Brandon Notices

Across the street from my cul-de-sac used to be a beautiful little forested area, but now a bunch of jackasses are tearing down all the trees. We've known about it for months—they're going to instead use the land to build more apartments or something. As if there aren't enough apartments in the area already! I guess I shouldn't gripe too much because some of my cousins happen to live in apartments on the same block, but I think they should have asked my permission before they started tearing down the trees (and I would've said no).

It's just a little disheartening because I've been used to seeing trees there for the 15 years I've lived here. But now there's nothing because these dolts have taken down all the trees. Mom kept saying that she could have sworn that the real estate agent told her that the area was a protected greenbelt and therefore protected from devastation, but she couldn't find any paperwork to back this up. Indeed, further down the hill is a "Wetland" sign (indeed, I'm confident that the stream running through my backyard connects to a little pond right under the sign), and none of those trees have been killed, but everything up to the top of the hill is gone.

The only benefit I can see from this is that perhaps we'll see a little more sun around here—I wrote earlier this year that a lot of snow lingers around here because those trees created a lot of shade. But I have no idea how tall the new buildings going in will be. Another potential benefit I could see was that if they were going to have apartments, they would probably add stairs and I might be able to go up their stairs (even if I don't really live there and would be trespassing)—the hill is really steep and there really isn't a sidewalk. I was also hoping that I would be able to go through the newly barren area as a shortcut to my cousins' apartment, but there are too many fences in the way.

To point out how horrible this desolation is, I've provided some before and after pictures. The before pictures aren't the best representation I have because it was winter and the trees were more bare than usual, but it's the best I have, and it's pretty because they're covered in snow. They're from two months ago.

We all know how wonderful open signs are. They save us the hassle of having to walk up to the door to read the business hours. But has anyone noticed that a new open sign has been taking over? The old "rounded rectangle" sign is steadily being replaced by this new "oval" sign. I, for one, welcome this change. As we move into the 21st Century, It's important that we do away with the obsolete signs of the past and embrace the signs of today. Still, there will be stores that don't replace the old signs with the new ones, and they may say they're just being practical and that there's no real need to purchase a new sign, but I'll know that they're out of the times and afraid of change. And I pity them.

It's raining a bit, but the shelter over the bus stop I'm waiting at doesn't do anything to stop the wetness. It's an odd thing--it looks as though someone DELIBERATELY took to the corrugated plastic roof with a knife to cut a big hole. The hole is above the bench, which makes for a damp sit... What in the world motivates someone to ruin a perfectly good plastic bus stop roof? Some people are just jerks.

It's interesting to think that some day, we will all move to Mars and set up colonies and form civilizations. But there's a problem about living on Mars that's worrying me. It's a problem of terms and definitions.

For example, when the Martian ground starts shaking, what are we going to scream? We can't scream "Earthquake!", can we? It's not Earth that's shaking, it's Mars! So we'll call it a "Marsquake"? I doubt it'll catch on. Maybe we'll just call them "quakes" to avoid the whole issue.

Another problem would be what we consider a "year" to be. Sure, a Martian day and an Earth day are close enough in length, but a Martian year is almost twice as long as ours. So we'd have January through December, but we'd need to invent like 10 more months to fill the remaining room. And birthdays? Your birthday would occur only about half as often as on Earth, so you wouldn't get as much cake and presents, and your life expectancy would be cut to about 40. That would suck.

We dyed Easter eggs today. We don't really celebrate Easter except for dyeing eggs. We used an old Crayola egg coloring kit and had only ten eggs to dye. I hard boiled the eggs beforehand because Mom wants to eventually use them in salads. Dad tried to color an egg but messed up—he mistook the purple dye for blue dye and colored his egg the wrong color. He was trying to make a red, white, and blue egg. I kept getting frustrated because the yellow dye was hardly coloring the eggs, so none of them are yellow. Mom got offended by one of Stephanie's eggs; Stephanie used white crayon to write "ASS" on an egg before she dyed it.



I dyed a few eggs: First is the green one on the left with "EGG" on it. I also dyed the purple "HAPPY EASTER" one on the right, and the purple/green egg in front of it. I colored the blue-green egg in the back, too.

It started today at Bartell Drugs, where I got a bag of Wild Berry Skittles. I've had them at least once before, and I really like them. But it's kinda odd because I refuse to eat actual berries. That's right. It just so happens that strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, etc., are not my favorite foods. I won't eat them in crepes, and I am reluctant to eat a pie made out of them.

So why am I so quick to accept them in candy flavors? Wild Berry Skittles are so yummy that I eat them by the handful. Jelly Belly's Berry Blue bean is one of my favorite flavors. And when it comes to lollipops, I'm most likely to pick the raspberry one over, say, sour apple or chocolate. And yet, I hesitate to eat a single blueberry. It is interesting.

On a separate note, I think that Berry Skittles is a cool name and I will probably use it next time I can't think of what to name a character in a work of fiction.

I don't know who would have donated it, but there's a hospital bed in Value Village. It has a $200 price tag on it. And guess what. I think it's being sold! Since I've started typing this, the mattress on top has disappeared! The only explanation could be that someone's paid for the bed and is throwing it piece by piece into a truckbed. The offer of a hospital bed must've been too enticing for someone to handle!

Today, I picked up today's issue of the UW's newspaper, the Daily, only today, I noticed that it was called the iDaily. The top story was a news story about how President Emmert lost the university to Steve Jobs in a poker game and that the UW was now renamed the iUW. Suspicions flared within my mind until I realized that this must be the April Fool's Day issue. But wait, April Fool's Day was yesterday! I looked at the top and the paper and saw that it's dated Monday, April 1, 2007. They put the wrong date on there to allow themselves to publish such an issue! The nerve! Isn't that cheating? I've said it before, and I'll say it again: "April Fool's Day is over!" The articles were humorous in and of themselves, but in comedy, timing is everything. I'm sorry that the Daily didn't have the chance to publish it on the right day (The Daily doesn't circulate on weekends), but changing the date to desperately publish a few funny articles is taking a step too far. You're the fool, Daily!