Good Evening!

That was my last title. My creativity level is related to the time of day in a manner I could graph if I weren't so tired. If any of this is incoherent, I blame the tiredness factor.

For those who are curious, here is the situation of TPA. It's going to end eeaaarlier than Max and I originally planned. In fact, Max, while I think it's important for us to have a few wrapping-up posts in the coming days, we probably don't have to keep up our one-post-a-day commitment.

Here are things that will happen before TPA comes to an end:

• I'm going to complete my punishment song about how Max is better than I am because that's a punishment I definitely deserve.
• That's all we have planned!

So if you have any thoughts about some sort of closing ceremony things -- like planking or a TPA book club or something like that -- let us know in the comments.

There will be more posts after this one, but things are winding down. Thanks for a great few months, everyone!

It would mostly be fun.

The punishment, that is. We could just do Brave New World, since we've already read it and we know that most of our friends had to read it, too. Then we can put on a puppet show about Brave New World. Maybe the puppets can sing songs about soma. It would be great, I promise!

Max, I'm nooot sure if you know about xkcd, but hopefully I'm doing somebody a favor by introducing it in my blog post today. (By the way, "today" -- it's pretty late, huh? I bet you thought I wasn't going to post, huh? Ha.) xkcd is a website of webcomics, which is not a word according to my spell check, but I'm going to use it anyway.

Everybody's watched The Magic School Bus, right? You probably want to click on these to make them bigger.

This is kind of how I feel about google+, but I'm probably going to join anyway:

And finally, I thought for a long time that my stance on cell phones and cancer was that cell phones don't cause cancer. (By the way, you can totally take stances on things even if you really don't know anything about them; it's all the rage, these days.) But now my stance is this:

Max, thanks for your post about shark week. I enjoyed your disclaimers. I hope somebody gained something from my post tonight, as well. I'm going to listen to "Nerdfighteria Island" because it's stuck in my head, and then I'm going to go to sleep because I'm tired.

The Double Punishment Idea

Ooh, me! I want to try one!

I've kept Max in enough suspense, so here's what I think we should do if we do a double punishment (which the majority of people voted for -- including me, of which I don't think Max is aware).

We should do a book report. Doing a book report first requires reading a book, which Max would already consider a punishment (unless . . . we could do something like Brave New World in your pants, but that's not quite as exciting).

Then, we could do any number of things. We could . . .

• Act out our favorite parts.
• Act out our favorite parts . . . with sock puppets.
• Sing songs about our favorite parts.
• Sing songs about our favorite parts . . . with sock puppets.

That's all I can think of; I'm open to more suggestions.

Now, I know that I have summer homework to do, and I've only read one chapter of Never Let Me Go and haven't started my second round of German blogs, but I gave myself a new goal today.

I'm working on completing all of the puzzles in today's issue of the Indianapolis Star. It's tough, but I've gotten through the Jumble and the Crossword. Next, I think I'll try to conquer the Cryptoquip. First, let me share with you a few things I've learned:

• A "wadi" is a dry riverbed. "Waddiwasi" is one of the coolest spells in the Wizarding World.
• Somebody from Nepal is a "Nepali." Somebody from Berlin is a jelly doughnut.
• "Ecru" is a color. "Emu" is an animal. Some emus are ecru.

Things You Learn at Band Camp

"14-4...  Wow :-/" -- a direct quote from a Max-text I got yesterday. Keep up the good work on the poll, everyone.

Speaking of good work, good work with your Top Ten Tuesday, Max; I learned a lot.

Speaking of learning a lot, I've learned a lot of things in the past three days, and I want to convey a couple of important messages to humanity. What I'm about to say is usually contained within the walls of band camp, so this is a special day.

That. Suave for Men shampoo. I would say that about, hmm, half of the guys in band use it. Why is that? Because they're awesome. Why do I know that? If you have to ask, you'll never know; if you know, you need only ask. (Aaanyone?)

Saran wrap: it's more fun to be on the outside of it than it is to be on the inside of it. I think that statement is true a large majority of the time, but I should specify that it's not so great when you're on the outside of the saran wrap and your instrument case is on the inside. The juniors did a pretty good job with the prank, but they definitely got a freshman's trumpet case on accident, so it could have gone more smoothly.

Finally, I've learned that everyone's life has room (grammar?) for a little bit of Tom Lehrer. Some people like me could probably use a little bit more of him than others, but a little bit of him is never a bad thing.

I mean, we're also learning things about music, and we're marching . . . a lot. I think everyone will agree that I'm fully qualified to make this comparison: marching band is far more intense than any sport. My nose is only a little bit sunburned.

Have a good rest-of-the-week, Max at Ball State and everyone else at other places! We can start the TPA Book Club in a few days or weeks -- whichever works best.

How High the Moon - Morgan Lewis

I'm borrowing the song title thing for today.

And speaking of web browsers, Max and everyone else, Google Chrome is pretty cool.

Max, I'm not going to talk about the new Harry Potter movie very much today. I don't want to spoil anything for people who haven't seen the movie, and it would also feel inexplicably weird for me to blog about the movie at this point.

I will say that yesterday/today was . . . not bad at all. Litotes. I mean, everything was perfect. The movie was perfect, the context was perfect -- Max, fun fact, I got there around 1:30. If you didn't see this on Facebook already . . .

Max, a couple of days ago (Yesterday? Days are hard.) my mom showed me . . . an article. I'm just going to show you this picture:

I'd still like to go a-planking with you, but this is juuuust something to consider. It's pretty new, so if we jumped on to this trend now, we would be . . . trendy. You know how I like to be trendy, Max.

Oh, one last thing. Max, once you've decided to join the TPA Book Club, please take note that when I'm finished with The Great Gatsby, I'm going to break from my list and do the AP Lit homework for about a week. Then I can come back and do a book with you. Last time I suggested Will Grayson, Will Grayson and The Hunger Games, but from what I've heard, you'd probably also like The Catcher in the Rye. Do some research, and we'll talk more about that later.

Irrational Avoidance

As most of you probably know, in addition to being a high school student, I am a psychologist. This blog post is my official report on a new psychological . . . thing that I've been studying for quite some time.

Irrational avoidance is the process of avoiding someone or something irrationally. That's the definition, of course, but in the precise mathematical sciences like psychology, a definition usually isn't enough, so here are a few examples.

In my freshman religion class, Mrs. Lauck told me to talk to Mr. Striby about my service hours. It was a perfectly kind and helpful thing for her to say, but I didn't go. Why not? Irrational avoidance. I probably should have talked to Mr. Striby, but I was either scared of him or intimidated by him -- two of the main causes of irrational avoidance. In the end, I was one service hour short, which could have been prevented.

You know what, though? I probably still got well over 110 percent in that class, and it wasn't a big deal. Irrational avoidance can become a big deal, however, when people reserve judgments about the people or things they avoid. Here's an example of that.

As a child, I was completely sure that I hated the taste of grapes. I never tried them, but I hated them, and that made absolutely no sense at all. Then, one day, I tried a grape, and it really wasn't that bad. It was pretty good. Better than an apple, in fact. Irrational avoidance prolonged the era of my life when I was never able to enjoy the splendor of grapes.

Why do I say all of this right after Max wrote my favorite series of books and movies with an asterisk as if it were an obscene word and declined his invitation to join the TPA Book Club? I don't really have any motives. No link between the two ideas at all. Nope.

But, I mean, speaking of Harry Potter . . .

I think I'm going to wear something similar when I go to the premiere tomorrow/Friday. Just kidding.

Max, the world has a lot of emotions at this time -- with the last Harry Potter movie coming out, it's a sad and reflective time for a lot of people. But let me tell you one thing I wrote on my German blog post entitled "Harry Potter wird nie enden!"¹ I said, "Meine Kindheit könnte zu Ende gehen, aber Harry Potter wird nicht."²

By the time of my next post, I'll have seen Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.

¹"Harry Potter will never end!"
²"My childhood may come to an end, but Harry Potter will not."

Question Monday II

I'm going to start this Question Monday with a couple of Max's questions.

"Do you remember when you mocked me because I had to edit my post earlier in our blogs because I forgot to include the poll results?"

TPA-Flashback!

"This will be the second Saturday of TPA in which the poster actually remembers to start a new poll without editing his post!"

Yes, I do remember that. Except I was also mocking myself, another person who usually forgets to include poll results.

"I think I know how you feel when people go all Harry Potter on you."
"How so?"

See, you just wrote a post about Spyro: Ripto's Rage, which is foreign to most of us. When I write about Harry Potter, it's foreign to you! Unfortunately for you, the final movie is coming out in less than four days, and you're going to be hearing about it.

"Who won this year's DCI competition, out of curiosity?"

Hahaha. I don't remember.

Carolina Crown got second, and I know that because they were our "host team" or something. Also, as I already said, Madison Scouts got third, so I was really excited.

If I had to guess, I think it was the Blue Stars.

"Due process? Come on, the real impact of the 14th Amendment was definitely the idea of selective incorporation. Silly Bryan."

Not really a question, but I can do this.

I concede that due process is the topic of just one of the clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment. However, I wasn't necessarily going for the largest impact of the amendment. You could just as easily have said, "Come on, the main purpose of the 14th Amendment was black citizenship."

I maintain that there is no single correct way to celebrate the Fourteenth Amendment. I think we can all agree that it's a good one overall.

"What do you do to fall asleep when you realize that just laying there isn't working?"

First, I'll tell you what I do not do: count sheep. I find that thinking too much is the main obstacle to falling asleep, and counting makes me think of things.

Usually I just try to imagine an infinite area of nothing. Suspension in a pool of space.

"(If it doesn't bother Max), what do you think your Animagus form would be? And/or, what about your patronus?"

I would probably take the McGonagall route and transform into a cat. They're lovable and apathetic!

As for my patronus, it's hard to say, really. Maybe some kind of a bird. I guess you don't really find out until you cast the spell.

Sorry, Max. Harry Potter is a very important topic this week. Most of our followers are fans of the series, I would say, and I strongly recommend you to join us!

Also, are you going to read a book with me? I just finished The Martian Chronicles, so probably not that one.

Leave Questions for Me in Comments (or Elsewhere)

Max, it's July 9, 2011, and you know what that means. It's the 143rd anniversary of the day the Fourteenth Amendment was ratified! Let's hear it for due process!

Today's post is in six parts.

Part One: Question Monday

Next Monday is my Monday, and it's going to be another Question Monday. I only have so many questions left over from last Question Monday, and I don't want to do any physics, so . . .

Send me your questions in comments or some other way. (Facebook works well.)

Part Two: Planking

Max, your post yesterday was excellent. Why isn't that picture on Facebook yet?

I'd heard of planking and seen examples of it before your post, but it definitely wasn't in the front part of my brain until yesterday. Thanks for reminding me of the activity! We should do this sometime. With lots of people. In public. For pictures. That's a lot of prepositional phrases.

Part Three: Yes, it was a joke.

Good observations, Max. I actually think that most people underestimate the power of contractions.

Part Four: Baby Rabbit

Part Five: Yay!

I finished Brave New World! In effect, I think that I learned a lot, and I'm going to like AP Lit. Also, I finished my German blogs! I didn't even procrastinate that much. Yay!

Part Six: Books

In addition to my required books for summer work, I have a reading list. I needed to write these books down somewhere so that I could remember them, and this is as good a place as any! There are five of them.

• The Martian Chronicles (almost finished with this one)
• Will Grayson, Will Grayson
• The Great Gatsby
• The Catcher in the Rye
• The Hunger Games

Why here? Two reasons. First, now that my reading goals are public, I feel more obligated to complete them. Second, Max, I think you should read something with me. Sort of like the Brotherhood 2.0 Book Club, except not. The TPA Book Club. You don't haaave to, but it would be fun if we could both read one of these books and maybe blog about them. Promotion of literature! If you want something lighter, I would choose either the second one or the fifth one.

It's totally worth a shot, right?

Bonus Part: I Forgot About This

It's time for a new poll! Here are the results of the last one. I saved the picture in case Max needs it:

The new poll is in honor of Max's favorite thing in the world.