Chained

Uploaded a video of Bunky trying to steal Sydney away from me.

I Made This For You

This one’s especially for ADScion. Someone knit me a Prince!

It would probably be easy to knit a katamari as well, so that crochet prince could roll something around and keep the King of All Cosmos from getting on his case.

The G is for Gangsta

Ah, another week, another standardized test. Over the weekend I had the pleasure of taking the GMAT. Although I didn’t score as amazingly high as I would have liked, I did well enough to get into the top 8%. Here are a few observations about the test:

The Good:

• Instant Score: Although waiting for that slowass computer to calculate the score was horrible, I love not having to suffer by my mailbox for 3-4 weeks waiting to be disappointed.
• Don’t Need to Bring Much: All I really needed was my driver’s license. None of this worrying about a ticket or pencils or pens, etc.
• You Determine When You finish: Thanks to the easy essay, the even easier verbal section, and the miniscule breaks I took, I shaved an hour off the expected test time. It’s not like you can check over your work anyway.
• Great Environment: It feels like it’s just you, the computer, and a nice enclosed cubicle space. Props for the cushy adjustable chair, too.
• Verbal Section: Because they can’t kill you by giving you tons of essay questions when you get up to the hard difficulty level, the GMAT has no effective way of slowing you down in this section. Thanks to the “it sounds right” move (instant cast, 30 second cooldown), I demolished this section with 30 minutes to spare. And this is after I forced myself to slow down (this is the last section and you will want to rush through it to get your score).
• Writing Section: With most of these tests, the material is stuff you don’t normally do in normal life. Most of these standardized tests test nothing except how good you are at taking standardized tests. However, the writing section was totally like blogging! Even the interface looked sorta like a CMS dashboard. I couldn’t find the buttons for the smiley faces to really emphasize my conclusion, though.

The Bad:

• I and II Questions: OMG these questions are the bane of my existence. After the halfway mark, about 22/30 of my questions were these questions where I had to decide if I and II were enough information on their own or together. I think these are meant to be the hard questions, because they can sometimes take a very long time to solve.
• Math Section: Sadly, this part was the hardest section and the part I did the worst in. The main problem is that in practice tests there is a mix of hard and easy questions. However, under the ideal circumstances you will quickly ramp up to the hardest section and get tough/long questions over and over again. This basically kills your time management plan, because you cannot simply eyeball the answers and just know what’s wrong the way you can in the Verbal Section.
• Old Lady Secret Agents: These two old ladies monitored my every move hoping to catch me riding dirty. I got my ID checked and my fingerprint scanned every time I entered or left the room (roughly a million times).

The Ugly:

• Energy Crash: The time restraints, the CAT method that prevents you from going back, the increasing difficulty as you do better: all of these make the GMAT feel almost like a tense, but slightly tedious video game. When I was done, I was totally pumped up and bouncing off the walls as if I had just finished 3 hours of 1-0 Battlefield 2 matches. Unfortunately, after dinner I was totally sapped of energy and turned into a zombie.

Please Pass This!

I saw this post on Pittgirl’s site, and I love the sign and hope the bill to ban smoking at the workplace passes.

At a public hearing last night in front of Allegheny County Council, Mr. Gehrmann, of Crafton, was one of a handful of people against the bill who also sought to dispel notions that second-hand smoke was harmful and that the legislation was infringing on smokers’ civil rights.

“This bill is a wicked weed of hate,” said a visibly angry Mr. Gehrmann. “Sixteen percent of the county smokes. Is 16 percent a magic number for discrimination?”

Ok, first off, this argument is total crap. Where are the studies to prove that second-hand smoke is not a health hazard? And you can’t dispute that second-hand smoke makes your hair and clothing smell like total ass after spending a few hours in a bar.

He was supported by a number of healthcare professionals who quoted verbatim reports from the U.S. surgeon general’s office and numerous statistics indicating the increased risk children and those exposed to second-hand smoke face later in life.

Please let smoking be banned from more places. I hate the smell, and the thought of non-smokers getting sick because smokers want to mess up their own bodies just makes me so angry.

“This is not about smokers. This is about workers,” said Mr. Strickland. “Let’s get one thing clear, there is not a right to smoke just as there is not a right to punch someone.”

Exactly.

Sports Crazy

Yesterday was my first experience being in a major sports city on the night of a big game. Pittsburgh was hopping all yesterday, thanks to the opening round matchup agains the Miami Dolphins. People everywhere were in Steelers jersey’s and carrying Terrible Towels, even during the day. The grocery store underneath my condo was selling tons of black and gold cookies, as well as Steelers cakes and such. It was pretty wild.

It was a beautiful day, and Bunky and I caught the game on TV. While a bit uneven and sloppy at times, the fourth quarter was pretty good, and the defense made some excellent plays. The Steelers came out on top without much trouble, so I bet there’s going to be some people coming in late to work this morning.

Turf Wars

I hate when the bus is crowded and people try to keep their bags on the seat. Today on my way home, I had to glare at this big fat guy until he moved his bag. Then, I shoved myself into that seat and started beating him back past the border. I know most people would just scrunch down small to escape the gross fatness, but I was ready for battle. I had to represent for the peeps on my block, so I made sure that I got my full seat’s worth, even if it was a bit uncomfortable.

To further illustrate how dangerous the streets have become, I saw some dude get off the bus while wearing a long black trenchcoat and a Konoha forehead protector bandanna as a doo-rag. You wear the wrong symbol, and you’re liable to get stabbed in the back with a kunai.