Four Island

Mm. Feels pretty stupid once you think about it. I mean, really. My whole thing on "pick something when you're not as informed and stick with it forever, constantly ignoring the fact that there are better solutions" is annoying.

The thing I'm going to rant about is <!DOCTYPE>. I learned HTML at a young age, young enough to think that whatever I read must be right and nothing would sway me from that, even if the author did change her mind in the next book. I thought that not using <!DOCTYPE> was a good thing, a declaration of independence, the right thing to do. Not using it also makes writing webpages 10 seconds easier.

And don't even go there with that last comment. I'm hardly a perfectionist, maybe I'm passionate in some fields such as computing and mumble, but I don't have to be perfect all the time.

Anyway, back to <!DOCTYPE>. To this day, I still do not see any merits in using the loggy tag other than to ease W3C's validator. My theory is that the tag explicitly tells the client browser what DTD to use so it can render the document exactly as I wanted it to be rendered. BEEP. Slow down there, we've got CSS resets for that. So, why use <!DOCTYPE>? I'd be much obliged if someone told me.

See? I'm ready to get off of my high pedestal. I started by admitting IE wasn't the best and now I'm trying to set this whole <!DOCTYPE> thing right.

However, you must admit that I am right about Wordpress. I know I made the correct decision not to go with Wordpress for my blog. I can use it for other websites, just not for Four Island. I am also right about Apple. They're still evil and they always will be. So there.

Recently, I was read Bluemonkey's Blog and found a not-so-recent post on the English language and its usages. Yes. That's what I'm going to be talking about now. Run, if you're scared.

Chtspek, teh so ann0yng. Itz imp0sib13 t0 red and teh d4mages pryde. Lyke, y cnt u jst us nrm4l ingles?

Ok.... maybe that was a bit over the top, but chatspeak annoys me. Like, alot. The English language was created for a reason. I don't know what that reason was, or how it relates to this debate. But I do know that, as Bluemonkey pointed out, the ability to read and write used to mean something. If you could do that, you were wise, intelligent and rich. You were powerful, you could do stuff and you stepped on people with your ability to spell "CatDog" correctly.

Now a days, if you're not using abbreviated English on your phone or IM, you're "uncool" and "wasting money" and "going to get sued" or something along those lines. I still stand by my belief, though, that you should use full English for every word you type, even though it may be for an SMS message or an IM conversation.

However, everyone's a bit of a hypocrite. I do, for some reason, continually spell "text" as "txt" when sending an SMS. :)

Ok, I think I'm going to have to make a tag for "rants" because this is another one. :)

Anyway, while you're all enjoying Christmas, I'd just like to make a stupid rant on some Christmas songs. Not all of them. Some of them are great. Like Do They Know It's Christmas Time by Band Aid. However, a few are just strange.

This rant is on rock-n-roll'ized Christmas songs. You hear them all of the time on the radio, things like "Yo, Frasty was totally a snaman with a LAVA jolly soul-man!" The thought of such a thing is not only hilarious, but kind of bothering.... :)

Anyway, that was the short Christmas rant from yours truly. I hope that gave you a chuckle and now enjoy Christmas!

Recently, I was going through some of my old stuff and I found this play I had written. Goodness, I must have been very young when I wrote that because it's very silly. However, some of it is stupidly hilarious, so I'm going to go through how sane I may or may not have been at that age by analyzing Kirby's Slippers, revision 3.

Kirby: Oh, today has been so boring. Nothing has happened. Voice: Hi, my name is Kirby's wall. That's Kirby. (Kirby leaves stage left)

Kirby's Living Room

Ok, what? Kirby's wall talks to him and he walks away as if nothing strange had happened? ....weird.

(Kirby says some random things and reappears up stage left in his PJ's) Kirby: I'm so tired. (ISAC Representative enters up stage right) ISAC Representative: Excuse me, but is there a Kirby in the house? Kirby (startled): Um, yes. I was just getting ready for bed.

Kirby's Living Room

So.... A random stranger, representing some random organization, walks into Kirby's obviously unlocked house and catches him getting ready for bed? That is just weird. Like, a lot.

ISAC Representative: I am from the ISAC. I was sent to tell you that the conference takes place tomorrow. Kirby (surprised): Uh, ok. ISAC Representative: The ISAC are great people and expect good behavior from you and the other person from Dreamland. See, the others are foreign. Kirby: Oh, great! I love foreign!

Kirby's Living Room

....what the negative? There are so many random things wrong with this that I'm not even going to bother.

ISAC Representative: Goodbye. (ISAC Representative leaves) Kirby: I need to go to bed. (Kirby trips on chair and tumbles over it) Kirby: Ouch! (Kirby leaves right stage)

Kirby's Living Room

Ok, that's the entirety of Scene 1, "Kirby's Living Room". I'd like to ask, A: How likely is it to trip over a chair? And B: Who on earth is Kirby talking to? The wall? ....actually, it could be possible, if you think about the first snippet....

Let's continue with the second scene, "King Dedede's House". It's a little longer, but there's only two snippets I'll be posting:

Kirby: Let's watch a movie! King Dedede: I'll get the candy! Kirby: I'll get the popcorn! (Kirby leaves stage left) (King Dedede leaves stage right) (Sound of getting things)

King Dedede's House

S-s-sound of getting things? ....I'm just going to.... um.... walk away.

All: Later.... King Dedede: Hey, come on! What's taking so long? Kirby: I'm getting my coat on, but it stuck to the dresser and now I'm wearing a dresser instead of a coat. (Kirby reappears left stage with coat on)

King Dedede's House

giggles

Ok, time for Scene 3, "ISAC Meeting House".

Kirby: Hurry up, we don't want to miss it! King Dedede: I'm only walking so slow because I brought all of the peanuts!

ISAC Meeting House

....in this play and the other I found (maybe I'll post about it sometime), there are a lot of references to peanuts. I really don't know. Such as this one:

ISAC Representative: Hi, glad you could make it. Come right in. Kirby: I'm so hungry. King Dedede: Have a peanut. (Kirby & King Dedede sit down)

ISAC Meeting House

This next part is implying something strange....

(Lights turn off) Kirby: Aaaaah! The lights turned off! King Dedede: Look, I think I see someone over there! (Lights turn back on and Kirby's slippers are gone) King Dedede: Look! Someone stole your slippers! Kirby: OHNO!

ISAC Meeting House

Why does Kirby have his slippers at an international conference? I mean, really. And Captain Obvious to the rescue with Kirby's first line there.

ISAC Representative (talking into microphone): I guess the party's over. Maybe there will be another meeting next month. King Dedede: But at least there will be another one next month. But what if it's also short? And they need another next month? What if there is a chain of meetings all the way until December? Would they all add up to 1 annual meeting? But what if that one is too short for short? Is there are a never-ending chain of meetings when they are too short? I guess a P.O. box could in theory break the chain....

ISAC Meeting House

Oh dear, I've ripped off Spongebob. Next, let's examine Scene 4, "Church". There's only one snippet I find amusing:

(King Dedede enters) ISAC Representative: King Dedede! Come on here! Voice (softly): You may now kiss the bride. ISAC Representative: I love you.

Church

Not only is he yelling during a wedding service, the ISAC Representative has spontaneously come out of the closet. This is getting pretty strange.

There is a quote or two from scenes 5 and 6, but they're mostly impulsive decisions and peanut quotes and this post is getting long. However, the play ends with Scene 7, "Creative Castle", and it rather amusing.

ISAC Representative: I just remembered! ISAC stands for International Stuffed Animal Conference!

Creative Castle

....not only have they been saying ISAC the entire play, he works there too and he only just remembers? However, this play ends with the funniest quote in the play:

Kirby: I want to take a vacation in Saudi Arabia! King Dedede: That's too far away. Kirby: So? I have airplane insurance. All: The End

Creative Castle

LOL. Literal lol.

Thank you for enduring my rant about my childhood and the randomness ensured. I've transcribed the entire script to HTML for easy viewing here: Kirby's Slippers v3. Have fun!

You must be looking at this post and thinking, "Ok, what?" Yes, probably. I really don't know.

Anyway, this is just a rant. And it's about my iPod. It's a new (well, two months new) Chromatic (yellow and pretty) and works pretty well. However, randomly, during arbitrary songs, the music will suddenly STOP.

And then, you know you have to hurry if you want to keep listening to that song. When that happens, I have to rip the headphones off of my ears and unlock (take out of HOLD) the iPod. At that moment, the iPod will make a very loud noise. So loud, you can hear it quite clearly even without the headphones on. "Oh, goodness," you should think to yourself, "I just saved my eardrums."

Immediatly after I do that, the music starts playing and the pause button doesn't respond for a few seconds so I miss some of the song. :( This is really annoying, and I don't know why it happens. Does anyone know? Knowing Apple, is it a feature or a bug? :)

Anyway, yes, you can say it.

"Ok, what?"