Vegas: So What?

Just the other day, my friends and I were talking about nothing in particular at the library. Then one of their cell phones (of which I find myself currently lacking in this high-tech world), go off. In direct violations of library rules, she answers the call.
The rest of us listen in on half of the conversation:

"I'm at the library talking to my friends ... uh, huh. What? We're going to Las Vegas? Why? Leaving tomorrow? Coming back on Monday? No? Coming back on Tuesday?"

After a holiday, whether it's a week or just an extra day, teachers will ask you about what you did. Among the slurry of mumbles of "nothing much" and "stayed home", there are almost invariably some who say they went to Vegas.

Vegas: Home of the Mega Resorts. Sure, the hotels are pretty. But how many times could you possibly be impressed by them? When you seen 'em once, you've seem 'em all.

Smell: You can't walk anywhere in the hotels that's not actually an hotel without getting a lungful of second-hand smoke.

Casinos: I don't have money and I'm under 21. Go figure.

Too much exercise: I don't like to walk. When I stayed at Planet Hollywood, to get from the parking area my room meant walking at least a quarter mile, through the aforementioned fog of cigarette smoke. Walking from the Strip, I had to walk through at least half of the Miracle Mile.

Internet: I've tried going to rehab, but I just can't seem to get over that three day hump without Internet. And apparently the big hotels for all their grandeur don't seem to be broadcasting any free wi-fi.

Food: Great, but be prepared for long lines and digging deep into your pockets for money.


If you're driving from Southern California, then be prepared to be amazed at the vast, endless stretches of dirt, farms, bushes, and more dirt. Be aware of shopper-types in your group; there's some outlets in the middle of nowhere that seem to turn an ordinary rest-stop into shopping sprees.

Downtown Vegas: Creepy place. Wouldn't want to go there at night.

HALF-BAKED IDEA: Pending revision for failure to meet Moufflets Quality Standards.

Silly Superstitions

If you're Asian, then I'm sure your parents have told you some superstitious tales more than once. I find some of them rather ridiculous.

"If you shake your leg to much, you'll lose money."
First of all, I'm not carrying any change on me. And my wallet is wedged between my arse and the seat. So it's highly unlikely that I'll be experiencing some financial hardships anytime soon.

"Never flip over a fish after eating all the meat on the top."
...especially on a boat. To flip over the fish means to capsize, and we wouldn't want that to happen would we. This poses quite a problem to us. How do we get to the meat on the bottom with the spine in the way? They say remove the bone. However, if we use the same illogical logic they applied to flipping the fish, then that would mean that we're ripping off the entire top part of the boat, which would be an undesirable outcome as well.

"Clipping your nails at night is bad luck; you'll be visited by a ghost."
I have my reasons why I clip my nails at night. At night is when I take a shower; which softens my nails so that they're easier to clip. You know that funny feeling you get after clipping your nails? Well, I have a whole night to get used to it. Also, I don't have the time to clip my nails in the morning. There's such a thing as school.

"Wearing a mustache is bad luck."
This is quite interesting, as it shows how much of a hypocrite the ancient Chinese were. If you have ever watched an ancient Chinese Drama, you'll notice that a lot of the men have mustaches. Really long, white wispy mustaches, also known as a Fu Manchu mustache. Sometimes, they even have sideburns. On the other hand, they are quite right. Look what happened to Hitler and Prime Minister Tojo of Japan (World War II). Stalin had one too. Women with mustaches probably aren't doing to well either.

"The dining area should not be under the second floor toilet."
About time for one that's actually logical. I wouldn't want anything from yesterday's dinner dripping onto my dinner.

For those most Chinese superstitious, the Almanac should be consulted to find the best time to do important things. The Almanac would tell you that if the day is a good day or bad day to have a funeral, sweep the graves of ancestors, worship the dead or move an ancestor's grave; start construction, move into a new house, visit friends or even travel north; get a haircut or cultivate plants and so on. The fact: if you follow ALL the "traditions", you will get nowhere!

I don't recall ever reading whether it was a good day to have a funeral in an Almanac, not that I read a lot of them. But I do agree that if you follow all the traditions, or even some, you will get nowhere.

Last three superstitions and quoted paragraph provided by Chinatown Connection.

Inky Secret Weapon

Part of the benefits of being in Academic Decathlon, even if your team didn't even come close to living up to the previous years and its city's prowess, was that you got a free Academic Decathlon pen and pencil.

They came in a blue plastic pen case, which was made of plastic and broke quite easily when dropped.

The pencil, a mechanical one, had a rather bad design. In order to insert more lead, you had to pull out the cap at the back, like most other pencils. However, in the process of pulling out the cap, the entire lead tube came out with in. This left you with two options. First, you could put the lead in the tube and then attempt to secure the tube back in its socket. This would seem easier than the second, which was to take the entire thing apart and put it back together, but apparently the tube wasn't prone to sticking into socket easily nor accurately. When writing, the pencil also had a tendency to begin to unscrew itself from the head.

But the pen was a whole different story.

At first, the pen worked just fine. It wasn't great, but the ink was smooth. Like the pencil, it also had a slight disposition to begin to seperate the body from the head. One day, I decided to attempt to solve the problem once and for all. I screwed the contraption as tight as I could, and then even tighter. Under the stress unfortunately, the thing was about as durable as its case. It cracked and now wouldn't stay shut.

So it wouldn't exactly stay shut, but I could live with that, or so I thought. During history sixth period, I was performing my usual idiosyncrasy of rapidly protracting and retracting my pen. Then the teacher called on me, and when I dropped the pen to answer, the pen exploded. Like literally. Part of it went about a eight feet away. It was quite the experience.

I thought that the incident was an isolated one and wouldn't happen again anytime soon. Again, I was mistaken. The self-destruct sequence kept auto-initiating, and pretty soon I was picking the pieces together every five minutes.

Armed with this potential weapon of mass destruction, I began to research ways of making it more lethal and stable. After some experimentation, I found that if you clicked it rapidly enough times, it would blow up. Following more tweaking, it was discovered that if you unscrewed the pen slightly, the pen would spontaneously combust after one or two clicks.

I showed off my newfound secret weapon, shooting them at friends and such. However, I soon found that putting it back together every time it decided to fly apart, whether unintentionally or otherwise, was too much trouble, and I feared losing the spring. The pen is currently holding a place of honor in my collection of used up pens that are either nonrefillable or are awaiting replacement ink tubes.