The Longest Calculator Message Ever

I WILL NOW TRY

TO WRITE THE

LONGEST CALCU-

LATOR MESSAGE

EVER.  THIS IS

PROBABLY – NO,

MOST LIKELY – A

FEAT THAT HAS

BEEN ATTEMPTED

BEFORE.  BUT THE

PREVIOUS LONGEST

HAVE MORE THAN

LIKELY BEEN NO

MORE THAN NON-

SENSE.  THIS ONE

IS SAYING SOME-

THING.  THE MES-

SAGE IS CLEAR.

OR MAYBE IT ISNT

.  PERHAPS YOU,

THE MESSSAGE REA-

DER, NEED SOME

CLARIFICATION.

NO MATTER.  I

WOULD HAVE SAID

IT ANYWAY.  THE

MESSAGE IS THAT

A TEXTS LENGTH

HAS NOTHING TO

DO WITH ITS REL-

EVANCE.  WHY DID

I NOT JUST SAY

THAT IN THE FIRS

T PLACE, YOU

ASK?  BECAUSE

THIS IS MEANT TO

BE LONG.  THIS

IS MEANT TO BE

THE LONGEST

CALCULATOR MES-

SAGE EVER!  SO

I HAVE COMPILED

LETTERS INTO

WORDS, AND WORDS

INTO SENTENCES.

AND I HAVE ALSO

COMPILED THESE

SENTENCES INTO

A MESSAGE THAT

CAN ONLY BE READ

BY PRESSING THE

DOWN ARROW MANY,

MANY, MANY, MANY

TIMES.  THIS IS

A POINTLESS TIME

WASTER STARTED

AFTER A MATH

TEST.

I HAVE WRITTEN

THINGS LONGER.

BUT THEY HAVE

BEEN IN VARIAT,

NOT NORMAL TYPE.

THIS MESSAGE IS

LENGTHY, BUT

“SAYS” NOTHING.

THERE IS NOTHING

OF IMPORTANCE

HERE.

I AM STARTING TO

SKIP AROUND, TO

CREATE NEW PARA-

GRAPHS TO MATCH

MY THOUGHTS.  I

AN STILL ON TOP-

IC, HOWEVER, UN-

LIKE MOST MES-

SAGES THAT HAVE

MADE IT TO THIS

LENGTH.

THIS MESSAGE IS

VERY LONG.  THERE

IS NOT MUCH MORE

I CAN SAY ON THE

TOPIC.  SO I

WILL END THIS

MESSAGE NOW, AND

LEAVE IT HERE,

ON THIS CALCULA-

TOR, UNTIL IT

HAS BEEN READ BY

OTHERS.

            END

P.S. “until it has been read by others” seems to translate to “until we need to use it.”  I’m bummed that I had to clear my message, but it had to be eventually.

P.P.S. Yes, I did type this all out on my graphing calculator.  To preserve the format, each line is only sixteen characters long and it is in all caps with only the punctuation my calculator can use.  This has come from a calculator to graph paper to a Word document to here.  I have written it out completely 3 times.
P.P.P.S. "In variat" means like this:

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXX              XXXX
XXX    XXXXXX   XXX
XXX    XXXXXX   XXX
XXX                  XXX
XXX    XXXXXX   XXX
XXX    XXXXXX   XXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Each letter is perfectly visible, as my screen is 8 characters high.

           There was a sign in my 6th grade math classroom that said "You learn..." and then a list of different ways to learn and how much you get out of each.  I liked that poster.  I don't remember much of it, but I remember two stats off that poster:  you learn more by seeing than hearing, and you learn 81% of what you teach to others.
           I find this really intriguing.  Most teachers teach visually, and some hands-on, which is even better -- but when does any teacher have us teach to each other?  
           However, I've seen the poster.  Whenever I study something, I "teach" Mom from my notes.  Usually she already knows the material, but that just means that we teach each other.  Maybe I should teach her math.  Except I don't need much help remembering math stuff.
           So next time you learn something, teach it to someone else.  You'll learn it even better, and they'll learn it too.

What?

I have heard from multiple sources that 100 people choke to death every year... on ballpoint pens.  How the h*** do you choke on a ballpoint pen?  Do they get taken apart and the individual parts swallowed?  Some of the parts are pretty small.  But then, if they were small parts, swallowing them wouldn't make you choke anyway.  Maybe it's people chewing on the end of the pen, thinking about what to write next.  But how would the pen get from your teeth all the way into your throat?  If their hand slips, I guess.  Or it somehow hits something.  I can just imagine someone committing "murder by pen" in which the pen is shoved down the throat.  But 100 people?  Every year?  Some of that has to be stupid and accidental.  Again, how the h*** does this happen?  How do you choke on a ballpoint pen?

Goals? What goals?

Today we were supposed to write down our goals in Advisory.  My goals?  Well, I'm not going to tell you.  Why? I've heard that telling people your goals often makes you less likely to complete them.  Ironic, considering that from the time we're small children, we are encouraged to tell people our goals: what we want to be/do when we grow up, etc.  Of course, people's goals change from that point of time.  When I was little, I wanted to be a paleontologist/ballerina/race car driver.  Now, of course, I have something a little more realistic in mind.
I think the goal thing we did was stupid, anyway.  We had to write 4 goals, and relate them in pairs by role (student, sibling, member of church, etc.).  I could only think of two anyway.  The paper also said to write down some long-term and some short-term; like goals for the year versus 2- or 3-month time span.  Well, guess what, person who typed the paper?  One year is short-term for me.  I don't even have a 3-month goal.  My normal short-term is "by the time I've finished high school."  Long-term is "as an adult."  I don't know about other kids, who actually do sports and stuff, but I got nothing.  Well, almost nothing.  My shortest-term goal involves the bass guitar.  Anything else is prereq to the long-term.

Bulk Bears

Albertsons has a series of shelves near the produce/cheese/lunchmeat area that is specifically for bulk foods.  I see all sorts of dried fruits, and grains, and leafy things.  All of which are either dark or tannish, right?  But as I'm looking through the shelves, not really identifying most of the items, I see a splash of bright color.  Multiple bright colors, actually.  I look back, and I see a bag of gummi bears.  Among fruit and grain and healthy leafy things.  I see no other sweet, candy-like, preservative-laden things on the shelf - so why gummi bears?  And who buys gummi bears in bulk?  People with more than one kid, I guess.  Kids that like gummi bears.

This reminded me - somewhere in the world, there is a chandelier made out of gummi bears.  Really, it's pretty clever.  It gets soft in the summer, but doesn't melt, it's brightly colored, and bugs don't like it.  I guess bugs like natural food.

Jif Jazz

There was peanut butter in the lost and found today.  In jazz band here, anything in the lost and found is fair game.  A few years ago, someone bought a PlayStation 3 game and put it, brand new, into that lost & found as a prank.  And today, there was a jar of peanut butter in there.  Unopened.  It must have been there all summer, because it's only the second day of school and the jar smelled terrible.  The peanut butter must have gone bad, and it can't have gone bad in one day.  I can't imagine how someone could get a jar of Jif into the classroom without someone noticing.  It was likely a prank, like the PS3 game.  Why else would someone have peanut butter in jazz band?

New and Improved

New and improved.  Every time you go to a grocery store, it’s somewhere.  But is it new? Or is it improved?  They can’t really go together, can they?  New implies never before seen.  But improved means there must have been a version before that.  The phrase “new and improved” creates a paradox.  And if it’s improved, what was wrong with the old version?  Anyway, what’s new isn’t always improved.  There are so many examples of this, but the most obvious to me is a washcloth.  When you have an old washcloth, it’s soft from being used so many times.  But if it’s new, and only been used perhaps once, then it’s rough and scratchy.  You probably won’t want to use it until it’s soft, unless it’s the only one you have.  This creates a second paradox.  It involves getting what you want in short-term versus getting what you want in the long-term.  But I digress.  “What’s new isn’t always improved” is illustrated in the TV show Ben 10, in the episode titled “Ben Four Good Buddy."  When highway robbers steal the Rustbucket, they add tons of gizmos to do their dirty work.  But on the inside, the RV still has quirks that help Ben defeat the robbers from inside - literally!  I won't spoil it, but it involves the fridge and the ice maker.
How easily can you pull up a sapling? What about an old tree?  With trees, when someone refers to one as old, he/she is saying that it's very big and strong.  How does that fit with the view of "new and improved"?
What else have you seen that is better old than new?  Or something new that hasn't improved?
So if you see “New and Improved!” somewhere, question:  Which one is really it?