The situation is Iran is as depressing as it is hopeful. The hope that comes from the protests should be clear: it shows that a people care and that people are willing to stand up for what they care for. It shows that people are willing to risk their lives for something they believe in and that is an extremely powerful thing. It shows that maybe things can change in the Middle East and that, no matter how slowly, things are progressing and maybe one day we will see Iran be a truly democratic country. The depressing element of the demonstrations in Iran is that no matter how many millions of people turn out in those streets, and no matter how many Tweets are posted by students at Tehran University and no matter how many Youtube videos show the brutalities being committed in the streets. The bloggers as well as the mainstream news can show as much as they want how rigged the elections were. But none of that matters in the end. We will see, very soon, protesters be cut down by a rain of bullets, probably in Ishfan or some other city that’s outside of the protester produced CNN and BBC backed media zoo that exists in Tehran. There will be an international outcry and maybe, hopefully the more liberal and powerful Islamic clerics in Iran will express their outrage etc… etc… But none of that will matter. No, because it won’t bring democracy to Iran, but most importantly it won’t bring back the hundreds, if not thousands that will be murdered for standing up for something that they believe in.

“He planned and conducted a legal, non-violent, citizens arrest of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, in Washington, D.C. JvB was convicted for attempted kidnapping, robbery, burglary, carrying a weapon (not loaded), etc, in a kangaroo court. JvB served 6.5-years of an 11-year sentence. While in federal prison JvB designed brochures, etc., and painted three large murals (18 x 35) and many portraits.”

The best is yet to come. It turns out “JvB” as he likes to refer to himself in the third person was convicted (suprise, suprise) by “Jew/Negro” courts. Anyway, I digress. The truely scary part of this biography was the last setence. Set off as it’s own pargaraph.

“Von Brunn paints and plots.”

There were several factors that combined to create the Scientific Revolution. There were many things that needed to be invented, or conceptualized based on the problems such as navigiation of the seas, treating illnesses and metaphysical issues. There was also advancement in better scientific instruments which allowed people to test their theories and to prove them.

The splintering of Christendom also opened the door for new ideas. Once people started to believe that the Church was not the answer to everything, which led to the question of: What is the answer? Why do theses things happen? And so on. In the same vain there was an increase in secular science relating to this world, not the afterlife.

Ptolemy belived that the earth was the center of the universe, which believed that the earth was the center of the univer and that the planets orbited the earth. This belief was not disputed by the great philosopher and scientist Aristotle. This idea had worked very well with the Church’s beliefs and during the Scientific Revolution there was a lot of questioning of Aristotle and Ptolemy’s writings.

• Astronomy

Copernicus (1473-1543)

The first person in the West to suggest that the sun, not the earth, is the center of universe. He also challenged that orbits were circular and suggested that orbits were not circular but rather eliptical. This challenged the Church’s beliefs that the orbits were perfect because they were God’s work and that the earth was the center of the unvierse. He also raised the idea that the universe was a lot bigger than we used to think. He said that the stars were not a fixed thing, rather there was depth. The most revolutionary of all the ideas he came up with was the theory that the earth was just the same as all the other planets.  

• Mathematics

Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)

Kepler took many of Copernicus’ ideas and was able to apply mathmatics to these ideas which put much weight behind them. Kepler was also able to explain that planets moved at different speeds.

Rene Descartes (1596-1650)

I think, there for, I am

Rene belived that you should doubt everything possible, and then accept as truth only things that are beyond doubt. He also belived in the deductive method of breaking problems down into small parts and from there come to an original, reasonable deduction. Rene was disillusioned with the fact that up until this point science had no organized theory and that there had as of yet been no scientific discoveries that were not in dispute.

• Physics 

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

Galileo was one of the earliest practitioner of the expierental method which is basically the modern way we test scientific theories. He discoverd the mathmatical formula for the acceleration of the falling objects. He invented the telescope. He also came up with the law of inertia. Also, sitting in a lecture one day Galileo noticed a lamps shadow on the wall of the room. He realized that a pendulum could keep perfect time, something he desperately needed for many of his expierements. So Galileo also invented to accurate clock.

Francis Bacon (1561-1626)

Many belive Bacon to be the father of the scientific revolution. He created the Inductive Method. He took observable data from expierements and from there he would come up with a hypothosis. Once you have the hypothesis you then set out to create a theory and test it. Bacon emphisisved a lot of basic, practical and simple knowledge.

Isaac Newton (1642-1727)

Newton argues that the universe is governed by natural laws. He blended the writings of all the scientists before him. He the first person to conceptualize the idea of gravity. Not only does he discover the idea of gravity but he also develops calculus to explain gravity. Wrote the Principia, which was a book of all his beliefs and explained all his ideas with math. It was the last great scientific work to be first published in Latin.

The ad talks about how the heart, as a universal symbol for love in unique, special, and important to us as humans. I think this may be one those situations where for some reason something I hear hits a chord with me and really makes me think, but personally I had never thought about hearts like that before. [Ah yes, now I remember, it was an ad for Kaiser Permanente’s heart research]

Symbols are an important part of human communication and interaction and it seems like there are a few symbols that are so common you don’t notice that they’re symbols anymore. These would include symbols such as the heart, the peace sign, religious symbols such as the cross. These symbols imidiately convey a word, often times in ways that the word couldn’t convey.

A have a friend who is obsessed with drawing hearts on everything: her binder, her papers, my arm, her desk, etc… You get the point. While yes, granted, drawing hearts can be mind-numbingly fun, just like, say tetris, the conotations asociated with a drawn heart can be more appropriately applied than with the word.

It’s a shame that we only have one word for love in this language. Really it seems like most languages only have one word for it, in fact, in Hebrew love and like are the same word. I was, for a while, convinced that the Eskimo’s had 99 words for love until multiple Google searches brought me to the realization that in fact it was snow that they had 99 words for. Which of course is logical, seeing as they live in Alaska and snow is such as huge part of their lives. But that begs the question; as humans everywhere, love plays a huge role in our lives. And yet, we lack multiple words for it? I love my pet’s, I love my family, I love Coke, I love my friends, I would potentially love my girl friend or wife, but I love them all in different ways and for the same word to be be used to describe my love for a drink as my love for someone who I am going to spend the rest of my life with seems obsurd.

I say that, to say that it seems like the heart symbol can be used in a much more approriate manner. This is because its ubiquity lends it to proper interpertation. If your in love with your partner and she signs a note with a heart, then you see that as a sign of her love, if your friend ends a text with a heart, you take that as a sign of friendly affection. Then again, if you replace either of those heart symbols with the words I love you. You pretty much have the same reaction which brings me to the point in which I ask myself why I am writing this because I have realized I’m wrong and it has no point. Maybe it’s because my blog views are down since I stopped updating, maybe its because I’m trying to test out “livewriter” on my new computer or maybe it’s something else. Regardless I feel as though I have come to an end in this ramble about hearts and their meaning. – Arno

First understand that everything a person does is motivated, at its origin, by that persons self interest. This can be as “selfless” as just wanting to make someone else happy, but they still did that “selfless” thing because THEY wanted something. The lowest common denominator in all human action is preserving ones self.

Once we understand that we can turn iur attention to what self preservation looks like and why. There is no arguing that people do plenty of totally nice things for other people. These things often have no clear benefit to the person commiting the acts of kindness, so then why do they do it? Well humans have a natural predesposition for being nice to other people. This because of the all to obvious reason that if we had no concious, no morals deeply rooted into our born-with sense of right and wrong then it would be diffacult, if not impossible for the human race to srvive. Now, this is where the point of this essay, the impossibility of world peace, or really any peace, comes in.

There are fundementally two types of people. Well, that isn’t true but for the specific point of this essay, how humans deal with conflict, it is. Fight and flight. We are taught that these are the two ways that humans, and animals, deal with conflict. The way it is taught would suggest that in ecery situation your brain analyzes what to do and chooses either to “fight” or “flee.” On its premise this idea is silly. Most people encounter thousands of problems everyday and there is not a choice being made for every problem as it comes up. You are born with a strog tendency to either fight, or flee. While the people who flee may survive, they rarely win anything, because if you don’t even try to win a fight, you will not win. Those who are presidposed to fight are always the winners (unless they die). While dying is quite serious that has nothing to do with the fact that all of those at the top are “fighters.” What do I mean by “the top?” Im referrig to the leaders of countries and those in charge of major companies. In essence, anyone who had to confront other strong-willed people and step on them to reach where they are.

If you havent picked up on it yet, let me articulate my point. All people try to look out for their own self interest. Try to survive, at the most basic level, to stay alive. Those who “flee” are those who are more inclined to shy away from conflict and look for peaceful solutions to problems. They do this because they believe that peace is the most effective and the best way to survive. Those who “fight” are those who are inclined to use force in a conflict and to confront their opponent. This is why the fighters are at the top, because they are willing to do things that are not peaceful and are not ethical in order to get to the top. Those who flee cannot usually make it to the top. For this reasons we have a world that is controlled by people whose first instinct is to fight and who, to be quite honest don’t believe in, nor desire peace. The reason that we are put off by this, is that, it would seem most of us are more interested in peace and are not “fighters.” This means that the majority of the world population desires peace but it can never be achieved.

The picture says it all.

A VW Bug slides underneath a Honda CRV… Not bad. I must say, I am quite impressed. Not only did the bug have to crash into the CRV but it had to continue to ram it into sidewalk until the hood of the Honda scraped the sidewalk.

Each week our history teacher asks us to come write a blog, usually a short paragraph, on an issue relevant to what we are learning in class. He gives us a specific question to answer, and grades us on a /10 basis.

The Tribe has always been an important concept in Arabian and Islamic history, creating divisions among its dwellers and followers. How has this caused problems in the history of Islam?

The question, as posed, would suggest that the issue of tribal difference is somehow a Muslim, or Arabian problem. This is just false. While Arabia did have tribes, tribal conflict had been, and continues to be, a problem all over. From the Africans to the Asians tribal warfare and conflict were very prevalent. The fact that some say Mohamed never had a miracle and thus was not a prophet is a reasonable statement. However, what he could do, was resolve tribal conflicts, which was close to miraculous in ancient Arabia. Just as Ghengis Kahn rose to power uniting tribes of the Steppe, Mohamed united tribes of the Middle East. Unfortunately, that could not last. Tribes are formed for a reason. Protection, power, greed etc… So as soon as the great uniter died, Islam quickly split back into a divided group. With some believing the Islam was passed to Mohammed’s family, and some believing it was passed to the elders closest to Mohamed. Not only did this lead to individual tribes siding with either the Sunnis or the Shi’ites but they united under these new groups to fight with the other. This led to tribal wars on a tribal level as well as tribal warfare on a larger, spiritual level.

The question might also suggest that this problem is in the past. Instead, the problem is still playing out in places like Iraq. Much unbeknownst to a certain Presidential candidate, the two sects of Islam are still duking it out in Iraq. Saddam Hussein took the Sunni minority and put them in powerful positions in his government. He did this to play off of the tribal mentality and rivalries of the two sects (the minority would not want to fall out of power since they were used to being oppressed by the majority). Now that the government has fallen and Democracy is (feebly attempting to) coming out the two sects are again fighting. We have seen this on large levels and small scale levels throughout the history of the middle east and it is one of the many reasons that peace in the middle east (and in Islam) is only a far-fetched dream.

The Wall Street Journal has started advertising on Muni busses and in the underground stations such as Powell station in downtown San Francisco. While nearly all the ads seem reasonable enough, there is this one that you see above. While it would not be imidiately suspect in any other major US city (with the exception of maybe Houston) in San Francisco it seems like a shallow stab at our failing paper. I cannot though, truely say, that our Chroncile does not deserve it. The newsroom has been shrinking at the paper and the news is increasingly coming from via the New York Times, AP, and yes, even the Wall Street Journal’s wire services.

The San Francisco Chronicle is dying. It has a terminal illness and as I watch it fail I cannot help but to feel sick. Out of all the intelligent people in the world, can nobody find a way to save the newspaper industry? Out of all the intelligent people in San Francisco can nobody find a way to save The Chronicle?

As The New York Times pointed out in an insightful article recently, The Chronicle’s location is already a problem. San Francisco’s isolated position in the Bay Area has made it a difficult place for a newspaper to thrive. While a well-educated and intellectual city, which one might think would make ideal conditions for a newspaper. Apparently in part the less obvious have led to the demise of the paper. San Francisco does not have a ring of suburbs and this isolation is leading to its demise which is a depressing occurrence indeed.

When the printing press was invented in the 1300′s it opened the floodgates for every philosopher with ideas to make them public. This led the way to spreading news and from there the Renaissance took off and enlightenment took hold of Europe paving the way for the modern world. What we see now with the fall of newspapers as we know them is not an advancement, it is quite the opposite actually. Before the printing press the church and locals with good rhetoric were the only ones who could pass along news. So in essence there was a monopoly on any form of reliable news (held by the church) and the only other news was passed along quite unreliably by a peasant who would tell the news orally. Now we have this happening again. Blogs, are in no way shape or form a reliable source of news and they should not be treated as such. Once the paper falls we will have two on line sources. The strongest newspapers (who at that point will probably have most mainstream stories fed to them by wire services) and independent, non-verified, unreliable blogs. Once again there will be a monopoly on the news held by the powerful and the utterly clueless powerless. Newspapers created reliable diversity. A group of dedicated people could start a newspaper and create a reliable source of news that also dealt with issues important to them. It would be a cohesive collection of their ideas (as well as, one would hope, some news) and it would be treated as such. Unlike blogs which provide only insight on reported news and entertainment. This is the greatest tragedy in the loss of the newspaper. 

This is why we must mourn the loss of great papers such as the Seattle P-I and the Rocky Mountain News.

         If this issue of losing your newspaper seems foreign or you cannot seem to find any emotional connection to your hometown newspaper, just watch the video on the homepage of what was The Rocky Mountain News’ website.

^ Max, and security guard escorting us out of the ground level convention floor, still under construction.

There really isn’t all that much to do downtown on a Sunday night, at least not for 14 year olds. Maybe not for adults either, but I speak only of what I know. So me and my friend Max, get downtown around 6.30, try to chase down two other friends only to see them pull away on the ferry to Marin, try to get our friend to come from North Beach to no avail and finally give up on getting people to come. So we walk from the Ferry Building back to Westfield via Union Square, look into the dark stores with merchandise going for $20,000 + and settle down in the chairs under the dome in the Westfield mall. Again we get restless and go up the Century theatres, marvel at the lack of decent movies. Get some food, pretzels and a hot dog. Talk about drugs for a bit, field phone calls from the rents asking what were doing and we decide to go to Moscone Center.

 
We make our way into Moscone Center South, and wander around the entry floor for a bit until a nice woman tells us we have to register. Not wanting to do so, we go to one of the game kiosks for Xbox and try to play before a not-so-nice security guard comes over and orders us to leave. We go outside slightly defeated and aware of the fact that we have to be home soon, but get inspired once again when we see the pack of GDC soon to be volunteers making their way into Moscone South. So once again we tag along with them, this time getting inside of the building, up the escalators, along one of the huge, football field sized hallways before we decide this is really boring and none of the booths are set up and decide to check out the storage room.

So we go into the storage room where they have thousands of tables and chairs and table clothes etc…We scurry to the elevator at the sound of a janitor, but then reconsider and go look around a little more. Then, once were spotted by another group of volunteers, we think it advisible to get out. So we take the freight/passenger elevator to “G*” assuming this means ground, especially with the big EXIT sign over the elevator. Instead we find ourselves in another storage room, since it has the same things as the level above and we have the eyes of a security guard on us we make our way onto what will be one of the main floors of the convention, though most of the booths are not yet constructed and there are boxes of unopened whatever lying around. With the security guards eyes half-watching us we mumble and make an honest effort to find the exit and then, as a second guard comes over, we beat them to it and walk toward them. We ask how to get out, and tell them we went to the ground floor from those elevators. They ask if we want to get out of the building (suggesting we actually could have stayed) and we say yes and the second guard asks the first to escort these “Fine young gentlemen” out. No badges, no yellow shirts, no appearing as though we were over 18, no nothing and yet they treated us as if we belonged there.

         A few things I thought were odd about the convetion (of the few things actually set up) were the signs plastered all over the place advertising the GDC in Texas and Canada and Europe and all these other wonderful places. If you make your way out to San Francisco for the week to see this convention they should focus on putting on a great show for you, not advertising the other places you could have gone. Anyway, I’m not a game writer so if you wanna see some acutal writing from someone attending the convention, here’s a few links to my friend and great game writer Jose Otero’s blogs.

8-bit Journo

JoseOtero.Blogspot.com

“Israelis awoke Wednesday to find that their parliamentary elections had yielded not a new government but political gridlock instead, along with the prospect of weeks of wrangling and deal making before the country’s direction becomes clear.

Israel needs to look outside the Middle East when dealing with Hamas. They are increasingly showing that they are unswayed by the opinions of outsiders and while this may have it’s positive aspects, the more they lose the respect of the world, the hard their job becomes.

The anti-Israeli, and often anti-Semitic attitudes toward the Jewish state have always been there but they are gaining traction. Why? While Israel has executed it’s dealings with Hamas in Gaza in a way that it sees fit, the rest of the world is not so pleased. All of the sudden, the Israelites are Goliath and the Palestinians are David. It seems that much of the world sees Israel as the oppressor and the terrorists as the innocent victims.

To compound the issue we have a most likely racist leading the government in Bibi, who has zero interest in peace with the Palestinians. Because, such a peace, would put the man out of a job.

[photo:Rina Castelnuovo for The New York Times]

[quote:By ETHAN BRONNER and ISABEL KERSHNER for the New York Times]

Stress…

            Humans, at the same time, detest, and have an emotional attachment to stress. Stress is always present for humans. After all, you cannot be happy without previously, and persistently, experiencing unhappiness. In fact, stress, can be caused be the absence of what we normally think of, as stress…

“A loan shark dies, he has spent his life ruining the lives of others, he fully expects to burn in hell. Instead, he wakes up in five-star casino hotel. A beautiful woman lies in bed next to him. He goes to the closet and finds designer suits and stacks of hundred dollar bills. He gets dressed and heads downstairs. He’s greeted warmly by the hotel staff and as he makes his way to the casino floor a waitress brings him drinks, “On the house.” He sits down at the blackjack table. Wins every time, he’s thrilled and he starts to attract a crowd of followers as he moves onto poker, roulette etc… He hasn’t lost at anything so far. He has beautiful women all over him and everyone wants to be his friend. He plays the slots, jackpot, jackpot, jackpot. After a full day of gambling, winning, beautiful women, friendly people, he heads back up to his suite. As he lays back in his bed and room service brings up an amazing gourmet meal for dinner he is amazed at his good fortune. Maybe God confused him with someone else. But he sure wasn’t complaining, heaven was great!

The next day goes exactly as the first, a great breakfast in bed. Can’t lose at the casino, the women love him… He’s thinks to himself ‘this is the life.’ The weeks go on, and nothing changes, he’s still wins, he still gets the women, everyone still thinks he’s amazing, and quite frankly, he’s bored.

The man talks to God that night, and tells him. He appreciates what God did for him, but he really doesn’t deserve it and thinks it’s time he gets what he deserves. Will god please send him to hell now. God, informs him that in fact, he is in hell.”

            Basically, what this means, is stress does not come from any given thing. Stress is the counter or balance to whatever you strive for. So while in the story the man had what most of us desire: money, good fortune etc… he wasn’t happy.

            Happiness, is the defeat of stress. Getting an iPod, for example, could make you happy. Why would it make you happy? Because you wanted an iPod (the stress) and then you got an iPod (the defeat of stress). This is why, single mothers living on the verge of homelessness can be as stressed as a  multi-millionaire. For one, it might be that they’re wondering how they can pay the rent this month, for the other, it might be getting their kid into an elite university. The worst-case-scenario for the single mother is much worse than for the millionaire but none the less, they are both very stressed. This is because, as I said, stress is not a specific thing. What this means is that humans adapt to the situation they are in. There is no switch in your brain that says, once you reach a comfortable financial and emotional status that you are happy and stress free. Stress adapts to whatever situation you are in. The easiest way to explain this is with what I call the stress scale.

            Imagine stress being ranked on a scale of one to ten. One, is not stressed at all, and ten, is depression. If the impoverished single-mother, is stressed at a level of seven and the millionaire is stressed at a level of seven they are both stressed equally. It doesn’t matter that one is stressed over paying the bills, and the other, over a lost cat. They are both stressed. This is what makes stress so powerful. It is one of the truly inescapable mental forces we face.

My title

“Hey, were you calling me?” I asked.

“Yeah, haha, but here you are. Wait, don’t move.” They ducked back behind the wall, I kept walking. “Boo!” they shouted. I sort of half looked at them and laughed.

“Aw man, we were going to scare you.” Maggie said.

“So where are we going now?” I asked. They didn’t respond and just kept walking up Castro St. past the theatre and as we started up the hill. Madi said, “we found this really cool chair on the way down so were gonna bring it up the hill and me and Maggie are gonna take turns at taking it home-”

“I wanted to bring it down with me but Madi said that we should just like leave it,” Maggie interrupted.

“Yea cause someone could take-” I said.

“Yea, that someone could take it, but no one would,” Madi said. As we passed The Posh Bagel the smell of bagels suddenly filled the air but as we got closer to the entrance the smell went away. I found it kind of odd that it was so fragrant by the window but that at the door it didn’t smell at all. “So you guys get to take the chair, but I couldn’t bring the exercise chair up?” I laughed remembering the last time I went to Noe Valley to meet up with them and tried to drag up an old rusty exercise bike. “Yea and then you just left it in the middle of the sidewalk,” Madi said.

“Oh my god, I love exercise chair things.” Maggie said.

“It didn’t even have a seat, or pedals, or a chain, you couldn’t even use it,” Madi said, feigning annoyance.

“Yea, but it was still cool,” I laughed. We went on for a while,

making idle chit-chat about cellular phones, school, food, candy,

specifically Butterfingers which Maggie had about 20 of stuffed into

her jacket pockets. After a while, we came to the chair that Madi and Maggie were so excited about. It was a wicker

chair with a circular satellite-like part that rested in the cylindrical base. It looked like it would be comfortable if it had some

basic padding like a pillow. Then again, that would probably be drenched in cat piss or worse. We debated a little on who would carry which part. I wanted to carry the part that looked like a satellite, but I gave in and let Madi carry it. I’m not sure why I would even want to carry any part of the chair, I guess it seemed fun in the moment. As we kept walking, I wasn’t carrying anything. Maggie had the base and Madi the satellite part. Maggie apparently didn’t want to carry the base any longer and attempted, quite in vain, to get me to carry it.

“You know at school they said boys have one more muscle in their arms than girls, so will you carry it?” I laughed but didn’t take the base. The next block was more hill and it was not exactly a pleasant walk up the steep hill in the baking heat, but it was only one more block, or two, or something, it could be worse. I could still be at home sitting on my couch watching TV. Wait that would actually be pretty good. Then again I enjoyed the company and

believed that the feeling was mutual so all things considered I

was happy to be there. We continued up the hill. I walked along the

curb next to the cars and as we walked past a driveway I found a cone. I wanted to do something interesting with it but after carrying it several yards I got bored and put it as close behind this white Camry as I could. I knew it would achieve little seeing as it could easily be moved by the driver. I mentioned my thoughts about this out loud and Madi felt inclined to put in her two cents.

“Well,” she said. “If the driver was a blind, really short person

than he wouldn’t notice and might hit it, so that’s mean.”

“Yea, I guess so. But if you’re blind and really short you probably shouldn’t be driving,” I argued.

“That’s why they have someone drive for them,” Madi said.

“Then that person would move it,” said Maggie, finally putting an end to the quite pointless argument. I laughed at the absurdity of it all.

We reached the last block of the hill and as I walked past a tree I

found the exact same exercise bike moved only slightly from where I had left it in the middle of the sidewalk last Wednesday.

“Okay, this time I’m taking it,” I said.

“Nooo, where are you going to put it,” protested Madi. I ignored this and went to pick it up.

“Here, I’ll help you.” Maggie ran over and picked up the front of the bike. She balanced her part of the chair on the pole of the bike that once held a seat. I picked up the back and we started up the hill with Madi in tail, struggling with the large chair. Maggie and I started getting farther away from Madi quite by accident. Maggie, who was facing up hill, was not able to see Madi and took this opportunity to announce to both Madi, and me something of some supposed importance. She started with, “You guys, I have something really important to tell you.”

“Um, Maggie,” I said. I pointing back to Madi.

“Oh,” said Maggie and she waited for Madi to catch up, which she took her time doing. Finally once she had caught up we were done with the hill and turned the corner from Castro onto Hill St. “Okay, so I’ve found the love of my life.” Maggie said. Madi and I laughed, “He’s really cool and I’m going to marrying him.” From as far as I could tell she wasn’t serious but it was still kind of weird. “Um, but you guys I’ve only met him once and so I’m wondering if that’s like kind of weird.”

“YES!” I said, “That’s really weird.”

“Well, it depends.” Madi said in defense of her friend.

“Where’d you meet him?” I said.

“At the JCC dance, he goes to SF Day School.”

“Okay, wait, what’s his name.” I thought of Frank, or Franklin or

whatever people were calling him, who it seemed all the girls were in love with.

“Brandon” Maggie said.

“Oh, wait, are SF School and SF Day school -” I started to ask.

“No, they’re different.” Maggie said quickly.

“Oh, whatever, not a very creative name anyway,” I said.

“Yea, kind of lame,” Madi agreed. We now started up another block of hill and the last block till we came to her house. I wasn’t really sure where we were going. I figured just down to 24th Street. As we reached Madi’s house the hill leveled out. Madi’s dad met us at the door. It was a bit awkward, I hadn’t met him before and now I showed up at his door with his daughter and her friend and a rusty exercise bike, so much for first impressions. I stayed back and to the side, so that I was almost outside of his sightline. He said something about not bringing the rusty bike in and Madi assured him that the thought hadn’t even crossed her mind. In that happy-go-lucky tone that I’m sure would drive any adult insane but I thought was one of her better characteristics.

She quickly disposed of her father and we were just chatting outside her house now. Maggie made an attempt to ride the old bike that was now sitting in front of the house. This didn’t quite work, seeing as there was no seat and she soon gave it up. I tried it for a minute and it didn’t work. Again, because of the lack of a seat, I tried to find a solution and my eye caught a couple of pumpkins next to the door. I picked up a big one with a small stem, both girls looked at me and half laughed, half rolled their eyes. “I really doubt that will work,” said Madi.

“Yeah, really. Do you honestly think that will work?” Maggie asked.

“Of course it will, why wouldn’t it?” I grinned a little as I lifted

the pumpkin and turned it over trying to fit the stem into the hole where the seat would normally go. Surprise, surprise, it didn’t fit. I put the pumpkin back, to laughter and “Told you so” from Madi and Maggie. I ignored them and went to sit in the big chair that was also set up on the sidewalk. I had on a jacket but as I sat down it was

quite uncomfortable. I turned over on it, “Oww! I think I got poked by a nail.”

“Yeah… Let’s go get some pillows,” Maggie said and the two of them disappeared inside. I stood up and walked towards the door, looked inside. Walked back away, stood around for a minute. Then they came back down with three pillows and Maggie tossed them in the chair. I almost leapt into the chair, smack in the middle pretending that I had no intentions to share the chair. Maggie pleaded with fake puppy eyes, which actually worked for her. She had very large brown eyes and it was actually quite adorable. I laughed but didn’t move. She sat anyway, half on my thigh, half on the edge of the chair, no part on the pillows. She pushed a little and I scooted over. While I didn’t truly mind her sitting on me it wasn’t exactly comfortable. I made sure though, that when I moved I kept possession of two of the pillows, one for my head and one to sit on. Madi now jumped onto the chair, mainly on Maggie which Maggie didn’t seem to mind in the least. She attempted to take the pillow from my head. I kept her from taking it but in the process lost my phone. I’m not quite sure how, I guess it fell out of into the chair and she got it. So I was now in a quite odd position; just an hour earlier I was sitting in a classroom listening to a boring math lesson and I was now in an abandoned chair, on the sidewalk, in front of a girl’s house whom I had hung out with maybe four or five times previously. On top of that, my phone was being held hostage for a

pillow. I was not about to give up the pillow. “Go ahead, I don’t care what you do on my phone,” I told Madi, which was absolutely true. Though I didn’t truly want Maggie and her reading my texts and calling my contacts I knew no real harm could come from it.

“Wow… You have a lot of girls in your phone.” Maggie said, laughing.

“Not really…” I didn’t “But I no a lot of girls whose names start

with A, keep looking-”

“Who’s Angie?” said Maggie.

“Oh uh, this girl that lives in Florida.”

“Okay, I’m going to call her.”

“Knock yourself out. I don’t really know her though.” Her and Madi ignored me and were already calling her. “Hello?” said Maggie, Madi and her had there heads pressed together so that they could hear.

“Maggie, It’s still ringing.” Madi laughed.

“Put it on speaker, I wanna hear.” I said.

“Okay, where is it?” Maggie asked.

“Here,” I pushed the button and gave it back to her. On the phone, someone was saying “Hello… Hello…”

“Hello!?” Maggie said in what could only be described as an exited screech.

“Who is this?” Angie said on the phone.

“Um… This is Jake’s girlfriend and I just wanted to tell you to back off.” Maggie said, in her most preppy voice. I rolled my eyes and mouthed “Maggieeee” to her. I didn’t really care though it was kind of entertaining, actually it was very entertaining. After a confused “Huh?? I don’t like Jake like that.” From Angie, Maggie hung up.

“Thanks a lot Maggie…” More laughter from Madi and Maggie.

“So can I have that pillow now?” Madi said.

“Uh no…” I said, not planning on giving in anytime soon. More phone calls to more random people on my phone, more fake protesting from me and an hour later little had changed. I still had two pillows, Maggie was now slightly more squished by Madi because Madi had her legs rested on Maggie’s lap and her feet were on my knees. Several comments had been made about how it would be awkward if anyone walked or drove by. But, as I pointed out, compared to a lot of things that went on between teenagers on city streets this wasn’t much. A few people had passed but it was a road not heavily trafficked so only one person had actually walked (jogged actually) passed us on our side of the street the entire time.

“Let’s go to 24th street.” I suggested.

“Okay, yeah.” Madi agreed.

“Um yeah, I can’t really get up…” Maggie said. Madi moved her legs and allowed Maggie to get up. I got up too and we tossed the pillows inside her house and made our way down the hill into Noe Valley. “I have a thing I have to go to at like, six.” I said, I didn’t really want to go. I was having a good time but I couldn’t miss the class. We headed down to 24th street running down the hills like little kids, I let my jacket fly out behind me like I was flying. Maggie and Madi broke out laughing, more at me, than with me I think.

We finally made it down to 24th street. It was pretty dark but the sidewalk was still well trafficked. We passed some an elderly couple passionately arguing in a foreign language. We choked back a laugh as we headed past them and into the CALA BELL parking lot. “Why are we going in here?” asked Maggie and coughed a little.

“Are you sick Maggie? Anyway, because I need food, I’m hungry and I would wait to get it but I don’t have money. You guys do.” I grinned, I had probably mooched at least twenty dollars off of Madi, who seemed to be the one who had the money most of the time, in the few times I had hung out with them. I always had the full intention of paying it back, I just never had any cash one me. If they were ever to come to my house I would happily pay them back.

“Uh yeah, a little, I only have five bucks on me.” Maggie said.

“I have like fifteen, just pay me back.” Madi said.

“Maybe…” I laughed. “I wasn’t thinking I would be the only one eating, aren’t you guys hungry?”

“Good point.” Maggie said “Haha, I’m actually really hungry.”

“I’m not.” said Madi “But whatever, I’ll still eat.”

“Really? How can you not be hungry?” Maggie asked. It was at times like this I felt that I was really not there. They had been best-friends since they were infants, so I suppose it wasn’t really all that shocking that they were often quite self-absorbed but I wasn’t planning on being excluded.

“I don’t know, I guess I’m a little hungry but I was just going to eat at your house later, am I still sleeping over?”

“I don’t think you can actually, sorry.”

“Anyhow.” I interjected “Are we looking for something specific or should we just wander aimlessly through the super-market?”

“Hmm, aimlessly seems to work just fine for me, how about you Maggie.” Madi said.

“Yup, sounds good to me too.”

“Guys, I was being sarcastic. I have to be somewhere soonish so just grab some stuff and I’ll get some stuff and we’ll meet up in a few minutes.”

“Okay, c’mon Madi.” They wandered off into the freezer aisle and I looked into the ice cream case and took out a big thing of Cherry Garcia. Then I went to the checkout stand nearest to the aisle and looked a the magazine rack. COSMOPOLITAN: 10 secrets to deep… I thought that from the cover alone it looked worse than Maxim. I took the magazine and ice cream and decided I might as well catch up with them. I walked back down the freezer aisle and flipped through the magazine as I went, I found a nice laundre’e spread in the first couple pages, I laughed. Ugly models advertising underwear always amused me. Then again, she didn’t seem that ugly, she just had ridiculous white makeup on and bright red lipstick.

I ran and caught up with the girls, they hadn’t made it ten feet from where I left them I thought. They were carrying on about something or other, boys I thought, but couldn’t be sure.

“He was like, well he said he didn’t really like her but I don’t think he was telling the truth…” Maggie said and coughed a little again. They both laughed when they saw me looking at them with a blank stare.

“Haha, hey, what did you get?” Madi asked.

“Just some ice cream and this weird magazine, girl magazines can be very pervy.”

“Well yeah, there just about sex.” Maggie said and laughed, she also made a little choking sound.

“Whoa, Maggie, did you just put on like, lip gloss or lipstick or something, you lips are hecka red.” I said looking at her lips, it looked like she poorly applied bright red lipstick to her bottom lip. That was weird, she didn’t even have a purse. I guess girls just carry make up in there pockets.

“Uh no,” Maggie coughed again, louder this time “What are you talking about?”

“Madi look.” I said, Madi looked.

“Oh my god, he’s right. I think that’s blood, did you like bit your lip or something.” Madi asked.

“Uh no, I don’t think so…” Maggie said, and she pulled her bottom lip down. “Is it bleeding?”

“Whoa, yeah. A lot, I don’t think that’s good.” Madi said, quite concerned about her friend. Madi was right, it wasn’t good, the inside of Maggie’s mouth was bloody, a light coat of crimson blood covered her toung and was slowly dripping onto her lip. I was surprised she hadn’t noticed on her own.

“Let’s go to the deli, they should have napkins or something there. I don’t think you should be bleeding out of you mouth. Are you sure you didn’t bite yourself.” I asked, growing worried.

“Yes, I’m sure.” Maggie said and coughed a ferocious cough, she was coughing out blood. “Ahh, uhh.” She kept spitting it out.

“SHIT!” I yelled “Call 911!” I yelled toward Madi. Maggie had fallen against a freezer case and collapsed onto the ground. Madi was fumbling with her phone. A woman with a cart full of groceries in the aisle stopped and looked at Maggie “Oh my god.” The woman said, putting her hand to her mouth.

“My phone’s dead!” Madi said desperately.

“Fuck…”

“Is she going to die.” Madi asked, I didn’t know what to say. I was wondering the same thing.

“I don’t know. I mean-” I thought that was not the best thing to say but I didn’t know what to say. Or what to do. I stood looking at Maggie on the ground, along with several other people who were gathered around, all frantically calling 911. Madi was now bent over next to Maggie. I got on the ground and lifted up Maggie’s head. I didn’t know if that was good or bad to do. All I knew was that what was happening was not good. Madi was sobbing and holding Maggie’s hand. Maggie was breathing but her head felt limp in my arms. Now I was feeling light headed, Madi’s crying was now slightly more audible and there were now at least twenty people surrounding us including store employees. Someone must have called 911 by now. How long had it been, thirty-seconds? Five minutes? I didn’t know, but I knew the paramedics couldn’t be that far away. Could they? Maggie was no longer bleeding but her breathing seemed labored and her eye lids were half open. I started thinking about every time I had seen drivers ignore ambulances, I hoped that just this one time, they could pull over.

When the paramedics arrived I was in a daze, Madi was leaning on me, I was holding Maggie, who by all signs was barely hanging onto life, but what did I know. The paramedics came running down the aisle and people immediately cleared out of the way as they rolled a stretcher down the aisle and after a quick examination on the ground they loaded her onto the stretcher and quickly rolled it out of the supermarket. Both Madi and I jogged after it, but were kept at bay under the strict direction of the paramedics. We went outside following after the medical envoy and we went with them to the ambulance. One of the paramedics asked for Maggie’s name and Madi told him. They then asked for family contact info and Madi fumbled with her phone before realizing that it was still dead.

“Her mom’s number is in her phone…” Madi weakly managed. They paramedic took this information without a word of comfort or even recognition. He simply climbed inside the ambulance, closed the doors and drove off. At this Madi completely broke down, crying un-controllably. I hugged her, we went over to one of the tables outside of the store and we sat there. She kept crying and I had tears in my eyes. I guess it hadn’t really set in for me yet. I was to confused by what happened. All Madi was thinking was that her best friend in the world was being rushed to the hospital because she was coughing up blood.

Half-an-hour later we were still there, Madi had almost stopped crying except for the occasional sob. I didn’t know where to go from here. I was scared and confused and so was Madi. We couldn’t keep sitting in front of the supermarket. It was now almost seven and was getting really dark. We went back to Madi’s house and explained what happened to her parents, they called Maggie’s family and we all headed to the hospital.

It was a tense environment in the St. Luke’s emergency room, it was Madi and her parents and Maggie’s parents and me. I was sitting reading Bay Area Parent, trying to forget all that had happened. I still didn’t really want to believe that anything was real. Everyone else was sitting straight up, except for Maggie’s mother who was crying quietly with her head in her hands. Madi’s father turned to me and whispered “Why don’t you put that magazine down and show some respect, if this is too boring for you you’re welcome to leave.” He said curtly.

“Sorry.” I said, apparently a little to loud because everyone looked at me. I put the magazine down. It was now quite apparent that I should not be there. I was not even that close to Maggie and apparently I wasn’t being respectful. Though the attention was immediately refocused when the doctor came out and pulled Maggie’s parents aside. I couldn’t make out what they were saying and after the doctor left Maggie’s mother started crying and hugged her husband. I didn’t know whether this was a good sign or not but I was reassured when they came back to the rest of us smiling.

“She’s going to be fine! Apparently something messed up a blood vessel but she’ll heal and be fine.” Maggie’s mom said smiling. Everyone took a deep breath, including me. “They said she’s sleeping right now so they don’t want to many visitors. Tomorrow you can see her though. We’re going to visit her now. I really appreciate you all coming though.”

“Of course, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow. Have a good night.” Madi’s mother said. With that, Madi and her parents left. I followed them outside where my mom was waiting in the car.

Farafangana

It was a typical day in New York for Tommy, a mercenary cat assassinating rats in an alley. But for Zing-Guachicomat or Zing, a lemur mercenary in Farafangana, Madagascar it would be a good day, meaning a new job, the biggest most important job of his career.

Times were changing, the oceans were rising and Madagascar was quickly shrinking. With the rising waters came the introduction of penguins to Madagascar. They migrated to Africa, mainly though Madagascar from the South Pole. The South Pole having melted completely, left these penguins homeless. Madagascar made them a very tempting offer. “You can stay in the freezers in the back of the Wal-Mart Supercenters. All you have to do is serve as our sole form of law enforcement.” The penguins loved the offer and immediately accepted.

Not all were happy about this.The Tasmanian devils and flying squirrels who had previously joined together in protecting the streets of Madagascar were extremely angry. Also angry were the awesome possums, natives of Madagascar who used to chill in the Wal-Mart freezers. They had been kicked out and from that day forward they vowed revenge against Madagascar’s Secretary of State and the penguins. Together the awesome possums, Tasmanian devils, and flying squirrels were very, very powerful.

“Order in my court,” yelled the head awesome possum.
“Court? this aint no court.” replied a quite jumpy nervous wreck of a flying squirrel.
“Or is it, is this one of them, them, STING operations? I’ve seen those on Cops, oh god, oh lordy I knew I should have stayed home today, I have children!”
“This isn’t a court, it’s a figure of speech, it just means be quiet.”
“Oh, ok…”
“Well as I was saying, before the interruption, welcome to the first meeting of the Farafangana chapter of the Madagascar Penguin Resistance movement. As our first order of business we need a motto.”
“Viva, la resistance!” yelled the same jumpy squirrel.
“Classic, simple and straight forward, I love it,” said the head possum.
“I knew you would ,” said the squirrel, batting his eye lashes at the male opossum, who was directing the meeting from the front of the room.
“Uh, ok, then we have a motto,” said the opossum in response. “Now we kill all the penguins!”
“You and what army?” Shouted a pessimistic Tasmanian devil.
“Me, you, everyone in this room and the army of lemur mercenaries I hired.”
Just then the door to the warehouse in which the group was meeting swung open and there standing in the doorway was Zing the lemur. Slung over his shoulder was a bloody
bullet-ridden penguin corpse. He carried an uzi-sub machine gun in one hand and the other contained a Havana cigar, the smoke trailing off the end. “One penguin down.” He said between puffs on the cigar. “Too many freaking more to go.” Cheers came from the crowd of several hundred gathered inside the warehouse. A whole line of lemurs filed into the warehouse each of them carrying a corpse of a dead bloodied penguin over their shoulder. The crowd fell silent in awe, the lemars dumped the penguins to the ground. “Dirty creatures, I wouldn’t mind never going near one again.” Said Zing, “But we have an agreement, speaking of which can we… you know, get going.”
“Of course of course.” said the head possum. He opened a silver titanium briefcase, handcuffed to his paw.
“Beautiful,” said the lemur in pure amazement. Inside that suitcase was one, single banana.
The bloodshed that followed was the worst Madagascar had ever seen. Thousands upon thousands of penguins were brutally slaughtered. Dozens of Wal-Marts burned to the ground, killing all who were inside, penguins and shoppers alike. The lemurs knew no mercy, killing penguin infants and children as well as any bystander unlucky enough to be in the lemurs path. Why was this banana so important to Zing and the lemurs, a species not even especially known for its love of bananas? Because as Madagascar slowly went under water, the people were building into the jungle. The lemur’s food supply was diminishing and this banana was the never ending banana. You could take a bite and the banana would immediately grow back, so no matter how much you ate there was always more, insuring the survival of the lemur.

Tripping… I’m not sure if thats the right term for this or not but basically I’ve been going slightly insane lately. I’m not sure why. About two and a half/three weeks ago I was at my friends party and a bunch of people were playing Halo. I was just watching because I was too tired to play but I didn’t want to go to sleep. It was about one in the morning. I remember watching someone pick up a maching gun turret and start running with it and shooting. I then remember feeling detached and out of it and thinking “Whoa, that would be so cool if you could like pick the turret up and run with it.” I then snapped back into it and was like “Oh, you can.” This kept happening that night and I wrote it off as being tired and thinking it wouldn’t happen again. But it keeps happening! It’s as if my brain thinks that my imagination is being played out in front of me. I’ll kick a ball and it will go the wrong way and I’ll think that if would be crazy if the ball went the wrong way and hit that tree. Except, the ball did go the wrong way and hit that tree. I’m imagining that I’m imagining something and it’s very disturbing. It’s not exactly affecting my funtionality, at least not noticibaly but I’m freaking out.