Halloween

Today is Halloween, which means that people are going to be in ridiculous costumes. Including me, sadly.

Over the weekend my brother was trying to think of an awesome costume and he somehow came to the conclusion that dressing up as me in all my riding clothes glory defined awesome. So I got him the largest pair of riding pants I had to try on. He somehow squeezed into them, but let me tell you, they were a little too tight around certain areas.

Because my brother is crazy, he said that I had to go to school dressed as him. So as I am writing this I am in his badminton shirt, his hat, his sunglasses and his headband. I look more like a retro hip-hop artist than my brother. I also have his badminton racket.

Right now my brother is wearing my riding pants, a polo shirt, my sweatshirt, my socks and his Uggs, plus he is carrying a whip and helmet around. We are both wearing Uggs because I wear them to the barn a lot and Sam wears them around the house and to go to badminton sometimes.

I'm not enjoying this very much. The hat and sweatband combo on my head is not comfortable. And I'm pretty sure my brother and his friend had to spray paint this hat black because it was actually pink at one time, so it smells weird. 

My Favourite Super Power

I do have a favourite super power: invisibility. If I could turn invisible whenever I wanted,  that would be awesome. I could be the proverbial fly on the wall. I could disappear from awkward situations. I  could slip under the radar. I could solemnly swear that "I am up to no good." (If you've read your Harry Potter, you'll understand that last one.)

I've done a mini survey at Brainboost, and most people would choose super-human strength (side track: my brother just told me richness was a super power) or speed, or the ability to shoot lasers from their eyes. But that's lame because there are machines to lift super-heavy things, so we don't need to be strong. There are cars, trains, planes, boats and such to get us places quickly enough. And there are lasers from machines that shoot targets, which is already cool.

My second-favourite super power would be the ability to read people's minds. It would make life so much easier if I could tell what people were thinking. There would be no assuming, only knowing. I would also know when someone is lying to me. It would be a shortcut to learning the body language of lying.

Under no circumstances would I tell someone that I have a super power.

Being Sick

I don't like being sick if I have a fever or something really terrible. But if it's a 24- or 48-hour cold, then that's fine. They are much easier to cure than a fever, which saps my energy and makes me feel tired and useless.

When I have a fever, all I want to do is sleep and drink milky tea with honey. But I don't like to miss school because the only thing worse than a fever is having to catch up on all the lesson I missed. I'm presuming the same goes for work if you are an adult. It's kind of like a bus stop: if you miss the bus you can run to try and catch it, and sometimes you do. However, if you miss the bus, you have to take the one, which means you're going to be late.

All this talk about being sick makes me wonder: why are we always getting colds? Maybe we don't wash our hands enough? Is it that the virus is always slightly mutating?

The common cold doesn't make me sick so much as annoyed.

Bike Thieves

I understand why someone would steal a bike. They need transportation and can't afford to buy a bike or a bus pass and no one taught them that stealing is bad. I wonder, do they feel bad when they steal the bike?

Usually bikes are locked to a pole or bike rack to deter thieves. Breaking a bike lock is tim-consuming and takes quite a bit of effort. If you have the tools to break into bike locks, why not wait a little longer, save up some money and buy a used bike?

If you steal bikes because you think it’s fun or funny, it isn't for the bike owner. Find something else move your funny bone,  such as watching cat videos on YouTube.

To all you bike thieves: You are stupid, selfish people. Straighten up.

To all you people who have had your bike stolen: I am sorry for your loss. If you didn't lock up your bike, well you had that coming. Here are some tips for your replacement bike:

• Use two different types of locks, a U-shaped lock and a flexible one.
• Always lock up your bike, no matter what the occasion.
• Take off the bike seat because it will make for an uncomfortable and slow getaway if someone is going to steal it.
• Finally, write down the serial number of your bike and take a picture of it. If it gets stolen and you report it to the police, it will be easier for the police track down.

The Role of Food in My Life

Food does not play a big role in my life. Actually, let me correct that. Farm-to-table seasonal food does not play as big a role in my life as it does in my family's, who describe themselves as meat-eating, gluten-free vegans (don't ask).

I eat, but if I could take a pill or two every day to get all the nutrition I need, that would be awesome. It's not that I don't like eating or that I'm afraid I'm going to become fat if I eat too much. I just don't have the passion gene for food. And I don’t understand why some people are obsessed with making wilted kale salad.

That being said, this could be because I was recently diagnosed as gluten-intolerant. I get anemic if I eat too much gluten. And my face breaks out horribly. You have no idea how aggravating it is that everyone knows when I've cheated and eaten gluten by the pimples on my face. 

Since my second word was "bread" (my first word was "no"), you can imagine how hard it has been to give up cinnamon toast. We've found one brand of gluten-free bread that is tolerable (okay, beyond tolerable), but it's still not the same as a crusty chunk of warm sourdough bread from Rise Bakery slathered with lightly salted butter and a dash of my brother's strawberry jam. I'm salivating as I write this.

But I make do. I can still have potatoes and my great indulgence has become maple bacon chips. And oven-baked fries. Although my mom is on a purple potato kick these days (seriously) and I only have one word to describe purple oven-baked fries: travesty.

National Football League

First, some statistics: 

• The National Football League or NFL is an American football league made up of 32 teams around the US.
• There are two conferences, four divisions per conference and 16 teams per conference. It can be extremely confusing to someone who does not follow the NFL. But if you are a huge fan, then the conferences and divisions make it easier to keep track of your favourite teams and how they are doing in the league.
• Football is an intense game and even though there are technically four quarters of 15 minutes each, a game takes about three hours to play.
• There are 17 weeks of games in the regular season and each team plays once a week, except for one week, when each team has a rest. It is too intense to play more than once a week.
• The pace of football makes a hockey game seem like speed skating, which is good in my house because hockey is on every night now.
• NFL games are played on Sunday during the day, and most sports channels air a game. There is one game played on Sunday night, one game on Monday night, and another game on Thursday night. 
• My favourite teams are the New England Patriots and the Green Bay Packers.

Now, some history:

I started off hating football because I didn't understand it and thought it was a useless game. I didn't enjoy watching sports at all, in fact. Then this past year on Sundays I had time to chill on the couch and watch TV. Unfortunately, my dad was chilling with and always had clicker privileges, which meant we were watching football.

About a month in I found that I was looking forward to Sunday afternoon football, which was a major shock to my family. But people change. Although not my mom. She still hates football. 

The Occupy Movement

The Occupy Movement is a world-wide protest (kind of) that started in New York City when the Canadian activist group, Adbusters, promoted a protest against Wall Street.

The idea originally sprang from the Arab Spring movement. The protests are about social and financial inequality, corporate greed and corporate influence. The slogan for the Occupy Movement is "We are the 99%," which refers to the difference between the 1% of wealthy Americans and the rest of the US population.

The Occupy Movement started in New York in September but has gone international. There are over 900 cities involved in the Occupy Movement and and the 99% now represents people around the world who struggle with social and financial inequality.

I am not 100% certain I agree with the protesters because I only researched the Occupy Movement 20 minutes ago. That being said, I do agree with what I have read so far about social and financial inequality and corporate greed. I think that the world we are living in is highly influenced by corporations that want our money. The advertising business has gotten sophisticated enough to trick us into thinking we want things we do not need, and so we spend our money. And guess where the money goes? To the 1% of people who do not need it.

Until I know more about the Occupy Movement I cannot say that I believe in it 100%. I am at about 80% right now. 

Castle (The TV Show)

If you have not seen this TV show or heard about it, stop reading this. I mean it. Right now.

If you haven't guessed already, Castle is my favourite show on TV, and is currently on its fourth season. The show is about an author who writes mystery novels. His name is Richard Castle, and he is ably played by Nathan Fillion.

The storyline: Castle is writing a series of novels about a NYC detective and he wants the books to be based on a real detective, namely the comely Kate Beckett, played by Stana Katic. Castle is assigned to Beckett's team of detectives to get ideas for his novels. At first, the cops don't like Castle because he is annoying and doesn't know the routine. But after Castle settles in, the team realizes that his out-of-the-box thinking helps them solve murder cases.

As the show grows, so do the characters and their relationships. Castle takes a liking to Beckett, although it's not till the fourth season that she realizes how much she likes him back. My friend and I are are obsessed with this show and the fourth season has gotten intense. We both want Castle and Beckett to get together, but Beckett is hesitant. This makes for very annoyed teenage girls every Tuesday morning.

I love the show because the characters and actors are more dynamic than other police shows such as CSI NY or Miami. I watch almost all of them. Most of my weekends are filled with watching reruns of Castle, Bones or The Mentalist.

But Castle is my true love. To conclude, I recommend you watch Castle, which is on Monday nights at 10 pm. 

Being Trapped on a Island

If I were trapped on an island, I have no idea what would happen or what I would do. I also don't know what resources I would have, so let's pretend this is more of a Gilligan's Island type of entrapment (i.e., silly) and I have a satellite telephone, the geographical location of the island I am on, a gigantic cooler of food, pots, plus fresh source of drinking water.

The first thing I would do is call someone. Probably 911, because I want to be rescued and even though 911 is only for urban area, it's the only rescue number I know. Then hopefully after reaching someone to rescue me,  I would call my parents because I'm pretty sure they would be worried about where I am. (I mean, considering I have no clue how I got on the island, or where the island is, I think they would be pretty forgiving.)

So, I would be waiting rescue, but with food and water supplies, I wouldn't be worried. I’m going to imagine it's cloudy weather but warm and humid, meaning I could be near Hawaii somewhere. Or on the other side of the world. Whichever works. I don't have sunscreen either, so after I eat, if it were to get sunny I would have to find shade so I don't burn and risk skin cancer.

At least this is all pretend.

It's a sorry state of my imagination that I've been given this topic and all I can think about is sunscreen. This is why my mother calls me a literalist.

10 Things You May Not Know About Harry Potter

I am a fan of Harry Potter. Having read and listened to all the books in the series, I thought I knew everything there was to know about The Boy Who Lived, but evidently not. In my search today for some unusual things about Harry Potter, I discovered the following 10 gems:

• Voldemort is supposed to be pronounced with the "t". A French word, it means flight of death.
• Harry Potter and J.K. Rowling share the same birthday.
• There have been six actors who have played Voldemort over the series.
• Dumbledore is a Old English world for bumblebee.
• The least successful Harry Potter movie made $90 million more than the most successful Twilight movie.
• The actor who played Moaning Myrtle, Shirley Henderson, is 37 years old. She was also amazing as Kate in the BBC version of The Taming of the Shrew.
• The Weasley twins in real life are not redheads!
• J.K. Rowling is the first person to become a billionaire from writing a book.
• The Hogwarts motto translated from Latin means never tickle a sleeping dragon.
• There is a sign at King's Cross Station in London that says Platform 9 and 3/4 because there are so many fans who come to the station looking for the platform.

There are many more unusual facts that you can research online. I laughed a lot while researching this blog topic. There is also an online Harry Potter game you can play. It's called Pottermore. It looks totally confusing, but probably not for extreme Harry Potter fans.


I'd like to thank J.K. Rowling. She made me want to learn to read.

All About Blogs

Blogs are like diaries, except open to the public. There are blogs on every topic imaginable, and if you like what a blogger writes about, then you can follow that blogger. The best bloggers write on topics that people want to read about, and they write, as one blogger who blogs about how to be a good blogger, "epic shit."

There are people out there who believe that everybody should be blogging, based on the thought that writing regularly is a path to self-discovery. And a blog is a great way to build a network of people who come to respect you for your ideas, so is the ideal tool to help realize goals and dreams, even if you don't have a clue what they are when you start out blogging.

Blogging is a great way to establish yourself as a world-class expert on a topic. If I stuck with this blog, I could become an expert on "teenage blogging as a path to career enlightenment." And I can't state enough how important it is to write compelling content. It's more important than correcting typos.

As with everything worth doing, blogging is worth doing well. (Note: I don't think this blog counts and I am doing it for school credit and in order to become more comfortable writing.) And don't get hung up on a topic. Sometimes when you start writing, the topic just appears to organize itself.

Converse Shoes

I am excited to be writing about my favourite pair of runners.

I have two pairs of Converse running shoes, turquoise and orange. To this day I have never seen anyone else wearing orange Converse runners. I like my blue turquoise runners, too, but more clothes match my orange ones (really).

Converse work with or without socks. They are probably the comfiest shoes I own. I have walked for hours in them and even hiked up a mountain in France in extreme heat with them.

A reason Converse are so popular is because of the wide variety of colours and styles. On the official Converse website you can even design your own running shoes, choosing from a variety of patterns, colours and styles.

The truth is, Converse make my feet feel good.

The Two Worst Inventions Of All Time

There are many bad inventions out there. But since I have only had 20 minutes to research this topic, I'm going to go with the baby cage and hula chair.

The baby cage was used by parents in the 1920s who had limited space in their apartments for their baby to sit and play. You installed the cage to a wall outside a window and put your baby in it. As you may have guessed, it proved extremely dangerous, as the cage was supported only on one side and  usually attached to a window more than one storey above the ground. The baby cage was mostly used in London, where crowded housing was an issue. It must have been traumatic for the babies; I am disturbed just by using baby and cage in the same sentence. Needless to say, the baby cage is no longer in production.

The hula chair is supposed to give you an abdominal workout while you sit in your office chair and work. It supposedly does all the work while you get all the benefits. In other words, a rip-off. It has a swivelly kind of seat that replicates a hula hoop, and in theory is supposed to give you the same type of exercise that you would get swivelling your hips with a hula hoop. Obviously, it's a gimmick. And for anyone gullible enough to consider buying one –– it doesn't work, people. But Ellen Degeneres did use it on her show as an example of a bad infomercial and the company got great PR, so it probably made buckets of money just from people buying it as a gag gift.

Steve Jobs

If you asked me what my favourite piece of technology was today, I would say my Macbook. I would also mention that I love my iPod, and my mom's iPad. Who do I have to thank for that? Steve Jobs.

We can all thank Steve Jobs for changing the way we use technology. When he and his partner Steve Wozniak started Apple, they had no idea that it would become such a huge success. Apple made personal computers popular. They were––and are––the tech company with the newest technologies, sleekest design and easiest-to-use operating systems. They are always coming out with new technology that is massively better than the old technology. Every piece of technology that Apple has produced has exceeded our expectations.

What if there was no Steve Jobs. Or he didn't start Apple. There would be no MacBooks, iPods, iPhones, iPads, iPods, iTunes and iTV. Can you imagine how sad this would be? PCs would rule the world. And PCs are just so... ugly.

We have so much to thank Steve Jobs for. It's tragic that he had cancer and you could say it's unfair that he died so young at 56. But when you think about all that he accomplished in his life before he died, well, it's impressive. And inspiring.

Thank you, Mr. Jobs, for making the world so full of possibilities. 

I Just Won the Lottery! Now...

OMG, I just won the lottery! Woo-hoo! So first I want to... umm, I don't know what I want to do. Oh, who am I kidding. I am buying a horse and building a barn.

I would also definitely give my parents a chunk of my winnings to pay back what they spent on my horseback riding and education. And I'd send my dad on a whiskey trip around the world, my mom wherever she wanted to go, and my brother on his badminton dream trip. And of course I would start a foundation to help to make the world a better place. I'm just not sure what my focus would be yet. Probably something to do with climate change. After that, I guess I'd do the prurient thing and invest it.

I would not want to let the winnings go to my head. I would still go to university to get an education then have a career. As a volcanologist. As a horseback riding volcanologist, preferably. How swashbuckling is that?

If I won the lottery I would be overwhelmed and shocked but really happy. I just wouldn't want that happiness to die out as the money runs out. I would be very unhappy if my happiness depended only on money.

Steaming on Spinach

I don't know much about spinach. It's never been a green vegetable that's appealed to my taste buds. I realize it's healthy to eat, but I did some research, and it's not as healthy for you as people like to think, so I don't feel too guilty about this.

• Spinach is not packed as full of iron as once thought, thanks to wrongly placed decimal by a research scientist that was only corrected 67 years later. 
• This vegetable is also hard to digest; it contains oxalate which can cause kidney stones, which is why my dad never eats the leaves.
• The longer spinach is in your fridge the more nutritional value it loses. So if you're going to buy it fresh, use it right away. And if you like the idea of spinach, but are lazy when it comes round to cooking, buy it frozen.

Spinach is originally from Persia (modern-day Iran) and was introduced to China in the seventh century. It was introduced to North America in 1806. Spinach is from the goosefoot family of vegetables, which means it is closely related to chard and beets. Medieval artists extracted the green pigment from spinach to use as ink or paint.

A Doggone Rejection

Our dog, Freddy, is a loveable golden doodle. And my brother, Sam, is a loveable old hooch, too.

But the two together are like oil and water. Freddy has made it clear that he doesn't like Sam's room or his car. Every morning when our mom comes into our rooms to wake us up, Freddy trots along to mine, hops up on the bed and cuddles with me. He's even been known to go into my room during the day while I'm at school, where he curls up on the bed and snoozes.

But when Freddy goes into my brother's room, it's a different story. He rushes up to Sam's bed, wags his tail, then rushes away as fast as his paws will take him––he's in and out in about three seconds. We are not exactly sure why. My guess is because Sam's room smells like a 17-year-old teenage boy's room (i.e., bad) and because he does not feed or walk Freddy very often.

My brother also recently inherited my uncle's old car. Last night when Sam came home, my mom came out to the driveway to greet him. Freddy padded out, too, and my mom opened the passenger's door hoping he would jump in and sit with my brother for a second. But Freddy just looked inside, saw my brother, sniffed and left.

I don't think my brother really cares because he likes his privacy. But we are never sure.

Who do I Consider the Most Powerful Person in the World?

Larry Page and Sergey Brin have become the  most powerful people in the world because they control Google.

Everybody uses Google. While its dominating presence has always been as a search engine, Google has invaded our business and personal lives in every way you think of: Google Maps, Google Streetview, Google Earth, Google+ (social media), Gmail (email), Google Docs (collaborative document sharing and editing), Google AdWords (online advertising), Google Chrome (browser), Android smartphone (operating system), Google Calendar and on and on and on.

Google is the dominating presence in technology, and at this point in time, technology appears to rule the world.

Let's face it: Google has changed the world.

Larry and Sergey created Google in dorm room at Stanford University. Google's motto is Do No Evil. Is it possible to do no evil when you are that powerful?