Hans Brinker

Another thing: we watched "Hans Brinker" tonight, which is a hilariously dated skating movie. The acting is, shall we say, sub-par. :-)

Walt Disney World

Just a couple hours ago we got back from Disney World in Orlando, Florida. It was very fun!!! Here's my report.

Day Zero (Thursday) -- Disney Board Walk

We arrived on Thursday, March 24. As soon as we got to our hotel room (roughly 18:45) I rushed to the TV to see if they had Cartoon Network so I could watch Chapter 24 of Star Wars: Clone Wars, which was on at 19:00. Tragically, they didn't. We got the laptop set up, though, and downloaded it from starwars.com soon thereafter. We also went outside and explored the area behind our hotel, called the Disney Board Walk. There "Jeff" pointed us in the direction of a little restaurant -- and arcade.

Day One (Friday) -- Disney-MGM Studios

We spent our first full day at MGM, which remains my favorite of all the different parks. There we went to see, among other things, "Star Tours," Indiana Jones, "Lights, Motors, Action," and the nightime spectacular "Fantasmic!"

Day Two (Saturday) -- Epcot

Our second day was spent at the land of the giant golf ball. We saw (among other things) "Honey I Shrank the Audience," "Muppetvision 3-D," and "Test Track," which I did not go on.

Day Three (Sunday) -- Magic Kingdom

The Magic Kingdom is probably the most famous of the Disney parks. We spent the morning at attractions like "Big Thunder Mountain," "Splash Mountain" (which I didn't go on), Buzz Lightyear, Indy go-karts, and the Country Bear Jamboree. We went back to our hotel by way of Epcot shortly after noon, and then returned at night for the amazing parade and fireworks. ("Sal" helped us out then with seating suggestions.)

Day Four (Monday) -- Disney-MGM Studios, Disney Board Walk

We returned to MGM on Monday, this time doing "Who Wants to be a Millionaire - Play it!" twice and even more "Star Tours." I went on Star Tours five times total duirng our vacation. Later in the day, we fully explored the Board Walk, again assisted (this time in our quest to learn more about Disney's navy) by Jeff. We rented a little pedal-powered buggy to ride around the lake on, which was quite an interesting experience.

Day Five (Tuesday)

That's today! We spent a bit of time on the Board Walk, then packed up and left. Disney World was lots of fun -- perhaps when I have a bit more time I'll go more in-depth with my opinions on it.

Disney World

In 24 hours, I will most likely be in our hotel room in Disney World. Again, I'll be sure to report in afterwards!

In other news:

Yesterday and the day before yesterday, my family did the exact same thing at night.

1. Watch the latest Clone Wars chapter
2. Eat dinner while...
3. ...watching The Incredibles

We finished The Incredibles yesterday. It's a very good movie, and the DVD has some absolutely hilarious extras, which we also watched last night. Note that when I was watching The Incredibles last Saturday, it was with some friends, separate from our little family watching campaign. :-)

Vacation

As of 14:10 this past Friday, I'm on vacation! This time, my family's actually going somewhere, which is rare for us. This Thursday we're flying down to Florida to Disney World! It'll be the first time my brother or I have gone.

I'll report in when we get back.

Movies

Over the past three days, I've seen parts or all of nine movies.

Friday:
The Perfect Score (all)
Carolina (some)
Ace Ventura (some)
Austin Powers (some)
Forrest Gump (all)

Saturday:
Millions (all)
The Incredibles (some)

Sunday:
Robots (all)
Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (some)

The Perfect Score was weird. Forrest Gump was good. Millions was trippy. And Robots was very good, very funny, and very fun to watch.

Bed time... adios!

Xenon

Today, the first details surrounded the next-generation Xbox (code-named "Xenon") emerged at the Game Developer's Conference. Click here to see IGN's coverage. Sounds very cool indeed!!! :-)

Troy

We're studying Homer's work in History, and so our teacher suggested we watch Troy. It was pretty good.

Exams

Well, I had my two exams yesterday. They went all right, I didn't end up spending too much time on them.

The good news is: we got today off because of it. The bad news is: we would have had today off anyway, because of the snow. Why couldn't the snow wait just 24 hours!?!?!?

The bad news is made even worse by the fact the Middle School, for no apparent reason, got yesterday off -- they don't have exams. My brother Willy is part of the Middle School. I was fine with him getting Monday off, since I knew I would get today off, but now he's gotton both days off! Very unfair indeed. :-(

Dogs & Exams

Random Rosie Comment of the Day:

Boy, it's been a while since I've had one of those, hasn't it!? This entry, though, is actually largely about Rosie, and not so random...

This past Monday (which I had off... go presidents!) was the one-year-anniversary of us getting Rosie!!! I have some pictures that, with luck, will get on my web site sometime within the next year....

This past Tuesday was even more exciting -- our neighbors got a new cockapoo named Cooper! He's very cute. He met Rosie for the first time yesterday, which was very entertaining -- Cooper kept on hiding under the chairs, where Rosie couldn't get at him, and then jumping out and attacking Rosie's cheek, neck, or tail. Rosie, in turn, would paw at Cooper, occasionally trapping him.

Exams:

This Monday we have our first exams of the year. You see, we have each class for two out of the three trimesters, so we have our first exams 2/3 through the year. Fortunately, I have only two on Monday: Physics and Freshman Seminar. In fact, I really only have one (to study for, at least), because the Freshman Seminar one is almost exclusively opinion-based.

I'm certainly not looking forward to the end of the year, when I'll have four. :-(

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! :-) Valentine's Day means candy, and candy means goodness... yay!

Today at school we got our Math tests back. As a matter of policy, I don't state my grades, but I will say that I've gotten the exact same score percentage-wise on this Math test, our recent History quiz (both were last Friday -- we got the History quizzes back 15 minutes after taking them), and the History test before that. Crazy, isn't it?

However, my Math score looks like it's about to be overturned due to some noble arguing by a few of my classmates and I regarding question #16 during class today while reviewing the test. Here's the problem. (Specifics may be off, but the gist of it is right.)

Line AB is congruent to line BC. Line AD is congruent to line BD. Line CD is a perpendicular bisector of line AB. True or false.

I say false -- you can draw it so it's either way, so it's false. The teacher says true. What do you say?

Patriot's Parade = No School!

Since the Patriots Parade is today, we were told that, if we had permission from our parents, we didn't have to go to school today! Yippee! :-) I would have gone, but we'd get nothing done in class anyway with so few people.

Go Pats! :-)

SUPER BOWL CHAMPS!!!

Congratulations to the good ol' New England Patriots, winners of Super Bowl XXXIX!!! YIPPEE!!! Four championships in as many years for New England... not too bad! :-)

Feel like checking who won the last 38? Head on over to MSN Search (advertised today during the game) and search "Who won Super Bowl [insert number here]?"

GO PATS!

More Mirrors

We've actually just started studying mirrors in physics class (what a coincidence!), and I'm rapidly losing confidence in my explanation of why objects in mirrors are closer than they appear. It still makes a tiny bit of sense, though -- in a strange, pointless kind of way... ;-)

Additionally, I'm now reaching greater understanding of the part mirror curvature plays in image size. For a long time I've had a basic understanting of how the light bends differently because of the curve, but only now am I learning about focal points and focal length and such. Light is an extremely interesting subject. :-)

Enough of this light enlightenment... back to Spanish homeowork. :-(

More Sledding, "Kiss me Kate"

This past Saturday I started the day off with a trip to the bookstore. Next I went sledding at the same place I went last week. Much of my old camp remained, though the new snow had made it a bit harder to see.

This time I actually sledded a bit more, but I also spent a lot of time building a nice little snow tunnel with a neighbor of ours. (His younger brother was there, too, but he was sledding most of the time.) The snow's deep enough that we could build a nice deep tunnel with a sturdy roof and not have to increase the natural depth of the snow at all. :-)

Last night we went to my uncle's school's production of Kiss Me, Kate, which was good. It had a couple of especially funny parts, such as a random wandering donkey and a nice little dead bird!

School & Snow

Despite rampant AIM-based speculation to the contrary, we did have school today. Oh well. Yesterday's snow day was very enjoyable -- my younger brother's friend came over and we played videogames (Halo 2 & Mercenaries) and went sledding.

Almost the entire time they were sledding, I was working on a little base camp at the top of the hill (so would it be a... umm... summit camp?). I flattened out a pretty big area -- plenty of room for the three enough, with plenty of room for a couple more. The flattening was crucial -- there was so much so it was next to impossible to walk otherwise. I then created custom-made spots for out tubes. I also defined the top of our run, complete with a queue area. I also made an elevated flattened area -- the "Snow City Cafe." There I had three little bowl-shaped indents in the snow for eating our M&Ms out of. :-)

Videogaming was also, of course, plenty of fun. I had one particularly great solo game (meaning my brother & his friend were doing something else) of Team Fiesta on Beaver Creek. I ended up winning the game for our team with 20 kills. At the end, I was doing really well with a rocket launcher -- I was so proud of myself. :-)

Super Bowl and Snow Day!!!

The Patriots are going to the Super Bowl!!! :-)

And -- it can't get much better than this -- we even have a snow day tomorrow because of all the... well... snow! I've had very few full weeks recently -- last week we had Monday off for MLK Jr. day and Tuesday off for Parent/Teacher Conferences! We have about two feet of snow here. It's amazing!

GO PATS!!!

Mirrors and Mercs

Thursdays and Tuesdays at school for me are double-block days -- we have only two classes (not counting Art), but we have each for twice as long. That means 2-hour classes. Fortunately, we're given a ten or fifteen minute break in the middle of class so that we don't get quite so worn out.

This past Thursday I had Geometry for the last two hours of school. During our break, I suddenly realized something I had never known before: why objects in mirrors are closer than they appear. Coming back from the break, I burst back into class and said, "I know why objects in mirrors are closer than they appear!" The two other kids in the classroom at the time seemed a tad bit confused as to why I was randomly saying such a thing. I explained it to them, and then to a few other kids as they got back from break. I was exceptionally excited about my discovery, but no one else really cared that much. ;-)

Anyway, here's why objects in mirrors are closer than they appear.

.......................3 feet.............................
YOU -------------------- MIRROR

You're only three feet away from the mirror, but the light has to go there and back again.

YOU -------------------> MIRROR
..........<-------------------.................

Thus, those three feet are doubled! Get it? Pretty cool, huh? The effect is exaggerated in a car, since you're not looking at yourself -- you're looking at something else farther back.

..........................................YOU --------> MIRROR
OTHER CAR <------------------------ ................

Late last Tuesday night we got the LucasArts game Mercenaries, but I just had my first chance to play it today. (Willy's been playing it all week, and he's still only a little more than a quarter through the game.) It's awesome! I highly recommend it.

The game takes place in at least 2008. Australian forces uncovered a North Korean nuclear weapons cache, and the Allied Nations (basically a new UN) pours into Korea to take out this new threat. Your goal in the game is to capture or kill (capture is preferred) the "deck of 52" -- 52 North Korean leaders. There are also several side-quests -- races, challenges, et cetera.

So far, though, I haven't really played the main game -- the only card I've captured is the Two of Clubs (at least I think it's clubs). Instead, I've had fun hijacking vehicles, demolishing cities with devastating airstrikes, and sending cars skyrocketing into the air with huge amounts of C4. You can also call in supply drops, where helicopters come and drop off weapons, vehicles (including fuel trucks, tanks, sports cars, and helicopters), and more.

The helicopters have this really cool retractable magnet clamp thing -- you deploy it and then it hangs beneath you, and then you can latch on & pick up anything from supply crates to civilian cars to tanks and other helicopters. Just make sure you don't try to get anything that's too heavy, or it'll end up dragging you down!

Again, I highly, highly recommend this game. :-D

10,000 Black Holes

10,000 or more black holes are now said to be orbiting the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy, known as Sagittarius A*. Wow.

Cool Clock

Check this out. It's really cool! :-)

SNOW DAY!!!

Wahoo - it's a snow day!!!!!!!!!!!!! :-)

Hmm, what to do... how about a mix of web site work, videogames (we got MechAssault 2 & it's great!), and homework? I'd say that's pretty likely.