Midgar Swamp Updates

The personal blog of James Gowdey, aka CaptainCanada...a half-Canadian geek with a 4:47 mile, an obsession with DDR, and a whole lot of random links.

Friday, June 08, 2001

After painting my door (LIGHT BEIGE!!! W00!!!), I decided to look into buying that really expensive anime I want: Memories by Katsuhiro Otomo. I called around, and could find no place that carried it, so I guess I'll have to buy it off AnimeNation.com for $140. It's an import and a really, really nice DVD, so I guess it's worth it...

Here's the sucky part, though: my PS2, nor any other normal DVD player, can play imported DVDs. They're region-2 while US is region-1, and I don't know why but "they" don't let you play DVDs from other countries. Fuddudd.

So, I went on Modchip.com, where a PS2 DVD modchip is available for $39, although I heard from one source that it's unreliable and that the PS2's capabilities suck in the first place.

So my only option is to look for a multi-regional DVD player. I found a place that sells it (across the bay ugh), but they cost at least $350!!! Eragh. Why don't they just spend a million dollars and bring it to America like they did Mononoke? It IS three different mini-movies, though, so I'm not sure if that's really worth it. But "Magnetic Rose" (part of "Memories" is SO COOL!!!)

Eh, I'll put off this dilemma till later. I'll be redesigning the Swamp just a bit soon.

School's out and summer's in! I'm so excited that I've taken off my pants!


No, you're not supposed to understand it, genius.

I plan to do nothing productive for as long as it takes for boredom to kick in.

Wednesday, June 06, 2001

All right, I'll argue with Bob anyway, just to make myself look better (not).

I never said that I don't care at all about a girl's appearance whatsoever. I could even go so far to give someone advice to look better without feeling shy or anything about it. I just didn't form my argument correctly. Speaking about that, what I meant by "the first thing that's important to somebody in a girl" was not the first thing that they notice time-wise, but the primary thing that's important. I just really meant to ask what was most the important quality to them.

Furthermore, it's insane to say that one's opinions are "wrong." I personally would not date a cheerleader who I notice says "and she's all" and "and I'm like" in every sentence, while many other people definitely would. Actually, by coincidence, I met (well, got to know better) a girl who I found we have a lot in common, and despite it being the end of the school year, we may become much better friends. She is a bit short and has glasses, isn't at all ugly though, but she's very smart.

And I must say that these "shallow, lecherous pigs" are pretty shallow and lecherous. They act like pigs, too. So...

"Please, Bob."

But, what I was going to talk about was: WE GOT A DRUM SET! W00!
For my stepdad's birthday, my mom bought a medium-size drum set for a really great value - about $600. I've gotten the basic drum beat down already, but it's come with a major pounding headache. At least my mom enjoys it, which is a surprise.

Back to World History final study AGGGHH...

UGHOOHGH!! My math final didnt go as smoothly as I had hoped. I always fall apart on standardized tests, and I end up tearing all my hair out, but most importantly, I'm really slow on them. Bleah... I hope I didn't get the ones I DID try wrong...

In other news, we've introduced a new concept into the Swamp: the concept of shutting up! This goes for all staff members who live in Maryland!
(In other words, Bob, if you must talk to me about these issues, please do it in private.)

Tuesday, June 05, 2001


I believe there's a rant to go along with this blog. And that topic is attraction.

I took a surprising poll of my own computer-nerd friends about what's the first thing that's important to them about a girl, and one out of four said "personality." The others said "face," "eyes," and the other searched desperately for a word other than "tits" or "ass" before fumbling for the word "legs." This completely surprised me, especially because I'm polling a bunch of computer nerds, who've definitely had time away from social contact to develop their own unique personalities, and still they only care about looks. This gets less surprising when I get on the internet and see all these people complaining about how they can't have the hottest chick in school, or offline where someone's been punched out for pinching a girl's butt. No one cares about personality?! These are the types of people who will have unhappy, short marriages. And they wonder why.

I'm only friends with girls I can talk to at my school. I wouldn't say there really are any ugly girls at my school, but wouldn't I care just as long as I can talk to them and I notice that they don't say "and I'm like" or "bitch" 5 times a sentence. And I wouldn't care about the "oh, you're dating HER?" thing, because these comments would only come from the types of people who only care about looks.

Now I came up with another mindblowingly dumb theory: why ugly people may have a reason to be smarter than handsome people!
Let's take two girls. One is supermodel-esque, and one is... not. But here's the catch: they have the same optimistic attitude and personality. Seeing that ugly people are ridiculed by everyone, this ugly girl must have gone through a lot to have the same frame of mind as the beautiful girl, who, as I said earlier, is wanted by almost every man on earth. The ugly girl probably had to undergo years of ridicule and social exclusion to have the bright outlook that she has today, while the beautiful girl probably did not. So that's something to think about.

All right, time for the disagreements, complaints, and confusion to roll in about this somewhat deranged rant!

...Anyone?


You didn't expect a serious comic out, of me, EH? Jim Davis was one of the people who contributed to killing all of my emotions. I kinda lost hope in drawing comics after I noticed that Jim Davis neither drew nor even thought of his own ideas for Garfield.

...Just so you know, if you think it's stupid that I liked Garfield in the first place, you've totally lost the point.

Anyway, it's English finals today. That'll be easy, seeing that I've obligatorily been studying the Torah as a Jew for almost a decade (see previous post).

Monday, June 04, 2001

The following conversation is mostly true.


My stomach really hurts.


It may be an act of blatant semi-conformism, but I sure do love the taste of corporate, big-business Starbuck's tall White Chocolate Macchiatto in the morning. Their Heath bars kick major nuts, also.

Well, the last week of school is upon us. I've got my studying down pretty much so far. The first final is tomorrow: English. Now what I don't like about my English class is that IT'S PROBABLY THE STUPIDEST CLASS I'VE EVER BEEN TO. It even beats the "web design" class I took last year, where we were seated in front of 10-year-old 50 MHZ 386 PC's and were expected to run Netscape 3. What we do in English is read books (like Julius Caesar, and the Bible) and take notes in incomplete sentences on them that serve no purpose after we've taken them. Then, we're given a matching, fill in the blanks, and multiple choice test that could be understood in any language. Only on God-blessed, fortunate days could we even touch on the concept of writing. We've only written two essays the whole year. And what will our final be on, you might ask? The Bible. Instead of knowing how to write full, rich essays, we've been learning that the Lord likes blood sacrifices rather than crop sacrifices. Ugh. At least my teacher, who is a new teacher this year, has discipline down. She still hasn't told us a good reason why we can't wear hats in class, though.

Sunday, June 03, 2001

HOLY WOW!!!

I'm pretty proud about what pops up when I input my name in MSN Search.

BACK
TO
WORK
AGH...

BobCFed08: (6:13 PM) "Waitaminute, sir. I don't like this ABCDE thing. E has a larger total than the rest combined, so it should be something new! Something that actually stands for a word!"
JeffreyAtW: (6:13 PM) Yes! AHAHAHAHAHAAA!!!!
BobCFed08: (6:13 PM) Was that you!?
JeffreyAtW: (6:15 PM) YES!!! I WAS THE ONE WHO INVENTED F!!! MANKIND'S TRUE DESIRE IS TO BE DOMINATED BY ABSOLUTE POWER!!!
JeffreyAtW: (6:15 PM) *battle only involving kicks and punches ensues*
BobCFed08: (6:15 PM) *cheats by biting*
JeffreyAtW: (6:16 PM) *fake PS2-unworthy blood comes out of mouth, Galeos blows up*
JeffreyAtW: (6:16 PM) Dominique: He was my brother, but a real prick, too!
BobCFed08: (6:16 PM) ?
JeffreyAtW: (6:17 PM) Sorry, ever since I said that absolute power thing, I was ripping off the last battle of the Bouncer.
BobCFed08: (6:17 PM) Ahhhh

*pants* My sister, her friend and I just spent half an hour chasing Java around the lawn, trying to catch him. God damn, that dog is fast. And when he's outside, he's insane. (Of course, when he's inside, he's insane also, but that's not what we're talking about.) He actually flunked obedience training.

And now the story of JONAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GOD CAME TO HIM AND SAID GET RID OF WICKEDNESS. JONAH WENT TO TARSHISH TO GET AWAY FROM JONAH, AND WAS WASHED ASHORE AFTER BEING THROWN FROM THE BOAT!!!!!!!!!! fish EAT HIM111111 AND JONAH PRAYED TO GO AWAY AND WAS BARFED OUT AND WENT TO NINEVEH!!!!!!!!! THE PEOPLE BELEEEEEVED GOD1 AND KING PUT ONRAGZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!@@@@@@@@@@ GOD FOHGAVE THE PEEPZ AND SAID HE WOUNT KILLL HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I saw Momento last night. It was pretty confusing towards the end, but I understood it while driving home. It's one of those "you have to see it twice" movies, with an added twist: the plot goes in reverse. See it, and you'll understand what I mean. It was a pretty cool movie.

Ever since I woke up, I've been working on my math project. It is - pardon my English - a fucka big project. I can't believe I procrastinated that much. Oh well, I'll be able to finish it by Wednesday.