the lost colony

so basically with a whole 2 weeks to do the hw that my teachers assigned..... i finally have a chance to do sum reading which i havent done in quite some time. i started out with a book called "artemis fowl: the lost colony" ive read all of the artemis fowl books and i even got two of mine signed by eoin (pronounced EE-IN) colfer, the author, when he came to andersons like 4 years ago.

and i must say that this is the very best artemis fowl book that i have read so far on SOO many levels and for SOO many different reasons. truly, a masterpiece, mr colfer. truly.

i'll start out with reason 1/34567 why i enjoyed the book. top of page 210, US edition.

"'Artemis. Stop it. I was just beginning to like you, and now we're back to where we started.'

'Just give me one more minute,' Artemis insisted. 'If I can't convince you in a single minute, then I will hang up an dleave you to your research.'

'Fifty-nine,' said Minerva. 'Fifty-eight ... '

Artemis wondered if all girls were so emotional. Holly could be this way, too. Warm one moment and icy the next."

lmao. aint that the truth eh? sry, this book had several references to the fact that artemis is a 14 year old boy and his only friend is his bodyguard, Butler, so artemis keeps asking butler questions like that and its very amusing. nice one eoin ;)

alrite. just wanted to start on a light note. now the heavy-handed stuff.

this book truly had a complex plot involving time travel. i myself do not believe in time travel, but colfer produced a novel that dealt with this. supposedly the warlocks of old produced a magical vortex that contained an island which contained the 8th family of the magic kind (demons), but in this novel the time spell is unraveling and the demons are able to travel across the dimensions and ultimately into earth and the hands of artemis fowl.

this plot really makes you think. i mean, even moreso that da vinci code. dan brown had a lot of twists and turns, but once u saw a twsit, the consequences were apparent. in "the lost colony" i truly was guessing until the end. plenty of twists and turns occurred, but their consequences were unpredicable because the climax occured in a setting where time didnt matter. the very existence of time was unraveling, and the world was being split apart and spewed out in various dimensions of time and space.

now in real life, i dont believe in time travel for the simple fact that space will disentegrate before time does. space has three dimensions, but time is the fourth one. imagine the xyz axes, and time is the fourth axis. it is in an unknown spot that we cant comprehend at this moment, but if we can find this spot and control it, then time travel is a reality. however, the very foundations of our world would be shattered if anyone attempted time travel. every action you do now has consequences for the future. yes. every action holds consequences.

its kind of like on the simpsons when homer travles back in time, stomps on one mosquito and returns to his time to find everything completely different. its true.

anyways. back to colfer. this novel is deeply complex with its events being scattered across 10000 years, and time travel makes anything possible. colfer says that this is possible because of the magic of the fairies. magic is merely a form of energy, and a warlock was able to harness the energy of a bomb and turn it into magic. energy is neither created nor destroyed. basic principle of physics.

yer once u introduce magic into the scheme of things, u get the picture of a connected existence. colfer really painted a nice picture when artemis, holly, no1, qwan, and abbot were in the vortex. they were able to share each others minds and travel to any time or dimnsion as they pleased. really fascinating stuff. i read somewhere that einsteen theorized that theres 8 different dimensions, and our laws of physics dont apply there. once u put magic in the equations, our physics knowledge breaks down, but instead u get an even more amazing universe.

i cant even begin to fathom or make sense of anything that i just said. ya gotta read the book cuz its an amazing read. not to mention a romance occuring between the lines which makes things more interesting. colfer has promised one final book in the artemis fowl series (this'll be 6 books) and i cant wait for artemis' final adventure. i really hope that he and holly can somehow form an inter-species marriage and get together. they're meant for each other. sure, minerva is hot and all that, but go for the girl u want, artemis, not the ez one.

maybe i shuld listen to my own damn advice..... im such a fuckin hypocrite.....

vegetarians

http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20061215/hl_hsn/kidswithhighiqsgrowuptobevegetarians

normally i dont like to blog twice in one day, especially wne you cut yer last post short cuz yer supposed to be working on a poly sci essay and yer instead surfing the net. but i HAD to say a few things about this.

skim the article. doesnt it make u sick?

i'd like to meet the dumbass who wrote this article and i'd like to say a few things to him. as a child's IQ rises, he reverts to vegetarianism according to a scientific study? ok, thats pretty weird, but i'd like to know a little bit more about this study to comment on this, but i really hate this writer's attitude.

im not sure exactly what my iq is (ive been told everything from 110 to 160 in tests. the number im looking at now is between 125 and 130, probably 128) thats considered "gifted" on the IQ scale. yeah yeah, i was in the project challenge crap and all that in junior high, but thats not important.

VEGETARIANISM SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!

there i said it.

basically from the town of this friggin article, i got that all smart kids are vegetarians and all dumb kids eat meat which is faulty logic. meat is an essential part of our diet. do u think human beings wouldve advanced beyond the paleololithic age if they only ate dandelions and tree bark?

umm no they wouldnt have cuz they needed the extra protein to survive the winters.

i love meat. i couldnt live without it. so i guess im not a "high iq child." friggin study.

junior year up to 12/16/06

this post and the one above this one didnt publish..... damn internet. ah well, lets try this again.

im sure all of you care a lot about how my academic year has been going. rite? u dont? then fuck you, im still blogging about it.

spanish

not as bad as i thought it would be. it definitely was a jump from iii to iv, but ive finally gotten the hang of it. the tests arent too bad, and i am learning quite a bit in it. i admit that i didnt know much about la guerra civil de españa beforehand, but now i consider myself very informed.

CAT

again, not too bad. ive gotten used to miller's teaching style which is very different from counters. i got a C on the first test but now im getting Bs and one A so im content. besides, math isnt my strongest subject and im not going to major in it or anything so its all good.

english

one of my fav classes particularly for the people in it. hardy does a lot of discussion which i like, but i loved the amount of acting we did with hulka. i mean, i dont consider myself a good actor. scale of 1-10 (10 being justin matkovich good) id give myself a 5 or 6, but i love acting very much. hell, i took it freshman year. the lit we've read so far is ok. hamlet is my favorite. such good times makin the film version of it lol. the crucible was a classic arthur miller, but i think that im the only one in the class who enjoyed reading it :/

poly sci

oh hell, i could teach that class. fuck, i do teach it. everyday we have a woll everyone crowds around me and makes me talk about what its about. that being said, i am learning quite a bit about how gov't really works. the wolls r pointless and could be avoided if mr b gave us a notes sheet with the main point from the article. (yes, most of the 5-9 page articles can be summed up in 3 or fewer sentences) that being said the woll days are awesome cuz me and my base group screw around the whole time and mr b doesnt care cuz hes awesome. XYZ MISTA B!!!!! lmao

ad us

*sigh* i like the concept of this class. i hate diagramming. i love "out of our past." its a fascinating book. however, i HATE our discussions on it. i mean, this is a history class, not an english class. yes, learning how to intrepret a book is important, but i wish we didnt devote 3-4 days just to talk about the author's thesis and crap like that. JC wants us to use the bb discussion board to discuss the issues and stuff. i dont like talking about degler with people cuz i diagram differently than everyone else and quite frankly i dont care how anyone else does it. i have my own system and it works quite well.

lunch

fuckin amazing. such good times. i cant even begin to talk about the crazy shit that goes on at our table. its just that amazing.

physics

this is the class that deserves its own post

gym

hahaha, pretty insane class with andy and the lith, but i must say thats its never boring. gyms a fun class. definitely one of favs

so i dunno why i spent my saturday nite talking about skool. gosh, i need a gf to keep me occupied on less-nerdy topics. and now i'll leave u with these words of wisdom

"no means yes"

intrepret that as u may.

harry potter and the deathly hallows

the title to harry potter 7 has been released by JK on the winter solstice. how appropriate. the official title is "harry potter and the deathly hallows" there are "spoilers" to the entire series in this post so if u havent read the books and plan to, dont read this post blah blah blah.

this title makes little sense to me grammatically. lets see if i can talk my way through an analysis of it. here are the definitions of the key words in the title.

death·ly /'d??li/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[deth-lee] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

–adjective 1. causing death; deadly; fatal.
2. like death: a deathly silence.
3. of, pertaining to, or indicating death; morbid: a deathly odor from the sepulcher.
–adverb 4. in the manner of death.
5. very; utterly: deathly afraid.


hal·low (hal'o) Pronunciation Key
-->BOF_HEAD-->tr.v. -->EOF_HEAD--> -->BOF_SUBHEAD-->hal·lowed, hal·low·ing, hal·lows

-->EOF_SUBHEAD--> -->BOF_DEF-->
To make or set apart as holy.
To respect or honor greatly; revere.
these definitions are courtesy of dictionary.com. check it out for all of your linguistic needs! ;)

ahem, back on topic. so for one, hallow is a verb which means "to make holy" such as a cemetery is hallowed ground or the ground that Jesus walked on was hallowed. i have only seen it used as a noun once.

the ancient celts (dont confuse them with the gauls. the celts populated all of western europe, and if you are irish, scottish, or from certain parts of france and spain, then you are celtic as well. british doesnt count because most britons are descendants from the normans who were originally from scandanavia who had migrated there from the *yes this is correct* the middle east. all scandanavians originated in the caucus mountains in middle-asia..) had a lot of strange holidays such as samhain's day and all that, and one of them was that of hallows eve.

this was the day (or i should say night) where the living interacted with the dead. the boundary between the living and the dead was broken, and any of your deceased relatives could come back and visit you. i dont think that the definition "to make holy" fits here. JK has kept religion out of her books (as she should) and shes going to keep it that way. i dont see holy and magic interacting.

so that leaves us with hallows eve. so where in the books do the dead and living interact? i was browsing through the mugglenet.com's forums and among all of the random shit and moronic postings that come with every forum i found some interesting ideas that i'd like to comment on.

godric's hollow = something to do with hallows? i dont think so. thats not JK's style. i mean, a one letter difference signifiying a connection? no. is the deathly hallows a place or an object? possible, but again, this is the last book so if it is some kind of object it must be one of the horcruxes or some kind of tool that harry will use to kill voldemort (which i will talk more about later) i seriously doubt that its a place. however, lets play devils advocate and look at her past titles.

harry potter and the sorceror's stone (an object that gave harry the strength (arguably) to defeat voldemort for the first time)

harry potter and the chamber of secrets (a place where harry met voldemore the second time around and in it discovered the sword of Godric Gryffindor and used it to slay the basilisk)

harry potter and the prisoner of azkaban (a man who seemed like a mortal enemy at first turned out to be harry's greatest friend and godfather who was slain by bellatrix lestrange in book 5)

harry potter and the goblet of fire (an object that was used by barty crouch junior to enter harry into the doomspell tournament (hehe) and make him come face to face with voldemort in his resurrected body)

harry potter and the order of the phoenix (a group of people dedicated to fighting voldemort. harry discovers the network of people who fight voldemort and it is ultimately them who come to save harry from the clutches of the death eaters. at the same time they cannot save sirius from lestrange)

harry potter and the half blood prince (a person who seems like an ally at first but then turns out to be severus snape, a SUPPOSED traitor and despicable man who kills dumbledore.) note my caps on that last sentence.

harry potter and the deathly hallows (??????)

hmm. im staring at what ive just written and im trying to find clues and patterns from them. (this is JK's style. throwing in tiny clues in seemingly insignificant things) what do we have?

object, place, ally, object, ally, supposed villain, ?

ugh. i think im missing something. any ideas on this are especially helpful. however, if there is some kind of pattern, then the "deathly hallows" must be some kind of object.

this makes sense.

where in the books does harry come into contact with the dead? THE VEIL in OotP!!!!

the mugglenetters have been talking about this, and it makes sense. hallows eve (halloween in our modern day english language. maybe i shuldve said that before :P) represented the barrier between life and death.

thats exactly what the veil represents. but what does this mean? it means that the veil is of the utmost importance. of our previous titles, all but the fourth one (indeed an oddball) where the title thing appears in the climax of the novel. soooo

the veil is in the ministry of magic. is this where harry and co will return to defeat voldemort once and for all? i think thats highly possible. the "deathly" part reinforces the fact that this title has to do with the dead. she didnt write "deadly" or anything like that. she wrote deathly or "death like" so what does this mean?

harry will communicate with the voices beyond the veil? will they reveal the location of the horcruxes? will he speak to sirius one last time? speak to dumbledore? JK said that the veil represented the joining of the world fo the dead and of the living. the deathly hallow fits with this. so whats the answer to all of my questions?

your guess is as good as mine.

damn, i love harry potter books.

a poll

so now that i have an extra minute or two (hopefully 3 or 4) since its the weekend, id like to voice my opinion on the following topics

1. Jason = 16 year old white male = scum of society

2. Junior Year, a Perspective before Finals

3. A Class that Deserves its own Post

4. A Guide to Getting a Girl as written by Arkanto4011 (aka me)

5. Advice to Women by OrnlutheWolf (aka me)

6. Why the holidays suck.

7. Christmas - 4 BC and 2006 AD = What has changed? (well besides the obvious)

8. Why Borat deserves to win an Oscar.

9. Step aside Rumsfeld, a new Sheriffs in town.

10. The Crippling Effect (why the minimum wage will hurt this economy more than it will help it)

11. Me = *angry growl similiar to that of a wolf* rite now

12. Saluda a mi pequeño amigo (nah, this aint a topic but its a pretty cool phrase nonetheless. ive used it in two of my spanish plays :)

13. UFOs = a reality?

alrite i think im done. ending on such a lucky number makes me happy :) i'll probably blog about one or more of these topics this weekend and we'll see what goes from there.

so yeah those topics are occupying about 20% of my brain at the current moment. figure out the rest :P

hmm. maybe "a poll" wasnt the best title for this post. ehhh screw it.

time to get a hunting license

so its 8:55pm and my place of work (indian prairie library) is closing at 9n. i shelved every book, pushed in every chair, and am counting the seconds until i can run from that place. (im not allowed to leave until they make the announcement "the library is now closed. it will reopen again tmrw at 9am. thank you and have a nice evening." yeah ive got it memorized)

anyway, im browsing through the books and i come across this trade comic about a cryptozoologist and his surprisingly attractive wife who go in search of the legendary thunderbird. in a work of pure fiction, he finds it and his wife and him kiss and blah blah blah. not the best graphic novel ive skimmied, but i found the link to this amazing website on the back of it.

http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/

ive read loren coleman's book on cryptozoology (the one with encyclopedia in its name. it was an index of all cryptids. in all it was like 400 pages. and people claim science has discovered every animal.) this is basically his blog that keeps u up to date on all cryptozoology news.

so now i bet yer thinking, slow down jason, what the fuckin hell is cryptozoology? well, the subject has fascinated me for quite a few years. it comes from the latin root "cryptus" that means hidden and "zoology" the study of animals so the study of hidden animals. basically its the search for animals that science hasnt discovered such as bigfoot or the loch ness monster.

yer probably laughing your ass by now. logical jason with a 128 iq believing in mosters? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. dont laugh too hard now, ive read quite a few books on the subject and have seen many quality documentaries about them. (please dont trust the discovery channel. PBS pwns it in documentaries)

i believe in some, others im skeptical, and since im bored now and not too many people are online i'll blog about my 2 cents.

Loch Ness Monster

I don't believe in it. however, i do believe that there was SOMETHING that caused the rash of sightings between the 1920s and 60s. probably some form of genetically mutated seal. i mean, there was a crapload of sightings, but the thing is, almost all the sightings were different so that suggests that there were A. different monsters B. stupid people who cant remember or C. no monster, but people mistaking ordinary objects for a monster. i believe C. i dont believe taht a tribe of primordial sea creatures could exist in a loch 24 miles by 6 miles for so long without being discovered. nope. sry, cryptos.

Sasquatch

I believe it. im convinced that there is some kind of ape that roams the rockies mountains and the pacific northwest. those forests are pretty damn dense people. humans havent conquered all of the wilderness yet. all ive seen in my life is suburban areas that have houses everywhere. i long for the wide open spaces that america is famous for. my point is that its very ez for an ape to hide there for so many years. native americans are convinced that it exists, and they've lived here for over 20000 years. (not sure on the exact date) humans have actively been in the pacific northwest since about the 1820s and 30s. not very long, and those areas arent widely developed. the bulk of canada's population is in the east and not the west and the same goes for the US. (cali = the exception) there are a good deal of sightings by very credible people who have seen this beast and dedicated their lives to founding it. hoaxers dont do that. hoaxers want fame and money, not giving up their jobs to work with univesrities to fund research expeditions into the area. there are literally thousands of print casts from sasquatches, and we even have a whole body cast of when a sasquatch laid down in the mud. the only thing we lack is a body. thats where my blog title comes in. many cryptozoologists think that we should capture a live specimen, but only if it wont "harm them" for scientific study. no people. we need to shoot a sasquatch and present the carcass to the smithsonian and shove it in their arrogant faces and show that science doesn't know everything about the world. a dead body will be of more use than another sighting or a possible escape. when im old enough, im going to fund my own expedition to the rockies and go bigfoot hunting. if anyone wants to join me, just comment and bring an appropriate firearm.

Kongamato

i started out with the ones we've all heard of to pique your interest. did it work? hell, yer still reading so it mustve. please, read wikipedia if u dont understand anything that im saying. onwards. the kongamato. im skeptical. i think that it is possible for a giant bat to have gone unnoticed in the forests of the congo and tanzania and the bordering countries. however, i dont believe that a prehistoric flying reptile could have survived the ice age into modern times. i wish that it couldve. i wish we could have pterodactyls and pterodons flying around our homes, but its not going to happen. see above entry with bigfoot, but the forests of africa havent been combed 100% and it would be difficult to find a flying creature even if it has a 7 foot wingspan. i'd love to travel there to see for myself, but i'd fear for my life if i was alone in the "democratic republic of the congo" with money. im not joking. dont try it. u'll thank me later.

mokele-mbembe

i always botch the spelling on this one, but if u search "cryptids" on wikipedia, you'll find what im talking about. im too lazy to look up the proper spelling now. i REALLY want to believe this, but i dont. im sorry, but i dont believe that a dinosaur could actually have survived this long without being spotted. if the year was 1900, i'd say sure, anything is possible in africa, but this is 2006. face it, dinos arent little birds or sea monsters. u can probably hear one from MILES away, even if it has been pygmified. i wish that dinosaurs were around, but i havent read enough evidence to convince me otherwise. ive read of only a few scattered sightings, and nothing really substantial.

sea serpent/kraken/giant octupus

i believe that there is some kind of monster in the oceans. you are an ignorant sycophant if u think that science has charted the oceans, cuz yer dead wrong. why, science just has to plan a new expedition to the ocean floor, and they discover like 10 new species on almost every trip. its a needle in a haystack. i think that if we could drain the oceans, then we would find all kinds of sea serpents and wonderful monsters. now do i believe the 200 foot long monster that rises up, eats ships, breathes fire, then disappears below? no. but i do believe that the giant squid isnt the only creature thats over 70 feet long in the ocean. its highly possible that a creature like a monster has a habitat in the deep dark ocean that we havent seen. plus, if theres only, say, a thousand of them in existence, then yeah, we'll have a hell of time crossing paths with one considering our submarines can only be submerged for so long. what im saying is that the ocean is one of the last frontiers this world has to offer, and i think that as the years go on, we'll discover more wonderful creatures.

in conclusion, i hope this has enlightened u to a few things that science hasnt solved. i love a good mystery, and thats exactly what cryptozoology is. its a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in skepticism. its fun. google cryptzoology and read more about it. its a cool subject that more people should be into. maybe then we can find more species and strike a blow for cryptozoology. remember folks, the mountain gorilla was discovered in 1906, barely a 100 years ago. who knows what else the deep jungles and oceans hold for us?