ToM Dracone

I agree completely. Karzahni was explicitly described as being black with gold armor, carrying a long chain, and wearing his signature mask. He still has chains, but he's not carrying them: they're attached to his arms. He has Takadox blades illogically pointing forward from his arms. His hips, Mata Nui forbid, are as wide as his shoulders – both use a Piraka torso. He has random red tubes, a squid launcher, and Vezon's cape. Overall, he looks vaguely insectoid, and not at all like the regal, powerful, misunderstood character from the books. But, somehow, he's good as a source of pieces. Dark green Carapar/Mantax armor, Mantax feet, Pridak feet, and Vakama Hordika heads. It's annoying. It almost makes me want him.

I vote dancing. In the Field of Cormallen. After consuming larger quantities of anachronistically carbonated beverages than are probably good for one. It leaves the most people intact. One would hope.

Music: Live to Tell the Tale, Nightwish Mood: Accomplished Of greatest interest: Like how she looks now? Then go see the rest of the Mahri Remixed – you may like the rest even more. (And yay for shameless plugs! ) I just finished drawing Kongu, the last one I needed to do, so I hope to have him up tomorrow. Secondly, on Saturday I got Nocturn and Axonn. Nocturn is just about completely awesome – lime greeeeeeeen! And glow-in-the-dark blue! – Axonn is a pretty good set, not bad but not my favorite. His proportions are still too chibi-like for me, especially with the huge hands, but I like him nonetheless. Nocturn is far cooler, though. The interiors of his thighs and body could have been filled in a little, but he's still amazing. Possibly my favorite set of the year so far. And finally, today is the day of the New Year in Gondor! March 25th in the Shire calendar, which equates to March 27th in the Gregorian calendar. The day Sauron was defeated at last, Gollum with the Ring fell into the Cracks of Doom, and Gwaihir ridden by Gandalf, Landroval, and Meneldor carried Frodo and Sam from Orodruin. Momentous events indeed. Let there be festivities! However the Gondorian New Year is celebrated... ~ ToM

This was so intriguing that I had to work it out for myself, just because. And said angle is indeed approximately 109.4712 degrees. It was remarkably fun. And purple Post-It notes indeed.

Aside from tennis practice, today's been one of my best birthdays ever... It's been cloudy and rainy all afternoon, which is my favorite weather. I walked around outside the house in the rain, looked at the various plants beginning to sprout and bud – the late snow we got last weekend has melted, and it's expected to be fairly warm from now on, so spring is finally here to stay. I got pretty drenched but had great fun, then came back inside and sat gazing out the window, writing a poem... Rain tends to be what inspires me most, and this time I got over a page out of it... Otherwise, I spent the afternoon listening to Over the Hills and Far Away by Nightwish, then heard The Memory of Trees by Enya, my favorite piece, later on. All while it was pleasantly cool and dark... Haven't gotten any presents yet (we open them after dinner), but Francesca baked me a chocolate chip cookie cake, which tasted absolutely amazing. The sophomores ate most of it during third period (which I have free) and break, but I still have some left. Today was also the Sophomore forum (a debate thing between four students with a moderator), and also the birthday of both the forum organizer and my English teacher. Mike (one of the participants) bought a cake to celebrate after lunch, which was eaten by the five speakers, the organizer, and Lowell and Garrett for some reason, and they also invited my English teacher and me to have some. Woot! ^^ So being sixteen has been awesome so far. Especially the weather, sunny but cool in the morning, then grey and rainy in the afternoon... ~ ToM

Except that a certamen is a contest, not "certainly." Sounds fun. I wish my school did this, although apparently my old school does in the high school... That was such an easy question. You should have been the ones to get it... Isn't it weird how the closer one is to winning, the worse it feels? At least it was close, though. What was the final score? Princeton sounds nice, too. Now I want to visit it...

Today is Ovid's birthday! Author of Daedalus and Icarus, Pyramus and Thisbe, and Apollo and Daphne within the Metamorphoses, and the Amores... I really want to see this happen: Pyramus falls desperately in love with Cleopatra. Romeo does too. Anthony, meanwhile, is entranced by Juliet. Juliet, feeling slighted and affronted, forms an alliance with Thisbe. Thisbe disguises herself as a man and challenges Anthony to a deul. Cleopatra acts magnificently unconcerned with her suitors. Romeo and Pyramus deul, and, during this, Cleopatra slips off to find Anthony. Anthony kills Thisbe, who is revealed to be a maiden after she dies, and Anthony suddenly falls in grieving love with her beauty and kills himself. Cleopatra arrives at this moment and is killed by Juliet with Anthony's dagger. Juliet flees to find Romeo. Meanwhile, Pyramus has killed Romeo and has departed in search of Thisbe. When he arrives on the scene, he falls weeping onto Thisbe's corpse, then kills himself by drinking from a flask of poison hidden in her bodice that Juliet and Thisbe had meant to use on Cleopatra. Juliet finds Romeo dead in the throne room and then kills herself by being bitten in the breast by an asp. That was intensely entertaining to come up with. I thought Romeo and Cleopatra and Anthony and Juliet sounded intriguing when I got the idea a few days ago. Then decided to throw Pyramus and Thisbe in. Whee! I also like "Romeo and Julianne," as my Latin class came up with. ~ ToM

Actually, we have two this year, too: Hahli and Idris. But that's not the point. But I agree. And from the sales point of view, how would it possibly affect sales to make more sets female? Roodaka's the only one who's been visibly female; the rest usually get referred to as "he" from what I've heard kids say in the Lego section. Chances are much of the target audience doesn't even know what gender the sets are in the story. Until Lego makes canister sets that appear female, I don't see how gender would be a factor in buying. And since I've always liked female characters, to me it's just silly to not want to buy a set for the sole reason that it's female. I'm curious now... 2001: 3 – Gali, Nokama, Maku 2002: 2 (3?) – Gali Nuva, Cahdok & Gahdok 2003: 3 – Macku, Hahli, Pewku (if she counts) 2004: 2 – Vhisola, Toa Nokama 2005: 4 – Gaaki, Nokama Hordika, Roodaka, Boggarak 2006: 2 – Dalu, Toa Hahli 2007: 2 – Hahli Mahri, Idris

Oh, shush, you. I know half of what I do already from Advanced Algebra/Precalculus this year. Give me a few weeks and I'll have it down. If I can learn the Tengwar, I can learn the Greek alphabet, and I have full intentions of learning Greek itself, too. ...Yeah, I'm going to go edit that to reflect things more completely. Haha, I won the quiz bowl my old school had in 6th grade, and I think the only real competition Henry, Dani, and I have is the Senior team...

Woo, free advertising! Er, I mean, thanks. The story's here. I've only heard the Limp Bizkit one, but I keep forgetting to listen to the original, which Sméag sent me... Happy Saint Patrick's Week to you, too.

There's this quiz tournament thing going on at my school right now... Yeah, nerdy, but really fun. There wound up being seven teams of four people each, from varying grade levels. My team is myself, Henry, Dani, and Mike (all Sophomores), and last Friday and today we played against Youri's team (all Juniors). What is really cool is that on Friday, Dani and Mike both had meetings they had to go to, so Henry and I were the only ones playing against a full team of four. And we thoroughly owned them – at one point the score was 90 to 10, our favor. Then, however, the category became Spanish. Henry and I take Latin and French. So they caught up then, but we gained back ground in the Latin category and finished the day at 120 to 80. (The Latin category was weird, though, because instead of giving Latin phrases, they read legal terms and we had to provide the Latin phrase used. I really should have known Quod Erat Demonstrandum.) Today we had both Dani and Mike with us and gained a lot more points in the category of Greek letters (something I expected to be terrible at) and some in the mystery category, which turned out to be Ronald Reagan. Then we won the game with 200 points to 110. It was awesome. However, there are still more rounds to go, and I dread going against the Senior team of Olivia, John, Adam, and Alexandra, who are the school's resident masters of random facts. In other news, I wrote three more inches of QfLD last night, have completed CGing my stylizations of Jaller, Nuparu, and Hewkii Mahri, and have decided to learn Greek. ~ ToM

Took the National Latin Exam today... For some reason we took the Prose exam, even though we were supposed to take Poetry. Odd. It was pretty easy, in general, though there were I think four questions that I really didn't know the answers to. Three of them I narrowed down by process of elimination, and one I took a wild guess at, and by checking afterward I found out I had gotten at least three of them right. (Including the one about Augustus's second wife, which was the wild guess. Though it was obviously not Lucretia.) We'll find out how I did on the rest... It was fun... Yesterday was also Pi Day, and we got to eat two types of pie (which means we ate 4(pi) radians!) in Advanced Algebra while Mr. Fujita explained about Euclid and Archimedes and Eudoxus, and how they calculated the value of pi and proved that the circumference of a circle was indeed 2(pi)r. Then a few other civilizations' estimations of pi. Henry: "Archimedes must have had no life." Katelin: "No, he was a flaming nerd!" I am also in love with Creeping in my Soul. Except for the rap part, since I don't like rap. But otherwise it's really cool. ~ ToM

Eheh, I took the National Latin exam today... I saw this last night, read the first sentence, and ran away. (But I didn't look anything up. No cheating here. ) I particularly enjoyed the myth – it was originally Egyptian, and I had read that version last year. I don't remember exactly how it ended, but it was otherwise the same, just with Isis searching for Osiris instead of Ceres searching for Prosperina. The last sentence was something along the lines of this: Ceres gave him a chariot pulled by dragons so that, by which he was carried, he might sow the earth with fruit. So the ei referred to the baby and quo to the chariot. (It can't refer to the dragons; it's singular.) I got a gold medal last year... What's Certamen? I think I've heard of it before...

1. We ate two kinds of pie in Advanced Algebra today while learning about Archimedes and Euclid and various other ancient approximations of pi. 2. 80 digits! 3. Technically, pi is one of those inedible numbers: it's irrational, and so goes on forever without repeating, which means you could never finish eating it. All rational numbers are conceivably possible to eat.

At last! Most of the remaining snow melted today, it's 60º as I type this, I can see the ground again, and thanks to the early Daylight Savings Time it's still light outside as I type this, meaning that I can once again do homework by daylight. (I never do homework in the afternoons.) I find it appealing that the first thing I did was Latin, translating the part of Ovid's Pyramus and Thisbe where Pyramus declares that he wants to be savagely eaten by lions. I took a walk a little earlier, just around the house, and it felt wonderful to be able to do that again. There was a light breeze, so it was very refreshing. The ground is still rather squishy, being saturated with the melted snow, there are birds chirping all over the place, and the few bulbs that sprouted really early seem to have survived the snow. The first day of spring may not be until next week (two days before my birthday!), but as far as I'm concerned it started today. Woohoo! ~ ToM

People can like the storyline without liking the sets; they can like what the sets used to be like; they can like to MOC, draw, and write without liking new sets... This site is devoted to everything in Bionicle – not liking the newest sets still leaves six years' worth of things one might. Besides, you can still like some sets without liking others. For instance, I absolutely love Hahli Mahri, but I utterly hate Kongu and Hewkii.

I really want to see that. A friend of mine (who apparently went to see it at midnight when it came out) described it as the most awesome movie this year... I can't wait...

1. Hm... A temperate island. Something with desiduous forests, mountains, and frequent rain. 2. Pure white with blue eyes and no mask. 3. Wings would be interesting (they sure look awesome on Hahli)... But it would be interesting if they had different modes of flight. Wings, jetpacks, the Kadin... 4. Depends. Although Toa control elements of nature, some of them are less... visual than others, lacking the natural feel that fire, water, ice, air, earth, and stone have. You won't find a terrestrial environment centered on plasma or gravity, for instance, whereas an ocean immediately evokes the element of water, or a lava flow, fire. Then there's also the matter of seeming ancient, tribal: the six basic elements (and light and shadow) all sound natural, archaic; gravity, magnetism, and plasma have a very "neo" feel to them – historically, they've only been quantified or discovered recently. Sound borders on the edge – it's not something visual, but still something that's always been known. Then vacuum, although we have yet to know of a Toa with it as an element, has the same new, nonvisible feel to it, but it seems rather superfluous anyway, being just the absense of the element of air. Of the Kal elements, lightning is the most archaic – like sonics, it's always been seen, and it also has an unfailing aura of power, as it's not obtainable, manipulable, the way the others are. Something usually reserved in mythology for gods to control (like Zeus and Thor), which is like the image the Toa first had. Then there's the element of plant life, which I definitely like. It's entirely natural, visual, archaic. My favorite of the new Toa elements. But for the rest, it depends on which image of Bionicle you like better: the old, tribal image, or the new, techno feel. I'll always like the old image better, but the new elements work within the new storyline. So... I'd say... not bad as Toa elements (except for Vacuum), but a lot of them lack the mystical feeling that fire, water, earth, air, stone, and ice have. 5. Combination of both. ...So number four was long. But I enjoyed typing that up. ~ ToM

Takatu ~ Bryophytes aren't just a single plant, though; they're an entire phylum of simple plants... Not something that ought to be skipped... My reflexes aren't that great either, which is why I'm not really fond of tennis. Or good at it. Lyg ~ I was wondering if anyone would pick up on that. Yeah, I already learned about them in 7th grade when I took Bio the first time, but I'm just going to go through and read the section in this textbook for fun. And to refresh my memory. I should probably read the chapter on algae, too...

Mood: exhausted Listening to: Less than a Pearl, Enya Ohhh, it feels like it's been so long since I've listened to Amarantine (the CD, not the song). I love the songs in Loxian, and the whole album is, as with most anything by Enya, very relaxing, and good for a late winter afternoon... In Biology, we're finally on plants, and I'm annoyed that we skipped the section on Bryophytes (mosses, liverworts, and hornworts mainly). And we jumped over the chapter on algae entirely. Bryophytes are my favorite plants... And I like algae too (plants or not). Apparently we need to be going faster, but we skipped the two most interesting parts of the whole texbook... Anyone who knows me well knows that one of my three chief interests is botany, so skipping large portions of the section is annoying. Oh well... Today was also the first real practice day of tennis, hence my exhaustion. Now that I've gotten back into the swing of things, I'm managing, not that I was ever exactly good in the first place. Meh. I can't wait until it gets warm enough to practice outside; I hate playing in the gym... Hiiyha... ~ ToM

I really ought to update this more often. I'm sure I have things I wanted to blog about, but a lack of time of late has prevented me from doing that... Since I'm not good at multitasking... For the moment, however, it will suffice to say that Takadox has made it to the AC13 finals! As always, any and all votes are very much appreciated, especially as I'm in eighth place at the moment. I think it's sort of a given I would love to be doing better than that. Plus the fact that I consider Takadox to be my best AC entry to date... ...It's discrimination against organic entries, I say! To arms! But really, there are a lot of great entries in the final poll, so vote for whichever one you think is best. However it turns out, it looks like it's going to be a very close race... Of course, that doesn't mean reviews for the entry itself are unwelcome. There's a link to the topic in the below entry... ~ ToM

Currently I've grown to like some of the Mahri (Hahli and aspects of Matoro and Jaller), but I still don't like Gadunka or Maxilos and I'm still neutral on Hydraxon. It is like Umbra, really. One, people like them more now that there are multiple angles of pictures; two, not the best designed of sets in the first place. To my own surprise, I'm now fond enough Jaller's mask and crab armor, but that's because I've warmed up to their design and use, not because of new pictures...

Indeed they can. In The Roodaka Affair (an epic of mine), Roodaka kills a Visorak by stepping on it while wearing high heels. Bwahaha. Though even Roodaka only wears high heels if she's going around being seductive (which she does spend most of her time doing). If she's fighting, she wears military boots. But still, imagine getting kicked in the face (by Roodaka) by someone wearing high heels. Ow.

Scio linguam Latinam! Si in ha lingua loqui vuls, dic mihi. Et je ne sais pas espagnol. Mais je sais assez pour dire: "Je ne parle pas espagnol." C'est très utile pour confondre les gens.

I'm experiencing the same thing, except in a tie for second place... Hm... It would be "Felicitas vobiscum omnibus," I think... Since felix is an adjective, not a noun, and omnia should be dative/ablative plural. But I'm not certain where the -cum would go...