Jacob’s Escalator

Okay, I’ll be straight up honest with you: I am way too excited about this for my own good.

In six days’ time, I will be enjoying a bit of BK lunch in Richland while people around me, including myself, open six booster packs of Pokemon Cards from a set that hasn’t come out yet - then we’ll make a small deck out of those cards and play a tournament for fun. For you guys, this doesn’t make a whole lot of set, so I figured that while I’m thinking about prereleases, I’ll “prerelease” a little bit of information from my Thunderlight post for the Trading Card Game. Read More »

Freerice.com is a wonderful little site for pretty much anyone.

It’s a very simple concept - it includes a vocabulary game in which it gives you a word, and you must select another word whose definition is close to it. For each answer you get right, you earn enough money for the site to buy ten grains of rice, which it then donates to the UN’s efforts to end world hunger. As you answer more and more of their questions correctly the vocabulary gets extremely advanced; they have sixty levels of English vocabulary. They say it is very rare to get above level 50, and I myself haven’t passed level 35.

I’m going to be donating about 2000 grains a day to help study for the SAT, which is coming up this Saturday. I encourage everyone to try it, just for 100 grains or so a day, just for fun.  According to the statistics on their site, FreeRice has - since its creation in 2007 - donated enough rice to feed 100,000 people for a month. That’s pretty cool. In actual distribution FreeRice has fed just over a million people for, in some cases, up to two months.  It feels nice to be a part of that.

So begins 2009 - awake half-an-hour from noon, and still waiting on my sister and her friend; the Gator Bowl (?) is playing downstairs amid the sea of confetti from last night. It doesn’t feel like January, or winter at all for that matter; I’m quite comfortable in a loose shirt and shorts at home. There is probably snow left, but it looks and feels out of place; the world looks more like a chilly November morning than a cold January afternoon. Read More »

This is a post idea that I’ve been playing with since In the Thunderlight was first added as a category. Pokemon has always been one of my greater interests, and it’s been one of the very hardest to explain. On first glance everything Pokemon-related looks hopelessly complicated. In reality, it’s not too difficult to understand, when properly explained. The concept is rather strange, but once you’ve gotten used to it, it’s pretty easy to keep in mind.The problem is, entirely, the sheer amount of relevant information that needs to be taken in to understand the beginning concepts of what Pokemon are. Hopefully, through examples, I can make these concepts relatively clear and give an idea how the concept of Pokemon works. I won’t get into the card or video games in this particular post; that’s a subject for later. Read More »

Isn’t it strange how we take things and warp their original meaning or significance? I mean, look at Christmas if Thanksgiving isn’t enough proof - Christmas has ceased to be about ‘Christ’ in about 80% of all cases. Whether or not this is bad, of course, is entirely up to you.

Thanksgiving, I think, was originally intended to honor and celebrate the Native Americans’ kindness in helping us found this nation. Although I’m a little less inclined to like our country some than people think I should be, I’m certainly all for Thanksgiving’s patriotic little theme (if only because I’m there for the food, followin’ behind Dad over there). Either way, though, I think our current definition for Thanksgiving, while entirely unrelated to its original, is a little better, a little more realistic and more relevant; it’s a day to remind ourselves that we have so much, and that it can be reduced to so little in a heartbeat. So savor it, and be appreciative! Read More »

I would like to take this time to announce my mother’s blog, Defying Sunshine.

I’ve never had the privelege of hearing what my mother ’sounds like’ in text, in an extended format as a blog would present. I know that I’m considerably more articulate in this kind of medium, when I have time to consider and revise my words rather than having to write everything mentally on the fly and hope it means what I think it means. I’m sure Kris is no stranger to this feeling, and I’m excited to read what she has to say when given the time to say it in its full, appropriate construction.

In her introductory post Kris (Uh… mom) gives a bit of elaboration to the name Defying Sunshine, and specifically the idea that she doesn’t really know or particularly care what it means. It’s, somehow, very fitting for her; it seems difficult to pin any single meaning or metaphor onto it that really defines why it fits her. I think this is because there are so many different comparisons that can be made.

Sunlight, to us, is life. It’s energy, goodness, and light all in one great ball of searing-hot plasma. Qualities that are supposedly good and attractive to the less mature of us seem to be symbolized in that ball - we don’t look on the ‘dark side’ of the sun and its meanings. We might not be here without its light and heat, but perhaps it’s doing as much harm as it is good. Or maybe even more. Isn’t it killing us just as quickly, in radiation and in overheating?

Or perhaps we think metaphorically instead. The sun is happiness - do you ever see an angry sun? (Outside of the realm of video games, I should clarify.) We could compare this to ignorance easily, for we all know ignorance is bliss… but not for everyone around you. There are a good many times we’d rather not let the idiots around us control the majority of the world.

I think the most valid comparison is the simplest of all, and is embodied in her (brilliant) top header.  I think she is a calm, happy snowman that refuses to let a little sunshine ruin her day.

I love you, Mom. Sun be damned.

Dumblaws.com is beautiful for a laugh and for ‘comedic inspiration’ because you can’t help but wonder not only why on earth these laws came to be, but what kind of wacky event transpired that caused the law to even be considered. Here I wish to share twenty-five random laws, and a few that I remember from previous visits. Thanks to Mom for the post idea. Note that many of these are state laws and the “Random Laws” link, unfortunately, won’t tell you where they’re from - but it’s all good.

“You can’t shoot any game other than whales from a moving automobile.”
…You can shoot whales from a moving automobile? Are you sure about that one?

Read More »

Ahead was a… thing. It wasn’t going up with the Escalator; it was simply sitting… on a perch of cloud near the rail… I looked, curious and a little anxious. My heart rose to see what it was.

It was my notebook.

I snatched it from its forsaken perch and dove through the pages. Not a one was lost; each was pristine and untouched. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief and fumbled through my backpack for a pen.

Dear Notebook, and Readers:

I am sorry! My notebook was taken from me in the midst of writing! It was horrid, and terrible; many were substituted but none could truly replace this. But, now, the Notebook has returned to my possession (as some of you may know, it has been with me for quite some time). Creative spark will strike again, surely, and the Escalator will resume its full function.

Again I apologize. Sometimes the vicious winds along the Escalator’s path will rip things away, and sometimes they will return things - or present you with new ones. It’s beyond my control to say.

- Samwise

My favorite writing exercise so far, IV deals with dialogue, its use to show rather than tell, and how it can tell the story all on its own. The first section is just an analysis of part of our reading assignment and I thusly removed it (because it’s out of context and therefore confusing). However, the second part remains here, which is probably one of the most amusing things I’ve ever written. It is a short-short story (or, in my case, a piece of a short story) that takes place in a single conversation. We were told exactly how to write it out - first character says something, describe an action by the second character, then a response, first character says six or less words, etc. Quite an amusing challenge, and I think the resulting story is no less interesting.

Remember Nadia and Christian? Read More »

Sorry it’s taken me so long. We’re up to Exercise IV, I just haven’t posted this one yet.

Anyway, here it is… the theme was character. Parts I and II consisted of making a character, first by a short paragraph and answering several questions from a list, then by actually describing them in a scene that portrayed their job.

Part III… was writing a kiss scene in three different viewpoints - first person, third person omniscient (with everyone’s mind open to the reader) and third person objective (as an observer). Read More »