Internet!

You'll have to click it to make it bigger. It's a map of the Internet though!

Kinda makes you feel microscopic doesn't it?

I found the picture on the Internet Proper (which is what i call the searchable internet) and then i added the "You are here." It REALLY AND TOTALLY HELPS YOU FIND YOUR WAY.

Just think of the end of each line as a compy somewhere connected to the internet, All you need to do is find the right path!

Minus LIKE NONE!

This weekend was the Provincial Long Track Championship. It was FKEARNIG awesome!(good luck pronouncing fkearnig.) In the mornings they had Olympic Style, and then in the afternoon they had Mass Start. There was a slight mix up with me and not being registered for Olympic Style, but they let me skate on the second day because i DID tell them when they asked "i want to do Olympic Style." Then in Mass Start, it wasn't really "Mass Start", because all the Intermediates (people who are like done high school or 16-17) get really good as Juniors (15-16) and then they decide that staying in Manitoba, having to PAY for higher education is a stupid idea, so they go to Calgary, and train with the National team, and get free jobs and then free education (somewhat). So, I'm the only intermediate who stays behind...
Now, Paul's Guide to Speed Skating for utter morons! Hooray! and the rest of you can read it too.
Speed skates are really different from hockey skates or figure skates, because the blade is almost flat. They're "rockered", meaning the blade is curved. The radius is huge, like 24m for my skates, and the blade is only around 30 cm. If you get into really high level skating, like a national or international level, then the blades are also bent to the left, so you can go faster around the corners still.
In speed skating, there are two different "kinds" Long track, and Short track. The long track is normally outside, and sometimes inside, like in really nice ovals, and it's a 400m track. In long track, you use different skates, which have a hinged blade, so you can get a longer glide, and more extension, so you go faster and farther. They're also lower on your ankle, because you don't have as tight a corner, and don't need that much support. Instead, you can get lower, and more aerodynamic.
Short track is done inside, on a hockey rink. The track is 111m, and you use 'short track skates' You can use short track skates for long track, but you can't do the opposite... Short track is generally faster, because the corner is so much tighter, and so you can get going faster.
Olympic Style is (obviously) the style they do in the Olympics, but only for long track. In the Olympics, they do mass start in short track. Olympic style is like time trials almost, you're racing for time, not position. They skate in pairs, one in each lane. Every lap they switch lanes. Inside lane has a corner with a radius of 25m, outside 29m.
Mass Start isn't divided into lanes, you can cut in whenever it is safe to do so, which means that the people starting on the outside have a long way to go in a very short time, or they go really wide on the corner and don't get anywhere. The inside people have to go really fast also, or they get boxed in by the other skaters, and have to slow down into the corner...
Short Track is all Mass Start, except they also do Team pursuit. Team pursuit is just freaking crazy. It's a relay where each skater does two laps, then pushes the next skater, so they get a boost. If you watch it, then you have to agree that it is just frakking nuts, and also really exciting. People fall lots, because there's a lot of people in the way, and they run into each other all over the place.
That's all i can think of right now about speed skating, but seeing as how you're already on the internet, you could do more reading if you wanted to.
It was actually beautiful outside. It was minus 6, with little wind. It snowed a bit, but that wasn't really that bad. it's a massive change from this past week, which was like minus a billion, and with the wind like minus another billion and a half...
Now, on to homework and studying. Blech.
Before i go, there is one actual newsworthy thing to say. I scheduled my road test(finally)! Except now i have to reschedule it, because nobody likes me enough to take me to the driving centre.

Minus stupid.

So. Life has been especially ...alive... this past while. Speed skating 7 days a week only sounds fun on paper, or when it's not that cold. I'd settle for a steady -20 if it actually happened. But, the world doesn't work like that. Especially not when it's already -NotFun outside and windy. Like yesterday. It was apparently -35 or colder on Monday, because my coach just went home before practise started on account of the cold. I got there late though, and thought
"Pah. whatever. Being cold is for the weak."
*Five minutes later*
"Goodness Jesus. I really wish i could feel my extremities right now."
*Five MORE minutes later*
"Well, i sure wish that i had brought some extra layers. Four just doesn't seem right anymore."
*Unidentified time later*
"Well that was fun. Now let's go back in and warm up."
*Thirty seconds later*
"OH GOODNESS IT BURNS OH MY WHY DID I COME INTO THIS BURNING PRISON!"
*Ten minutes of agony later*
"THE PAIN!! AAUUUGH!My feet are on fire!"
*Three more minutes of torment later*
"Well that wasn't so bad. let's do it again!"
Then in the newspaper today, the front page had a handy diagram, illustrating exactly what i was feeling. Apparently if you're toes freeze and are all tingly, like mine frequently do/are, that means that something has actually frozen solid, and is now in sharp little ice crystals inside your foot. And then i learned about the wonders of hypothermia, like dementia and uncontrollable shivering.
The good news is that it's supposed to be really warm on the weekend, for Olympic Style and Mass Start! like REALLY warm! like above minus 10!!! Yay!!!!
I'll put an explanation of Mass Start and Olympic Style somewhere here later, but this is enough for one day. You're already on the internet, i'm sure you can find something productive to do.


Like i said. Ready Normal People??

Epic busy

So, if you're blogging, and then you press after writing the title, it posts automatically. Funny huh?
My schedule just changed, and it changed startlingly perfectly. Now, i am occupied every evening at around 5:30-8, and i don't really have to rush anywhere. Except now i have no time to study D: Also, people decide to throw wrenches into my perfectly working system by having birthdays, or people who i need to talk to not going online at a good time etc. Really, this occupied life seems to have ALMOST NO repercussions on my sanity. Almost. heh heh heh....
BUT, wrenches and all, it seems to be not falling apart, and i really don't have too much to do right now. i really should be working on french, but something keeps telling me "ahh, who cares! it was due like two weeks ago anyways! :P
Also, we finish our Provincial Exams today, in like two hours. I'm pretty set for this, because i just answered all the questions yesterday. Now all i have to do is write my generic inspiration story out nicely, so that my teacher can actually read it. then i get to run screaming from the room. Except i'll probably be skipping instead of running. And laughing hysterically. You get the point.... I'm NOT crazy. but noo. they all think i am crazy, hahahahahaha. That is a sham, a "ploy" if you will. soon they will see just what i am thinking of, but then it will be too late HAH! now, i must leave. Candyland awaits.

Fired, like a sattelite. Screaming into the sun.

There aren't really single words that can describe someone telling you that you are fired. It's a mixture of the worst feelings in the world. You're mad at them, because you have to go through the whole looking for a new job/starting a new job nightmare again, but you have to kind of understand them because you've hung out with them for the past however-long-you've-had-a-job-with-them. Also, you're confused, and afraid. I was fired, officially today, if you didn't gather. Also, you want to make a good final impression, so you get a sweet reference for your other job.
The exact blend of emotions is like taking every Lolcat in existance, and mixing them together, then taking the opposite. And adding more dread.

Winterpeg

I've come to an astonishing discovery. Everyone who wrote they are from "Winterpeg" (it's a pun on "Winnipeg, and it's #*&$ing cold here") ALSO wrote "Manisnowba" as the province. As in "Manitoba, and it's #*&$ing cold here". BUT, not everyone who wrote Manisnowba also wrote Winterpeg. One person wrote "Windypeg" as in "Winnipeg, and it's apparently #&*$ing windy here" I can't really attest to that, it's more cold than anything. You don't notice the wind as much, because your skin freezes if you are foolish enough to leave it exposed, and you can't really notice anything on it anymore. if you notice it's windy, that means that your wearing A) not enough layers, or B) no windproof layer. Windproof layers are all you really need, because the air doesn't go the other way either. If you have that, and at least SOME insulation underneath, and you don't stand around like a foolish n00b, then you should be fine. Everyone is always like "aren't you cold Paul? you're wearing that stylish wind-proof thingy that you are wearing, and then like a couple T-shirts underneath." and I'm all "lol wut." and then they're like LOL. and then everyone mutually agrees that there has been enough silliness and it is time to go inside. I really wouldn't have said no to trying to have tea/coffee/hot drinks of life outside in the cold.
Also, in my travels around the tubes, i have come across several blogs of note. I found my friend's blog, which is from beyond the dawn of high school for me, and is now a "dead blog". I termed this after finding a bunch of blogs that are in perfect order, just the character that maintained them is lost within the person, or dead. They float around the Internet, decrepit, like in a space movie, where the characters find an old spaceship where everyone on it died, and there are remnants of what happened. I also found some blogs that are much like mine, being the blogs who are operated by someone who writes in English, and doesn't take pictures of everything, isn't trying to make you believe in their own god, and just really wants to have some creative outlet to spew nonsense/sense into the Internets. You should try clicking that "Next Blog" button at the top sometimes, you find sweet blogs. Then you're all 'Aw sweet!' and you say hi, and the person is like HOLY CROW! i didn't know there were other people here!' Which is always nice. For the first while, i always thought that i was alone in my own universe on the Internet, like a massive bombed out post-apocalyptic city that i could explore, and occasionally fight the zombies in. Now i get the feeling like there are more people like me, looking, and wondering the same thing: "Is anyone out there?" What lots of people don't realise is that they aren't looking for SOMEONE, but someone else who is looking.
I'm also amazed by the sheer lack of hilarity and randoms in the blogs also. Most people seem to really have a lot of crappy poetry to fire into the stratosphere. By stratosphere, i of course mean Blogosphere. Everyone wants to tell stories about their kids too. Albeit there ARE some funny pictures, like this one of a kid who sat in a dog's water dish, there is a saddening lack of captions on these. I say we take up the fight and add pictures of cats being funny, with hysterical captions and idiosyncratic grammar. LET'S DO THIS!

If you can find two spelling errors, that AREN'T "lol" "wut" or having to do with Winnipeg, Manitoba, then you get 100 bloggy points, because you read it pretty thoroughly,

Obligatory New Year Post

Happy New Year First of all, i hope everyone's is going according to planned so far... Mine is... Soon. they will ALL see the majesty of my master plan... Soon.. heh heh heh...
Now, onto business. I have officially asserted my dominance in the house of all things that are plugged in and require power to run. Except for macs. My aunt brought her idiot box into my house, and caused all sorts of problems. And WHILE i am on the subject of the Macintosh Computers. Automatically saving all passwords, and having a "show password" button COMPLETELY defeats the purpose of even HAVING a password. And i don't know what that smug compy's problem was, but all the PC laptops that have been through my house connect to wireless just fine.
I got the First Slurpee of 2009 by the way. That was roughly the most fun all night, because Guitar Hero World Tour is like the mac version of Guitar Hero. The crazy inbred mac version.