Civil Unions vs. Gay Marriage

Thoughts on Life is divided into three sections: Poetry, Short Stories, and Non-Fiction.
In the third section (although it's not listed in the Table of Contents for some reason), there is a speech that I wrote last year for my English class. I would like to share it with you.


For more really good articles on the subject, check out here and here.

Civil Unions vs. Gay Marriage: Which is the Better Option?

     “Good morning, Hank. It’s Sunday, June 28, 2009, and I’m angry!” That is how Printz Award winning author of young adult literature and prominent video blogger John Green began his video entitled “Gay is Not an Insult." He then went on to explain that in order to insult someone, you must “paint them with character traits or identities that are bad," and therefore “gay” is not an insult because being gay is not a bad thing, and neither are the two other popular YouTube insults of "nerd" and "virgin" (“Gay”). However, some people disagree with this statement, saying that homosexuality is indeed bad, and that such people can't stay commited to a relationship. They believe the institution of marriage should be reserved for straight couples only, and therefore have created a "separate but equal" institution known as a civil union as a perfectly acceptable alternative for them to be joined in. This commonly held belief is incorrect, as civil unions are not equal to marriage, and gays deserve the right to marriage even if civil unions did give the same benefits.

     The point of whether or not homosexuality is a sin, when it comes to the issue of gay marriage versus civil unions, is completely moot. Even convicted felons are not denied the right of marriage, so the moral status of it has nothing to do with the legal matters of allowing it.

     Some people insist that gay couples can’t uphold the same standards of commitment and legitimacy to the marriage that straight couples can, and use that as an excuse to deny them their right to marriage. This mantra, in addition to being a falsehood, has no grounds in relevancy. These individuals do not take into account the statistically higher rates of illegitimacy present in certain racial populations: marriage is not denied to them either (Sullivan). In fact, lesbian couples have one of the highest commitment rates (Gannon) because of the naturally higher and stable levels of the hormone oxytocin in the brain. Oxytocin promotes emotional love and strengthens such bonds between people, while also creating the desire to “nest” and settle down. Men, on the other hand, have very low and tempermental levels of this hormone compared to women and therefore are more likely to break the commitment of marriage (Grundy). This fact, degrading to the cause for equality as it is, is tossed out the window when it is considered that due to their long, draining, and dedicated fight to gain the right of marriage, when the sun dawns on a new day in the history of gay rights, those couples will treat their new option with a respect and seriousness far greater than that given to it by their straight counterparts who take it for granted.

     Now let us explore exactly why civil unions are not an acceptable alternative to marriage. According to Yale Law School, there are 1138 federal protections granted to married couples, but not to spouses joined in a civil union. In addition, employers are not required to give benefits such as insurance to such people, whereas married spouses automatically receive them (Ayres). This shunts unmarried couples joined in a civil union into an unfair and disadvantaged situation. They can legally be kept out of hospital rooms while their spouse is on his or her deathbed, and suffer many other kinds of pain due to this lack of protection. Public officials, such as judges, have the right to refuse to officiate a civil union between people of the same gender, while they are required to marry heterosexual couples if asked (Ayres). This is a gross injustice, as now not only has equality been removed from the marital system, but so has security. There is no garuntee any given official will consent to facilitate, since his personal views may interfere with his decision. Should gay judges be allowed to deny marriage to straight couples because of their views? Furthermore, lesbian and gay couples can only choose to be in a civil union, or settle for nothing at all, while straight couples can choose either (Lambda). This restraint on options begs for discrimination by implying inferiority where none exists.

     Our country’s Declaration of Independence declares that “…all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, [and] that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” (U.S. Declaration of Ind.). Being martially joined with the person you love certainly falls under “the pursuit of happiness”, as well as liberty. By creating an alternative to anything for a minority (in this case, gays and lesbians), the government violates this constitutional promise of equality.

     Other than strictly legal matters, there are social effects from being in a civil union that are rather undesirable. “Without the word ‘marriage’, other people ‘have to wonder what kind of a relationship it is, or how to refer to it, or how much to respect it’…Those couples lose the respect and dignity they deserve for their commitment to be responsible for each other” (Lambda). Respect is a commodity in the world, and it is one many people fail to give to those who deserve it. Why should gays lose what little they do receive over a meaningless squabble of terminology and religious versus legal definitions?

     Some may say that marriage isn’t at all important, so why bother fighting for equality within it? The answer is simple, and Lambda Legal puts it very nicely: “if access to marriage weren’t a big deal, there would be no effort to restrict it in the first place” (Lambda). Regardless of whether or not homosexuality is “sinful,” people falling under that banner are humans just like the rest of us and deserve equal rights, as promised by our country, ironically known as a “land of equal opportunity”.

     All of you may be thinking something to the tune of "I'm straight: this doesn't affect me. Why should I bother to help?" The same thought once traveled the synapses of my brain. It was then that I realized that that was exactly the sort of thing going through the Germans' brains as they watched Jews march past them to their deaths. It was then that I took my stand. It is estimated that around 10% of the global population is at some level (conscious or unconscious) of homo- or bisexuality, and 1% have some sort of intersex condition (Green “Sex”). This means that the outcome of this battle could have a significant impact on as many as three people in this room right now. Even if you're not one of those potential three, how would you like it if you weren't allowed to religiously or legally be joined to the person you loved? This isn't a personal matter; it's a matter of principle. If we compromise our belief in equality in just one instance, what's to stop us from doing it again and again?

     In conclusion, gays deserve the same rights as straights based on the equality supposedly ensured by U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence. All arguments against this are proven worthless by either other groups sharing similar traits yet receiving the same rights as everyone else or by the separation of church and state. Civil unions do not provide a suitable alternative for marriage, due to both legal inequalities and social disadvantages. One day, homosexuality and gay marriage will be taken in stride just like a person’s possession of dyed hair or tattoos—that is, it will be recognized as not the majority, but perfectly normal. Until this day comes, I will continue fight alongside John and Hank Green and the Harry Potter Alliance, as I have been actively doing for the past few months, in favor of marriage for all. After learning about these disgusting acts of discrimination, I hope you will too. In the words of John Green, "Ultimately, gay will never work as an insult because gay is not bad. So you want to call me a gay nerd virgin? That's fine."

Works Cited

Ayres, Ian. “Separate, Unequal: How Civil Unions Fall Short of Marriage”. 2005. 17 Nov. 2009

Gannon, Heather Ann. “Same-Sex Marriage Should Be Allowed.” 2008. 28 Nov. 2009 .

“GAY is NOT an INSULT” (video recording). 29 June 2009. Indianapolis, IN. John Green. 28 Nov. 2009 .

Grundy, Benjamin. “Episode 209—Mysterious Universe.” Mysterious Universe. 31 Oct. 2009. 8 Nov. 2009 .

Lambda Legal. “Civil Unions are not Enough”. 18 Nov. 2009 .

“Sex, Sports, and Caster Semenya” (video recording). 13 Sept. 2009. Indianapolis, IN. John Green. 19 Nov. 2009 .

Sullivan, Andrew. “Marriage or Bust: Civil Unions are not Enough.” 15 Oct. 2008. 18 Nov. 2009 .

An Abundance of Quotes Part 8

"I never imagined myself being a writer. I always imagined myself actually being smart or something." - Christopher Paolini


"The truth resists simplicity." - one of the vlogbrothers. Hank says it in a recent video, but the context hints that John said it at some point before.


"Each day provides its own gifts." - Marcus Aurelius


"It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact." - Edmund Burke


"Know or listen to those who know." - Baltasar Gracian


“It is very sad to me that some people are so intent on leaving their mark on the world that they don’t care if that mark is a scar” - John Green


"The crux... is that the vast majority of the mass of the universe seems to be missing." - William J. Broad


"You have to dream before your dreams can come true." - Abdul Kalam


"The joy of Alzheimer's: I can always make new friends, and I can hide my own Easter eggs." - my math teacher, who does not have Alzheimer's.


"You look like someone peed in your cornflakes." - Also my math teacher


(Guy in my math class): "Dude, are you racist towards Asians?"
(Another guy in my math class): "If by 'racist' you mean 'sexually attracted to,' then yes."


I'm cleaning out my binder and found some things I made note of, the conversation above being one of them. It's too bad I don't have any novel ideas that need a lot of modern teenage boys. Perhaps The Clockwork Experiment's eventual sequel can use them. 


Did I ever tell you guys that my mom has traced our lineage back far enough to know that my great x25 grandfather's name was Grimbaldus? He lived in the 1500s, and didn't have a last name.
We're also directly descended from John Alden & Priscilla Mullins (they came over on the Mayflower), closely related to Winston Churchill, and distantly related to John Adams, Princess Diana, and Sarah Winchester (of Winchester Mystery House fame).
I just thought that was an interesting bit of information for you to know.

Debate Tournament Videos

"We do not remember days, we remember moments." - Cesare Pavese


I wanted to do a video in the style of John and Hank Green's Thoughts From Places series, so I took my camera along to the tournament. This is what happened. Plus you get to see what a mess my hair is in the morning. Ha, the things I do to be true to form.





And here's a more normal video that I shot over the course of the day:









Now about that quote:
This is...quite perhaps my favorite quote I've ever posted here, simply for the stark truth of it. I love things that penetrate to the core reality of things.

Movies From Books

I'm watching John Green talk to his computer live. I love how intimate it is. It's not edited or anything. He's just reading questions off his screen from the chat and answering them, and we're sitting at our computers listening to him. We're 800-odd people hanging out together in the same digital room. I usually don't find out about these shows until after they're over. (Oh, he just said he's leaving soon. Ha.)


He talked about how, while the money would be nice, he doesn't really want movies made from his books. Right now, they're popular with us nerdfighters, plus some other people, plus the people those people have told, and it sort of trickles around. With a movie, it suddenly becomes the over-merchandised thing with an entire table to itself at B&N. The experience of reading the book becomes less personal, and because visual stimulus is so powerful, the memory of the movie completely takes over how the book would otherwise be perceived.
I never thought about it like that before. It makes me want there to never be a movie based on a book ever again. The Harry Potter movies definitely took something of the books away from me. I've lost my original images of all of the characters except for those never or rarely seen.


(Insert segue that I can't actually use or else it would give away something I'm about to say before I say it.)


In English today I had to take a state-mandated Practice Writing Assessment for the Real One we have to take in March. It was a "Definition Essay," (which I'll explain in a moment), and  the topic was "the meaning of overcoming adversity to teenagers."
In a Definition Essay, they give you a topic and some quotes to use. You're supposed to start out with a quote, state your definition of the topic, give a historical example  that backs it up, a literary example, and a personal example, and then conclude, or pick historical or literary, a personal, and then a counter arguments paragraph.
I did the latter format, and I wrote about things I love: Harry Potter and NaNoWriMo.
Somehow I always manage to work one of those in, or a John Green quote. I probably could have found one for this had I Internet access at the time.
I really hope I didn't have to define adversity, because what I actually defined was what the surmounting of it means to teens.

For The Love Of...

"Don’t make stuff to make money, because you will never make enough money.
Don’t make stuff because you want to be famous, because you will never feel famous enough.
Make gifts for people. And work hard on those gifts in hopes that those people will notice the gifts and will like the gifts. Maybe they will notice how hard you worked and maybe they won’t, trust me, I know it’s frustrating.
But ultimately, that doesn’t change anything, because your responsibility is not to the people you’re making the gift for, but to the gift itself.” - John Green


And that there is my philosophy on writing, blogging, video-blogging, music, and pretty much every other creative escapade I endeavor to do.


"Most of the best reasons for loving places are people." - Hank Green


Insert some interesting philosophical stuff here for me, will you? I have a Lord of the Flies pre-seminar to write (it's 4 and a half pages so far and only halfway done), so I don't have time.


Good Lord, I just checked the stats and I got a whopping 51 views on the review of Lowecase. Thanks for the re-tweet, DFTBA Records! If any of you ALL CAPS fans stuck around for other posts, hi! That was unexpected. That post is now the second most-viewed, with Fear being the first.


Here's the second episode of the Quad N: Great (NaNo-Tastic!) Expectations





http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trECt5-TJY0

Thoughts From Places

I don't believe I've mentioned on here that the vlogbrothers are doing a 100 video-long series entitled Thoughts From Places. It's a set of "visual essays," and they are amazing. There's only been about 5 of them so far. I will embed the most recent below for your enjoyment, and if you want to watch all of them, here is a link to a list of them.





I've been reading Orson Scott Card's Shadow of the Giant for the past week or so. It's the 4th "Bean book," and they're a parallel series to the Ender Quartet. All of them are some of my favorite books ever.
In Ender's Game (the first one), Ender's older siblings Peter and Valentine slowly begin to change the political tides via anonymous essays posted online. Peter was "Locke" and Valentine was "Demosthenes." They pretended to be arguing in a carefully calculated scheme that prevented a third world war.
Being someone who posts essays online, I would love to have that kind of influence. Unfortunately, I'm not as interested in nor knowledgeable about current events to do something like that. I just want my ideas out there. I was thinking about that a few days ago and it occurred to me "But I have a blog." 
The thing with blogs, though, is there's a lot more difficult to find. With YouTube, a quick search can lead you to all sorts of places. With blogs, it's usually from other people's blogs, or by word of mouth. It's a lot more difficult to gather readers like that. Not that I'm asking you to recruit people. It's just something I was thinking about.


My grandma had some surgery yesterday morning on her knee, and I went to go visit her in the afternoon (both Monday and today). It was the first time I'd been in a hospital since 11.5 years ago when my youngest sister was born.
The funny thing was, while said sister was constantly asking loads of questions about what different stuff was, it felt like I'd been in hospitals loads of times. Why?
Because I've read a lot of books and short stories with hospitals.
That particular hospital, as I said to my mom earlier today, "Looks exactly like the hospital in The Price by Alexandra Sokoloff." She was confused as to how I knew that, seeing as how it was a book and not a movie.

The Guy With The Coconuts

So my youngest sister and I were filming some stuff today that won't be online until early October. We walked up the street to a pavilion thing that we wanted to take some footage at.
On our way there, Sarah (who was carrying the tripod and the camera, although I'd offered) said "I'm kind of like your guy with the coconuts." I laughed, but it was true enough.


Later, she said "No one thinks much about the guy with the coconuts. Except that it's actually kind of a fun job."


I found this immensely interesting. It's true enough. The main characters in stories are always the heroes. The people  interviewed by the news people are always the "heroes," or Big Important People. So much attention is turned toward the BIPs, that the sidekicks (the guys with the coconuts, so to speak) get overlooked. 


Like Ezra suggested about Paige in Ascension (that she shouldn't be the person who takes down the Officiator and their general society), sometimes its more interesting to view things from the sidelines. Hindsight is 20/20 (usually), yes, but is being a fly on the wall not also similar? Sure, you can't see all of the motivation and the hidden information, but there's a certain level of insight that comes from being removed from the situation.


Besides, where would Harry be without Ron and Hermione? Sure, they do a heck of a lot more than carrying Harry's baggage, but they're still sidekicks. These guys are important, and sometimes they don't get enough love from the authors.


Even though Paige isn't going to be a sidekick. She's a die-hard citizen of Mt. Nirvana. She's completely dedicated to what they do.


Then there's Colin, who very well could be the main character, except I find Reymfla more interesting, plus it started out from her perspective before I knew Colin very well.


The thing we were filming is rather cheesy, but also rather good. It's not a skit/movie trailer like I've done in the past. We sort of invented a talk show, except it's a joke, except we're serious. You'll see when I upload it. We even have a special theme song (although I need to design a cool opening title video sequence. Any ideas on what program I should use?).


It's difficult to write a blog post while listening to John Green add the words "In Your Pants" to the ends of book titles. It's also hard when Hank starts singing "Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone (From Your Pants)." Oh, the early episodes of Brotherhood 2.0, how I've missed you. So much singing went on back then, and they were so awkward, but I loved them. (I recently found a zip file of segments of 50 of their first year of videos and have them playing in the background.)


"George W. Bush is so incompetent that he failed to to poop IN my pants, although he managed to poop NEAR my pants and then later stated that he had never intended to poop in my pants and that no one in his administration had EVER talked about pooping in ANYONE'S pants. After seeing his poop, I can report that it looks EXACTLY like bull shit. (To camera) Wow, those guys must be selling the President's war plan." - John Green in his short story "Everyone Poops In My Pants, by Hank Green"

Us Vs. Them

"There is no them. There are only facets of us." - John Green

That's in reference to the concept of "us helping the poor" as opposed to "us helping us."

You can find the entire video here.

I think people like the turn problems into an "us vs. them" fight because that justifies doing terrible things to them. They're a separate group- a group that is subconsciously inferior, even though they're not inherently better or worse. They're just in a different situation, and at a different stage in personal (or, in the case of groups, group-al) development.

But if it's "Me vs. Her/Him/Them," I can do stuff to them that I would never do to someone I classify as part of "us" (which is really someone I classify as part of "me."). 

Although I (or whoever the "us" party is) know consciously that a given action/thought/attitude is wrong, the "us vs. them" complex allows me/the us party to ignore that conscious knowledge.

Hurry Up, Guys. :D

I blog a lot. And now you're thinking something along the lines of "Well duh you have almost as many posts in June as there have been days in the month so far!"
Now, see, about that. I'm off of school for the summer, so I've been at home a lot more, and working on Clockwork a lot more, and thinking a lot more, so I have a lot more to say.

I saw a private street called "Awesome Street" today. Seriously. It's not on Google Maps though. I checked.

"Every breath I take brings me closer to my last, but if I stop breathing, death will come all the more swiftly."

Yesterday, I believe it was, I finished a round of editing and decided it was in a good enough condition at this point that I finally sent it to all of you in writing club. If you didn't receive it, that is a problem. Tell me if that happened. I also sent a revised edition of my query letter to the people who gave me feedback on it originally.

So today, I wasn't sure what to do from 9 to 12, as I don't really want to go back through for another editing swipe until you people have sent me comments and suggestions. I spent some of that time eating breakfast. Then I spent an hour (yes, an entire hour) converting italicized words to underlined words. I believe that is how agents and editors like manuscripts.
Then I shut down my computer and finished my breakfast and wished you lot would hurry up. I mean, 400 pages can be read in like five minutes, right? What's the hold up?

Well, regardless of how long it takes you, I hope you enjoy it.

My progress through For The Win is astonishingly slow, considering that I'm enjoying it.

That's about it. I could go on for awhile longer, but none of the things I could tell you are relevant, so I suppose I'll log off and wait for the new Doctor Who episode to be posted. I'll leave you with a link to a fascinating YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxIL4thb3NA&playnext_from=TL&videos=1HZS8CF2UBs&feature=sub

Net Neutrality

I try to keep the rest of my online life out of this blog, unless there's something directly related, or if I'm just bored and feel like writing about something.

However, I think this is extremely important, and should be shared with as many people as possible. Plus, the video's hilarious.



If the embed didn't work, go watch the video here and then come back.

John and Hank, of course, are the vlogbrothers. Maureen is a YA author who I like very much. Wil Wheaton is an actor from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Luke and Kristina comprise my favorite band, and the Mythbuster guy is, well, a Mythbuster.

If you click on the link to http://www.savetheinternet.com/ (which you should), there is a button in the upper left-hand corner that says "Act Now." Click on it. Fill out your information (it's important). The site will send an email to your senators and representative for your district.

I've watched the video three times now.

Pink Nation- Where I Get Many of My Ideas

I was going to include this with the last post, but it is about an entirely different topic, so I am making a new one.
Last night I had a dream that Hank Green (of the vlogbrothers, and also my favorite musical artist) came to the elementary school I have mentioned before to do a show. He was teaching me and a bunch of other people (who in real life don't even know of his existence) how to play his songs. There was an entire band, including guitars, ukeleles, trumpets...
I didn't have any music, because I was playing guitar. He told me the chord progression (C-F-G-A), and started passing out music to the other people. I didn't recognize the song we were playing, which was weird because I have heard every single one of his songs except for the ones he is still working on.
I looked at the music of someone near me, and saw that the song was called "Pink Nation." This is not a song Hank has ever written. That made me more confiused.
The alarm went off. I woke up with chords and a song title in my head- a song that does not exist.
Needless to say, I have begun writing the song.

Most of my ideas for creative works (be it song or story) are either leftover from a dream, or something that came to me in the evening when I was almost asleep. Clockwork was like this. Parts of When The Sun Was In Your Hair (which, yes, is just psychotherapy, but some of the more story bits) were like this. The first wizard rock song I ever wrote (and best, so I believe), "Red-Headed Lament," was like this. Several other things probably were too, but I can't think of them right now.
Speaking of waking up with things in my head, one time it was a word: "ergo." I didn't know what it meant. I had never heard it before. I looked it up, and it turned out to be a Latin word. It means "therefore." I use it fairly often now. There's no point with this story about that word-- it's just an interesting thing I felt like telling you.

The point is: sleep/almost sleep is good for being creative. The first chapter of Clockwork, which I believe to be the best part of it, was written at midnight, when I needed sleep. I planned on going to sleep in 15 minutes. My brain was preparing for it. Maybe it's because the subconscious is coming to the forefront in preparation for dreams, and maybe it's just because my logical mind is relaxing and shutting down for the night, but it works. That's where I get many of my ideas. Perhaps I'll share "Pink Nation" with you once it's finished.

This Machine Pwns Noobs- A Review

I've been meaning to write a review of Hank Green's latest album This Machine Pwns Noobs for awhile now. I got it for Christmas, so that just shows how long it's been. I will try to link each track to the YouTube video where you can hear the song. WARNING: A lot of these videos are NOT the studio version of the song. They're just Hank, with his guitar and camera. The studio-recorded versions are much better.

Track 1: "DFTBA," featuring Michael Aranda
It's a great song to dance to, but difficult to learn all of the lyrics. This song is comprised almost entirely of different things the letters D F T B A can stand for, the usual being Don't Forget To Be Awesome. There's also a sample from John (Green)'s video in which the phrase began. One of my favorite songs ever. Music video comment: Hank's pretty good at dancing.

Track 2: "This Isn't Hogwarts"
Hank writes a song about Harry Potter about once a year in July. The first was the hit that made the vlogbrothers channel so popular back in 2007, "Accio Deathly Hallows," the second was "Book 8," and this is the one from 2009. In this song, Hank tells us what he thinks of the public school system. It is a must-listen for anyone who has ever wanted to go to Hogwarts.

Track 3: "A Song About Anglerfish"
It was originally going to have a different title, but everyone liked this one. This song conveys messages found in both The Giver and Fahrenheit 451, while also teaching the listener some stuff about Anglerfish. This song was used in the 2009 Nerdfighters Fitness Challenge in which the participant does as many "push-up-jumping jack-dance move" combos as they can while listening to it once.

Track 4: "I Know"
Difficult to understand, since most of the lyrics are something like "I know that you don't think I think you know you think I know."

Track 5: "Mules Are So Half-Ass"
Completely comprised of puns. "The mink lost her furry scarf/she said it was stolen/ the shoe salesman wanted to help 'cause he had so much sole/ but then his whole left side fell off/ well, he's alright now/ and the pregnant heiffer saw it happen/ yeah, she had a cow/ and the CO2 delivery guy always gives me gas/ and I really hate mules/ cause they're so half ass." Very catchy.

Track 6: "Scuzzy Kizoozle Curl"
A song about a homicidal squirrel. With a string backdrop. Makes you want to dance. Beware of her.

Track 7: "Protons and Neutrons"
This is probably my favorite track on the entire album, "DFTBA" being second. It sounds great, the lyrics are great, and it makes me think.

Track 8: "Dead Boy's Girlfriend"
A Harry Potter song not written in July, about Cedric Diggory being dead.

Track 9: "Demolition Derby"
Hank likes the Demolition Derby. He also likes deep-fried food. This is the song in which he expresses that.


Track 10: "Fathers of the Founding Fathers"
"If fatherhood is the most important job by far/ Why don't I know who the fathers of the founding fathers are?". Hank's thoughts on Father's Day.

Track 11: "Ulcerative Colitis"
There are very few songs in the world about the singer's large intestine. Even fewer that are also about the country's healthcare system. This may be the only one. Moral of the story: "The healthcare system's more screwed up than a 50 year-old Fred subscriber."

Track 12: "I'm Not Edward Cullen"
The story of a boy whose crush won't love him because he's not Edward Cullen. "[She] can't help but realize, those are golden contacts in [his] eyes." The female part is sung by Hank's wife Katherine. My favorite part: "He's the only man I can't resist/ and you can't convince me he does not exist." Apparently this is an actual problem in some places today, both Edward Cullen's existence versus non existence and the problem the boy in the story is facing.

Track 13: "Crime Dramas Suck"
Everyone knows a show that is predictable. They might love it anyway, but they know what will happen. This song shows that every crime drama on TV is the same, while also poking fun at the fact that they always choose good-looking people to star in them. "By the middle of the first season/ Murder is eclipsed by sexual tension/ And I guess that probably happens a lot/ Since crime-solving people are always so hot." Sorry if this song spoils the entire season of CSI for you.

Track 14: "Jesus Gets Nothing For Christmas"
"And the worst part is it's his birthday too." I'm sure just the title gives you an idea about what is trying to be said here. He's not being serious- it's just a song to be funny. Who knew Jesus liked video games?

Track 15: "The Vegetables"
Rated PG-13. Very strange music video. Only the lyrics are rated highly, however. The music video is clean if you watch with the sound off. Now, when the video and music are combined...that is a different story. Watch at your own risk.

Track 16: "Nerdfighteria Island"
Sometime in 2009, it was discovered that we, the nerdfighters, could actually buy ourselves an island if everyone contributed a few hundred dollars. Of course, that will never actually happen, but this is a song about our country that will never exist in the physical world. A lot of this song is references to various things that only nerdfighters will understand.

Track 17: "It All Makes Sense At The End"
In which Hank pretends to be old and lists out how long he spent doing various things, looking back on his life. "I know you're curious/ I spent 3 years poo-ing."

There. I'm done with my review. I hope you watch the videos, and I also hope you go buy the album. To help you all with that, here's the link to go do that: http://dftba.com/shop/products/This-Machine-Pwns-n00bs-Bundle.html

A Few Little Things

I've been assigned my first actual story to write for class. It's too long the way it is now for the word limit, so I'm going to transform it into more of a bedtime story type thing.
A few more chapters of Clockwork to come on Wednesday. :D Eager for your feedback.
I recommend the latest vlogbrothers video on the hypocrisy of big corporations.

Reading wise, I've got about 300 pages left of The Eye of the World. Next...I might read Dune, or The Time Traveler's Wife, or Stardust or one of my nonfiction books, or the next Wheel of Time book.

Doctor Who Truth Or Fail...and more about Snow

One of my favorite YouTube channels, the Vlogbrothers, have also started this game show on YouTube that anyone can play at any time. It's called Truth or Fail. They give you two facts on the topic, and you must choose which one is the truth...or you fail. There's five rounds.

This week's episode is on Doctor Who. I got all but the last one correct, and learned lots of stuff! (yeah, I guessed on most of them...) I happened to know #4, because the one Old Who episode I've ever watched happened to deal with that one...


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRTVYmFIqxI


Other Truth or Fails cover:

Episode 1: General Knowledge
Episode 2: English Edition
Episode 3: Harry Potter
Episode 4: Literature Edition
Episode 5: Sharks
Episode 6: Woodstock
Episode 7: Trivia From John Green's Books
Episode 8: Outer Space
Episode 9: Science
Episode 10: Beards
Episode 11: The Lost Symbol (with Dan Brown)
Episode 12: Drugs
Episode 13: Hoaxes
Episode 14: Halloween
Episode 15: J.R.R. Tolkein
Episode 16: Water (With Two Hot Guys in the Shower)
Episode 17: Crazy Body Abnormalities
Episode 18: Doggies
Episode 19: Doctor Who

The episode in the background of the Doctor Who episode is "An Awful Lot of Running," by the absurdly awesome (and first) Time Lord Rock band Chameleon Circuit.

I hope you watch at least some of those Truth or Fails, because it took me an awful long time to link them all for you. :D

Now I'm going to go eat my third breakfast of the day (cereal @ 7:30, eggs at 10:30, and now probably more eggs here at 12:30).

I went sledding this morning. Then I tried to snowboard down my neighbor's extremely steep driveway using my sled. I made it down the driveway, but then fell when I got to the road and banged me head kinda hard...but I'm okay.

Before sledding, my sister and I went deer tracking. Mom had seen some crossing the street before we went out, and so we found the tracks and decided to follow them. They took us through a small stretch of woods in the middle of my neighborhood, up through the briers into my old neighborhood (yeah, you can see our old house from my living room), down another street (through people's yards), down a cauldesac,  down someone's driveway, through someone else's backyard, and then onward. We turned back when we got to that point. Mom wasn't pleased I'd gone tramping through people's yards, but oh well. I was busy honing my Ranger Skills (Ranger's Apprentice reference, anyone?). She wasn't happy, but I'm sure my friend David will think differently...he's closer to earning his Silver Oakleaf than I am (having a PI for a dad helps in these things), so I've got to try to catch up.

An Epic Announcement

Earlier today, a certain Henry Green was born. He is the son of John and Sarah Green. John is the award-winning author of Looking for Alaska, An Abundance of Katherines, and Paper Towns, and is also a very famous video-blogger along with his brother Hank. They are both extremely freaking awesome people.