I'm eighteen and I LIKE IT!!

A Minatory Swimmer Special: What does Wikipedia say I can do now that I'm eighteen?

In many parts of the world, 18 is the age minimum for purchasing tobacco and alcoholic beverages. It is also the voting age in many countries. During the Vietnam War, Americans could be drafted at an age as low as 18, but were not allowed to vote in most states until they were 21. A movement spread to lower the voting age, and in 1971, the Twenty-sixth Amendment extended a guarantee of suffrage to anyone 18 years or older in all states. The voting age was lowered from 21 to 18 in the U.K. and many other nations around that time.

Eighteen is also the age in many countries at which a person may appear in a pornographic video, or express legal consent to sexual relations with another.[citation needed]

In addition, eighteen-year-olds in the United States have the right to bear arms, own property, marry without parental consent(in almost all states), get an abortion, donate their bodies to science, and serve on a jury.

In the United Kingdom, eighteen-year-olds can purchase tobacco, alcohol and pornography, go to war, vote, and model for pornography; (but the age of consent is 16).

In many countries 18 is the age of majority.

In many states the age at which one can obtain a learner's permit without parental consent.

Minimum age at which one can be admitted to rent or buy an MPAA-rated NC-17 movie. This is also the age at which one can see an NC-17 rated movie.[citation needed]

Minimum age at which one can play, rent, or buy an ESRB-rated AO game.

Minimum age at which one can buy tickets to an 18A rated film in Canada without being accompanied by an adult. Ratings in Canada are provincial, so they may vary. A film can be 18A in some provinces and 14A in other provinces. A film can also be 18A in some provinces and R in other provinces. 18 is also the minimum age at which one can view, rent, or buy an R or an A rated movie.

Minimum age at which one can buy, rent, view, or buy tickets to an 18+ rated movie in the Canadian province of Quebec.

Minimum age at which one can get a full driver's license in many U.S states and Canadian provinces.

Minimum age to drive a car in many countries in the world. See also: 18 certificate, Coming of age

Minimum age at which one can legally buy marijuana in the Netherlands.[citation needed]

In the United States, it is the minimum age at which one may get a body piercing without a parent present.

Life is going to be interesting from here on out...

Also, as you can see, I've decided to go back to the old layout. Three factors influenced this decision.

1. The blog really needed some color.
2. Most of the posts with big pictures that the wider layout better accommodated are old by now (just like me).
3. The narrower layout makes it look like I write more than I actually do!

O_o!

I like poetry, despite every attempt by English class to make me hate it. And to prove to myself and everyone else that I'm not lying to myself so that I feel more cultured, I have posted a poem that I rather like below. So take that!

The Cockney Amorist

By John Betjeman

Oh when my love, my darling,
You've left me here alone,
I'll walk the streets of London
Which once seemed all our own.

The vast suburban churches
Together we have found:
The ones which smelt of gaslight
The ones in incense drown'd;
I'll use them now for praying in
And not for looking round.

No more the Hackney Empire
Shall find us in its stalls
When on the limelit crooner
The thankful curtain falls,
And soft electric lamplight
Reveals the gilded walls.

I will not go to Finsbury Park
The putting course to see
Nor cross the crowded High Road
To Williamsons' to tea,
For these and all the other things
Were part of you and me.

I love you, oh my darling,
And what I can't make out
Is why since you have left me
I'm somehow still about.

Egy nyelv sosem elég!

So, after a rather depressing Saturday (just hop on over to espn.com if you want to know why, hockey, football, any of the articles will do... or if you prefer, google Bev Purdue, it's enough to make a grown man cry.), I decided that a little blogging was just the thing to cheer me up!

I came across this rather interesting article today.

Basically, Eric Crafton of the Nashville's Metropolitan council has introduced a measure to make English the official language of Nashville, effectively barring the government in Nashville from using any other language.

This I find to be a bit needless and silly. I can't imagine a situation where a politician would go around speaking a language no one else could understand just for kicks. They (yes, I am using the third person plural as a gender neutral singular pronoun!!) need votes to keep their jobs, so why would they use Spanish or Afrikaans if their constituents or clients don't speak it? He does mention that he "happened to see a state legislature meeting in California where several of the state representatives had interpreters at their desk because they couldn’t speak English" and I must admit I'm a bit skeptical of this claim. It just doesn't make sense that someone who wishes to become a part of American Society and the political process would fail to learn English. It's pretty useful in case you haven't noticed. Also, I've have found no evidence to support his claim elsewhere on the internet. If it isn't on the internet it must be false, right?

My point is that we aren't danger of having the North Carolina State Legislature (yes, I know Nashville is in Tennessee, I'm just using North Carolina as an example) conduct their proceedings entirely in Malay. Though, now that I think of it, it would be an excellent way for the government to dupe the masses... not that the masses are paying much attention anyways... sigh...

But since I don't think this post is long enough yet, let's assume for a moment that it is true. California has some legislators that neither speak nor understand English satisfactorily. So what? Yes, it may be a bit cumbersome, there are plenty of other countries that deal with multilingualism just fine. Let the representatives pay for their own translators if they must, and get over it.

I also wonder if Mr. Crafton considers American Sign Language to be English or not...

And now for your viewing pleasure:



In case any of you were wondering, he isn't actually speaking Hungarian... it's just gibberish.

A légpárnás hajóm tele van angolnákkal!!!

你們好！It's story time!

In my previous post, I mentioned something about etiquette for athletes. I imagine the rules are largely unspoken and common sense- things like don’t trash talk your coach or your teammates, be congratulatory of the other teams efforts, etc. Anyways, all of this got me wondering about codes of conduct in other professions… professions like teaching. Take for example the story below (I’ve already told you about this Jessie):

It was a dark and stormy end of second period; dark because Dr. B had the black curtains covering his windows, and stormy because 老師 (my Chinese teacher) and I were at odds. We were having a bit of a disagreement about Chinese poetry and the benefits of teaching it to students at our level. I was most frustrated by archaic nature of the vocabulary and the total lack of grammatical structure in the poetry and didn’t see how it was supplementing my knowledge of the language. Older Chinese poetry is highly structured and abstract… and when I say abstract, I mean really abstract. It is basically a bunch of characters thrown together without any regard for necessity of verbs or prepositions (rather, they’ll be there, you just wont know it because there are no inflections in Chinese and word order is so important in telling you whether something is the direct object or the verb or an adjective or a measure word, and so on) to give the poor reader any inkling of what’s going on. Now, to be fair, if I had a little better grasp of the language I might be able to extrapolate some meaning because I would know all the different connotations and denotations behind the characters. But I don’t. And it is very frustrating. And there is no grammar!
Anyways, back to the story. So 老師 and I were arguing about this, and she is talking about how this is the way that poetry was written back then and that we see this kind of blatant-disregard-for-grammar-style in English too. This stumps me, so I ask for an example. She then proceeds to talk about how there is no grammar Shakespeare. About this time I notice poor Dr. B (my English teacher) behind us listening to our conversation, about to have a stroke. I realize that there is no changing老師’s mind and I proceed to thank her and head to my next class before it became necessary to call and ambulance for Dr. B.

Now, I think this story illustrates a conflict in traditional teacher codes of conduct. 老師 was obviously giving me some bad information regarding Shakespeare. Of course Shakespeare observes rules of English grammar! His structures may be a bit twisted at times and his language difficult to understand, but grammatically his works are sound. 老師, a non native English speaker, didn’t catch this but it is something that Dr. B, an English teacher, would have known and preached. So in this situation, what was Dr. B to do? Should he say something to老師 and risk embarrassing her in front of on of her students or should he keep his mouth shut and allow this kind of misinformation to run rampant? Luckily for him, I know my way around a few Shakespearian works, so I caught老師’s gaffe rather easily, though I chose not to say anything to her about it. I think that knowing me and knowing that I would probably not be taken by老師’s assertion that there is no grammar in Shakespeare factored into Dr. B’s decision to stay silent. But what if he hadn’t known me, or hadn’t known that I wouldn’t be touched by the misinformation? It is a tricky situation, but I would hope that he would have stepped in and said something eventually. It may not have been wise to have done it just then when 老師 was standing right there, but I see little harm in setting the record straight once she was out of earshot. And perhaps his position as a teacher of English and native speaker would have been enough to escape offending her. I don’t know. Any thoughts?

A Quick Amendment

A conversation with my mother today made me realize that I probably need to clarify something about my previous post.

I DO respect what The Phelps has done. I'm not saying that he has been able to breeze through life and then wake up one morning, decided he was going to win 8 gold medals and then voila! No, it took a great deal of sacrifice and early mornings in the pool to get him to where he is now, and I respect him for that.

More of the message I was trying to get across in the previous post is that I think he has a bit of a complex... almost "Holier-than-thou" like. There is an etiquette pertaining to athletes when dealing with the media. Anyone that watches a great deal of sports interview will know that. And I think that Phelps might be trying to work with this, might be trying to be an inspirational figure, but I still think he is smug. I've also heard from some people that went to USA swimming Olympic trials that he is a bit full of himself, so there! I swear I'm not falling victim the fundamental attribution error or confirmation bias or any of those other pretty terms we've learned in AP Psych this year!

Speaking of school, it starts back tomorrow. Sigh...

Phelps

So, in case you aren't swimming savvy (what a great word... savvy, hehe, two v's), that isn't really Milorad Čavić and Phelps didn't really give him the finger and what not. I decided to put a bit of humor in this post, because the rest of it contains very, very, very dark subject matter.

The Phelps.

I know that he has perhaps done a great thing for swimming. Putting our sport into the spotlight for once, and winning 8 gold medals, blah blah blah. That's all find and dandy. What isn't fine and dandy though, is the publicity nonsense that has come with it. The talk shows, the book... all of that. All of the things where he touts his hard work and effort; No, I'm not doubting that it took hard work and effort. I'm doubting the second part of his claim, that anyone (by anyone I mean the average Joe... or even the above average Joseph) could equal his feat if they put in the same hard work and effort he has.

I'm sorry Sir, but you need to stop lying to yourself. You are a FREAK OF NATURE. Not everyone has a 201 cm wingspan, or size 14 feet, or a freakishly long torso or any of the other ridiculous number of natural attributes in their favor. He is without a doubt the second... I'm giving first to Ms. Natalie Coughlin... most talented swimmer of our era- if not ever. He can't just gloss over that fact they way he is doing now, it isn't fair to the rest of us. There is no way I could equal what he does, with my 5'4" 135lb frame and duck feet, no matter how hard I worked.

He is also a cocky little jerk that needs to be brought down a few notches. I'm banking on people like Milorad Čavić and Cseh László to bring Mr. Phelps' head back down to size.

Legos

When I was but a youngling I played with Legos and they looked something like this...



And I built things that looked a bit like this...



But welcome everyone, to the 21st Century of Legos!



My little cousins big presents this year were all Lego related. And I must admit, I was a bit jealous... they've some sweet Lego projects. Apparently, Legos are no longer the giant box of little tiny 2x2 or 2x3 or 2x whatever sized blocks. Now they're full on architectural mini projects of wonder, complete with color instruction booklets and all the blocks necessary to build the Taj Mahal completely out of Legos. My youngest cousin got some kind of Anti-Terrorism mobile airplane thingy and his older brother got this robot that you build and can program from the computer. It's all kind of amazing to me.
The only little tiny problem I have with this new generation of Legos is that it kind of take some of the fun of creativity out of the mix. Sure, my Lego creations never came close to the splendor of the Lego Eiffel Tower you can buy on Ebay now for $180 USD, but I had fun in conceptualizing my own designs for spaceships or houses and then coming up with a totally unique (plus some other adjectives... abstract, ugly) final project.
But on the flip side, I suppose this teaches them how to follow instructions and all that fun stuff. Plus they seem to enjoy it and my mother seemed to enjoy helping them find the right pieces, so I'm not going to complain.

A quick post on Atheism

Watch the video from 1:3o on.

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

The Word - The Unbearable Lightness of Supreme Being

Colbert at Christmas
Colbert Christmas DVD

Green Screen
Bill O'Reilly Interview

Text from the sign:

At this season of THE WINTER SOLSTICE may reason prevail.

There are no gods, no devils, no angles, no heaven or hell. There is only our natural world. Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.

I'm not sure how I feel about this sign. While I think that they should absolutely have the right to put it up, I question the wisdom of doing so. It comes off as a bit hostile. There are ways and means to achieve converts and equality, but this is not it. It will just create outrage.

Dinosaur, post 2

And now for the big question:



Dinosaur or Cleopatra?

I was talking to my mother last Friday after taking a shower and the conversation went a little like this:

Rachel: This head towel thing makes me feel like a Dinosaur.

Gwen: You look more like Cleopatra.

Rachel: Cleopatra? She didn't go around with towels on her head, did she?

Gwen: I don't know... someone back then did I'm sure.

So which is it? You be the judge.

Cleopatra

New Layout!

It is nice and wide now! Though, not as colorful as I might would like.... I will probably switch back soon.

Dinosaur, post 1.

I also agree with T-Rex. I don't buy into the whole theory that gender neutrality in language will lead to more gender equality (Chinese patriarchal society and female infanticide debunks this pretty well I think), but I enjoy using they as a third person singular just as a matter of convenience.

Ten things that make me happy.

1. Not being in school.
2. Showers.
3. Family coming for the holidays!
4. PRESENTS.
5. San Pellegrino.
6. Knowing I've been accepted to college.
7. Honeybread.
8. These yummy Zicam dissolving thingies that make me fee better.
9. Having the time and will to read.
10. TEA!!!
    

Because of religious intolerance...

I had the day off school!

Oh dear.

I've just finished writing my latest English paper. In doing so I've made an astounding discovery. Everything I've written this year (with the exception of my short story... but there is still time to change that) has been about how the main characters of all these works are suffering from some kind of existentialist crisis and life has no meaning. I fear I may be getting predictable.

VOTE MUNGER FOR NC GOVERNOR!

Also...

... be sure to vote in Minatory Swimmer's first ever blog poll!

In the meantime...

I know it pains you all that I don't write as often as I perhaps should. So, to help ease any withdraw symptoms you may be experiencing I give to you: http://groovo.org/

This is a nifty little player run by the extremely good looking people over at trianglerock.com. I'm a fan of local music and find this to be a great resource for bands and upcoming shows. The player is updated every weekish, so be sure to check back for new stuff often!

Fairness...

I ragged a little on Joe Biden in my last post, so I guess it is only fair I make a little jab at Sara Palin.

“It is from Alaska that we send those out to make sure that an eye is being kept on this very powerful nation, Russia, because they are right there.”

Yikes! Are you sure they speak English in Alaska?

It has been a while....

I know that I didn't finish my last series of blogging, and probably never will. Suck it up.

To make up for my prolonged absence, I bring you amusing articles!

The first on here is from Reuters, which is always good for a laugh... article here. Summery quote:

An underdog in Sunday's election for governor of Bangkok punched and kicked a television journalist Thursday, saying he was provoked by tough questions during a live interview.

What would America have done if Sara Palin had just decked Katie Couric halfway through that interview instead of sputtering her way through it...

But let's step away from politics for a moment here.

Now, I could write a nice witty passage right now leading into the next bit of news I want to share, talking about how, in light of politics and the elections, we sometimes lose sight of the people that really contribute to our society. But, I'm not going to. Instead, I'm just going to tell you that it's time for this years Ig Nobel prizes to be awarded! Check out the official website here. Previous awards have gone to:

• Karl Kruszelnicki of The University of Sydney, for performing a comprehensive survey of human belly button lint -- who gets it, when, what color, and how much.
• Karl Schwärzler and the nation of Liechtenstein, for making it possible to rent the entire country for corporate conventions, weddings, bar mitzvahs, and other gatherings.
• Jack Harvey, John Culvenor, Warren Payne, Steve Cowley, Michael Lawrance, David Stuart, and Robyn Williams of Australia, for their irresistible report "An Analysis of the Forces Required to Drag Sheep over Various Surfaces."
• Robert Faid of Greenville, South Carolina, farsighted and faithful
  seer of statistics, for calculating the exact odds
  (710,609,175,188,282,000 to 1) that Mikhail Gorbachev is the Antichrist.
  [REFERENCE: "Gorbachev! Has the Real Antichrist Come?"]

I love all of these parody awards, one day I hope to own a Golden Raspberry Award for bad film work of my own.

And finally, does anyone know if "It has" can be abbreviated "It's"?





OH! and Quote of the Month: "When the stock market crashed, Franklin D. Roosevelt got on the television and didn't just talk about the, you know, the princes of greed. He said, 'Look, here's what happened.'"

Haha, Joe Biden.

Tennessee Trip: Days 2&3, Pt. I

I'm tired, but really want to give you a good analysis of days 2&3, so you'll have to wait for part II for any real substance. I forgot my camera connector thing, so all I have from my trip at the moment are the following two pictures taken off my phone:
Taken Just before the Toga party and...

This... a real life White Castle, taken in Nashville this afternoon. I also saw a Mellow Mushroom in downtown Nashville. I hadn't realized that there were others... though it is possible the Nashville and Raleigh versions were not affiliated. The Nashville one was different looking... I wish I had been able to snap a picture of it.