Slaxxor

In case you haven’t heard, the greatest thing since Google is Google Docs. It basically sticks Microsoft Word inside your browser, letting you access all of your documents, spreadsheets, and just recently, slide show presentations, all from anywhere with internet access. It’s a fantastic service, allowing multiple people to collaborate on one document with real time updates as they edit the document. I’ve been using it for homework, writing my various attempts at stories, and most successfully so far, my journal. I’ve never had success keeping a journal until Google Docs came along. Now I’m writing in it nightly, and haven’t missed a day in two weeks (since I started). Anyway, on to the project at hand.

To demonstrate the ease-of-use and utility of Google Docs, I’m going to show you step-by-step how to create a spreadsheet and graph to track your vehicle’s fuel economy (gas milage, for those of you with IQs below the room temperature).

Step 1. Create a Google Docs account.
If you don’t already have a Google account, first slap yourself for a few minutes and rethink your life, and then go make one. It’s simple, fast, and the most useful account you’ll ever sign up for on the web.

Step 2. Create a New Spreadsheet.
From the Google homepage, click the “more” button in the top left corner of the screen. From the pull down menu that will appear, click on Documents. This will bring you to the Google Docs control panel. Next, click the New button and select spreadsheet. A new spreadsheet will now appear as a new tab, unless you have IE6 or older, in which case, slap yourself for a few minutes, rethink your life, and get Firefox. Congratulations, you just made your first Google Spreadsheet.

Step 3. Name your spreadsheet and prepare it for data entry.
Here’s the fun part. First step, title your spreadsheet by clicking once in the upper left hand corner where it currently says “Unsaved Spreadsheet”. I’d recommend naming it [Your Car] Fuel Economy or Gas Mileage, but it’s completely up to you. Once you’ve done that, click into square A1. Type into this box the word “Miles”. Next, enter the word “Gallons” into box B1. If the word don’t fit entirely at first, simply click and drag the side of the column to expand it as needed. Enter the word “Date” into box C1. Finally, enter “MPG” or “Mileage” into box D1. If you’ve followed me correctly so far, your spreadsheet should look like mine.

Step 4. Collect and Enter Data
This part may take some time if you don’t keep track of your mileage to some extent already. Here’s what you do, if you don’t already. The next time you get gas, reset your trip odometer. Note: for this method to work, you have to fill your tank completely. Next time you fill your tank, write down or remember exactly how much gas it took to completely refil my tank. For my example, the last time I bought gas I had driven 320 miles and it took 14.9 gallons of gas to fill up my tank. Now, enter this date into the spreadsheet. I would write 320 under Miles, 14.9 under gallons, and the current date under date. Your spreadsheet should look like mine but with different numbers.

Step 5. Insert a math function into the spreadsheet
In order for the spreadsheet to be able to calculate the gas mileage, you have to tell it where your data is located. To do this, first select the Forumulas tab at the top of the screen. Next, click cell D4 and press the “more>>” button on the far right side of the screen, next to Sum, Product, etc. This will open up a small window. Scroll down in the Math category until you see QUOTIENT. Click on Quotient. This will insert an incomplete formula into the cell you selected (under MPG). It will read as follows:
=QUOTIENT(numerator, denominator) To complete this formula, plug in A2 for the numerator and B2 for the denominator. Your forumula should now read =QUOTIENT(A2,B2) Next, press escape. If you set up the formula correctly, a number should appear in box D4. My number is 21. If you get a reasonable number, you’ve successfully set up this part of your spreadsheet. Note: you do not have to repeat this step each time you enter data. Just put your mouse over the corner of cell D4 until your cursor becomes a + (plus) sign, and drag downward to apply the QUOTIENT calculation to all the cells below it.

Step 6. Create your graph.
Here’s where your spreadsheet starts to look cool. Go back to the Edit tab at the top of your screen. Now, select cells C1-D5, or however much data you have entered. Be sure to include the headers. For explanatory purposes, I’m going to add a few more lines of date. Click the Insert Graph button that looks like a pie chart (it’s on the left side of the edit bar). This will bring up a window that looks like this.

To make our graph look right, we need to change a few of these options. First, click the “Lines” button where it says What Type? For the subtype, I recommend choosing the second option from the left (lines with dots). Check the box that says “Use Column C as labels”, as well as the one that says “Use row 1 as labels”. If you like, you can label the horizontal axis Date and the verticle axis MPG. Now that all that’s finished, click Save Chart. Congratulations, you’re finished! If you followed my directions exactly (and I didn’t mess up) your chart should now look like this.

This spreadsheet will let you monitor your car’s fuel efficiency, as well as your driving habits. For example, if you drive consistently faster from one filling to another, you will see a dip in your car’s fuel economy. This will allow you to adjust your driving habits for minimum fuel consumption.

Thank you for reading, and I hope this tutorial/instructable was helpful to you. Tell your friends!

This is the video I was talking about 2 days ago, only this time, embedded! Ha ha!

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6ySRRqe1ks]

Today was the Junior/Senior leadership retreat. I expected it to be kinda stupid, no offense to anybody, but I’ve been to some lame teamwork/leadership type activities before. Luckily, this retreat was not stupid at all, on the contrary, it was extraordinary. The speaker who pretty much led the entire event was Ted Wiese. He was funny, smart, entertaining, and poignant. Our first activity was Ted Says. Not Simon Says, oh no, because Simon is dead, and his name’s Ted. It went something like this: he started the match, a few people sat down, and he said “Since I’m such a nice guy, I’m gonna let you guys stand back up, and have a second chance. Why don’t we give them a nice round of applause!” Probably half the people still standing clapped (not me!) and they all had to sit down! It was about the funniest thing I’ve ever seen. Me being me, I started laughing so hard that it wasn’t long before I got out, but I enjoyed the rest of the activity so much that by the time it was over, my face was literally soaked with tears (yeah, I cry when I laugh. So what.) He then had us do an activity where we all got cards and had to find our match among the rest of the group. My card read “Grace” so I naturally was looking for “Will and”. I found my match on the first try, and we did the little getting-to-know-you activity. All in all, it was a neat way to break up the preexisting social groups. After that, (and these may be in the wrong order, let me know and I’ll correct it) he did an activity in which 3 volunteers (all girls) were blindfolded and asked to eat a “live Canadian newt”, which he described as a delicacy from Canada that must be eaten live. The “newts” were in reality gummy worms soaked in water, but evidently the tactile effect was realistic enough that it felt real. The first girl screamed a little bit, but quickly accepted the dangling “newt”. The second girl screamed a lot more, and jerked her hand away several times, but she too took it. The third girl was already freaking out even before she touched the wet worm, and when it touched her hand, she basically jerked back and refused to take it (after two more attempts…). The point of this activity was that fear stops you from taking action. Although some of this sounds pretty corny, and I’m apt to take anything that’s serious as corny, I felt that Ted effectively taught leadership through these activities, something that many speakers, many of them school administrators, have failed to do in the past. The third activity was an odd one, involving all of us forming a circle and sitting down simultaneously on the knees of the person behind us. It was kinda fun, but in the 85 degree heat, it got kinda sweaty. The point of that activity was that you have to rely on others, and that one person can ruin it for everyone. Evidently, at other schools, one person would fall, causing the whole circle to fall. Not us though! The final activity before lunch was another trust-type activity where we had to lead and be led around the outdoor pavilion-type area by our partners (from the getting-to-know-you activity) with our eyes closed. It made me pretty nervous, but my partner did a great job, and I only ran into one thing. It was interesting, spending about 6 minutes walking around without seeing anything. Unfortunately, without my partner’s guidance, I would’ve most likely drowned in the creek or been hit by a car. Long story short, I’d make a terrible blind person. Lunch was catered by Edward’s Catering (delicious, but the exact same food we had at the marching band competition they catered, chicken and fries) and after people started to get done a DJ started playing dance music. I’m obviously not a fan (see post below) but it was entertaining to watch probably 70 people dance these group dances. I couldn’t learn that if I tried… I have that kind of affinity for music, but not for dance. Afterwards, we did an activity kinda like musical chairs, in which he would yell a number and we had two seconds to assemble ourselves into groups of that number. I got out pretty quickly due to some bad luck, but some people were really tenacious, and hung on for about twenty minutes before he stopped them. The point of that one was that it feels good to be in a group and bad to be excluded/kicked out. The final activity was one involving 4 stages of leadership/membership, where the first was an egg (you had to kneel down and act like an egg “imaneggimaneggimanegg”), the second was a chicken (wings flapping) the third was, oddly, a dinosaur, and the third was a leader (who just had to act cool). The way you progressed was by winning 2/3 matches of paper, rock, scissors. If you won, you advanced to the next stage, and if you lost, you regressed all the way to egg. Unless, that is, you were a leader. It was apparent (to some) from the start that once someone became a “leader” they should just let people beat them, since leaders couldn’t regress. The first time when he stopped us, there were a few eggs, some chickens, and some dinosaurs. After he let everyone else in on the strategy, there were only leaders at the end. I think. He summed everything up, and then the school administrators gave some short speeches, and we had ice cream and a raffle for lanyards and T-shirts and other things. On top of all that fun, I got to go home at 2:35 instead of 2:50! It was a great retreat, and Ted was an awesome speaker. Kudos. Geez, who says “kudos”… What’s wrong with me? (don’t answer that.)

EDIT: Thanks for that comment.  I forgot two things!  *smacks forehead*  There was a hoola hoop demonstration where like 6 people held a hoola hoop on top of their outstretched arms and fingers and tried to lower it to the ground.  The rules were that their fingers had to keep constant contact with the hoola hoop, and their fingers and arms had to stay parallel to the ground.  When he let go of the hoola hoop, it slowly rose up into the air.   This occurred both times he let go.  This was evidently due to the fact that in order to maintain constant contact with the hoop, each person had to apply a slight amount of upward pressure.  All 6 people doing this created a domino-like effect where the hula hoop just flew up into the air.  The point was that what you do affects everybody else?  Maybe?  This was yesterday, so I forgot of course…  The second thing I forgot was the Family Feud thing where we split up into groups of six and basically played Family Feud, guessing the most popular responses to questions, including most popular cartoon dog, food with a nationality in the title, etc.  This one was about team work I think.  Lol.
Thanks for the comment

Maurice Duruflé, click for bio, composed my new favorite piece of music. I got an extremely high quality recording of Duruflé’s Requiem. I’ve been a fan of Requiems and choral music for some time now, but this work surpasses everything I had heard before it. Mozart’s Requiem is fantastic, and few pieces can rival the Confutatis or the Lacrimosa, but Duruflé’s Requiem, the Domine Jesu Christe and the Agnus Dei in particular, blow it to pieces. For a decent recording of Duruflé’s Agnus Dei, watch this video. It is one of the most moving and beautiful pieces I’ve ever heard. Over the last few weeks I’ve listened to it probably twenty times each day, and I haven’t gotten tired of it at all. It’s difficult to describe music of this emotional depth and beauty in a blog, so I beg you to listen to them, even if you don’t normally enjoy classical music, but if you don’t, seriously, rethink your life. Honestly. Here we go, rant time:

What is it with people these days and music. Obviously some people still have the common sense to recognize good music when they hear it, as there are some people in the country that attend orchestra concerts, the opera, etc, but these people are massively outnumbered by my generation, largely ignorant of the beauty and variety of classical music. Even in my high school’s orchestra, almost none of the players, even the principle players, would claim classical music as one of their favorites. Too often I see people leave orchestra rehersal and immediately begin playing loud hip hop in their cars. It’s ridiculous, and it’s disgusting. Hip hop may have cultural significance to some people, but in my opinion its cultural significance is analogous to that of saggy pants. It symbolizes a lower class, urban, violent lifestyle, where going to prison isn’t an embarrassing thing, it’s a feather in one’s proverbial cap. Why anyone would want to listen to rich black men rapping about what it’s like to be a poor black man, I can’t understand. Aside from cultural critiquing, rap doesn’t even sound like music. In most cases (yes there are a few exceptions), rap is a badly written song, usually lacking completely in grammar, that has no melody, merely a simple, boring rhythm. Rock isn’t much better. I admit, there are a very few rock groups that I enjoy (Dave Matthews, Coldplay, and Muse), but on the whole, it’s low quality over amplified trash that people enjoy only because it’s popular. None of this music will be looked back on in 50 years as the Beatles are now, and in 250 years will not even have a place in the most detailed of textbooks. This is the musical equivalent of pulp fiction, and listening audiences need to wise up to this fact. Ok, rant over. Point is, LISTEN TO CLASSICAL AND JAZZ! Thank you!

Sorry about that, but that rant has been waiting to get out for about ten years. If you’ve never explored choral music before, or even if you have, give Faure, Mozart, and Duruflé a try, and I can guarantee that if you keep an open mind and try to appreciate the natural beauty of this music instead of its pop cultural appeal, you will find a new and exciting genre unfold before you.

I have little or not time to write this, but I’m gonna do it anyway, because I’m just that dedicated. I got to spend one glorious hour playing Quake Wars before being whisked off to a college fair thing, and it was one of the best hours of my life. Quake Wars is everything I could’ve hoped for and more. Put simply, “BF2 killer” - IGN. The hitboxes are impeccable, the game runs very smoothly on my mediocre computer, even at full resolution (1440×900) and Normal graphics quality. The gameplay is very similar to that of the game’s inspiration, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, a free multiplayer sequel to id’s Return to Castle Wolfenstein. The classes’ roles are all the same, but modernized, and the game as a whole is familiar but not redundant. The medic, for example, has defib paddles instead of a “revive needle”, but the functions are the same. The mouse/aim reaction time (for lack of a better phrase) was great, especially when compared to games like BF2, in which there could be a .5-1.5 second delay between your mouse and the crosshair. The vehicles were fairly easy to control, but difficult enough that practice and skill would give you a significant advantage on the battlefield. The included map, Valley, has its shortcomings, but if it’s par for the ET:QW course, I’m very happy with the game.

That’s all I have time for right now, got an English paper to write before I go to bed, so until tomorrow, goodnight.

P.S. - I’ve got the name SupremeBeing reserved for the game’s official release, so if you decide to use it in the demo, don’t get too attached.

Today’s the day! I’ve been waiting for roughly two years and I finally get to play Quake Wars! I’ve just started downloading the 727 mb file at about 140 kb/s. Kinda slow, but not bad considering that when I tried the torrent there were 380 seeders to about 3000 downloaders, yielding a grand total down speed of 17 kb/s for me. By 4:30 I should be fragging away in a bliss that will be matched only by the game’s full release. I’ll report back when I’ve played for a while on how awesome the game is. Yes, how awesome it is. This game has no capacity for bad qualities. None.

If you have a suitable computer, please do yourself a favor and download this amazing game here.

From what I’ve read, the map, Valley, that comes with the demo, favors the Strogg forces heavily, so keep that in mind when you get to the spawn select screen. Also, ATI users need to download and install an ATI Hotfix released today to run the Quake Wars demo. This Hotfix can be found here. Thanks for reading!

Today at my girlfriend’s house before a marching band competition, she and I were playing mercy. This, in retrospect, was a terrible decision, due to the fact that she will ***NEVER*** ***EVER*** give up. It was insane. Not to brag, but I’ve got fairly strong hands, and I’m pretty good at mercy. She, on the other hand, has tiny hands that are quite pliable. Here’s how it happened: once the match began, I basically just crushed her hand, which to me looked very painful, but she took it with amazing composure. I kept asking her to just say mercy, since she’s pretty much incapable of inflicting any pain on me, but she wouldn’t. I tried everything I could do to get her to say mercy without actually breaking her fingers, which I thought I had done a few times, but she just wouldn’t say the word “mercy.” This went on for about 15 minutes, and she was obviously in a good deal of pain, which probably hurt me almost as much to watch, but STILL wouldn’t give up. I was, at this point, begging her to say mercy, because I obviously couldn’t, owing to the fact that I was in no pain. She refused, stating that she hadn’t won anything all week and that she was sure as hell going to win at this. I thought we were at in impasse until, in a spasm of pain, she slammed her face into my elbow (which was in the air, twisting her arm), and started to cry. At this point, my heart broke (man that sounded corny, but it’s true). Our friend, who had been ignoring us until this point, got her some ice. Amazingly, she (my girlfriend) STILL wouldn’t give up!!! I had no choice but to say mercy and try my best to comfort her. She was extremely nice about it and didn’t blame me at all, but I felt (still feel) terrible about it. Anyway, moral of the story, do not play mercy with your girlfriend if she is as determined and as tolerant-of-pain as mine is. Unless you don’t like her. In which case, your call. But please, do not accidentally have your girlfriend bash her face on your elbow like I did. (reworded from “smash your girlfriend’s nose at her request)

Thank you for reading.