Brandon Notices

I found something in my MySpace blog settings that upset me a little:



Why do several of the options give me the choices "NO" or "NO"? Why not "YES"? What if I want to say yes? Why even give me the option if you won't let me say anything other than "NO"? Come on, MySpace, what's your deal?

It seems that each of the last few times I've watched The Price Is Right, there's been at least one idiot per show. I wish I could remember the examples of moronic, idiotic contestants on The Price Is Right from recent episodes, but here's one that's on the show right now.

There's a contestant, Victor, who is currently sitting in Contestant Row. They were bidding on some item last round, and he bid "thirty-nine ninety-five." So "3995" appears on his display and Bob Barker repeats, "Three thousand, nine-hundred ninety-five," and Victor says, "No, thirty-nine dollars and ninety-five cents." So the audience starts booing, as would I, and Bob explains to him that there's only whole-dollar amounts on the show for the history of the show and that this kid's been wasting his life (because he hasn't been watching the show?). Then he clears his board and asks if he wants to bid $40. Victor says no, and bids $60. Of course, he loses the round; the true value of the item was more than $1,000.

I find it distressing that contestants are being goofy. Are they doing this for attention? It kinda reduces the integrity of the show. Bogus. I'll keep my eye open for more examples.

I'm watching Family Feud right now, and I must say that something I just saw shocked and disappointed me. The question Richard Karn asked the contestants was, "Name who comes out on top in a divorce: the husband, the wife, or the lawyer?" Now, isn't there something fundamentally wrong with asking a multiple-choice question in this show? It ruins the free association that the show is so famous for. You never know what the survey may have said! But when the show forces options on the survey, isn't it kinda pointless?

Now, this was during the sudden death round, so it's not like all three choices were on the board. Only lawyer was up there (with 77 points), but still, the question wasn't very fair, and this was to decide the game, too. Poor Mary Beth buzzed in early, and said what I bet most of the survey would have said without the choices: "the wife." But that was wrong. Then Karn read the question in its entirity, including the choices.

After the other contestant got it right, Karn aplogized to the losing team, saying that it was really a "trick question"—is it the aim of Family Feud to trick its contestants? The game's about racking your brain to think about what other people think of, not to determine whether the show is going to try to trick you. Should Mary Beth have expected the survey to say lawyer? When I think of a divorce, I usually think of the couple splitting up, not about the lawyer getting involved. If anything, Karn should have read the choices in advance instead of trying to trick the contestants.

On a slightly different topic, those of you who watch the Feud regularly know that Richard Karn—mainly known for his role of Al on Home Improvement—is going to replaced by John O'Hurley on September 11—in ten days. This is too bad, because Karn is really the best guy for a show like this. I hope O'Hurley is dignified about the game, though, like he was with To Tell the Truth.

It seems that all of the neighbor kids are attracted to me like a magnet. I went outside three times to check for mail (which never came...), and each time, the little kids dropped whatever they were doing and ran over to me to talk to me about a hundred different topics. The boys wanted me to bring out my Hot Wheels and play cars with them (a game consisting of dragging the car back and forth on the ground and going "vroom vroom"), and the girls wanted me to listen to them sing some pop music. It's hard to say no to them because they just keep hounding you and they follow you everywhere.

I'm not saying that I don't like them, it's just that they're always on my tail whenever I step outside. The second time I stepped outside, Jesse and Davey were obsessed with the idea of wanting to come into my house to play video games and build with Legos and make a Hot Wheel track. This is stuff Jesse and I used to do when I babysat him. The third time I stepped outside, I managed to sneak to the mailboxes, but when I saw that Jesse had noticed me, I ran back to my house with him following closely on his scooter. I only barely managed to get into my house and lock the door before he could push the door open to beg for me to come back outside and play. He will just stand with his foot in the door. It drives me absolutely crazy!

Several weeks ago, my cousin Daniel was visiting, and we were working on a jigsaw puzzle, and Jesse and Davey rang on the doorbell and when I opened the door, they ran away. A minute or so later, they rang the doorbell again, and to humor them, I opened the door; they were hiding under the porch, and I could see them through the slats. They kept ringing the doorbell and playing ding dong ditch until more cousins, Kevin and Shelly, arrived. The little kids began pestering them (Jesse and Davey have this obsession with telling Kevin that he owes them money). After Kevin and Shelly came in, Jesse and Davey kept ringing the doorbell and running and hiding. After a while, we began to ignore them, but then they would repeatedly ring the door bell over and over. Soon, Kevin prepared a squirt gun and stood behind the door. When Kevin heard Jesse and Davey run up the stairs, he opened the door and blasted the kids with the squirt gun. Of course, that really didn't stop them—nothing does.

The little kids in my cul-de-sac decided that they're going to put on a play for us neighbors to watch tomorrow. I told them that the idea sounds good, and asked what their play's going to be about. This was hours ago, so let's see how close I get to what their actual story was. It's about this girl who's a maid and she doesn't like being a maid so she runs away and bumps into some poor girl and they both run away and then they run into a witch, and—that's when I stopped her. "Don't spoil the ending for me!" I said.

I asked them when they would be showing the play—they said, "6:30". I said that's awfully close to dinnertime, and they said that they themselves would be serving dinner for the audience. Wondering what a 10-year-old might serve for an entire audience, I asked what dinner could be. They listed off a plethora of items such as blackberries, soda pop, and Top Ramen. "Would you cook the Top Ramen?" I asked, and they said no, that it was fine hard and they enjoyed eating it that way anyway.

They also mentioned nachos—one girl's mom came outside and the girl asked if they could run to the store sometime to buy some nachos, and her mom asked if she'd be using her own money. This brought up the topic of whether they'd be charging admission to the play. I told them the pros and cons of charging both high and low amounts of money. They argued with each other and decided on 50¢ per ticket, although one boy thought that was too high and said that 25¢ was fine. One girl didn't want to charge anything, but didn't want to leave empty-handed and wanted to charge 1¢ per ticket. I told them that they're likely to lose money if the cost of the food is more than the money they take in from admission, but they said they were fine with that and that they were going to use only the food that they already had, and therefore not lose any money.

Then one girl asked if I could help them make a program for their play. I told them that I'd charge them 5¢ per page for black and white prints or 10¢ for color, while leaving open how many prints they would need, secretly hoping that she'd ask for too many so that she would learn about overstocking or something like that. She decided that 10 black-and-white copies would do nicely. I then asked her to sketch up what she wanted it to look like, but before she got very far into that, her grandpa came driving into the cul-de-sac and she apparently dropped the idea.

Yesterday, I went to the rehearsal for the graduation ceremony. It was long. Several people in our class need to practice standing and sitting with decent timing.

Then Melissa, Bryan, Emily, and I went to Anthony's Beach Cafe. I got a burger. That was fun. Then we went and checked out the new Weather Center nearby... all it really is is some temperature displays and some little thing about tides. There was a really lame video made by grade school children.

I gave Garth a bath yesterday afternoon. Then we combed and combed him. He's really soft today and he is clean.

Last night, I went to the awards ceremony. When the lady was about to hand out the Bronze Presidential Volunteer award something, she pronounced my name "Brandon Dilbert." Ack! She corrected herself but I still wanted to blow up the whole auditorium. Not that anyone was laughing or anything. I also won an award for being in National Honor Society and another one for being in the top 10% of my class or something like that.

Today, I hooked Mom up with Pac-Man so that she could play that. (She's not very good; I don't know why she likes it so much...)

For much of this week, Dad's been wondering where this cell phone came from. It's a Samsung phone that he found in his car recently.

He called several of the contacts on the phone and learned that the phone's owner works in the auto department at Sears at the mall—the guy had left his phone in Dad's car while working on it!

So Dad's waiting for this guy to call his cell phone so they can schedule when he can pick it up.

The school year is wrapping to a close (more literally than you would think!). In the fall I shall be attending The University of Washington. Yes! Ten out of ten for style, right?

I got angry because I wanted to get a vest to keep warm while camping but nobody has vests these days! Not even JCPenny or Sears or NOT EVEN ROSS has vests. I had to go to Value Village. My grandpa also had a vest he never wore so he gave it to me.

I have noticed lately a lack of desire to eat jelly beans. Could this be the end of my addiction? I doubt it... I've still been on the lookout for the smoothie-flavored beans. I don't think they'll be selling them in store; I'll have to order them online. I'll also need to order Jalapeño online because they don't sell them in stores. Unless... does the Sweet Factory (in the mall) sell Jalapeño in bulk? I don't know.

Sigh I am just typing to avoid having to pack to go camping tomorrow. We're going to Thousand Trails tomorrow morning and I was rather upset to learn that sites are distributed first come, first serve. That means that we'll have to get there nice and early (impossible!). We're doomed to have the rainiest campsite!

We were rather upset last month to learn that they're going to tear down the "greenbelt" on the other side of the street from our cul-de-sac to put in some apartments. That means there's going to be noise and other bric-a-brac all over.

I was also upset to learn that the Ninja Turtles show currently running is going to make a huge change to the show by thrusting the characters some billion years into the future. I think they're going to drop most of the main characters and give the Turtles stupid costume changes (I've seen the pictures on the official website; they're not pretty).

I've had a sore throat (due to allergies) for the past few days now and it's going to suck going camping because that'll probably only upset me more. Life sucks when you've got allergies (or sunburns...ouch).

I wish I had an anecdote to tell you, but I don't. (When I was typing "anecdote", my finger slipped and I typed "qawszc".)

This weekend, I'm thinking I might count the number of times I sneeze while camping. Sounds tedious, though. But only if I'm actually sneezing (and let's hope I'm not).