Blog: Articles filed under birthdays

Is there something special about turning 18?

Heck yes.

Normally I’m not one to get excited about birthdays. One year older … but the 18th is special since it’s the age of majority. Apparently on September 19, 11:59:59 PM, I am not mature enough, but one second later I have magically matured to just the right amount. I am now mature enough to participate in the democratic process by ticking boxes on a piece of paper. I am now mature enough to die for my country if the need should arise. I am now mature enough to make my own decisions, or so they say. But who are “they” anyway? And let’s face it—any of “them” have probably not been 18 for a very long time.

I don’t really want to grow up. Growing up is scary. It means responsibility, leaving the safe world of adolescence behind. It means a different sort of arena for relationships, interaction, and criminal justice. Being an adult (that sounds very weird) is good in some ways though. Much less troublesome when it comes to doing the nitpicky stuff like conducting online transactions or signing legal forms that donate my soul to a needy demon.

Oh, and there’s cake!

Today I had a party today, with about eight friends over, where we just hung out and watched movies. First we watched A Night at the Roxbury, which I had never seen before, although I love “What is Love”. Then we played two games of Scrabble; the first was a standard regulation game, and then we played one where “anything goes”. And uh … yeah. We had some pretty interesting combinations of letters (I won’t say words, because honestly, they weren’t. ). After that, we watched Love Actually (which neither Cortney nor Rhiannon had seen before!). Then we just talked until people went home.

I had a blast, and the only reason I don’t do this more often or be more “social” is that it tires me out, although I wouldn’t mind having two or three friends over; I enjoy more quiet atmospheres where we can have enthusiastic conversations but we don’t have to raise our voices or interrupt each other.

I love my friends, and my parents are awesome. Honestly, I would go insane without my friends. I am not a social person by any definition of the word; I don’t do much with friends. People don’t really invite me to do things, for one thing, and I don’t know if it’s just because I never come to mind or if I‘m boring. Anyway, I really do prefer quiet activities to parties, concerts, movies, and the like. But I enjoy talking to my friends and just being with them, since otherwise I don’t think I could survive my constant self-analysis. As for my parents, I don’t know how they put up with me. I really appreciate all they do to help, what with the whole making lunches, making food in general (my mom is a phenomenal cook). Cortney, who lives out in Kakabeka, just out of town, would have had to leave really early, but my dad and I drove her home, even though we didn’t get back until after midnight. I know he’s tired and stuff and will probably read this in the morning (which is kind of weird) so I’ll just thank him for that. And I don’t know if mom reads this (she probably doesn’t, since she just isn’t a regular computer user), but I’ll thank her for the awesome cake. And I suppose I should thank my brother for setting up the sound equipment and stuff like that.

Anyway, I‘m rambling because I’m tired. I have to work tomorrow. And school is really taking its toll on me, homework wise and just psychologically. I won’t complain too much though, because it’s of my own working, and life really isn’t that bad. My seventeenth birthday was interesting, and I think it’s special in the sense that it may be the last one I ever have. Next year I’ll be in university by the time I get around to my birthday, and who knows how many of my friends will be left in Thunder Bay? :/ So that’s my goal. I may darn well not be the most social person on this planet; but I’m going to keep in touch with my friends for as long as possible, no matter where they are.

Because life is a team effort, and the blooper reels are the funniest part.

The order is arbitrary, incidentally.

I‘ve been playing around with Kubuntu recently. My laptop used to overheat and shutdown in Kubuntu due to poor power management issues with the CPU. A few weeks ago, however, I took a shop-vac to the fans and sucked out the dust, and now it runs beautifully. I decided to try Kubuntu again, and although the fan is louder than in Windows, it doesn’t get hot at all, which gives me the green light to start playing.

Seth was a big help and was patient enough to answer my many questions as I poked Kubuntu and tweaked it to my satsifaction. If it weren’t for him I would never have been able to get up and running so quickly. As it stands now, I feel comfortable enough to use it to do things like write this blog entry, chat, etc., after only three days!

The best part about learning Kubuntu is that it’s fun. Learning Windows is not fun; learning Windows is a chore. Although the terms “Linux” and “command-line” can seem scary, they aren’t that scary as long as you go at your own pace. And the terminology is awesome. For example, the password manager for KDE is called “kwallet”. While reading a topic about knetworkmanager, I saw a post that basically explained knetworkmanager’s workings as “it takes the [network] keys from your wallet”. How comprehensible is that?! That’s English right there—a foreign language to Microsoft. It was vexing to try and configure Kubuntu before because of the other problems ongoing (the overheating and such), but now that these are gone, I can focus entirely on just customising it to best suit me, and that’s fun.

I should also note that my dear friend Cortney celebrated her 17th birthday yesterday, September 12. Happy birthday, Cortney! No one else’s birthday is coming up in the next few days, luckily, so I can safely celebrate Talk Like A Pirate Day in peace. Nothing else interesting in the month of September, nope. Not at all.

Unfortunately, for all the happy things, there can be some really unhappy things. A shooting happened today, at Dawson College in Montreal. One person is dead and nineteen others are injured. (Read the CBC article.) Not only is this a terrible event, but it is such a completely random one as far as we know—there doesn’t seem to be any cause for it. My heart goes out to the families and friends of the casualities, as well as the people who witnessed the attack.

I could say something corny like “tomorrow will be a better day”, but it won’t. Tomorrow is a Thursday, and I could never get a hang of Thursdays.

I‘m helping out with the backstage portion of my school’s production of The Outsiders. Today after school, we needed to paint a set of stairs grey as a piece of the set. The tech department had graciously attached a railing to the stairs (which are just white pieces of wood), and then deposited them on the stage. We planned to carry it into the drama room, which is relatively adjacent to the stage (separated only by a hallway) and paint in there. Easy, right?

Wrong. There’s a ladder up to the lighting booth in between the stage proper and the door on stage right that leads to the hallway. As a result, the stairs were too wide to fit through either gap around the ladder, and we had to carry them down the steps at the front of the stage, across the entire length of the gym, into the main hallway, up another set of steps into the cafeteria, and then across the entire cafeteria to another set of doors.

This is where we encountered our biggest problem—apparently the stairs wouldn’t fit through those doors either. We even tried to jam it through using brute force, but no such luck. We did, however, manage to get it wedged between the door and the pole that goes between the two double doors.

We ended up having to remove the railing (without which the stairs were narrow enough to fit) and carry them into the drama room as two components. It was still quite an…interesting experience. But I‘m quite tired now, especially after having walked home.

Oh, and happy birthday to my friend Neil, who’s seventeen today!

Today my mom turns 49. Due to the fact that I have a website with a modest readership, I think it is cool that I can wish her a happy birthday and have many people who neither know me nor my mom know about it. It just goes to show how wonderfully disturbing this whole concept of blogging is.

Oh, and yeah, happy birthday, mom!

/me pokes loyal stalkers.

You think that driving near a bus is scary? Try being on a bus. I just noticed today that buses are big, heavy machines that are too large for most streets, and that you need to be insane to operate one. (Of course, this is true for any piece of modern equipment. I’m insane for even typing this under the delusion that someone will read it.)

I thought of a cool new design for a T-shirt. (As I order my own from Rock-It Air Wear). An arror pointing up to me, and then the words “Proof of Intelligent Design”. And the best part is that very few people would actually get it. Next time I need a new T-shirt, I’ll consider actually getting it made.

Today’s my dad’s birthday. So to all those nonexistent people who are actually insane enough to read this delusional tripe, please give him some birthday wishes, as I know he’s reading this … right now. Well, actually, now … yeah, hi Dad.

I should go write my novel. I need to get to 50 000 words. But I also need to get my mom to finish her essay for English. So we’ll see how the next hour turns out, then it’s off to bed for another exhausting day of school tomorrow.

Yes, I know I‘m a day too late. I was just too lazy to blog yesterday. But yesterday was indeed Talk Like a Pirate Day, and if you weren’t talking all piratical-like, you should have been!

Not much else really to say … oh yeah, it’s my birthday.

Happy birthday, Tovan! Indeed, have a nice day.

Also to all others: Happy Pi Day. Click the link over there to find out more. Have a nice day!

It’s my dad’s birthday today … so happy birthday, Dad. If you‘re reading this, then it’s time to close the browser and play some Freecell… .

I’ve added a great new feature to the VSNS. With v2.3.3, you will be able to pin items at any time, or unpin a pinned item rather than deleting it. Version 2.3.3 will be released shortly.

Happy Birthday, eh …

I’m 15 now. Nothing much is different, save that I’m 15. One year older. Hmm … one more year until I have to think of a new excuse not to drive. Up until now it’s been “Oh, I’m too young” … in a year it will be something different altogether.