COTW: clip(s) of the week

I saw the Dark Knight before christmas. It was a great movie, if a little too dark for my tastes. Afterward I was told about a funny spoof of the interrogation scene between Batman and the Joker.



I dug deeper and found another spoof on the party scene:


Ha ha, funny (I'm not in the mood to comment deeply on them right now) .

Peering ahead

Not much to report. I'll try to squeeze a comedy vid out, but don't expect much.

Looking forward to the weekend, which is chock-full of stuff to do. I'm also looking farther ahead to this coming Summer, and the fun it will hold. The "fun" basically just boils down to "spare time," which I have none of currently. Even when school takes a flip to the light side for a few days, there is always something(s) that I still have to do.

Luckily, my school (Apex, an online learning system where I communicate with my teachers over the computer, seeing as they all live in other states), ends in the first week of May, about a month before most other school years end. The way I see it, I'm taking accelerated courses, so if that means working nonstop(that includes the absence of Spring break) I'm fine with it.

In anticipation of Summer, I have begun to compile a "Things to Do this Summer" list. So far it only has blog related items, two to be exact, but hey; it's a work in progress, and I've got time to fill it up.

How the Modern Liberal Thinks pt. 2

Here is the second lecture by Evan Sayet at the Heritage Foundation. This is two years after his first talk. It is a must watch after the first, since it goes much deeper into his ideology about the liberal mindset, and ties in more current events.

As with the first, parents should watch this video before showing it to their kids, since it goes over issues like teenage promiscuity.

How the Modern Liberal Thinks pt. 1

I saw this video awhile back.

It's a lecture given by Evan Sayet, a conservative comedian who converted from his originally liberal views after 9/11. After he converted, he went on a quest to understand how the modern liberal thinks (i.e. how can roughly half the population of America believe that America is the most imperialistic and oppressive country in history).

This was his first lecture at the Heritage Foundation, about two years ago. He has recently come back with a second lecture (also at the Heritage Foundation) that further discusses his findings. I will post the second one shortly.

Note: this lecture does go over some inappropriate issues like teenage promiscuity. Parents may want to watch it first before letting their children see it (though I doubt many children enjoy watching long lectures like this).

Quick Recap

Due to the lag of posts on the Manifesto, I am bringing it back to speed in a fast outline sort of format.

Saturday:
Workday at church was great, lots of fun (8:00am-3:00pm)
Replaced halogen bulbs on church grounds
Women's retreat brought too much pizza; free lunch
Went to visit Grandma, she's doing well
Got home, very tired

Sunday:
Went to church, it was cold
Did Sunday school, also fun
Did piano lessons
Went to visit Grandma again, Uncle Ken & Aunt Mary were there
No time to swim, drat
Went to highschool game night at church, small group (only eight)
Played board games
Had leftover leftover pizza from retreat
Went home, very very tired

Monday:
Very busy, up 'till 11:00 getting Econ 1A homework done
Attended BSF (Bible Study Fellowship)

Tuesday:
Very busy Tuesday, up 'till 12:00 getting an essay done
Had to miss swim to get it done.

weekly vid: giant tax man

I've been seeing these commercials recently on television. They are for J.K. Harris, a company that helps people deal with the IRS. Being a fourteen year old, these commercials would usually put me to sleep. The only reason I take an interest in these ones is Mr. Harris himself. Watch these clips, you'll see what I mean.









I find it slightly disturbing how Mr. Harris towers over his coworkers. I understand that the other people are sitting down, but still: either he's huge, or his subordinate staff have a severe deficit in HGH.

comedy vid

This is going to be the last, if not one of the last comedy vid posts . The problem is that a lot, if not most comedians are rated above the "PG" level. This means I am not allow by my parents to post them (this is reasonable, I have no qualms with it). Frankly, there aren't enough postable videos to keep it going.

Aaaaanyway, here it is.

This is Mark Lowry, a very funny Christian comedian. He also has a great singing voice, and is know for making musical parodies of songs.

Friday: Pi-day eve

Ahh... School work is temporarily low, allowing me to work on next week's stuff. I'm trying to build up a little time lag, so I'm not up till eleven every other night. It also means I have a (mostly) free weekend. So now it's preparation time. This weekend is loaded both with things that need to get done, and things that belong in the ooh-goody-spare-time-what-should-I-do-with-this-golden-moment category.

This weekend, Saturday to be precise, is officially "pi" day, seeing as it is the fourteenth day of the third month (3/14). It was established by Congress on the 11th (yesterday), I kid you not. Now there are two ways to take this: a) get even angrier at Congress than you already probably are and begin wishing that those dang nobles who wrote the Magna Carta had stayed in their castles, or b) understand that if they're passing legislation on circumference/diameter day, then they aren't passing legislation that pushes us further towards complete collapse. I always favored the more optimistic point of view.

I will be spending Pi Day at my Church, which is having its annual workday. It's pretty much spring cleaning on the grounds and in the buildings. It's a lot of fun actually, since the adults are the ones planning the clean up and worrying about what needs to be done. I and the other younger members just do the grunt work, moving various materials from arbitrary position a to arbitrary position b. For, us it's just doing yardwork with our friends, and with the spring colors in bloom; it should be quite enjoyable.

Then onto Sunday, where my family and I will be able to give our new and improved Church a test run. Following that are a few more things scheduled, but I'm sketchy on the order.
They include:
1. piano lessons
2. visiting Grandma at the Manor Care nursing home (she's rehabilitating from an accident)
3. go to the Racquet club to run/explore around the bike trail/swim.

Then we go home and relax... and probably watch TV.


Final comedy vid later.

Sour gummy fun bugs

At church, during Sunday school, one of the teachers came to the highschool class and passed bags of "Juicy Oozers" around to us. They were basically bug shaped Gushers with dustings of those little crystals that categorize the candy as "sour." They actually weren't all that bad, but I have never been a fan of gummy candy, whatever kind.

What intrigued me was the packaging:


Sour Gummy Fun Bugs! It's like they tried to stuff as many descriptive words to the front as the large, charismatic font would allow. Of course, to call them Gummy Fun Bugs would be incomplete, since it left out the all too important Sour aspect. Sour Fun Bugs likewise, we don't want people to think that these were hard candies, no sir, they need to know the texture involved here. So that leaves Sour Gummy Bugs, but no one wants to eat those, so add a positive aspect. Make people think that eating boiled horse-hoof Jello shaped like a household pest is Fun.



Also note the cycloptic little spokesbug sitting there in a relaxed, laid back, "wass shak'n?" kind of pose as his insides are bursting out of his abdomen.


Final note of interest: On the back of the package, right under the ingredients list, is a safety warning, which reads "Warning: Small objects such as hard and soft candies may inadvertently become lodged in the throat."
1. Hard and soft candies? So are "not especially hard yet not especially soft" candies okay then?
2. If your audience consists of people who read the safety labels on gummy candy bags, don't you think big words like "inadvertently become lodged in the throat" are a little much? Even "You could choke" is a stretch.

Busy Weekend

Last Friday night was the registration for swim team. It is like an annual get-together for all the returning swim team families, and its usually like a really fun get together for all our swim friends. Unfortunately, me and my brothers were unable to attend, seeing as mother had a headache/illness/sickness thing going on. Instead, we had a sleepover at my house with our friends Aaron and Aidan. (We did get registered, my Dad was part of the set up and his office is close by, so he registered for us). I grabbed the camera and took some shots.

We had fun.

We played video games, (He's playing on the computer)

tried to hide from the camera, (I was too quick for blue though)

and made funny faces, (lots of them)

On Sunday, after Church, I asked Ben (good friend of mine on swim team), who had attended registration, how much fun we had missed out on. "It was pretty boring, and I was starving." So he says. Now I'm not saying that I'm necessarily glad he had a boring time and that we weren't able to come, but I am happy that we had such a fun sleepover.

COTW: Clip of the Week

This time it's a short video I got off the rebelution.



I love the dull monotone he uses. I also highly recommend the site listed above. I believe it is the most popular Christian blog. It focuses on breaking today's low expectations of teens.

Making fire: cotton balls

I bought the magnesium flint striker at Wal-Mart (sporting/camping section). They aren't very exotic items. They're pretty cheap too (about $6 if I can remember correctly, but I could be horribly off).

I notice that in the beginning, I say "um" a lot. This was my first instructional video, and I now realize that it is harder to speak in front of a camera than I thought. I'm hoping that some more practice should clear that right up though.

P.S. Les Stroud (from Survivorman) actually recommends that a roughly nickel-sized pile of magnesium is sufficient, not that it makes much difference.

Title: Incognito

It seems that the title of the Manifesto has followed suit with this month's title picture. It seems to have gone into "stealth mode" with the 117 Nighthawk. Mind you, I can't choose the font color, it comes with the template, and seeing as I like this template, I guess it'll just be like this until April.

Note: Not exactly sure why I posted this. Just, thought it might be worth mentioning.

I love spinter

Been having great weather recently. As winter and spring slowly converge, the general outdoor ambiance has just been fantastic. It's either grey and raining, or bright and shining, there are no interjacent periods of gloomy fog. In fact, I don't think we've had any '09 fog yet.

I do like when it's grey and rainy, but never when its just grey. Call me peckish, but rain always cancels out the nastiness of a dark day. I think its because it makes all the outdoor colors more vibrant, like when you get a dull stone wet.

See what I mean?

The rain created an interesting effect on our windows too:

The rain fogged up our windows like the front pane of a car.

This has never happened before. Intriguing.

Sorry, fellas

Work has been horribly thick in my schedule. I had decided to take a week break from the Manifesto, to get things in order. I'm starting back up again, so stay tuned.