I am so unbearably cool.

They may not serve a purpose, or block out the sun, or anything, but some guy in SoHo was selling them and I felt absolutely compelled to buy them, so I got two pairs.

I am far cooler than Kanye will ever be.

the MOSQUITO

To start:
Hi Aya! good to know at least one of my friends reads my blog.

I read an article on a teenage repellent this morning- "The Mosquito." This thing blasts a high pitched (17.4 kHz) noise at 85 decibels, which a little less loud than a train whistle at 500', is used to annoy teenagers, as mostly teenagers and young adults can hear this sound.

My stance?

At my house there is a mouse repellent that screeches at 18kHz at 90dB. However, there is a dog option if you have an animal which screeches at 19kHz at 85dB. Ours is set to the latter, and it sounds like this:

bweeeEEEPP! bweeeEEEP! bweeeEEEP! (but it doesn't stop...)

My parents can't hear it. To me, it's like audible death. I no longer watch television in this room because of how horrible the sound is (and this room has the best TV in the house!).

So my stance is that this is child abuse. Instead of warning the loitering teens, these devices automatically punch them in the ear to get them away. As a teen, one who has loitered, I know that a kind police officer saying "Yo kids, leave!" is far better than being punched in the ear. Also, one example used in the article was a kid who had the Mosquito attached to his apartment building. Why doesn't the landlord just ask the kid and his family to move out? We make such a big deal about police brutality and I feel this is the same thing, only instead of hitting us or shooting us, this device is beating our earlobes in.

I rest my case.

Procrastination

I don't want to do homework so this post will be in italian.
(no one- don't babelfish, it doesn't work.)

Non voglio fare i compiti. Oggi e` il piu bello giorno in tutto il mese ma devo stare a casa a fare due ore del mio comptio di italiano, biologia, matematica, e inglese. E anche mi fa male mio stomaco. FERMA, STOMACO! Solo voglio andare fuori e dormire nell'erba ma invece siedo nella mia camera, scrivo nel mio blog (CHE NESSUNO LEGGE) e aspetto per una partita di calcio a comincare (Juve v. Milan penso)
Domani e` venerdi, grazie Dio, il prossimo settimana non avro` scuola. Dormiro` per dieci giorni.

COSI-

Caro nessuno,
Per favore, aiutami mentre siedo e faccio niente. Mi leggi un libro. Mi fai una pizza.
Mi dipingi una pitture.

Sinceramente,

R.

ps.- Mi piace "R." E` come "V" dal film.

che bella.

What My Computer Thinks About Being Asked to Look for a National Poetry Day Poem:

What Kurt Vonnegut thinks about writers strikes...

"Young Castle called me 'Scoop.' 'Good morning, scoop. What's new in the word game?'
'I might ask the same of you.'
'I'm thinking of calling a general stroke of all the writers until mankind finally comes to its senses. Would you support it?'
'Do writers have a right to strike? That would be like the police or the firemen walking out.'
'Or the college professors.'
'Or the college professors,' I agreed. I shook my head. 'No, I don't think my conscience would let me support a strike like that. When a man becomes a writer, I think he takes on a sacred obligation to produce beauty and enlightenment and comfort at top speed.'
'I just can't help thinking what a real shaking up it would give people if, all of a sudden, there were no new books, new plays, new histories, new poems...'
'And how proud wuold you be when people started dying like flies?' I demanded.
'They'd die more like mad dogs, I think- snarling and snapping at each other and biting their own tails.'
I turned to Castle the elder. 'Sir, how does a man die when he's depravedof the consolations of literature?'
'In one of two ways,' he said, 'petrescence of the heart or atrophy of the nervous system.'
'Neither one very pleasant, I expect,' I suggested.
'No,' said Castle the elder. 'For the love of God, both of you, please keep writing!'"

(Cat's Cradle, chap. 103)

Higgs Boson

UM...

So particle physicists are looking for a new particle called the Higgs Boson. This is basically because in some calculations pertaining to the weak nuclear force (W and Z bosons) there are infinities that pop up in the calculations. Physicists believe that if they find this Higgs boson it will be the final touch, the cherry on the cake, of particle physics. In fact, scientists have built the large hadron collider at the CERN laboratories in Geneva in order to find this particle.

Two problems I have with science begin to take hold.

What if they don't find this Higgs boson? Well, it is the belief of some that we may have to redo the entire standard model. That means what we know forces occurring between particles, the model scientists have been working on since 1900, will have to be redone.

This is not what worries me.

What worries me is that scientists can't assure us that colliding these particles won't lead to the apocalypse.

One thing critics worry about is the possibility of creating a black hole and I hope that this is not the case. Though scientists say that the black hole would be very small even if it was created, and would be ejected into the atmosphere. But what if it isn't? What if a black whole big enough to engulf the whole planet is made?

Another things critics worry about is the possibility of creating a strangelet. A strangelet is a particle with an up quark, a down quark, and a strange quark. If the strange matter hypothesis is correct, however, every particle that comes in contact with the particle of strange matter would become strange matter. Much like the ice nine of Kurt Vonnegut's Cats Cradle led to the apocalypse, so too would this strangelet end the real world.

Though these worries may seem paranoid, scientists haven't said that these things won't happened. When asked, in fact, one scientist said that there was a one-in-fifty million chance that an apocalyptic situation as mentioned above would occur.

I don't want to hear that there is any chance that scientists may accidentally destroy the planet.

Not like anyone reads this anyway.

The Aston Villa Villains? Why on earth would a team call itself the villains? Don't you want to be the good guy? Being called "The Villains" would just make it easier to lose matches. Like right now, AV is losing to Manchester United 4-0, and they haven't made a single good shot on goal. Every time the ball gets past midfield, they either get an offsides or the ball is automatically taken back. Why? They're the Villains. They have to lose. That's life.

Other bad team names- the East Rockaway Rocks. Why don't the Brewers just call themselves the Milwaukee Walks?
Or how about the Friends Academy Quakers? They aren't even assosciated with the quaker faith.

Speaking of this, I really wish Lawrence used the phrase "tornado watch is in effect" more. It sounds really corny, but awesome.


Well, peace out no one.