In first grade, we had at least 25 bus drivers. I remember only one of them.
He had a mustache and always wore sunglasses with a baseball cap. Before and after each bus ride, he'd always greet us "hello" and "have a nice day".

One day, the third graders up ahead were singing "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" particularly loudly, except they cleverly replaced the word "boat" with "butt". All of the kids on the bus found this very funny. But our bus driver didn't seem to find it as entertaining.

The bus drive back to my house was made of mostly left turns.
That day, the bus driver took an early right turn.

I wasn't the only one who realized something was up. We all knew that something wasn't quite right.
"Row, Row, Row Your Butt" continued louder than ever.

The driver pulled the bus over to the side of a less busy road. When we weren't busy with the song, we all wondered aloud what was going on.

"That's it!" he yelled, looking at us through his bus driver mirror. "I've had it with this damn bus, and these damn kids, and this damn flugengarben."

He didn't really say flugengarben. I actually forgot what he said third. But I do remember that as a first grader, hearing this word from an authority figure was a bizarre and somewhat frightening experience. To compare the experience in a modern day situation, it would be like a teacher passing out Playboy magazines in class.

"I didn't really want to do this!" he yelled at us.
The bus had never been quieter.

"I didn't want to be a bus driver for some kids!" he shouted.
"I wanted to be a fireman!"

Though my mind may be playing tricks on me, I am pretty sure this man told us that he truly wished to be a fireman.

At the time, I was too shocked to be confused. The man's speech had gone from an angry rant to a secret aspiration someone might tell a psychiatrist.

"But I can't be a fireman!" he said. "I'm a bus driver!"
In case we weren't aware.
"Now I don't wanna hear a single word the rest of the way back!"

No one said anything. Though I didn't know the meaning of the word awkward, then would have been a great time to learn it.

I eventually got home and word of the incident came through in the "how was your day?" talk I always had with my mom. This convinced her to call a few other parents of bus riders, who then called the school's bus department.

The bus driver was suspended for a staggering three days. He was replaced by someone very forgettable.

When he came back, he apologized to us.
"I'm sorry I lashed out at y'all like that," he said. "But that's just what happens when I get mad."

The song "Just a Little Bit Longer" played on the radio today.  And for reasons I can't explain easily, I felt a bit sad.

Today I had a weird "things are magic" moment.

I was listening to my iPod. Then, while looking at it, I realized something: there could potentially be up to 7,500 songs on it. For some reason, this struck me as amazingly weird.

Then I got to thinking. Five years ago, there was no iPod. And when it came out, in like, November 2001, it could only hold up to 1,000 songs. Now, it can have up to 15,000 songs. That's kind of weird.

About five years ago, some friends of mine and I made some (in restricting, pretty stupid) webshows...with sock puppets. We were in elementary school at the time. In technological terms, it was pretty impressive for elementary school students. We'd shoot it with a tape camcorder, and put it on the computer through some insane process involving 5 different gadgets, edit it with very basic software, and upload it to the internet.

Uploading it was tricky, though. The only free webhosting that I could find would hold only up to 20 MB of information. (In contrast, my email account today holds up to 2,700 MB of information.) Video files are typically pretty big.

So, we'd make the video files smaller. We'd make a 10 minute show fit into about 2 MB (about 2 floppy disks). We made the shows so small so we'd both have plenty of room for storage and so the files would transfer quickly to viewers...because most of them still used dial-up.

To make the shows smaller, we'd reduce the quality of the audio and video.

As a result, the audio quality was on par with a weak AM radio station.
The video quality was even worse. You know how they pixelate naked people on TV, so certain parts of them look fuzzy? Our entire video looked like that.

If the technology available today was available in 2001, the process would be a bit streamlined. Instead of putting the video on the computer with 5 gadgets, we wouldn't need any. We could edit the video with iMovie, which has some pretty advanced stuff in comparison to our program in 2001. And to upload it to the internet, we could use YouTube, which allows for decent video quality. On top of that, we could upload as many videos as we'd want.

This rant makes me feel like a grandpa. Anyway, when it all works, isn't technology neat?

The following is a true story, though somewhat summarized:

I went to go somewhere with two friends.  We brought a rubber duck with us.  Our intention was to hide it.

We pulled into the parking lot of this particular, dark somewhere, and went on our way to hide the duck.

This was when a police car pulled behind us.
And then it pulled up to us.

"Hello, boys," he said to the three of us, all male.
"Not getting into any trouble, are we?"

"Nope," we said back all at the same time in various terms.  He didn't seem to notice or care about the duck we were carrying.

"Well, okay then," he said.  "You boys have a good evening."  He drove off.

We carried our flashlights and duck to a darker part of the place we were in as the police car drove off.  This was my second encounter with the police.  

I'll save the first for another day in the distant future.

 

I can't say I have a lot to write about. So here's a bunch of videos.

• Rowan Atkinson is not only funny as the mostly silent Mr. Bean, but also funny when he talks, too.
• Speaking of British people, they know how to make a gameshow awkward.
• Poor sad fingers.
• ...err....
  

Yeah, MySpace jokes are getting as cliched as emo kid jokes. But MySpace: The Movie tells the same jokes again, but in a visual and actually funny way.

Nerdy post time.

Things I Like About The Internet

• Google. Google is magic. Really. You should know. You should be using it by now. Google Earth is pretty magic, too. So is Google Maps. And Gmail. They might be taking over the world. If they're evil, they hide it well. Oh yeah, they also own a certain blogging service which happens to be called:

• Blogger. Hey. You're actually using this one right now. I've used it since 2002, so I should obviously like this one. Really easy to use, works on every computer with an internet connection I've ever used, and Audioblogger is not only one of those "gee, that's neat" services, but it does what it's supposed to and works. And did I mention it's free?

• AIM/iChat. I've used it since...wow. 1999? Yeah. Simple, faster and more convenient than e-mail, and now lets you do video and voice chats. I think I've only had problems with AIM once or twice, and those problems were just a few years ago. Also free. This makes it better.

• Flickr. I started using it last year, and after messing around with a bunch of other photo services (like Photobucket), I found Flickr much easier to use and faster than the rest. Flickr's got a great system of what they call tags that allow you to browse through photos by subject chosen by the photographer. From their, Flickr can organize pictures into groups of related pictures and even sort photos by "interestingness". If you take photos and want to share them with people, seriously give Flickr a look.

• Wikipedia. You probably already know about this one by now. Basically, it's an encyclopedia anyone can make changes to. Because of this, it has an amazing variety of articles. Think of anything, type it into Wikipedia, and you'll probably find an article about it. It's not always totally accurate, and teachers are more and more frowning upon it for research, but it's a good way to get a general idea about a topic.

• iTunes Music Store. You probably know about this one by now, too. Music, videos, 99¢ for songs, $1.99 for TV shows. I don't like to use it to buy whole albums (I find it more satisfying to have a physical copy of an album), but it's great for individual songs.

• Netflix. Our family only recently started using Netflix, but it's been great so far. Summary: make a big list of movies you want to see. Netflix sends one or a few to you, you watch, and send it back. Repeat process. A nice way to see movies that you wouldn't necessarily want to put down five dollars to see at a video store.

• the show with zefrank: Zefrank's been doing a daily video show since March. Topics range from duckies, politics, current events, giant babies, and sometimes songs. He even challenged viewers to write an episode for him...and he performed it. Very funny show.

Things about the internet I use but didn't include: MySpace (crappily designed, problems with spyware, unreliable, but lots of people use it), Facebook (well designed, smooth interface, but no one uses it), and YouTube (upload as many videos as you want for free, but YouTube now owns them as a result).

I probably forgot a bunch of things, but I'm tired of writing.

Lastly, a challenge to other people with blogs: what things/services about the internet do you like? What don't you like? I'm curious as to what other people use and like.

Insomnia & Giggles

Every day or so I log into Google Analytics to see how many people are reading the blog, where they're from, how long they stay, and so on.

I went to the login page today to see this.


Edit:
(Google Analytics...we put the "anal" in "analytics"!)
Err...sorry.

Thanks to weird loopholes in Russian copyright law and crazy twists and turns within Russian/American trade and buisness regulations, AllofMP3 might be the weirdest semi-legal music service you've ever used.

To make a long story short: impossibly cheap music. The White Album by The Beatles is availible for $2.65. St. Elsewhere by Gnarls Barkley runs for $1.05. You can buy Pink Moon for less than a dollar.

I'm trying to wonder how artists would make money off of this, let alone if they do, but this company really seems to be legit.

Sure, there are rumors of Meg White of the White Stripes actually being Jack's ex-wife, but did you know that this is just a clever ploy to make you not believe Meg White is a robot?!

A short dialogue for you:

Yes Maybe: I need money.
Yes Maybe's Mom: Do I get a kiss?
(Yes kisses her cheek.  His mom grabs her purse.)
Yes Maybe: I feel like a whore.

I have another movie for you.

Actually, that's a lie.
It's not for you.
It is for Mindy.

This is what we do on Friday nights.

I'm not sure who this man is, but he does an awesome mime to the song "Torn". Yeah, it sounds stupid. But seriously, watch it. This might be the best thing I've seen in a long time. Make sure you have your speakers on.

On the video note, Mr. Yes Maybe and Ms. Junebug and I made a video for a friend at camp. I'm not quite sure yet if I want to post the entire video just yet, but here's a clip from it.

Meta-Audioblogging

My mom used to keep a journal of "cute" things my sister and I would do when we were younger.

Sample entry:
It's my dad's 45th birthday.

Dad: Wow.  45.  Hey, Thomas, how old will I be when you're 45.
Me: (preoccupied) I don't know.  Dead?

More YouTube fun. This time, showcasing the Swedish Chef on Adult Swim's Robot Chicken.
Brilliant. Until the last five seconds.

I think our TV station's weatherman is getting a bit carried away with his predictions.

I ran into Kyle on my way to Hy-Vee. He was in his Hy-Vee garb.

"You really do look like a door-to-door mormon," I said. "Or wait," I thought. "Not Mormons. Jehovah's Witnesses."
"Yeah, that's what I think he meant," he said referring to this post. "But he said mormon."
"There are differences between the two. I read somewhere that Jehovah's Witnesses can't buy Girl Scout Cookies."
"Why?" Kyle asked.
"I'm not too sure."
"That could make a good weapon," he said. "Throw cookies at them."
"Nice," I said. "Cookies are to Jehovah's Witnesses as kryptonite is to Superman."
"I can see it now," he told me. "'Ahh! Away! These cookies are too delicious!'"

On a random note, I likes me some Russian prank TV shows.
On another random note, the interestingly named Bilibo is a toy for kids advertising the fact that it has no purpose.

That was random. The post below was actually recorded on June 5th. I'm not sure why it decided to show up today.

Anyway, my sister bought the game Brain Age. It's supposed to measure how smart you are through some not-so-difficult tests. (Example: Say the color of the word out loud, not the word itself.)

It makes me go from feeling smart to unintelligent very quickly.

As you play, you're ideally supposed to lower your "brain age" as time goes on. The lower the number you have, the smarter you supposedly are. 20 is as low as it goes.

I got a 29. This made me feel smart.
My sister (three years younger than me) got a 28. This made me feel not-so-smart.

Overall, it's a fun game. If you have a DS and $20 to spare, it's worth picking up.

Jane Posts

A note to you all: after many years of me being the only one being able to put words on this page, now you can do the same! Can you figure out how?

(Hint: Try the little "+" sign after posts. Maybe.)

Lawnmower?

Err, sorry. That last post wasn't post number 700. I think it was actually something like, post number 661. Either I can't read, or Blogger forgot how to count.

Anyway, it's come to my attention that Superman has a child in Superman Returns.
To the average person, it makes a nice little plot twist. However, to the over-analytical scientist, this makes no sense.

(Summary if you're too lazy to read the article: Superman can't have kids because he would have problems with the sex.)

I've recently discovered that 10% of all people visiting this blog are from Canada.
I don't know any Canadians. In fact, I've never been there.
If you are one of those Canadians, will you please send me an e-mail? I likes me some Canada.

This is post number 700. Woo.

I've been watching this for about four months now, and still haven't plugged it. Anyway, Zefrank's "the show" is a daily videoblog/webshow he does on his own. Sometimes it's about current events, sometimes it's responding to viewer comments, sometimes it's about giant babies.

Pandora is a neat free little thing on the internets that reccomends music to you based on what artist or song you reccomend to it. But unlike other music services, it reccomends music to you based on what their staff "music analyzers" say about songs.

For instance, I entered a station for the Violent Femmes. It first reccomended their song "Nightmares" because it has "acoustic rock instrumentation, grunge recording qualities, subtle use of vocal harmony and major key tonality."

Who knows what "grunge recording qualities" and "major key tonality" might be, but hey, it sounds good. Behind all of the fun technical music theory stuff, there's some good music to be reccomended.

Eddie Izzard did a nice routine stating that as long as an American citizen looks and sounds confident while singing the national anthem, then the words in between don't really matter.
Even though it's a really funny routine, this police officer disproves Izzard's theory wonderfully.