Q: How long does it take for a telemarketer to hang up after you put down the phone?

A: A mere 2.28 minutes.

I just got rang up by a telemarketer. I said "Hello" and there was silence. The silence. The one that is followed by a telemarketer. Some people hate them. Okay, most if not all people, hate them but I don't. "Hello how are you to-?" I got all excited. 'Yes Yes Yes!" What to do? What to do? There must literally be thousands of tricks and things and conversations trading 'war stories' of a particularly clever battle. Actually I heard that over in the U.S the government put restrictive orders on them. And you know what? They told them over the phone during tea time! :D
Anyway, I randomly chose the 'put phone down and time how long it takes' one. Apparently they're not allowed to hang up. Needless to say, I was disappointed with this telemarketer and am considering my legal options.

1300309988: Is your child interested in fire?

On Friday Mr. Mac set homework for us: dress up as someone from the middle ages and do a 2 minute talk about it. The only clothes that sprang to mind as I was thinking about it was a silk bathrobe Dad has that I used to use all the times for these sort of things. Being a bit more of a perfectionist these days, I didn't really want to do that until it struck me! Be a noble who just got out of bed! So I did that and got a birthday candle to be my lamp. All sorts of things happened because of that but most importantly it meant that fire was in the back of mind. Anyway, a friend of mine that goes on my bus had found a mobile phone just before he got on the bus- a really good one. So he did the right thing and handed it in at the police station curious (and bored), I followed.

So, just in case that confuised you, here's a re-cap:

-Fire is on my mind
-I am stading in the police station

Hate notes they make you sound like you waffle on.

Anyway, I was standing in the Police Station and noticed a poster: Is your child interested in fire?
And it had a picture of a kid with a lighted match in his hand.
Naturally the first thing that came to my hyper-active mind was: Pyromaniac Anomous.
This really made me curious so I asked the policeman about it but he didn't seem to know a great deal. So I went home but my curiosity grew so I got changed, grabbed my mobile and headed back to the police station. I copied the number so now it is stored on my mobile. I can ring phones on my computer so I tried that but it hung up straight away so I got my mobile and rang it but I got the answering machine: Hello, this is the Juvenile Fire intervention... So I hung up and looked it up online (but first I wrote this). Hopefully I can catch someone so I can ask them.

To Be Continued...

Quotes of the Day

A couple of bible verses because it's Sunday:

"Suffer the little children to come unto me, for such is the kingdom of God.” Mt. 19:14 King James Version.

2 Corinthians 12:13-15 (New International Version)

13How were you inferior to the other churches, except that I was never a burden to you? Forgive me this wrong!
14Now I am ready to visit you for the third time, and I will not be a burden to you, because what I want is not your possessions but you. After all, children should not have to save up for their parents, but parents for their children. 15So I will very gladly spend for you everything I have and expend myself as well. If I love you more, will you love me less?

I knew it. Look at the context. Find fault in my theory O parents.

John 11:39
"Martha... saith unto him, Lord, by this time he stinketh" I heard somewhere that: 'he stinketh' used to be one of the most well known phrases in the bible.

An answer to a tag and Thought of the Day

My mum tagged me to answer the quiz so here goes...

One book that changed your life
Um... For a starter that a toughie. Wait, probably one of Mum's cook books. It really deserves credit for some of the food I've eaten.

One book that you’ve read more than once.
Time Stops for No Mouse by Michael Hoeye. It's got good re-read value.

One book you’d want on a desert island.
Hard to choose really. I think it would come down between:
How to survive on a desert island with ease and luxury
or
How to make a helicoptor with nothing but leaves and wood on a desert island and how to fly it guanteed for dummies.

One book that made you laugh
Squeky Clean Comedy by Judy Brown. A joke book. I always amaze myself with my originallity.

One book that made you cry.
How to make your faviourite dishes out of vegetable, by Jack Ghut.

One book that you wish had been written
One of those self-guide books on reading. You know, like:
A dummies guide to reading.

One book that you wish had never been written
All the dictionaries. I would have perfect speling plus, imagine all the words I could come up with!

One book you’re currently reading
Anonmous tip, by Michael Farris

Thought Of The Day

Had a thought earlier today and I'm not sure if it breaches privacy rights but you know how some people spell their name backwards and see what they come up with? If you say the words backwards, someone I know full name is: More Jack Russell. I think he hates Jack Russells too. Ironic aint it?

A new movie

I went to the footy last Saturday. It was Brisbane vs. Essendon. Absolutely no comment.
Anyway, on a brighter note; AG films is up and running again. This time it is Computer Animated. We have to do a movie under 15 minutes! It is about a siege of the greatest castle in my history book. Here at AG films we always work to create reasonable movies that are easily made but helps the um, viewer.
I am using a program called Blender. It's great. It really is. Of course, it does take a while to learn and, as I will be the computer guy, I have to learn real quick. I did find a good tutorial but it is literally taking hours upon hours to finish. Anyway that's why I haven't done a blog for awhile.

Anyway I thought as well as quotes, I would start telling stories that were mostly true.

For the first one:

When I was 6 my dad was a pastor and I was talking to two other guys in my grade. We were doing that thing- you know; my dad's a fireman etc etc. Anyway one guy goes: "My Dad's a doctor. He get's so much money we can buy all the latest games straight away as they come out." "Yeah, well, my dad's a lawyer, he gets a new T.V every month because he says that there are always better ones coming out. We've got a Plasha- do you even know what that is?" The doctor's son looked impressed. But it was my turn and I knew I didn't have to take that lying down. "My dad's a preacher and every time he gets money it takes 4 men to carry it!" You should of seen they're faces.




Anyway I've been tagged for a question or something and I've already half completed it but I want to do more Blender so watch this blog.

Quick Post (relating to my 'prose')

I was doing homework using google and this is one of the things that came up:

deviantART: TAIAHA
Art - community of artists and those devoted to art. Digital art, skin art, themes, wallpaper art, traditional art, photography, poetry / prose. Art prints.

A New Word for Me

I constantly switch between serious and making some jokes in exactly the same tone of voice. No, I don't have much of what I call a dry humour (making jokes in 'depressed' sort of tones) but it always adds to some of my jokes as they're said in the same way I talk, when I make observation or compliment, so as to remove people's ability to tell if I'm joking or not by my tone of voice. As a bonus, it is amusing to watch people who have not established that I'm not exactly normal trying to look into my face/voice/expression to see how they are supposed to take whatever I just said.

Anyway, when people don't get what I say, I usually said: "I was being sarcastic," or something of the sort. But now I am slightly uneasy about that as it doesn't really always seem to be the right description to describe what I was doing. So now, after a bit of research at dictionary.com, I have decided I will use:

fa·ce·tious ( P ) Pronunciation Key (f-sshs)adj.
Playfully jocular; humorous: facetious remarks.

facetious
adj : cleverly amusing in tone; "a bantering tone"; "facetious remarks"; "tongue-in-cheek advice" [syn: bantering, tongue-in-cheek]

AFL

Sorry that I haven't been doing a blog recently (I got a new game that takes up my time on the computer). Importantly, I went to the AFL Brisbane Lions vs. Kangaroos match. They started off worryingly (in my 'third person' perspective) as they started out on a pattern I didn't like and usually meant they lost. They were down about 26 points by the first quarter. The second quarter mistakes started appearing in the Kangaroo's play, with them apparently changing tactics regardless whatever they were doing was working before, but it wasn't a big enough deal for us to start winning, but we did improve the margin. Then in the third quarter lot's of mistakes started happening, they were kicking it aroud 50m when they could of just gone for the shot and ending up excatly within 5m where they started, and the amount of times the ball hit the post (usually doesn't happen very often and gives 1 point not 6) was hilarious, they must of done it at least 5 times. However, the Kangaroo's managed to stay in front. But then, late in the last quarter, the Lions manged to take the lead for the first time and keep it in a one point thriller, with good old tall-a-hec-of-alot Akermanis kicking 3 goals late in the game.

Note: For the record, I have confirmed that the last time Essendon won a footy game was indeed April Fool's Day and they still haven't won a game since. I think they have now set a record for the most games lost in a row for Essendon.

Pirates Of the Caribean

I saw Pirates of the Caribean II Dead Man's chest yesterday (one day after it came out) so I decided to do a quick review.

It was defintely a different sort of movie to the curse of the black pearl. As I read in one of the reviews I just read, you just love it or hate it. Thankfully, the actors and more importantly the characters came back with as much if not more brilliance than last time. Hmm, more. The special effects were very good. I've read alot of the tricks and understand CGI pretty well for a 13 year old, but I could barely spot the rough edges that I normally see in other movies (except for one instance where Jack Sparrow is standing in front of what is obviously to me a blue screen and not a terror of the deep).
The action is very good and defintely not overdone, pretty much with a perfect balance. However, some of the action I have to say was a little bit unlogical even excluding the fact that it was a supernatural movie. Yes, it was darker, but the characters, plot, or anything else didn't suffer because of it as it sometimes does. There are alot of laughs in it too. The plot apparently got too complicated to understand according to some other reviewers, but I don't really see it that way unless you didn't go for enjoyment and to fret about the details and predict what is going to happen the first time to watch it. Sometimes you don't know what is happening, but not in a bad way and it is only to keep the suspense up.

Overall, a very good movie, but different to the first one. This means that you can't really compare the movie to the first one by the same terms, but the movie doesn't at all feel like it's completely seperate and unconnected to the first one. So, there you have it. It is a good movie and one of my faviourites NOT a disapointment.

Quote of the Day

The main football league in Australia is the AFL (Australian Football League). There is a team called Essendon in it.

"The Essendon Football Club has not won a single football game since April Fool's day."

-Nick

My Prose?

Today I created an original and creative (as per always) poem (as per never before of free will). It is fiction of course and is about my granny whose name is Smith and she is bad and my constable father whisks her away eventually to the Granny Smith Apple Factory (Granny Smith is an Aussie brand of apples) and then I die etc. Anyway, as it is over 1,000 words long, I could not make it a complete poem and I am not going to totally abondon my style of writing for the sake of the poem, so I just casually labeled it a poem. My Mom said (before she read it ) that it said it sounded like a prose, and if I didn't know what that means I should look it up in the dictinary. (I don't think she knew what it meant either). So I did and it said (according to dictionary.com):

Ordinary speech or writing, without metrical structure.
Commonplace expression or quality.
Roman Catholic Church. A hymn of irregular meter sung before the Gospel. intr.v. prosed, pros·ing, pros·es
To write prose.
To speak or write in a dull, tiresome style.
[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin prsa (rti), straightforward (discourse), feminine of prsus, alteration of prrsus, from prversus, past participle of prvertere, to turn forward : pr-, forward; see pro-1 + vertere, to turn; see wer-2 in Indo-European Roots.]

Thanks Mum.

P.S. I've since found out that mum meant every word and she already had full understanding of the particular word, "Prose". Apparently it was a ploy to make me look up a dictionary. She then fixed up all my spelling and grammatical errors in this and my other blog posts even this P.S. and to shock, horror, make it sound better - as if my style isn't good enough.

2 nights ago.

2 nights ago, somehow, The Flood was shown at a 'P for Performance night'. Nick, one of the creators, made a speech saying that you should buy it. Guess what?
We got, through the generosity of people's hearts, a $5 donation, somebody else is going to buy it but didn't have her purse with her and isn't going to be here for the next couple of weeks, and Nick reckons that we might be able to get another person to buy it. I was going to give an edited copy to play, but I didn't get time to burn it. I guess now it's a "Half Special Edition" so if anyone want's to buy it instead of the normal one for the same price, specify when you e-mail- agfilms@hotmail.com saying you want to buy one for $5.

Quote of the Day

'#@*$ The cops are here! How did they find me?'- Woman stranger to my dad on a holiday a while ago. No laugh followed. No arrest followed. Unfortunately. Wouldn't that be cool?

To search for updated

I'm Excited! You can now type in "welcome says nathan" into the Blogger search and it works! It finds this blog site.

My Life Goals

This morning, my Dad beat me 9-8 in Table Soccer. This, needless to say, suprised me alot. However, I reasoned that I should not be upset because:

a) we were both tired (it was 10:00 am for crying outloud) but me more so because Dad usually wakes up at 6:00 am or whatever.

b) This means that neither of us were performing at our peaks, and the game could of gone either way.

c) Considering the amount of times we have played it, I suppose losing was only a matter of time (that fact was not processed until today).

d) I blocked the memory temporarily from my mind (so one wonders why the heck I'm writing this down).

BUT, more importantly, today I completed a life goal of mine- to beat Dad 9-nil (somehow he always seems to get that cruical one point in there). That is one of my life goals among:

1/. Slam dunk (nearly there :D )

2/. Save up my money so I can buy Medieval Total War 2 (for PC) as soon as it comes out

3/. Watch Pirates of the Caribean A.S.A.P when it comes out.

4/. Make Revelations in (mostly) CGI like Noah's Ark (but better than that).

5/. Finish the story I have started writing

6/. Sell a copy of THE FLOOD over this blog (i.e: YOU buying it)

7/. I do have others but I can't seem to remember them at the moment. If you watch this space one day this sentence and the last will magically disappear and be replaced with my other life goals.

Wow, that was a pretty deep blog.

Catching Up

Believe it or not, I have some catching up to do.
So, here's a summary.

Monday, 19th of June, 2006

Read a book called The Sacred Diaries of Adrian Plass. I don't like this colour. It is about, believe it or not, a diary of a guy. I don't like this colour too much either. Anyway, the book is really good (exactly my sense of humour) and has encouraged me to do more blogging. Maybe shorter blogs, but more frequent. I have also decided to do a Quote of the Day! otherwise known as: Quote of the Day!

For example: There are 10 different types of people: those who understand binary code and those who do not - Matt, a business person from Hai Q.

This has come from an idea to do what this person I know does, and keep a diary of all the funny/stupid/witty/smart/etc things people say. Man, this purple colour is really good. But I can type faster than I can write, and anyway, it's much more interesting if a gazillion people out there can read it. Haven't finished the book (refer to top) though yet.

Tuesday, 20th of June, 2006.

Read more of the Sacred Diaries of Adrian Plass. Even more encouraged to do my blog more and decided I really must do the blog more often and decided I was going to do a blog post later in the day or the next one. Had our preacher and his wife come over today for a friendly visit. As per always, I challenged him to table soccer, fully intending and expecting to win. Lost 9-4. Played again. Lost. Played again. Lost. Played again. Lost 9-1. Played again. Lost. Played again. Lost 9-8! Encouraged by that, played again and... lost. Might have played again a couple of times but I didn't win any. My self-esteem slightly hurt by that, asked if he wanted to play Grand Turismo on my Playstation2. Won by about 20 seconds. Happy again.

Note: I honestly haven't lost a game except against him in a very long time. It is true to say that it was a bit of a shock to the system losing against him.

Later that day...

Hadn't done a blog yet, planning to do one the next day. Finished the book. Mum got me the next one in the series for me.

Wednesday 21st of June, 2006.

Playing Boggle. Nice games, but ever had one od those moments that something snaps (in a good way) and you just crack up laughing really hard so much that it really hurts and you want to stop laughing because of the pain but as soon as you do you start up again? I had one of those moments when Dad said: "I've beaten Mum in Boggle before." I had to go out of the room due to risk of dying of laughter, and though that would be interesting, it might be a bit to painful for my liking.
Didn't do blog.

Thursday 22nd of June, 2006.

Left for Bairnsdale. Oh yeah, by the way, For the last week or so I've been in a holiday in Bairnsdale, a town a couple of hours drive from home. I brought a book on the way called Thr3e which is by an author called Ted Dekker. I have already read and got books by him so safely assumed it would be worth reading. Arrived in Bairnsdale after a couple of hours. Saw the cabin, it was alright I suppose. Kinda like halfway inbetween camping and staying in a motel (but admittedly there was more space then in a motel between 'rooms'). Began to read thr3e. Asked Mum if I could take the laptop. Didn't say yes. To this day I still don't see why. At night it was really warm but Mum was cold so we had to keep the heater on full blast. Didn't get to sleep very easily. Didn't do blog.

Friday, 23rd of June, 2006.

Was rainy so we went to the cinemas to watch RV Vacation. I never heard about it until then but it was ok I guess. After we went there we went to K-mart (a shop) and I bought a Tangle. It is this really weird thing that is virtually designed to fiddle with. I had never seen one before so I bought it. We made plans to go to an old friends place for tea on Monday (tea as in dinner). We were going to go to the caves today, but decided not to due to wet weather (I didn't particularly care or mind, but found it funny that that would make a big enough difference considering it wasn't cold and it defintely wasn't very much at all in the actual daylight). Didn't do blog.

Saturday, 24th of June, 2006.

Went to the Caves. See Mum's short blog for details. Didn't do blog.

Sunday, 25th of June, 2006.

Am presently wondering why I have bothered to put the year on the dates. Oh well. On Sunday we went to church, there was quite a few people we apparently know. The count of how many times I have heard the phrase: 'Put a brick on your/his head' went up from 346,789 to 347,008. But my memory isn't all that good so those figures are kinda give or take. Went to look at Lakes Entrance (Lakes Entrance is a popular tourist lake side town in this area, near Kakadu). Finished Thr3e after spilling noodles on it. Gave it to Dad to read and he accepted it! Read his short blog for details.

Monday, 26th of June, 2006

Went to a Christian school because Mum needed ideas for her school camp or something or other. More importantly, Dad measured me against a wall chart to measure height and I am 196 cm high. Thought that was very cool. I seriously doubt that the chart could be up wrong or something. Went to a friends house. It was fun. We got them to come over again.

To be continued. (Those 3 words and this in brackets by his dear mum since I want to publish this bit so far and he can continue in the next blog post.)

Part II (updated on the 3rd of July)

Tuesday, 27th of June, 2006.

Thanks to my specific instructions (don't come after 12 o'clock or else I might not be ready my friend's family (my parent's are friends with his parents which is good) showed us the camp where Mum's class is going for a camping excursion then we went around town, went on a miniture free ferry played with soccer ball a bit, got stuff to eat, played mini golf with just the boys, dropped them off home, I stayed the night there,

Wedenesday, 28th of June, 2006.

left without even returning to the cabin we stayed in. When we were driving back, we stopped at a small christian bookshop in Leongathie (pretty close to Kakadu) and I asked (it was Mum's idea) if I could sell The Flood. She said yes so I am going to drop off a copy of the Special Edition when I finish it and when I get a chance.

Back

I interrupt this present silence to say:

I'm Back!

My Mum doing reports

Well, here I am again!

Hello! As previously mentioned, today is for the teachers the dreaded REPORT WRITING WEEKEND! I get two days off school for it, so I don't personally mind. My mum, bored as she was doing her reports, wanted me to do a movie of her doing whatever she does at reporting days. And, regardless I could be playing the PlayStation 2 or some other important activity, I put aside about 4 hours of my precious time to help/do it for her. The finished product would be just below, however, Mum didn't want me to put it on my site, only her site, so I could only put it on her site. As well, dial-up persons would probably never visit me again :( so I had to keep it off mine.

So, if you want to see an original movie that yours truly made For FREE! Now would be your time! so, for all of you people out there who are reading this and have ADSL or broadband and want to watch a 3 MB version, go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFvgXvvDBng. But wait! There's more! If you have dial up or just want to read my Mum's blog while you're at it, go to a 2 MB version (and physical size) at http://coutsidethebox.blogspot.com/. Have fun watching and leave me a comment!

Found it!

Well, as you may have just noticed (especially if you have dial-up. Er, sorry about that), after long and multiple hours trying to put the trailer for our movie on my blog, I have finally tried Plan A (use youtube.com) and it worked! At time of writing at my school, it is a fantastically good long weekend (report-writing day, the normal weekend and then Her Majesty Queen's birthday (of the Commonwealth))and, as Mum has been doing the reports at school and I had nothing better to do, I took another shot of putting the trailer on my blog.

For the record, I have just four days left until the mid-year 2 week holidays. This, for those of you who are American, is one of two week breaks we have in the school year because Australia (or some other country) though it would be a good idea to spread out the holidays to make the school year easier to handle and I think it's a good idea too!

The Trailer

(856 KB I think)