Switching Lanes

For the past two years or so I have enjoyed writing Z Has No Life, however infrequently, but I am now beginning to change lanes to a different type of blogging. Over winter break I'll be doing some initial work on what may or may not become my senior project for next year (partially depending on the reaction it receives, should anyone react to it). Since I want to go into journalism, I'm now looking into trying to report on major news stories without bias. You can check out my work at faxonly.blogspot.com , which should be updated much more frequently than this one.

This does not mean I will shut down Z Has No Life, but the posts will be even fewer and far between (if that is possible).

School

Skipping school is never recommended, especially the first day. If you do end up having to miss that first day, you better have a good excuse. I've come up with the top ten excuses you should use in case this very situation happens to you.

10. Got hired as economic aide for President Obama

9. The dog ate my homework, so I had to go to the vet

8. The computer ate my homework, so I had to go to an electronics store

7. Oprah gave me a free day off

6. Spent the entire month reminding Obama that he's now hit the big 5-0

5. Got fired by President Obama

4. The DeLorean overshot

3. Was part of the Libyan revolution

2. Got washed out to see by Hurricane Irene

And the number one excuse for missing the first day of school:

1. Was afraid Rebecca Black would release a new single about it

Internet

For the past week, I have been without internet while my wireless network has been down. There are a lot of things that are not as exciting without the internet. I've compiled a list of what you should stay away from in case you ever have a similar problem:

10 Things Less Exciting Without the Internet

Editing Wikipedia - I haven't yet found the "Edit" button on my encyclopedia. Must be some weird formatting or something.

Watching Television - My show keeps getting interrupted by some weird marketing schemes. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be a plot twist or not.

Fantasy Sports - I was excited for baseball until I realized that I'd have to keep track of the roughly 400 players who play every night.

Chatting - I called someone on the phone. They laughed and hung up.

Mail - No one in my generation has ever heard of "stamps". No one.

Search Engines - Spontaneous trips to he library take a lot more out of you than spontaneous trips to Bing or Google

Windows - It got bright outside, so I tried minimizing it, clicking and dragging... nothing worked. There wasn't even an exit button I could push.

Tweeting - To be fair, most ornithological creatures were already doing this before it hit the mainstream.

Facebook - On the bright side, my high school yearbook doesn't include FarmVille.

Fridays - I had just gotten used to Rebecca Black...

Back to the Future

26 years ago yesterday, the movie Back to the Future was released. It was the top-grossing film in 1985, staying on top of the charts for 11 weeks. Even today, it's still awesome. All of us have wished we had a time-machine DeLorean. Of course, there are some other things we wish were time machines too. Here's a list that traveled back in time to me from five minutes in the future:

8.8 Things that should be Time Machines

• Our own car: 88 mph and all I got was a speeding ticket
  
• PlayStation: It only does everything... except legitimate time travel. Oh, and securing your personal information
• Lawn mowers: Many a day have I slaved behind this machine, wishing to go back to last week when the grass wasn't so tall
• Macs: They're so happy and darn friendly- They have to be hiding something
• The Death Star: A movie that needs to be watched over and over again, sort of like Back to the Future
• Amelia Earhart's airplane: She didn't get lost on that last flight; she simply became the first person to circumnavigate the time stream
• The "Back" button on web browsers: Sometimes we all want to go back and erase our mistakes
• Skateboards: At the very least they need to be hoverboards, like in Back to the Future II
• The Free Parking space in Monopoly: This one might be a bit difficult to understand. A lot of people put their own variations on what Free Parking means. Is it just a blank space? Is it a jackpot space? Or is it-
  

Friday

In case you forgot...

(For some reason it looks like the original got taken down. Nice try, Rebecca Black.)

We all know who Rebecca Black is. The "star" of the now-infamous Friday music video, she has been ridiculed many times over on the Internet. Now that the commotion surrounding Black has died down, I'd like to offer her some real advice.

In just a couple years, Rebecca Black may be looking for her first job. Given the impact of her video, it may be tough for her to find one. She'll have to be skilled at whatever profession she chooses. Luckily, I have some suggestions for her:

10 possibilities...

• TGI Friday's (Now that we have the obvious out of the way...)
• Brainwashing Agent (You'd be surprised)
• Professional Seat Selector (If she could ever make her mind up)
• Disk Jockey (Partyin' Partyin' YEAH!)
• Congressperson (Partyin' Partyin' YEAH!)
• Amusement Park Ride Operator (Fun Fun Fun Fun)
• Janitor (Lookin' Forward to the Weekend)
• Dictionary Author (Fun, fun, think about fun - she knows what it is)
• Friend Locator (She's to her right- aay)
• Calendar Designer (She knows the days of the weekend... but we're worried that she may put too many Fridays)

And 5 that are out of the question...

• Singer (Should have seen that one coming)
• Suicide Hotline Operator (Enough said)
  
• English Teacher (No matter how hard you try, bowl does not rhyme with cereal)
• Professional Seat Selector (It's been three months already, just pick a seat.)

And finally,

• Any job anywhere that anyone has ever heard of "The Internet"
  

Summer

It's been quite awhile since I've made a post, mainly due to my incredibly complex schedule for the last two months. It's been hard to fit not having a life in between so many activities that might actually pass for indeed having one.

The good news is that it's summer, which offers many ways to not have a life. For example, you could:

Edit Wikipedia...
Go to Band camp (or strings, whatever floats your boat)...
Build a tricked-out boat...
Attend E3 (You're running late)...
or even write a blog!

Here's a look at some other possible summer activities for those without a life:

• Get a summer job. I've found my best success has been at nuclear power plants and Geek Squad.

• Watch a movie. With the amount of superhero movies being released this summer, it shouldn't be too hard to find one that allows you to both have a life (attending a movie) and not have one (come on, superheroes?) at the same time.

• Hold a barbecue. For added flavor and potential health risks, hold a barbie-cue. Just... don't invite Ken.

• Watch the science channel. The new one, from Discovery. We hear Morgan Freeman is hosting a show, so if you can't watch it, at least listen to it.

• Have a Water Gun fight:

Enough said. (Who put a Generation V Pokemon in here?)


With these helpful tips, you're sure to find at least one thing to do this summer that will ensure that you remain without a life!

Blogging

Recently, for her senior project, my sister decided to keep a blog for her senior project, detailing the adventure of maybe getting a children's book published (or maybe not). I'm wondering myself how she'll get a book published when she can't even capitalize her "I's", but who knows? Maybe our next generation will be one that knows texting as their first language.

Another thing I immediately noticed with my sister's blog is that she took full advantage of the customization feature provided by Blogger, spending nearly an entire day playing with it (and nearly earning a no-life shoutout). I realized that I... haven't spent much time customizing my blog, so you may see some changes around here in the next few days. Maybe you're already seeing them.

I can't help but notice how... limited Blogger's customization options are. I think they need a few suggestions. Here's what I think we should be able to add:

• The TI-Nspire CX: Frankly, these just look cool. I wouldn't mind having one or twenty of these lying around.
• Hangman: Am I the only one that finds Hangman odd? You're telling some innocent little stick figure, "I'm going to execute you just because my friend here is too dim-witted to know the word Syzygy" The main problem with the next generation won't be violent video games, it'll be Hangman.
• Microwave Ovens: I was pretty hungry when I wrote this. But think about it: Wouldn't it be cool to be able to have a microwave oven on your computer? I think that would be pretty gnarly, myself.
• James Earl Jones: I would take full advantage of any tool that would read my posts in the voice of James Earl Jones. Better yet, get James Earl Jones to drop whatever he's doing and come read it live, in person. Optional: Clint Eastwood.
• Quick-Quotes Quills: It beats typing with one hand, like I'm doing right now.
• A Barbershop: I don't know if anyone else out there needs a haircut, but I do. The barbershop should come complete with classic barbershop pole and a barbershop quartet. But wait! Call now and we'll double the offer: Two barbershop poles and a barbershop octet!
• A Drink Machine with Lyndon B. Johnson's Favorite Beverages: If only so people don't end up doing this. We wouldn't want that to happen again.
• A Recorded Message that says, "Go Play Outside": Because really, what are you doing reading this anyway?
  
• Flashing Banner Ad: All the good websites have those contests where people can be the 1,000,000th person to view the page (I win those all the time, I must be really lucky). Why can't we?
• Rebecca Black: I can almost guarantee that you'll be seeing her here in the future. As if she hasn't been mocked enough already.