It also happens to be Halloween over here.
For a costume, I stuck a sign around my neck that read "(Invisible)". It worked. Only 2 people saw me all day (Meerah and Mrs. Dr. Crane)[4]. For something so easy to make[3], it was a pretty big hit. Tom just shook his head when he saw it, but that's really what you expect from Tom.
I'm not going trick-or-treating. Let's face it, it simply doesn't work with that sort of costume. Last year I was Dr. Schlock from Sluggy Freelance, and a total of one person (Mike Baumstein) recognized me, although Vlad said he would have had he been in school that day. Certainly nobody recognized me in the darkness trick-or-treating. I'm pretty sure I wrote about that back when I was using Xanga; if you want to read about my lack of depth perception and people's guesses as to who I was, I refer you there. The year before that... OK, freshman year I didn't have a costume. 8th grade. Great costume. IRS tax auditor. I entered the school's costume contest, and it won scariest[2][5][8]. But in the darkness? Nobody even pretended to be intimidated. And really, I have all the candy I want at home.
There was the annual Halloween assembly today. That is something I refuse to talk about. Ask somebody else.
ADDITION: (Sorry I forgot to include this earlier.) Today in physics Mr. Liva did a demonstration with a very powerful magnet. It came shielded in steel, and wrapped so that it didn't come near that steel and stick to it. The magnet itself was pretty small (most of the size of the box was keeping it away from those steel walls), but it was easy to see that it was quite powerful. He moved it closer to one of the legs of the table until he couldn't hold it anymore and it snapped right to it. He noted that that could easily smash somebody's fingers, and that he had to sign forms to get it and that they won't sell it to people under 18. Then Maxx said he has one, you can get them at magic shops.
MULTIPLICATION: Argh, I can't believe I forgot to include this too. Some other costumes of note, this year:
Joe: A monk from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, complete with board for hitting self with.
Katie: An escapee[10] from BCA (Bergen County Asylum) - complete with ferrets. FERRETS!
Mr. Demeter: A newly-bitten vampire who doesn't realize he is one.
Any physics teacher: A chemist.
So, about yesterday, then.
Yesterday, unlike today, I was doing history homework. The annotated bibliography. When was I doing history homework? Yesterday. That's right, I did the whole thing yesterday. Then again, I hear Matt Diamond did the whole thing past midnight yesterday - or, rather, today.
I got the periodical articles from Lexis Nexis (my dad has an account). Since, it appears, it displays more recent search results first, a few were from 30 October 2003. One, however, was even more recent: It was from 31 October 2003, in the New Zealand Herald. I suppose that works due to time zones, but when I first saw that, I was very confused by the fact that I was, apparently, reading an article from the future.
I also probably had the record for longest title of a book used, by including
Licit and Illicit Drugs; The Consumers Union Report on Narcotics, Stimulants, Depressants, Inhalants, Hallucinogens, and Marijuana - Including Caffeine. Of course somebody else could have used that same book, but...
And, finally, just a bizarre little story from today: I was walking by room 234 and happened to look through the door window at the whiteboard. On the right hand side was an optimization problem. On the left hand side was a collection of 3×3 determinants. And, in the middle, for no apparent reason, was written
Z[i].
That's a horrible way to end this entry, but so is this.
-Sniffnoy
[2]Yes, really.[9]
[3]Step 1: Take piece of paper from table in Mr. Demeter's room (my IGS).
Step 2: Write "(Invisible)" on it.
Step 3: Attach to lanyard.
[4]Well, and the other people in One-Act play, as Dr. Niedosik had collected some components of my costume for that and was having me try them on, and I took off my Halloween costume in the meantime. And the people who saw me before IGS when I hadn't made the costume yet.
[5]It is completely coincidental that the first 3 footnotes to be used were [4], [3], and [2], in that order. The next one will not be [1].
[6]There is no footnote 6.
[8]See? I was right!
[9]Normally I wouldn't include this, seeing as I think most of my readers know about [1] and [2] (and now [7]), but I've gotten new readers and I haven't used this many footnotes in a while. So I refer you all to
http://www.nut.house.cx/cgi-bin/nemwiki.pl?ISFN[10]The word really ought to be "escaper", oughtn't it?
--
"Work is punishment for failing to procrastinate effectively."
-Tink
