figure out what to do when they don’t have paper.

That’s my boring teacher talk for today. I think when I come across puzzling situations I will pose them here for all your bright minds to tackle.

The Office won best comedy! The show is hilarious, and if you’ve never seen it, you don’t know what you’re missing. I love it so much I’ve been watching the reruns all summer long. Steve Carell didn’t win best actor in a comedy series, but he should have.

Mark September 21st on your calendar, because The Office and My Name is Earl will be back!

The past week I’ve been buying, testing, and returning various LCD monitors for the computer. Lately the 5 year old CRT we have has gotten painful on the eyes, so I decided it was time to upgrade.

First up was the Dell 2007WFP, a 20-inch widescreen monitor. I tried this one because my brother has it, and I liked it when I saw it. At first everything looked good, but I started to notice a problem. LCDs don’t have a refresh rate like CRT monitors do, but for some reason this Dell flickered. I’m not sure if it was defective or not, because I’ve seen several posts on the Dell forums of people with the same problems. With Photoshop opened and the gray background on the screen, there is almost a rolling effect. Needless to say it was killing my eyes, and I knew it had to go back.

After this I decided I should really get a monitor from a brick and mortar to facilitate potential returns. I next went to Best Buy to check out their 19 inch LCD monitors. The Dell had a native resolution of 1680×1050, which is a little demanding for some games using my current system. Seeing as how I’m not upgrading the computer anytime soon, I decided the 1280×1024 native resolution of a 19 inch LCD would be better. The next monitor I got was the NEC 90GX². In the store it looked ok, and I had read good reviews of many NEC monitors. I knew going in that the monitor had a glossy screen (most LCDs have a matte finish), but I thought it wouldn’t be any worse than the CRT screen. Boy was I mistaken. The NEC screen is so glossy that you need to be in a pitch black room or you get massive amounts of reflections. The reflections are so vivid on a dark screen that you end up focusing past the screen and at the reflection (like if it were a mirror). Much like the Dell’s flickering, this wreaks havoc on the eyes. Back goes the NEC.

The third and last monitor bought was the Viewsonic VX922. It received exemplary ratings at Tom’s Hardware, and despite some negatives on Newegg, I decided to go for it. This trip took me out to Fry’s. Another 19 inch LCD, but this time with a matte finish. Long story long, this is the best of the three. It doesn’t flicker, it doesn’t reflect, and it has a nice consistent picture throughout the screen. Many LCDs suffer from inconsistencies in the picture, where it might be brighter on the side and darker in the middle. It also is a very "fast" monitor. LCD monitors have pixels that have to change colors, and the quicker they change the less notiiceable it is.

Here is a picture from my LCD monitor adventure. Let me make a final recommendation: if you are going to buy an LCD monitor, go to a physical store and read their return policy very carefully.

 
Glossy NEC 90GX2 on the left, Viewsonic VX922 on the right.

Probably a stupid idea, but the picture for The Doggy Pouch is great. It would appear the dog is actually enjoying itself. I’m not sure though what the purpose of this device is supposed to be. Is it for dogs that refuse to walk? Dogs with no legs? When exactly would you need to use this?

My picture scanning continues. I’m nearing the end of the black and white photos (over 500 of them). They’re really poorly organized, so I’ll find a negative from the same "event" in several different places. Organizing and identifying people in the photos is another task completely.