Mystery Show Mystery

As you might all know, I have been doing nothing this summer, which is to say I have been so bored that I have been doing everything I can get my hands on. I've been reading books, programming games I had dropped months ago, and watching every netflix that comes in the house. This means that I have gotten to see several mystery shows, including one that Mom and Dad recently started called "Inspector Lewis." The entire plot of the episode I watched was rather unsavory since it entailed rape and adultery and stuff so I'm not going to go into details. Suffice to say at the end, I had no idea who the rapist was.

Mom and Dad say as a general rule that British mysteries are better than American mysteries because they are more complex. There are so many rabbit trails on top of each other that it is much harder to figure out what had happened. However, I for one say there are too many rabbit trails when you aren't sure at the end who exactly was guilty. I looked up the plot synopsis online and I found out the rapist was one of the murdered parties. Too many murders definitely clog up the clarity machine. I remember Poirot would always explain the entire murder process and how he figured it out before making an arrest. I say that Lewis could take some pointers.

Homeschool Convention

This morning I was up at 6:00. Mom had signed up to help set up the Annual Used Book Sale of All Homeschoolerness. (Disclaimer: Not actual name) It seems that whenever something homeschooly needs to be organized, Mom is there. And usually there are two or three strong young sons of hers that were somehow roped into helping too. David and I went to help this morning. It wasn't too hard. All we did was tape of some aisles and set up tables. It was kind of like setting up for fencing except exponentially larger. Speaking of fencers, we saw at least five fencing families there. I guess we were filling in as the makeshift security. In addition, we saw Heather's old car that has the bumper sticker "This car is protected by a woman with a sword" still on it. I hope that family bumps into the Colemans' table where Joseph was advertising our fencing group. More members!

Aliens

My eye has mysteriously re-shaped itself during the night. Mom thinks it is bacterial, but I think it is alien's. After all the new tilt makes my eye look like an alien eye from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Therefore, it is only logical to assume that I was abducted by aliens last night in my sleep and had my eye enhanced by alien technology to be as good as theirs. Unfortunately their Mom called them to dinner before they could start enhancing my left eye and they had to drop me back into my bed half-done. How embarrassing.

Bug House

You can tell that it is almost summer when there are bugs everywhere. One thing I like about winter is that all the bugs are dead. Anyways, we've had problems with ants everywhere. Last night our kitchen reeked of anti-ant spray. This morning Luke came to Mom and said "Mom! There's a bug in your room!"

"What is it?" Mom asked.

"I dunno," said Luke. "I think it's an ant. It has wings."

Bugs are really annoying.

Camera Woman

Recently we watched old home videos. They were cute and stuff. Hoorah. However, Mom suddenly realized that she hasn't taken footage of any child younger than David. Now she has started randomly walking into rooms and filming whatever kid happens to be there while asking inane questions. We just answer them while looking awkward and wondering how stupid we'll look when we re-watch these 10 years from now. Alas.

Couches

Today we got new couches! Woo hoo! It has been kind of awkward in the Living Room because we had one green couch and one white couch. Oh yeah, and Mom absolutely hated the white couch. The general sentiment was: "Hey! Don't jump on the green couch! Jump on the white couch!" Therefore it was time to get new couches.

Mom and Dad went out to eat earlier this week. Immediately afterward they ran over to the store in order to get there before it closed at 7:00. The employees were closing everything when they showed up. Mom ran around asking the price of couches while the employees went about their work closing the store and answering her questions. Then all of a sudden she said, "Alright. We'll take three of these." Suddenly the employees stopped closing shop. That is how Mom bought three couches in three minutes. The couches in question are brown and comfy. David likes their new wood smell. Alexie tells him to enjoy it while it lasts because it won't last long.

Oh yeah, I promised everyone a new poll didn't I? Well, here's a boring one: What color couches are the best?

Bribery

This summer my siblings have all been drafted by Mom into the "Resteraunt Club." This means that they have to memorize a certain number of Bible verses and then I will drive them someplace nice to eat. Implied is the fact that I also have to memorize the verses or else I'm just going to have to sit there watching my siblings eat. Oh well, a little Bible memory never hurt anyone. Wish me luck.

Anti-Talent

Recently we had dinner with our old pastor from Florida. He caught us up on all the news of our old friends. One thing Alexie noted afterward was that all our friends from Florida were really really athletic although we were not. Mom then noted that when we moved here we made a lot of musically gifted friends, although we were not. It is kind of weird that we hopped into two cliques that we definitely did not belong in. It got me to wondering... am I worse at athletics or music?

Gilded Cage

Perhaps I've seen one too many bird-in-the-cage analogies on Star Trek. They all have the same plot (and the same scenery). Kirk beams down with a landing party to the beautiful wooded planet and one character, usually either Dr. McCoy or Sulu, say "Gee Jim/Captain, this place must be paradise!" Then they are mind-enslaved and have their every whim catered to by hot space babes. Kirk is then so disgusted that he drags his entire crew back to the ship after shattering the planet's culture and the Prime Directive and flies away.

Me, I suddenly realized that my summer vacation was shaping up pretty much the same way, only with less hot space babes. I got done with finals and was looking down the barrel of three months of nothing but free time. Then I was mind-enslaved by my mother and forced to do all sorts of menial tasks and was given the additional task of "improving the quality of my siblings' lives." This means that I will be driving them to restaurants every week to reward them for memorizing scripture and taking them to places like the aquarium and Lake Winnie, which I will be leaving for in twenty minutes. Yes, I am sure you are all thinking "Being forced to go to amusement parks isn't torture, you drama llama." Alas, it is a gilded cage.

Death by Steve Green

Have you all heard of the artist Steve Green? He puts Bible verses to song and then makes choruses of children sing them, probably on pain of death. Some of them are pretty catchy, but a bunch of them are really dull. Anyway Mom picked the most boring one on the CD that goes something like "Store up for yourseeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeelves, treeeeeeeasure in heeeaven!" and is now playing it over and over on the computer next to me. Every time it ends, she opens Windows Media Player and plays it again. I'm not going to tell her how the loop button works, or else I might not get these precious short intervals of silence. Anyway, she's either planning her next Sunday School lesson and is planning to include this song, or her next torture session with Osama Bin Laden and she's already given up on trying to get useful information out of him.

Ode to Mom

Hey hey hey! It seems like I've been doing a ton of Ode to So and So posts lately. That is because there are so many birthdays to celebrate. It is my Mom's birthday today. Happy birthday Mom! I nearly forgot it was and asked Dad what the cake he was making was for. Lexie laughed at me. Also, in honor of Mom's birthday, I was the only student to get over 100% on Tuesday's Physics test. Ping! As it turns out, Physics was the first subject Mom ever almost got a B in. (She went to the teacher and argued it up to an A-) Well, to Mom! May you live a long and happy life with your wonderful college GPA and even more wonderful children! Ping!

Planning Ahead

Last night, at about 9:00, I asked Andrew whether he was going to his friends' house the next day.
"Oh, I dunno. I haven't heard back from them," he replied.
"Hold on a minute! There is no way you are going to hear back from your friends before I go to school tomorrow at 8:00! They'll still be asleep!" I replied.
"Well, yeah," he said.
"Well, should I ask for a ride from Luke then? Or are they still sick so I should go home with Alexie?" I said.
"I dunno. I'll know tomorrow," he said.
This is not what I needed. I needed some information. As it turned out, Alexie figured that I was hitching a ride so she was going to leave without me without calling. Of course, it wouldn't make any difference because I discovered upon getting to school that Mom had borrowed my cell phone and never returned it. Great! Just when I need a communication route to both Alexie and Andrew, my cell phone goes missing! What good is a cell phone if it isn't around when you need it?

Anyway, I called home using the courtesy landline at UTC and got all pertinent information. Sheesh. So exhausting. I need to plan for communication crises better.

Not just any Tumors!!

Teratomas!!!

If you want a boring description, Teratomas are tumors that have tissues that are normally derivatives of any of the germ layers. Here's the cool description: They're tumors that have teeth and hair!!! AND EYES!! AND BRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAINS!! (in rare instances, of course.) Yeah, teratomas are bloody awesome. I know that most of you, i.e. all my readers who aren't Luke K, are thinking Eeeeew, why would Duncan want to do a report on something so inherently sick. (Of course, I'm not going to make statements for Luke and he can be perfectly disgusted if he wants to be.)

Mom is bent on changing my mind. I come home and she says "Duncan, when I was in dietary school I studied this really fascinating disorder called PHP (disclaimer: doesn't actually exist. I forgot whatever it was that Mom said.) that causes weight loss! Pretty exciting, right?" Yeah, well a teratoma is definitely cooler. Mom also suggested ulcers, but I vetoed that one because ulcers are the example used over and over in my textbook for the class. Anyway, ulcers are cool, sure, but teratomas are cooler. Alexie gave me some manly advice that she got from a friend: I'd rather write an F paper on something I find interesting than an A paper on something I find dull.

Of course, I totally intend to get an A in this paper.

Hmm... Any more posts on teratomas and I might have to get them their own label.

Crusty Computer

Right now I'm sitting at the internet computer at home that no one uses. There are two computers that access the internet, both in Mom's room. Sometimes when Mom doesn't want to go to the trouble of using the other computer, she uses this one. Since it doesn't load websites, she quickly gives up. Recently, she called Alexie and Andrew down to take a look at the computer and figure out why the internet is running so slowly. Both of them had no idea what was going on and moaned endlessly about their uselessness. (Teenagers tend to plead ignorance whenever their parents want them to work. I know since I am one.) They aren't scientists, you see, rocket or otherwise.

Any good scientist, or any person with an ounce of logic, would have noticed that the internet will work if you are logged in to the username Teaching Tools, but not if you are logged into David. The reason? The username David has dozens of viruses and updater agents running every second you are logged in. The viruses don't slow down the computer because of sinister design, they slow it down because there are so many of them clogging up the computer's circuits. The reason I know this is when I log off of "David" so that I can use the internet, half a dozen programs with names like "BLGOFGupdateragent.exe" and "COMPUTERAIDS.exe" all have problems shutting down and so therefore each pop up errors that require you to press "end now" to move through them all. If I were trying to fix the problem, I'd start there. It is a problem when your computer is so old, even its viruses are decrepit.

Slippers

You know, I've never had slippers before. Until yesterday, of course. After Mom had detailed the plight of my poor feet and their beloved chillblains, Grandma went shopping the next morning. When she got home she dropped a pair of slippers at my feet and told me to put them on. The good thing about my slippers is that they keep my feet warm and make me feel comfortable. The bad thing about them is that shuffling around my house to make sure my slippers don't fall off makes me feel like an old man. I guess I'll just have to deal with it. It's better than losing circulation in my feet.

Bureaucracy

Yesterday I heard a story from my parents' youth which was so funny, I decided to post it here. When Mom and Dad were dating, Mom came over to Dad's family's apartment to visit. Dad's apartment was on the third floor. Anyway, while visiting Grandma asked Mom to run a letter out to the mail chute. Mom sprinted over, tried to put the mail in, but the mail chute was full. She couldn't stuff it in. She reported back so then Grandma called the front desk. They went to check what was up and it turned out that the chute was full of mail up to third floor. At this point they were thinking, "What the heck? Where is that mailman?" As it turned out the mailman had died and the postal service hadn't noticed. The postal service quickly fixed the error by hiring a new guy and the day was saved. Isn't the federal government incredible? To run a business that doesn't even notice when one of its employees dies and therefore stops reporting in to work?

Mail Order

Tomorrow in Science Writing there will be a discussion about the first chapter of the book. Unfortunately for me the book has not arrived yet. It is somewhere between Amazon and my house. Mom suggested I go to the bookstore and stand there reading it, but I think there is probably a rule against that. Also, last time I was there, the entire section with the books was roped off and you could only get books by requesting them. And a third problem is that the one in the bookstore is not the book we'll be discussing tomorrow. Our teacher told us the first day of class that due to a miscommunication the book in the bookstore was the wrong book. Alas. All the variables seem stacked. I'm just going to hope that because I never shut up usually, the teacher will not call on me to answer questions.

Top Topics

After much clicking and studying, I've found out my top five topics of blogging this year. The winner was Andrew with 28, which is unfortunate because I usually badmouth Andrew in posts about him. The next three topics all clocked in at 27: Alexie (posts where Alexie comes in and says something either snide or hilarious), Mom (posts where Mom comes in and either tell me something I don't want to hear or worries about me too much), and School (whining). The last one, Politics with 26 posts, was probably bolstered by my trip to North Carolina as 16 of my 26 posts on this topic were written there. I have 223 posts overall since I started on March 30th. This amounts to about 5.78 posts a week, or 0.83 posts a day. Although I would have been much happier to have a round 1.00 posts a day, I guess I'll just have to make do with my lack of insight. (or I could just publish 77 more posts, including this one.)

Shakespeare

This question was brought up a few posts ago and since it is of General Interest, I will answer it. What happened to Henry V? (I don't know what actually happened to Henry V, since I haven't read the play, but I suppose if he didn't die at the end of the play, he had to eventually die later, right?)

At first, Mom had As You Like It and Henry V as the two plays we were going to do. Suddenly, Mom discovered that no adults besides herself were going to help out with Shakespeare camp. This was entirely predictable because anyone who has ever coached one Shakespeare camp knows what an insanely boorish hassle it is and quits the next year. Therefore, although interest among youths who want to participate has swelled, participation among parents who want to help has all but vanished.

Anyway, Mom declared that we were only doing one play next year. She selected As You Like It as the play we were going to do. We pointed out that we were certainly going to have more than twenty kids interested so she entered a period of deep meditation and thought. At last she called Mrs. Stewart. Her husband picked up and had no idea who the heck she was or what the heck "Shakespeare camp" was so it was with great hesitation that he handed the phone to Mrs. Stewart.

Mom: Mrs. Stewart, I really need someone to help me next year. I was hoping that you would be the head coach for the second play. We have several college students returning to help. Please please please please please.

Mrs. Stewart: Ah...

Mom: And I'll let you pick the play! Pick any one of the plays I've already abridged (and she listed them) and we'll do it!

So after much considerable consideration, Mrs. Stewart agreed to coach Merchant of Venice. And THAT is why we are doing Merchant of Venice. Ha ha! Now all mysteries and all knowledge have been made known!

Mysterious Black Eye

I've developed a mysterious black eye. This is impressive because I have been remarkably peaceful for the past few days. I haven't punched anyone (hard) or been punched by anyone back. I suspect that I just slept on a lego or something. Dad says it might be something like cellulitis and Alexie says it is face cancer. Mom's put me on an antibiotic circuit. Anyway, I'll just wait for it to deflate. It's probably something innocent and harmless like an evil spirit or a parasitic alien.