Because so many people have asked me for it, here's the code for those footnotes. It's simple, really.
< a href="javascript:alert('FOOTNOTE')" onmouseover="window.status='footnote'; return true" onmouseout="window.status=''; return true">WORDS< /a>
Only you have to take out the space in front of the "a href" and the space in front of the "/a>." I had to put those in, otherwise it would just convert the code to an actual footnote on my blog.
Anyway, a real entry to come. Later.

Apparently, our belief that people should be required to get licensed and be intelligent before they have any children is a libertarian viewpoint, or at least is one advocated by Neal Boortz. This makes me nervous. Libertarians make me nervous. Nothing against them, they just...make me nervous.
Must See TV is Supersized this week! Score!

We got first place at Trivia tonight! Thank you, thank you. Will be signing autographs all week, don't be afraid to ask. Granted, it was the sort of Trivia where cheating is allowed and encouraged...but it still showed master cheating skills, if not incredible depth of knowledge. Plus, with only 60 seconds to answer some questions, one must be rather fast in order to get the answer to the front before the buzzer. So, maybe we're not so second-rate after all. A lot of our win can be credited to taking APUSH last year, as we had two copies of Don't Know Much About History and one of an APUSH study book as resources. However, the most credit can be given to Brynnlee's mother, for staying on the phone with us the entire time while she was at home on the internet looking up answers. And yes--it was all allowed.
Off to do some of my APES homework. However much I do, it seems like I can only make a teeny-tiny dent in the amount that's eventually due. This class makes me crazy.

Don't Come Crying To Me When You Die From Aquafina-Poisoning

I'd like to tell school to bite my ass, but I'm afraid it might actually do so.
Two tests tomorrow means two failing grades tomorrow. This sort of sucks. But it forced me to actually read the APES chapter on air pollution, and it makes me never want to breathe again! Apparently there's more radioactive gas in your house than there is outside your house. Sleep on that tonight.
I watched the new episode of "Gilmore Girls" earlier tonight, and I have to say, I wish I'd decided to watch "American Idol" instead. "Gilmore Girls" has really begun to suck. Maybe it'll pick up for February sweeps.
Well, as you can probably tell, I really don't have anything at all to say. Sorry about that, but I'd rather write meaningless drivel on here than read about water pollution. Apparently, 50% of bottled water is more contaminated than tap water, or something like that. This is the most depressing class ever. We're all going to die, apparently. Score.

News Flash: Whales Eat Chocolate Chip Cookies

Hmm. It wasn't very fun. It was kind of awkward and uncomfortable. Remind me again--why did we go to the LitMag premiere? Oh yeah, really, really good cookies. The food was good. We were cornered by Mr. Williams, who talked to us for eight hours about our futures and Stephen King and the telephone and stuff like that. Then we were fingered to read our limerick aloud in front of the four or so people who showed up and weren't on staff. Finally, after being thanked sixty-five times, we grabbed another cookie and slipped out the door.
Eh, it wasn't that bad.
Are policemen allowed to speed? On my way home, I saw a policeman, and he didn't have his lights on so I think I can safely assume that he wasn't en route to one of the many drug riots that take place on Alpharetta streets on Monday nights, and he was going at least 15 over, maybe 20. Hmm.
Now off to do APES stuff. G'night.

"Things just won't do without you, matter of fact
Oh, oh, oh, I'm on your back." --Foo Fighters, "Walking After You"

I know I already told several of you this story, a few of you maybe twice, but it was just so exciting that I had to tell it once more. When I went into the cafeteria this morning to get a check-out slip, what should I see but--some hookers! Real live ones! They were wearing, as I described to Ashleigh, the entire line of Wal-Mart make up on their faces, and their "winter clothes" didn't cover much. I think one's hair might have even been teased! It was a big day for me. I'd never seen hookers before. So everyone can rest easy now knowing that the Milton High School Prostitution Ring is alive and kicking in the Milton cafeteria.

There Once Were Two Girls From Alph'retta

I've just learned that, when the sun is shining directly on the face of a traffic light, I can't tell which color is lit up. This=bad.
I just got back from the damn sadistic dentist. The entire left half of my head is numb. Even my ear is numb. He didn't have to work on my ear, so I have to wonder why he had to make it lose all feeling, anyway.
Ashleigh and I are going to this LitMag "premiere" at Nantucket's Sandwich Shop that we got invitations to tonight. I guess they're going to congratulate us on writing the only thing in the entire publication worth reading, our "Ode To Milton Parking" limerick. How nice of them.

Very, Very Nice

I'm in a really good mood, actually. Tonight was a lot of fun. And to think I didn't really want to go at all. Well, I'm glad I did. It was very nice being cooped up in Jason's room with friends while a raging adult party went on all around us, with us turning the TV volume down during the game and up during the commercials, and then finally getting bored of even the commercials and just talking. Even though we were missing some crucial elements, it was a very good group. And then I left, because I still have monsterous amounts of Environmental Science homework to do, and I listened to REM's "Nightswimming" in the car, which was very appropriate, and it was very nice. That's what I can say about this evening--it was nice.

An Exercise In Killing Time

I’ve decided that the best way to combat writer’s block is to write, so pardon me if I put anyone to sleep with my boring tirades these next few blogs until I actually find something to write about again. It’s okay if you feel the need to take a nap midway through one of my blogs—really. I won’t take it personally. Just make sure you have a pillow handy—those red marks you get all over your cheek from sleeping on the keyboard just aren’t too attractive.
So one new thing is that I’ve discovered some cool javascript code to add footnotes to my blog. Well, to anything, really, but I intend on using it on my blog. I’m sure it’s positively boring to all of you, but it excited me for a minute or two, and that’s really all I can ask for.
Ashleigh and I discussed briefly earlier today what we all discuss from time to time—how sort of pathetic it is that all we ever seem to do is homework and watch movies. It’s senior year, in case you weren’t aware. We need to go on an adventure, or throw a giant party that will go down in history. Something interesting, that I can take lots of photographs of, because I haven't taken enough to adequately remember this year, and that we can all write about in our Friedman journals and our blogs, because sometimes it seems like everything I do is just another something to write about in one of those two places. That’s not how it should be, of course—how it should be is that we should do so many fun and cool things that it’s difficult to pick and choose which to journal and blog about. Well, that’s what these last few months are for. Let’s make it that way.
So this Wednesday marks the beginning of Speed Trivia at Tijuana Joe’s. That is, you only have 90 seconds instead of the length of whatever 80’s-or-early-90’s-song Patrick puts on to get your answers in, but the upside is, you can cheat. We’re planning on bringing atlases and laptops decked out with all the Compton’s and Grolier’s we can find, and maybe putting Serkie on our speed-dials (hey, there are a lot of US History questions, and unfortunately, we get a lot of them wrong.) So, I don’t know what my point is but to let everyone know that Speed Trivia is coming up, not that it really matters to anyone, but it’s incredibly fun, and is the main thing that keeps me from downing a bottle of drain cleaner when I think about all the APES work that’s due in the next few weeks.
So Al Gore is hosting Saturday Night Live next week. That’s a rerun, though, right? Tonight was the first time I’d watched all season (I know, I’m awful) and it was a rerun, with Eve and Nia Vardalos. But was Al Gore funny at all? I mean, all anybody ever said about him during his presidential run was how dull he was, but then he grew a beard and apparently that improved his personality significantly, so was he any good at hosting? I suppose I could just watch next week and find out, but I’ll probably forget, and then where would we be? Nowhere, that's where.
Forgive me if this is one of those long, drawn-out blogs that nobody ever wants to read. I just keep writing a paragraph or so, and then looking at some websites, and getting a flash of inspiration and writing another paragraph. It’ll end when I’m too tired to write anymore and decide to go do Trig homework before the caffeine completely wears off.
My mother does this thing where I’ll be on the computer at three or four in the morning, and she’ll come down with this horrible scowl on her face, spitting her words at me, “it’s four in the morning!” and order me to go to bed while she watches me turn off the lights and go upstairs to verify that I actually do go to bed. It’s incredibly irritating because all I do is go upstairs for five minutes and then come back down and get back on the computer. I don’t get why it bothers her so much that I don’t sleep as much as she does. She just gets so angry about it. I really don’t understand adults in the least.
You know that part in Catcher where Holden asks the taxi driver where the ducks in the Central Park lagoon go when it gets really cold? Well…where do they go?
Another crazy thing my parents get angry about is when I change the colors on our BellSouth homepage. It has this option where you can choose a different color-scheme, and I like to change it from time to time, and they get so unhappy about that. I think they just hate it when anything messes with their routine, but it’s a little bit ridiculous to yell at me for changing the colors when they could just change it back themselves, or better yet, just deal with it being different colors.

“It must feel good to stand above me
While I make you so proud of me
It must feel good that I’m now gone
I wish I could say that everyone was wrong.”
--Ben Lee, “Cigarettes Will Kill You”

No school today and we're delayed tomorrow! Score! I don't know quite what that means, though...we've never been delayed before, have we? At least, not in the time I've lived here. Do we just come to school at 10:35? I'm all for that. Of course, I'm all for anything that prevents me from attending APES and Sociology.
There's this antique telephone in this room with me, this old thing my parents hunted and hunted for and finally found at some antiques farm or something, and bought. And it's the loudest thing I've ever experienced in my life. It rings and I jump eleven feet in the air! I think they even figured out a way to turn it down--removed one of the bells or something--and it's still unbearably loud. I say this because it just rang, and I just jumped, and it's getting rather old. I wish they would just be satisfied with telephones made in this decade.
I've been putting off the awful A Man For All Seasons assignment for Lit all day. Actually, I don't know if it's awful, because I haven't done much of it. I still have to read the first act and answer the last three questions. While the preface was mildly interesting, I have a sneaking suspicion that the play itself just won't hold my interest. If it's anything like the movie, that is. I could hardly hold my eyes open during that thing.
Well I can't think of anything else to say, so I'll be going. Everyone thank your lucky stars that we finally got some winter weather, because I'd be willing to wager that this is about all we're going to get until college or so.

No one's up yet, or else they've gotten up and gone back to sleep.

This is great.

I'm going to go read Bridget Jones' Diary now, as I can't get myself to go back to bed.

Does anybody else find themselves suffering from earliness?
I'm compulsively on-time, it seems. I'm always ready 15+ minutes before I have to leave to go someplace, and when I do leave, I always wind up waiting in my car in the parking lot until everyone else gets there. "But Amy," you might say, "You were late to NHS this morning." Well, that was due to a few things. A) Unexpected traffic on Old Milton. It gets especially bad on Wednesday mornings, I'm coming to realize. B) My wakeful self has literally no control over my sleeping self, and in my sleep, I turned off my alarm clock for the second day in a row. C) Almost rear-ending The Amy-And-Ashleigh (Garrett's truck, for those of you who weren't paying attention). Actually, that didn't cause me to be any later than I would have been anyway, but it was kind of funny, sparking the idea of, "who haven't I almost hit?" D) Those damn unorganized NHS kids, emailing out "Meet in the gym!" and actually meeting in the theater. Kinda makes you proud not to be an officer, eh?
So back to my compulsive earliness. I hate looking at the clock and finding that I have 20 minutes until I have to leave to go somewhere, because often it's not enough time to actually start doing anything, but it's too much time to just sit in silence and wait. So I wind up rereading a couple of blogs, or watching commercials on TV, or wandering around my house checking my watch. This right now is the product of my boredom upon waiting to go somewhere I'm ready to go to. If I leave for Trivia now, I'll wind up in the Tijuana Joe's parking lot for awhile, and let me tell you, that's not very fun at all.
But it looks like this blog has filled up the amount of time I had to kill, so I'm going to go try and utilize some of the useless information I have in my brain in place of Envrionmental Science and Trig now. Wish me luck, I suppose, or something like it.

And by the way, what was with those gross brownies today? I wasn't aware that Senior Snack Days were a punishment, not a priviledge.

So it's been a few days. Great fun was had at Sarah's party on Saturday night, although I still maintain that you just can't watch a movie at a party. But anyway, it was fun. There were 1156 cheeseballs in total. And you wouldn't know that at all if it wasn't for Michelle and me.
And then on Sunday I frantically searched for something resembling a costume to wear to the Golden Globes gathering, finally settling on Jennifer Aniston's look from "The Good Girl" (which recently was released on DVD, and I need to get around to buying it). That party was fun, too. Lots of good costumes and good food. The awards weren't the most interesting thing in television history, but then again, when are award shows really all that interesting? And I'm pretty happy with everything that won, although that may be because I haven't seen many of the movies that were nominated.
Today's a homework day for me, because I've put off APES and Government reading and such, and I have got to finally finish my UGA application (those freaking short answers are making me crazy!), and I have a dentist appointment later this afternoon, which is unfortunate. Dentists are evil.
So that's my weekend in a nutshell, and now I'm coming to realize--I have no freaking clue what to write about for those two extra pages of Friedman journals. Score.

Whew, I'm exhausted. Feeding hungry debaters is tiring work. It's exhausting being so perky for so many hours. I know, I know...Amy? Perky? What? No, really, I think that all of you who think I'm this cynical, pessimistic, dark, bitter, bitchy person must only see me when I'm around annoying people or something, because I'm really nothing like that. You must not know me very well if you really believe that. But oh well, I'm over trying to please everyone. It's never going to happen, for anyone, so I've accepted it and moved on. Anyway.
What was meant to be a half-hour excursion to the debate tournament turned into four grueling hours of pain. According to Ashleigh, we were going to join Michelle and Brynnlee selling candy at the concession stand for a bit, and then go do something outside of the school we'd already spent far too many hours in. But then Michelle and Brynnlee were off judging debates, and Starla was working the stand until she got called to judge, so Ashleigh and I got roped into manning the concession stand for the rest of the evening. It wasn't so bad, except debate people for the most part are exceedingly strange. I mean, I used to do debate (in a manner of speaking), so I can say this. They're almost always really weird. And it got on all of our nerves every time someone would take a look at the sign that had "Pizza" covered up, indicating that we had no more pizza, and requesting a slice of pepperoni. That got old. But oh well--we got to read "Ebony" and "People In Espanol" for awhile, and play with my magnetic poetry on the money box. What else could a girl ask for?
I'm so sleepy...I need a nap. But I have to finish my UGA application before my parents kill me, so no sleep for me, for now. See you all tomorrow at Sarah's party, and if not, either because you don't know Sarah or because you do but aren't going, then, well, see you.

I was so ready for this week to be over last night. I hoped and prayed for snow. But alas, it was not meant to be. School was to be attended, and the Trig test was to be taken. I don't think it was all that hard, though. Who knows? Maybe I'll actually not have to struggle to get a good grade in that class this semester.
In both my 3rd and 4th period classes (Government and Lit) we had discussions about Affirmative Action today. It was interesting, being one of the only issues on which nearly everybody in both classes is in agreement. In Government, it was about 29 white students saying Down With Affirmative Action, with 1 black student saying the opposite, but only after prefacing her opinions with a disclaimer saying that she really didn't care one way or the other. We have to remember, though, that we are white, and our opinions could in fact be different if we weren't. Possibly the only reason we who are against AA dislike it so much is because it could potentially affect us negatively. People who are benefitted by the program probably aren't going to speak out against it; at least, most of them wouldn't. I personally think Affirmative Action is ridiculous, but I can't help but wonder if I would feel the same way were I not white. Who knows. It is an interesting issue to discuss, though it would be even more interesting if our classes had more people that are pro-AA.
Tonight it looks like I'm working the Milton debate tournament! Haha...fun. Well, I need to save my money anyway, so I suppose it's better than going out and spending it on a ridiculously expensive meal of chicken-fingers-and-fries. Besides, I think two parties/gatherings/get-togethers in one weekend is plenty for me, thanks.
Hehe...this is great. Says an article on the page: "[It's] bigger than any presidential campaign for a declared candidate." Well, I'd probably vote for him. Hell, what am I saying, I'd definitely vote for him.
Wait, wait, wait. I read that site some more, and found something that's actually on topic! A first for me. So, they listed Cusack's stance on several political issues, gleaned from various interviews and such, and about Affirmative Action it said: "Cusack said he didn't want a president who didn't know the difference between affirmative action and affirmative access. (11/4/00, Chicago Defender)" So...who can tell me what that means? Affirmative access? I'm confused.

Damn Yinga. They changed servers, and now all my stats are gone. Grr.

Announced today: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix comes out on June 21st, 2003! According to my mother, who just saw it on the news, it's reported to be a third longer than book four. How cool is that?! I'm excited!

Ever have a song that just really moves you, and affects you, and you get all emotional just listening to it, whether it's because it makes you remember something or because the song is just that good, and you're torn between singing along at the top of your lungs and not singing at all because you just want to listen and really hear it instead of just hearing your own awful loud voice over everything, but you feel like you need to sing along because you feel the song so much? Or the kind of song that you know so well that when you're sitting in the middle of class, bored, you can "listen" to it in your mind and know every lyric and every note and every nuance of the song so well that it really is like you're just hearing it?
On a related note, does anybody know how, if it's possible, to convert .mpga files into .mp3 files?

Way too much homework
I think I need a long nap
I'll do it later
(the above is not one of my Environmental Science haiku)

Man, are the blogs dying or what? Sickly, at the very least.
Don't really have much to say. I got my SCRAPES article done, finally, but I didn't write a letter to my Congressman. How ridiculous is that--in order to get above an 85 on this particular APES assignment, we're required to send off all these letters to the AJC and to Congress. Well, lucky for me, I'm happy with an 85. I did attempt the poetry part, but I just did a series of haiku.
Did you know that the plural of haiku is haiku? Like moose.
Moose. Ha.

Oh, and by the way, I updated the film quotes in the "Guess!" box to your left, if anybody was ever interested in that. This time there's a common theme. I'll give anybody a cookie who can figure out what the theme is, even if you don't know all the movies...

The Brunching Shuttlecocks, of Stephen Spielberg: "I don't want to say he's getting sloppy, but word on the street is he did most of his directing via webcam so he could stay at home and play Grand Theft Auto." Haha, like we were talking about while watching "Minority Report", he's just lazy.

"This is going to get worse before it gets better":

(exploding dog)

If you haven't been informed already, we have a new blogger in our midst: Aniele has a blog now. Go look at it; it's pretty.
I'm going to change my comment service from Haloscan to backBlog, which I used for Aniele's comments and just recently changed Sarah's comments to, because I like the template better. Other than that, I have nothing else to say. I'll write something of interest later.

Book learnin' never did nobody no good.

Nobody ever told me that school was actually hard. Well, yes, they did. But the people who told me this were idiots, plain and simple, and I didn't listen. Back in the day, in elementary school, when kids a few months older than I but in higher grades would complain about having too much homework to play in the puddles in the cul-de-sac, I always thought, "well, I won't have that problem, because I'm smart and they're dumb." I was right, up until recently (read: the past few years). Now it's all, "I can't play in puddles today, I have too much Trig homework," and "Sorry, I have to do a project instead of going to the (insert cool high-school hangout here) with you guys." Drives me crazy.
But today was the first day back. Of course, the teachers might let up a little bit, once they realize how sleepy we all feel. And maybe a few nicer teachers will say to themselves, "Self, these kids have been in high school for far too long. How about you go easy on them?" And the fact that I have Sociology near the beginning of the day--the perfect class to blend into the wood of my desk and read a book--will help me recover from Mrs. Burrell's stinging knives of pain (read: too much APES work). And a (relatively) good AP Government class will help me recover from Sociology, where half the kids need collars and leashes and half the kids need brain transplants. And having a much better Trig class this semester should help me recover from "Twilight Zone." So after the first day of the last five months of my high school career, what can I say about everything? Well, it's been...a disappointment.
Mmm...Tazoberry. Non-coffee from a coffehouse never tasted better than after a long, grueling day of trying to stay awake during class.

How appropriate. Haha.

I'm willing to bet money that at least 90% of the times that you flip the tv to FX, "Mash" is on.

Despite the fact that it's Atlanta, I really like Atlanta. I wanted a change of scenery today so I went to the Target and Borders down by Lenox--apparently the ones at North Point weren't good enough for me. So I got all confused and near lost, but then found everything where it was supposed to be, and somehow got home in one piece. But the Target there is way cool! It's two stories, and besides a regular escalator in the middle of the store, there's a special escalator for shopping carts! I'd never seen one of those before! Haha. And then, the Borders there is cool, too. It's got those sliding ladders like in old-fashioned giant libraries, and it's prettier and smells better than the Barnes And Noble here. So I think that from now on if I need to go to a bookstore and have enough time, I'll make the drive, because Borders is way cool.
One thing that's bothersome is that nobody has "smalls" anymore. Like, I went to Burger King because I had a craving for french fries, and I wanted a small order of fries, but they only had medium, large, and king size. I don't understand why they can't have small, medium, and large. Apparently "king size" is more important than "small."

It's amazing the clarity of thought that comes to you early in the morning. I can't get back to sleep (it's 6:47 am), probably because I fell asleep around four in the afternoon yesterday, after twenty-eight hours of sleeplessness. But so I've been lying in bed for about a half hour and remembering things. Do you ever have sort of "atmosphere memories"? When, instead of remembering a moment or an event, you'll remember the way that moment felt? Like you'll remember how warm and rainy it was one day, and what whatever you were eating tasted like, and how the place smelled, but you won't really get a clear picture of what was actually going on? I don't know. Well that's what I've been doing the past half hour and it's just kind of strange.