11-07-00
Hm, I haven't had any random thoughts in a while. Wait-- was that just a random thought? Although I think I thought that thought before and wrote it down here but I probably forgot to backup my site and lost that thought. That thought was more complicated than I thought it'd be.
08-19-00
For the past two or so weeks, I've been working at Target as a sorta summer job. First part of summer was summer school, which zoomed by surprisingly fast. I took U.S. Government and Economy classes so I didn't have to take them over the regular school year.
Anyway, back to Target. It's pretty boring. My job is a cashier in the front lanes, so I stand there five to eight hours a day, about five days a week, just behind the counter, ringing up stuff. The pay is $7.25 an hour, which is okay. For every five hours of work, I get a half hour lunch break. I also get fifteen minute breaks for I think every three hours. The job is really repetitive and extremely routine. I was pretty shaky the first few days but after a week, everything is ho hum and pretty pooish. The most often problem is a customer says, "Oh, that item was on sale. The rack said blablabla percent off." So you have to tell them that many people misplace the items or something, because most of the time the customer doesn't really pay attention to what they're buying. If you want to annoy cashier, buy clothes. LOTS of clothes. It takes forever to find the tag and scan it and stack up the clothes. Then the cashier has to remove hangers. Then the cashier has to fold the clothes before putting them in the bag. It is a HUGE pain in the butt. So if there's a cashier you don't like, buy tons of clothes and go in their line.
My first paycheck was only for job orientation, a measly $25. I was a bit dismayed when I found out I had to give up about $3 to taxes, etc. The second week of work, my paycheck was $111. Before taxes it would have been $125. Whats this?-- FICA-MED... FICA-OASDI... who's FICA? Why's he taking my money? One day I will find this FICA fellow and get my money back. Then there's the federal income tax. And another thing... CASDI. Wha? Okay, then comes third week. I get $155... out of the original $183. Okay, great. So my taxes went from like 8% to 15%! Aaargh! This sucks! Both FICA-OASDI and the federal income tax took a bit over $11 each. So I'm working like three to four hours for taxes?! Then there's a new tax at the bottom... "California"... I thought I already payed California with the 8.25% of stuff I buy! Well at least "California" is only taking $.22. But geez, finding out I work three to four hours to cover taxes really sucks. So far I would have received $335 if it weren't for taxes. In reality, I've gotten $292. That's over a $40 difference! Man... and my sister babysits... she gets paid more per hour than I do and she gets to sit in a big roomy house... and she doesn't have to pay taxes!... and I drive her there every week at 8 AM!!! Well I hope by the time I'm sixty, someone will find a way for me to get payed loads of money through social security, but from the looks of it now, psshhh... It's the young people who suffer. Won't someone please think of the children?!?! All right, maybe 17 isn't really considered a child... but still... taxes suck... pshh... 15%... who knows what it's gonna be next week...
07-01-00
Recently my friend came up with a list of corporate enemies, and I just realized I had my own. So being inspired by my friend Nate, here's my list (sure to be updated in the future):
Ok, that's sorta a weak list. Man, I gotta get more corporate enemies.
04-27-00
Had a track meet against Los Altos today. I think we beat them. Go boys varsity. Yeah. My long jumping went well (compared to my usual, although it's sucky against competition). I managed to jump 18'3" for the long jump but got a wimpy 36' something on the triple jump (my PR being 38'1", which is still sucky against competition :oP). Maybe I'll update the actual content of this site sometime. The TV and computer section need serious remodeling. I don't know what really to do for the TV section though, because I never watch any more TV, except occasionally the Simpsons on Sundays and rarely on the weekday.
On a different note, here's something weird that I noticed a while ago. I'm not sure if it's completely true though. When you're under eighteen years old, you need a parent permission slip to go on little field trips to the museum or whatever, because you might get hurt and the school doesn't want your parents to sue. However, I think after 18, men are required to fill out something called a "draft card." This basically allows the son to be pulled out of their home and be forced to fight in some war and maybe get killed. I don't think the dude needs a parent permission slip for this one (because I don't think most parents would let their kid be dragged into a war). I'm sure there's an exception or something though. You might know more about it than I do, but maybe I'll research it one day if I remember.
Wow, I just noticed how plain and boring this page looks. Maybe I'll but up a background or mess with the font to spice things up. After all, plain black font on plain white background isn't the most thrilling and creative display in the world.
04-16-00
Man, Half-Life Counterstrike is sooo fun. I've been playing it the past few days from like midnight to 2 AM or something. Well, that's cuz I had spring break the past week. Argh. Now it's Sunday. I really suck at Counterstrike but it's still fun. I even have cable modem (FINALLY), so I have a low ping (around 50-70) but I still suck. My aim is always way off. Anyway, if you play Counterstrike and run into a guy named Menk, there's an easy frag for ya.
03-30-00
I haven't had any random thoughts in a while...
I haven't had any thoughts in a while...
Hm...
02-10-00
Okay, between the chicken and the egg, the egg came first. Well, I base this on Darwin's theory of evolution (although ironically I don't fully believe in it). According to "evolution," new species or whatever are really mutants or minorities or something that have an advantage over others and so they outlive them. Yeah, "survival of the fittest." So new species can only be created through a genetically altered birth, meaning a "moogla" (that's fake) a long time ago must have done drugs while pregnant or something and it's mutant baby was called a "chicken." Then this chicken had a bunch of advantages over the mooglas, like they weren't drug addicts or something so they outlived the mooglas and thus began the chicken revolution. A moogla can't jump in some plutonium and turn into a chicken, because that won't produce chicken offspring. It might produce some sort of retarded moogla, but I doubt the retarded moogla's retardness traits will be like that of a chicken. Just like if a moogla got its butt chopped off, it's offspring don't turn out buttless. Point being, winners don't do drugs. I mean, the egg came first.
02-10-00
My new goal is to be one of the top 5 or 10 search results for "i'm bored" in major search engines since recent studies (guestbook, Nosey Survey) indicate that's what most people are searching.
01-27-00
Probably like half of the people who buy bread at the supermarket actually want to eat the side pieces (one side of the slice is all crust). I bet a bunch of people just throw it away. What a waste. The bread people should start making super long loaves of bread and then slice them so every two miles of bread, there are two end pieces. Actually, I'm sure they have a good reason they don't do that, but still.
01-25-00
eBay's cool. You should try it some time. Don't spend all your money though. I think I'm broke. Gimme some money. I except checks, money orders, cash, credit cards, and foreign bills, but no shells or anything.
01-25-00
I'm think about changing the color scheme for my body pages. The red font for some reason just doesn't mix well with the rest of the page. The comic sans ms font is also a bit funky. Looks fine in the menu, but a bit weak in the body pages. Gotta do somethin' about that. Some other time.
I could've sworn that Cinnamon Toast Crunch used to have three cartoon chef spokespersons. Now there seems to only be one; that fat gray-haired chef with glasses. What happened to the other two? Did the remaining guy cook them or something? Is that why it's Cinnamon Toast Crunch? Hm. (Excuse my morbidness... heh.)
If you set your e-mail filter to trash whatever incoming mail's "To:" or "Cc:" field does not contain your address, that eliminates about 80% of the spam. Be careful if you're on a mailing list, because that's an exception. Some mail filters don't have this option, either. It's also good to just double check your trash bin before you delete it all, just in case you filtered out something important. (Update as of 4-27-00: Hotmail now has this same exact feature they call "Bulk Mail." They totally ripped my idea, heheh. I demand a royalty fee. How about... 3% of Microsoft's gross annual profit? What's that, like <pinky>100 billion dollars?!</pinky>... heheh, j/k.)
IMO, Yahoo! Mail is the best free web-based e-mail account provider. It's fast, easy, has a nice address book with many options, it has plenty of filters, and can access POP3 accounts. Hotmail is also nice, but it can't block junk mail like described in the above paragraph. The address book also isn't as cool. I've also tried other free e-mail providers including USA.net (includes Netscape.net and Amex) but they have scheduled POP3 account checking so you can't check it like every five minutes if you're expecting something urgent. I don't know how the rest of it is, though. Any other recommendations? (I have like ten e-mail accounts right now, more than half that I don't use or forgot about.)
As for free web space providers, so far I like ProHosting the best (free.prohosting.com). The address is okay (lightning.prohosting.com/~username), there's enough space (15 MB I think, speed is good, uploading through FTP works fine, they provide a CGI bin (but no scripts, you have to upload and customize your own), but best of all, there are no banners, pop-ups, nags, whatever. The thing about the CGI bin is that you sort of have to learn how CGI bins work before you can use them. The good part is once you know how to use them, you can put in your own guestbooks and counters and customize them, and you don't have to login to some web site or create an account or stick up banners for the services that provide guestbooks, etc for free. The e-mail service and web space providers are all judged according to my own needs, so your mileage may vary.