Chapter XCVIII: Cubed

Image of the Day: My Roommate's a Loser

A couple of days before Winter Break, my roommate bought a Rubik's Cube from K-Mart. The little fucker was extraordinarily difficult to come by, being sold out at Wal-Mart and costing upwards of eleven bucks. Darron and I naturally refused to look at the accompanying instructions and attempted to replicate, in our living room, fifty years of research by mathematicians and Asian child prodigies.

This didn't really pan out (who woulda guessed?), and inspired the Image of the Day. Conceding defeat, we read the printed instructions, which turned out to be quite useless. They tell you how to solve the Cube, but only after you've already gotten it into a specific configuration which they call "The Green Cross." The explanation for how to reach this beginning step is: You will have to figure this out for yourself. Gee, thanks for nothing, Mr. Rubik.

So I went online and found a java applet where you can enter the configuration of your Cube and it'll tell you all the steps you need to solve it. I placed the completed Cube on the living room table, and the next morning Darron thought I was Rubik's Cube Jesus!

Interesting Rubik's Cube Facts:
1. Erno Rubik, the inventor of the cube, was a professor of Architecture.
2. There are 43,252,003,274,489,856,000 Rubik's Cube configurations.
3. None of these is more than twenty moves away from being solved.
4. The official world record for speed cubing is held by Minh Thai (22.95 seconds).

I also found is the following YouTube video of a Canadian kid solving the Cube in a minute or so. He has a cute smile when he finishes.


He also plays with his cat.

Chapter XIX: The Miracle of Life [Continued]

I had lunch with the family and saw my cousin's eight month old daughter named Riley yesterday. The high-tech contraption holding her was placed on top of the table so her left foot was about ten inches away from my face for the duration of lunch.

But what an exquisite foot it was! Never before had I seen such exquisitude, except perhaps in the facade of the Burj al-Arab hotel. Surely, baby toes are the most delightfully cute things in the world, so round and pink and topped with perfectly formed toenails. If I were living in the 18th century, I would have said to myself, only by the glory of God could something so wonderful come about, and baby toes certainly prove His existence!

Instead, I started thinking about how I would probably make a terrible parent, since organisms entrusted to my care have a penchant for dying rather quickly.

Many years ago, I had a little cactus whose selling point was that it did not require a copious amount of attention. In fact, the information card said that watering once a month would be sufficient for it to live long, and perhaps, just perhaps, even prosper. I put the cactus on top of the toilet and promptly forgot about it for half a year. One morning I was peeing and wondered what that thing on the water tank was. It looked like a geezer's shriveled penis...that had turned green. And grew spines.

"Egads," I said, after realizing it was not a geezer penis at all, but my cactus. I immediately watered it, but it was already too late. The unfortunate plant perished shortly thereafter. So it goes, as Kurt Vonnegut would say.

A few years later, my family acquired a parakeet and a cockatiel under mysterious circumstances. Jennifer named the parakeet 'Tequila' and the cockatiel's name has since faded into the mists of time. In any case, they both died quickly.

Last year, I purchased some Venus flytraps...that died. So there you have it, I suck at keeping things alive.

In other news, I have not heard anything from the Finnish lawyer since I gave him my bank account information. What could possibly be wrong?

Chapter XVIII: The Miracle of Life

I am pleased to announce that I have just quite suddenly become wealthier, to the tune of $22 million! From whence does this unexpected largesse originate, you might well ask. It all started this afternoon, when I checked my inbox, and within it was an email from a Finnish probate attorney!

Unbeknown to me, I had a 5th cousin residing in the United Kingdom who possessed a very well-endowed bank account (Many websites offer cheap bank account enlargement pills, but don't trust them! All natural is the way to go). Tragically, he and his entire family perished in a car crash--or motor accident as the British so quaintly put it--which left his estate in a state of limbo until the astute Finnish barrister found me, after three years of scouring the globe for a next of kin. Incidentally, the dead relative is 'Harvishard Fan' which, according to sources, is "an awesome name.

As instructed, I handed over my confidential financial details to the helpful Finn and he promised to initiate the transfer of assets from the Nigerian central bank to my bank account as soon as some paperwork processed. Yay!

It is ironic to think that I almost died earlier today and might not have been able to avail myself of this stupendous opportunity.

My octegenarian grandmother has a helper Sheila, whose job description consists of "carry Grandma's purse, and open doors for her." To these, add one: "provide harrowing near death experiences for Grandma's offspring's offspring." Sheila was driving Grandma home today, and I had the fortune of being in the car also. The problem arose when Sheila thought she was on the wrong freeway and had what looked to me like a nervous breakdown. She slowed to 35 mph (everyone else still at 75) and was driving in two lanes simultaneously.

This is essentially the opposite of Space Mountain at Disneyland. In Space Mountain, you are in a vehicle zooming towards an object at 40 mph and you swerve out of the way at the last moment. By contrast, in the Sheila Ride, other objects speed toward you at 40 mph and swerve out of the way at the last moment. What fun! The Sheila Ride is not recommended for people with heart conditions or a desire to live. In light of that, you may think this post can more appropriately be titled "It's a Miracle I Lived!" But you would be wrong.

Actually, you would be right, because this post is about to runneth over and the part that would make you wrong will be posted tomorrow instead.

In other news, a straight still beats three-of-a-kind.

Chapter XVII: Introspection

update: this post sucks. don't read it

Questions I have asked myself about this blog, in no particular order:
1. How often should I post something?
2. Who am I writing to?
3. What should I write about?
4. How long should each post be?
5. How formal should my diction/syntax?
6. Should I try to be funny?
7. Why am I blogging at all?

It is because of these questions that I haven't posted anything for over a month. In fact, I still don't know what the answers are. But I figured the answers would make a semi-decent blog entry, so here I go.

1. How often should I post something? Making a significant post at least once a week seems like a reasonable goal. Anything beyond that is gravy (the good kind, not the fucking shit Light House used to serve).

4. How long should each post be? However long the topic at hand lends itself to. 300-500 words is a framework to aim for.

2. Who am I writing to? Myself, the conglomerate mass of people I know, the faceless Internet, and any aliens that are monitoring me.

5. How formal should my diction/syntax? Capitalization, punctuation, and spelling can be manipulated for effect. This is to say, any misspellings should be considered jokkes, and not typographical errors. In general though, standard English will be adhered to. Profanity will be used where appropriate (i.e. every post).

[Things happen and it is about 10 hours before I return to the computer]

6. Should I try to be funny? Sure, why the fuck not. Blogging is a joke anyway. People spend so much energy writing crap, trying to make themselves look cool, or trying to convince themselves that they're cool, when it's all just...something. Nothing. Anything. Whatever. No more whining, only happy thoughts. Wee.

7. Why am I blogging at all? It seemed like a good idea at the time.