Annoyances

What Is Wrong With Me?

People do make stupid mistakes. That doesn’t mean they aren’t stupid. It means that they either don’t pay attention before they perform the mistake, or ignore the after-effects. I chose the former, by deleting my Technorati claim on Educated.

I thought I was deleting the claim on (one of) my other, totally untouched blogs. But at this point I’d like to thank Technorati for not providing those WordPress-like confirmations that are shown in another page (they use simpler JavaScript popups, which I’ve seen so many of that I could click OK to one thousand of them while in a coma). By the time the claim deleted screen came around, it was too late to realize that I had deleted the actual Educated claim.

The only positive note here is that it doesn’t take too long to get everything (except the blog description) back in order. Just make sure you put in the exact URL to the blog as you had before, or else Technorati will treat the blog as a totally new one.

Remember this, and you’ll save your bottom dozens of times: Look before you click.

Need For Feeds – Web Style

A while ago I got into the habit of reading posts from several blogs (like Lorelle on WordPress and Dave Seah blog) in an attempt to do these things:

1. Learn new things.
2. Waste time.

Now the only way reading people’s feeds can help me accomplish those goals is if they actually make posts on their blogs for me to read. Today, I looked at the ever-so-convenient Feeds menu in Opera, and saw not a single feed with new posts. I immediately thought to myself, “I am so bored, I need something to do.”

A minute later Opera refreshed the feeds, bringing in my daily dose of reading. What a relief that was!

A Rescued Procrastinator

Anybody who knows me pretty well knows that I don’t exactly run on a schedule. I often don’t finish doing homework until minutes before it’s due, and get into conflicts with my dad (or used to at least) about getting into the shower on time. It seems that I keep on waking up later and later every week. How am I going to survive if I keep putting everything off?

I’ve tried several methods for keeping myself organized and on track. I began with Devin’s weekly scheduler, in hopes of being able to remember to do everything that I plot out on it. After that failed, I set up my own spreadsheet, with three periods for each day (morning, school, and evening; on Saturday, school is replaced with daytime). This was extremely poor, receiving just one or two entries. I knew that I was seriously failing to keep myself heading straight.

Then came David Seah. His Printable CEO™ series looked like a viable solution. I browsed around his site for a while, looking at his forms and other articles (I have to say, he’s a beautiful writer). Last week, I took a deep look at his Task Progress Tracker Form. It’s mainly built for designers and other freelancers who work on individual projects, but I found that by filling in the project name box with “my Life / School”, I can use it for my own purposes.

A day later, I put it to the test. After getting hold of my most recent report card, my dad told me that I am going to be putting in at least an hour of effort toward my studies every night (yeah right). I happened to have some social studies homework due the next day, so I sat down with the textbook, papers and the form Approximately every fifteen minutes (as prescribed by the form), I filled in another bubble indicating that amount of time was spent on the particular task.

I’m still slacking off a bit now, but I feel like things are rolling now. I think this plan will need a week or two to settle in, at which point I will report back. Maybe i should try some of the other PCEO forms.

Today’s Memory Cards: Too Darn Small (Literally)

Today I was doing a bunch of things with my brand-new SD card (which I use pretty much for my camera), namely transferring pictures to my computer and printing a photo.Stupidly, after I got all this done, I didn’t manage to get the card back in the camera’s slot, and now the card has gone AWOL (in other words, missing). Sure these cards may be able to fit into the smallest of electronic devices, but keeping track of them can be a chore.

One Regents Down, Three More To Go

On this snowy Thursday was the January Math A Regents exam. Because of the bad scheduling of the BJE (Board of Jewish Education), we were stuck going in to school in the very middle of our vacation, messing up vacation plans for some of us. But let’s focus on the Regents I took today.

Going in to the exam room, I was not nervous, but I wasn’t feeling too confident. I kept on thinking to myself that I’m basically screwed. I don’t know whether it was my fault (for not studying) or the Board of Regents’ fault (for making a hard test), but the test was difficult indeed. There were questions on some topics that weren’t asked before, and they omitted certain topics that they usually include. What killed me most was the trig question in Part IV, even after attempting to use the phrase “SohCohToa” (which is highly regarded as the key to success in trig).

In the end, I did get a decent score of 86 (including a slight curve that is likely to be added to soon), which was derived from my raw score of 63. I’m not depressed that I got that grade, and I line up somewhere in the middle of my class’s range (minimum was 83 and maximum was 97 I think).

So now I have three more Regents to take, namely the Hebrew, Chemistry and Global History exams. My mom just got me the book called High Marks: Regents Chemistry Made Easy which is one of the best books available for the purpose. We are also looking for a suitable review book for the Hebrew Regents (if you know about one, please leave a comment below). Hopefully I’ll do very well on these tests.

And to continue the Bus Week spirit (read about Day One and Day Two), I took the Q46 home from school today. I got Queens Village Depot’s RTS #8999 and took it from Lake success (all the way at the very first stop) to my stop. I have recorded the segment of the trip from Little Neck Parkway to near the Grand Central Parkway.

Bus Week 2007 – Day 1

What an exciting day! Today was my first ever “Bus Day”. It probably differs from other people’s ideas of what a bus day is, since I went out for recordings of buses, not pictures. And unfortunately, I came back slightly disappointed, but I’m happy I came back with at least something.

To begin, I took the Q46 to Queens Blvd. (as I do when I go anywhere), which conveniently was a hybrid (a 2004 one I think). This ride went relatively smoothly, as my recordings point out.

I then hopped on the Q10 for the first time in almost a year and a half. The last time I took the Q10 was in elementary school. Ever since graduating, I have had a private bus company or van company take me to school. Anyway, I am noticing that the MTA Bus is using their hybrids wisely, since some of JFK Depot’s routes are of the constant stopping-and-going variety. That is what hybrid buses (especially those with series hybrid propulsion systems) are basically designed to take advantage of, which is good for transit agencies, but bad for those who like to record buses (like me, hehe).

The new (as in 2006-2007 build year) HEVs are slightly different in the inside. The floors now resemble those of the older RTSs and Orion Vs in that they are grooved in the aisles and have the marble look the other buses have. Also, there are now entirely forward facing seats behind the back door (not counting the far-rear row), instead of having two forward-facing rows. This would make it a bit easier to move around on a crowded bus, but there are also two fewer seats and I think that there are fewer poles for holding on to.

I took the Q10 back to Queens Blvd., where I got an old ex-Jamaica Bus RTS (presumably a TMC, but I don’t remember the number so I can’t look it up in the latest edition of The Roster). This bus had all of the old stickers around the back door, and surprisingly it also had touch-tapes instead of the old pull cords.

Another RTS later, I was ready to make my way into Manhattan. Got another hybrid on the Q46 to Queens Blvd. With this trip, however, I had a bit of fun in the subway. Within three minutes I had recordings of four trains, where in each recording (the latter of which you can listen to) two trains either pulled into or left the station at the same time.

Tomorrow I’m going to go out again. I might take the Q10 for a second try, if there are any buses around when I get to Kew Gardens. Otherwise it’ll be back across Queens blvd. for a shot at the Q60, which wasn’t doing too well today in terms of hybrids. In the meantime, I should probably study for the Regents exam that I am taking on Thursday.

Special thanks to BusTalk.net members whose names I don’t know for the pictures.

Midterms, Regents and Vacation

Six o’clock today marked the official end of midterms for the first semester. I took three exams within the last week: English, which was pretty easy except for the SAT-level questions on reading comprehension, Global History, which required some brain activity but wasn’t too hard, and Chemisrty, which I wouldn’t be surprised if I failed.

Right now I’m officially on vacation, but because of some bad scheduling that has been around for years, we are taking the Math A Regents exam right smack dab in the middle of the break (which is short enough already). Fortunately, I’m not that bad at math, and the exam is based on elementary material, so I should get a nice score.

I plan on holding my first ever bus day tomorrow (Tuesday), when I will ride on several routes that use MTA Bus’ new hybrids. More specifically, I will attempt to ride on the Q10 and Q60, both out of John F. Kennedy Depot (formerly Green Bus Lines, one of the private lines of NYC, until this year). Hopefully the recordings that I make of these buses will come out well.

This is one busy week for a vacation week. Bus Day 2007, second Regents exam, and more sleep. Too bad it only lasts until Sunday.

Comment Spam: More Than A Minor Annoyance

Although I do have the absolutely wonderful and I-can’t live-without-it Askimet plugin installed here, I still look through the messages it catches every few days. What’s worse than having to waste time even looking at them is trying to ignore what’s in them. Various prescription drugs (I’m keeping things G-rated over here), and links to what I will leave as explicit videos litter the Askimet Spam page litter my screen every time I look at it.

Eventually, someone is going to (or I will) say enough is enough, and just get rid of comments once and for all. We all hate weeding through spam emails (which affect a much greater majority of people than comment spam does), so why should we feel the smame about comments?