Some of the funniest things are often the most innapropriate. "Blue Streak" with Martin Lawrence, "Nothing to Lose" with Martin Lawrence, basically anything with Martin Lawrence.
I found a video online of a guy playing some of the hardest mario levels ever, and he tends to swear. . . a bit. Just a warning before you watch the video, and laugh hysterically.
Friday, May 11, 2007
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
AP Tests Laugh At Me Behind My Back
I've just finished my third and final AP test during the course of my lifetime, and I'd like to reflect about my experiences with AP tests. First off, my school doesn't offer many AP tests, so three is actually a respectable number for anybody at my school. I've taken AP US History, AP Statistics, and now AP Calculus BC.
Scores:
US History = 3
Statistics = 4
Calculus BC = ?
As you can see, I'm not one of those people that takes 15 AP tests and gets 5's on all of them. In fact, that 3 in history is fairly miraculous considering I'm terrible at history and fudged my way through all the essays, as well as the multiple choice.
But why is the title what it is? Why do AP tests laugh at me behind my back? I discovered today that every AP test I seem to take goes quite smoothly, right until the last question, which proceeds to kick me in the groin, punch me in the face and then run off with my kidney. Honestly, those of you who took stats and APUSH last year know what I'm talking about.
My first AP test ever was Statistics, and that was exciting. I blazed through the multiple choice without a problem. I went through the short answer with relative ease, but know that I have to have missed several small details (because that's what I do). Then I got to the last free response question, NUMBER 6, the really long one that is weighted heavier than the others. It was a monster of a problem, and introduced an entirely new concept to be analyzed, interpreted, and manipulated. It's hard to explain how hard it was, but I'll let the following details help explain:
- People online still complain about Number 6 to this day on forums.
- Teachers are warning their students about last year's problem.
- Average spread at my school for Stats scores is about 15 5's, 25ish 4's and a scattering of 3's and lower. Last year the distribution was 2 5's and 40 4's. That means that everybody that was on track to get a 5 was knocked down by that last question to a 4. It was the weakest showing in statistics scores at my school in years!
Needless to say, I'm still peaved about that question, because statistics was the one AP test that I was pretty much gauranteed to get a 5 in, and I got screwed.
How about US History? What happened there? Well, like I said, I'm not a big history fan, but I will say that I had a fairly decent grasp on everything from the time period of 1800 to 1945. I flip to the last essay which is 45 minutes long, the DBQ (document based question). Here was the topic:
Discuss the changing ideals of American womanhood between the American Revolution (1770’s) and the outbreak of the Civil War. What factors fostered the emergence of “republican motherhood” and the “cult of domesticity”? Assess the extent to which these ideals influenced the lives of women during this period. In your answer be sure to consider issues of race and class. Use the documents and your knowledge of the time period in constructing your response.
40 of us were in the library when we took this test and almost every single person either:
a) groaned
b) sighed
c) smacked their head on the table
Not only did our teacher tell us that women's rights were probably not going to be covered on the test, but these were women's rights that we learned/forgot during the 3rd week of school. THERE WASN'T A SNOWBALL'S CHANCE IN HELL THAT WE REMEMBERED ANY OF IT! Oh, and the prompt even gave us two pieces of jargon that we HAD to use, whether we knew what they meant or not. Lovely. Did I mention that the nearly all the documents were from the American Revolution and not the Civil War?
SO this year was calculus. Again, smoked the multiple choice and kind of waided through the short answer. In fact, it was a lot like statistics, and like statistics, the last question proceeded to bash my brains in. It was material that we "learned" last week and that nobody in the class understood. In fact, we were all joking before the test that it would be amazing if they just left all of those particular problems out. Turns out they didn't.
So here's my dilemma. I had no idea how to do the problem. . . at all. I kinda fudged my way through the first of four parts, but I wasn't even close to correct. The next three parts weren't even imaginably achievable, so I took it as an opportunity to be creative. There were four boxes in which to write the answers to the four parts. The first box had some math scribbled in it out of desperation to get at least 1/9 on the problem. The last three boxes were prime space for Answer Sheet Artwork. Here's what my answer sheet looked like when I turned it in. Oh, the boxes are in this order:
1----3
----
2----4
Yep, I drew a comic with stick figures. That question was a complete loss.
THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is how I KNOW that AP tests laugh at me behind my back.
Scores:
US History = 3
Statistics = 4
Calculus BC = ?
As you can see, I'm not one of those people that takes 15 AP tests and gets 5's on all of them. In fact, that 3 in history is fairly miraculous considering I'm terrible at history and fudged my way through all the essays, as well as the multiple choice.
But why is the title what it is? Why do AP tests laugh at me behind my back? I discovered today that every AP test I seem to take goes quite smoothly, right until the last question, which proceeds to kick me in the groin, punch me in the face and then run off with my kidney. Honestly, those of you who took stats and APUSH last year know what I'm talking about.
My first AP test ever was Statistics, and that was exciting. I blazed through the multiple choice without a problem. I went through the short answer with relative ease, but know that I have to have missed several small details (because that's what I do). Then I got to the last free response question, NUMBER 6, the really long one that is weighted heavier than the others. It was a monster of a problem, and introduced an entirely new concept to be analyzed, interpreted, and manipulated. It's hard to explain how hard it was, but I'll let the following details help explain:
- People online still complain about Number 6 to this day on forums.
- Teachers are warning their students about last year's problem.
- Average spread at my school for Stats scores is about 15 5's, 25ish 4's and a scattering of 3's and lower. Last year the distribution was 2 5's and 40 4's. That means that everybody that was on track to get a 5 was knocked down by that last question to a 4. It was the weakest showing in statistics scores at my school in years!
Needless to say, I'm still peaved about that question, because statistics was the one AP test that I was pretty much gauranteed to get a 5 in, and I got screwed.
How about US History? What happened there? Well, like I said, I'm not a big history fan, but I will say that I had a fairly decent grasp on everything from the time period of 1800 to 1945. I flip to the last essay which is 45 minutes long, the DBQ (document based question). Here was the topic:
Discuss the changing ideals of American womanhood between the American Revolution (1770’s) and the outbreak of the Civil War. What factors fostered the emergence of “republican motherhood” and the “cult of domesticity”? Assess the extent to which these ideals influenced the lives of women during this period. In your answer be sure to consider issues of race and class. Use the documents and your knowledge of the time period in constructing your response.
40 of us were in the library when we took this test and almost every single person either:
a) groaned
b) sighed
c) smacked their head on the table
Not only did our teacher tell us that women's rights were probably not going to be covered on the test, but these were women's rights that we learned/forgot during the 3rd week of school. THERE WASN'T A SNOWBALL'S CHANCE IN HELL THAT WE REMEMBERED ANY OF IT! Oh, and the prompt even gave us two pieces of jargon that we HAD to use, whether we knew what they meant or not. Lovely. Did I mention that the nearly all the documents were from the American Revolution and not the Civil War?
SO this year was calculus. Again, smoked the multiple choice and kind of waided through the short answer. In fact, it was a lot like statistics, and like statistics, the last question proceeded to bash my brains in. It was material that we "learned" last week and that nobody in the class understood. In fact, we were all joking before the test that it would be amazing if they just left all of those particular problems out. Turns out they didn't.
So here's my dilemma. I had no idea how to do the problem. . . at all. I kinda fudged my way through the first of four parts, but I wasn't even close to correct. The next three parts weren't even imaginably achievable, so I took it as an opportunity to be creative. There were four boxes in which to write the answers to the four parts. The first box had some math scribbled in it out of desperation to get at least 1/9 on the problem. The last three boxes were prime space for Answer Sheet Artwork. Here's what my answer sheet looked like when I turned it in. Oh, the boxes are in this order:
1----3
----
2----4
Yep, I drew a comic with stick figures. That question was a complete loss.
THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is how I KNOW that AP tests laugh at me behind my back.
Friday, May 4, 2007
Crazy Cool Stunt
I'm not generally a fan of stunts because it makes me slap my forehead with my hand and go "d'oh!" out of frustration. People are generally pretty stupid when it comes to stunts, but I saw something tonight on the Discovery Channel that just amazed me. It was a reverse bungee jump into a BASE jump. Basically, shoot yourself up into the air with a giant rubber band, float in the air completely untethered for a horrifying second or two, and then drop. I dug around on YouTube and found a clip of it to share with you!
Intense, eh?
Intense, eh?
Thursday, May 3, 2007
I like what?!
A quick summary of the last minute of my computer class that I'm in now.
The room is quite, everybody typing away and working hard. All of a sudden from the corner of the room we hear:
"I like big butts and I cannot lie, you other brothers can't deny, when a girl walks in. . ." playing really loudly.
Apparently somebody forgot to turn their phone to silent before class and also happens to have the most embarrassing ringtone ever. The class started laughing so hard! Complete silence into Baby Got Back, gotta love it.
The room is quite, everybody typing away and working hard. All of a sudden from the corner of the room we hear:
"I like big butts and I cannot lie, you other brothers can't deny, when a girl walks in. . ." playing really loudly.
Apparently somebody forgot to turn their phone to silent before class and also happens to have the most embarrassing ringtone ever. The class started laughing so hard! Complete silence into Baby Got Back, gotta love it.
Ultimate Nintendo DS Mod
I've shown you the ultimate Nintendo Wii Mod here, and it looks like our favorite modder is back at it with his latest creation: The Ultimate Nintendo DS Mod.
As before, I'm not going to show all the pictures on this entry, but I've set up another site for you to drool over. Just click the following link to view all the pictures.
http://jzzsxm.googlepages.com/amazingds2
As before, I'm not going to show all the pictures on this entry, but I've set up another site for you to drool over. Just click the following link to view all the pictures.
http://jzzsxm.googlepages.com/amazingds2
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
My New Blogging Tool
It's no secret that I like to blog, but several things are holding me back. The first huge obstacle I have is that I blog from a dialup connection, which is kind of a pain. I find ways around it, uploading all my pictures from broadband computers and then blogging from home, or blogging into word documents and then publishing from faster computers, but dialup is definitely a pain. It's a pain that will be remedied next year at MIT when there is wifi everywhere!
Another thing that holds me back is a lack of laptop. A laptop would allow me to liveblog from events, or to blog during class if I get bored. Again, a problem remedied next year at MIT when I'll have my new Dell laptop (graduation present from Grandma!)!
Things that don't hold me back? I have a great Sony Cybershot 6 megapixel camera that I absolutely love. It cost me $100 (which is amazing for 6 megapixels) and is really durable. It's been dropped several times and still works great.
The final blogging tool that I crave (I'm actually getting around to the title of this post now) is a video camera. I want to be able to make videos of the events around me, put them on YouTube, and blog those! Plus, it'll be nice to be able to share the goings-on at MIT with people back home next year, kind of a video diary (I hate the word diary). Guess what my graduation present from my parents is! A Sony Handycam!
Brand new, it just came out in April, and it's kurazy cool. My dad picked it up at Best Buy yesterday and I'm not allowed to have it until June 1st (we're going to record my graduation), but I'm eagerly anticipating making my first video. I've never had a video camera before, nor has my family, it's a first for all of us.
Here's a quick video I find that talks about it. Although the lady mentions a bunch of cameras, the one I get is the one she actually holds up and talks about for quite a while.
40 Gig internal Hard Drive
4 megapixel still camera
2 megapixel screenshot camera (takes a picture while filming)
High-speed camera mode (spreads 3 seconds of film smoothly over 12 seconds)
Infrared filming
Touchscreen
Straight to DVD burning capability
I'M PSYCHED!
Another thing that holds me back is a lack of laptop. A laptop would allow me to liveblog from events, or to blog during class if I get bored. Again, a problem remedied next year at MIT when I'll have my new Dell laptop (graduation present from Grandma!)!
Things that don't hold me back? I have a great Sony Cybershot 6 megapixel camera that I absolutely love. It cost me $100 (which is amazing for 6 megapixels) and is really durable. It's been dropped several times and still works great.
The final blogging tool that I crave (I'm actually getting around to the title of this post now) is a video camera. I want to be able to make videos of the events around me, put them on YouTube, and blog those! Plus, it'll be nice to be able to share the goings-on at MIT with people back home next year, kind of a video diary (I hate the word diary). Guess what my graduation present from my parents is! A Sony Handycam!
Brand new, it just came out in April, and it's kurazy cool. My dad picked it up at Best Buy yesterday and I'm not allowed to have it until June 1st (we're going to record my graduation), but I'm eagerly anticipating making my first video. I've never had a video camera before, nor has my family, it's a first for all of us.
Here's a quick video I find that talks about it. Although the lady mentions a bunch of cameras, the one I get is the one she actually holds up and talks about for quite a while.
40 Gig internal Hard Drive
4 megapixel still camera
2 megapixel screenshot camera (takes a picture while filming)
High-speed camera mode (spreads 3 seconds of film smoothly over 12 seconds)
Infrared filming
Touchscreen
Straight to DVD burning capability
I'M PSYCHED!
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