I recently went on a mushroom foraging trip.
These first pictures are of a Giant Puffball [Calvatia Gigantea] found by my dad when he tripped over it, intending to find somewhere to piss.

 Cut in half, it's spongy and completely solid. If it's solid white all the way through (as it is here), then it's perfectly ripe for eating.

 These are as of yet unconfirmed to be Chanterelle mushrooms [Cantharellus Cibarius], but I'm very hopeful they are. Right now, they're in my freezer waiting for when I decide to eat them (provided they are Chanterelles).

 This is a Fly Agaric mushroom (Amanita Muscaria). Renowned for being the model for the mushrooms in Mario, the European variant is famously hallucinogenic. However, this is the American variant, which is not hallucinogenic; So, if any cops are reading this, don't worry.

 From here on are pictures of unidentified mushrooms that were interesting finds.

 I suspect that this might be a Bolete, but my amateur nature in the field of mycology means I can't quite identify it.

And, to end off, here is a picture of myself preparing the Giant Puffball for eating later. (It was delicious.)

This is obviously consistently updated

    So I started high school, and that's a thing. I'm attending this hippie dippie experimental curriculum thing, but it's really just regular school with more stoners who don't have the initiative to attend more than one class. I've been spending some time learning python, so i can do some pretty basic programs. I also wrote a short horror story, so I might post that here later. This blog is always obviously consistently updated, as you can tell by hiatuses spanning months on end.

Xkcd

If some of you have been living under a rock for the past 9 years, you probably haven heard of a webcomic called Xkcd. Xkcd is a comic that mainly details what would happen if the world were ruled by a bunch of amoral, horribly insane geeks. It´s absolutely brilliant, and I implore you to read it. Xkcd

Minecraft Guide

            Have you ever wondered why the sun moved so fast in the pixelated sky? Or maybe why trees float? Well, I’m here to answer that for you, and throw some tips in too.

            First, let me tell you, I’m assuming you know the controls of Minecraft, and basic computer usage. This is an essay about getting started in Minecraft, not an interior design tutorial. Now that we’ve got that straight, the first thing you should always do is go punch some trees. This will give you some logs, and with those, you can craft wooden planks. With the wooden planks, place one in each of the crafting square in your crafting grid. This will create a crafting table. Use the crafting table to create a pickaxe, and search for stone and coal. If you didn’t find coal, just place logs in the furnace (8 cobblestone in a square).

            Then, use the coal combined with sticks to create torches. We won’t use these until you make a house. The first step to making a house is to make a frame. I prefer to use a 4x3 frame for my starting houses. After that, build the walls and the roof. If you want to be fancy, harvest some sand. You can smelt it into glass for windows. Once your house is done, make a hole in the front and craft a door. This is made with 6 wooden planks in a rectangle. Now that it is complete, place torches inside. This will light it up and keep monsters from spawning. By now, it should be sunset. There are two choices to make. 1.Collect wool from sheep and make a bed to sleep through the night, or 2. Make a mine to work through it.

            I recommend option 2, because it benefits you more by giving you resources. However, it’s more dangerous than the other option, because caves are dark and can spawn a myriad of monsters. The one to watch out for the most is the Creeper. It is an armless green pinnacle, and it will approach you silently and explode. There is numerous ways to avoid this, mainly killing it before it explodes, or running like heck. If you’re lucky, you will have found iron, which can be used to upgrade your tools. If you keep working in your mine, you’ll keep finding better and better ores, eventually leading to diamond. But that’s a long way from now. For now, keep mining that iron.

Review of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galxy

Have you ever wanted to see the galaxy from an improbable angle, with the Universe being your only limit? Then you  might want this book.

The book I chose to read for my review was The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, By Scott Adams. The main characters in the book were, Arthur Dent, a regular earthling, Ford Prefect, an irresponsible alien disguised as a human, Zaphod Beeblebrox, the former president of the galaxy; now a convict, Tricia McMillan, or Trillian, the fiancé of Zaphod, and Marvin, a terminally depressed and spiteful robot, built as a prototype.

The story begins on Earth, when Arthur finds that the city council has plans to demolish his house and make a highway. In a heated argument with a representative, his friend, Ford, takes him to the pub and explains that a hostile alien race called the Vogons are going to demolish the Earth to make way for a hyper-space bypass. They manage to get rescued by Zaphod and Trillian, in the stolenHeart of Gold starship, equipped with an infinite improbability drive. The party travels to a fabled planet lost in the past, believed to manufacture planets for luxury. The planet reveals that it is hostile, and they narrowly escape with their lives. They then go on to the restaurant at the end of the universe, named Milliways. The restaurant is conveniently located at the end of time, and the party sits down to enjoy the proton decay and drink “pan-galactic gargle blasters”, the most volatile alcoholic drink in existence.

I could not stop reading this book, it fit extremely well to my tastes, and I think that anyone who enjoys science-fiction and comedy will enjoy this book as well. At times it may be slow, but it will more than make up for that with its enticing storyline.

Persuasive Essay

Is the Penny Really Useful?

In most situations, pennies are useless. Don’t agree with me? Do you have a penny jar in your house, but instead of spending it, you just put in more pennies? I thought so. Abolishing the penny would improve the economy, and make it easier to purchase things.

The most important thing is that it costs around two cents to make a one cent coin. Yep, every time we make a penny, we lose money. You must think, “ Well, two cents isn’t a lot of money to lose.” However, around two billion pennies are produced each year in one state alone. That means we are losing 2 million dollars every year in pennies. That little one cent loss adds up pretty quickly.

Something that also hurts the economy is, 1.2 million pennies are thrown away yearly. So, more than half of the loss of making pennies goes to the landfill. Either we reduce the number of pennies made per year until we stop throwing them away, or stop making them entirely.

Some of the annoying things about the penny comes from stores, or rather, goes toward stores. You can’t buy anything with a penny. This may sound a little far out, but how many times have you bought something under five cents? You can’t even buy a pressed penny. That takes an additional quarter or two. It only acts as bait for six year-olds to do chores. But then it goes into the giant mess they call their room, never to be seen again.

The most annoying thing, is that clerks and cashiers have to put up with pennies as change every single work day. They have to count through all the pennies, sometimes starting over because they forgot the number. If they have the customer count the change instead, they get mad and start lecturing the cashier on laziness. Pennies only serve as an annoyance in convenience stores, for everyone. Can you see yourself as a cashier at, lets say, wal-mart. A mom and her son walk up and dump a pile of pennies in front of you. They say it’s a thousand pennies, equal to ten dollars. They also say you have to count through it to make sure its all there. Would you want to be in that situation frequently? No one would.

So, what do you think? Keep the negative one cent coin, or get it out of the nation’s system, so we don’t lose two million dollars a year? Its up to you. I can’t vote. I’m only twelve.

Ska and Classical: Why are they so unpopular?

I was assigned to write an essay on comparing two not so popular types of music, classical and ska. I’ve been listening to both genres for almost a decade. I’ll go through a couple of subjects of debate between the two. I might have opinions that don’t reflect yours, but I can’t expect everyone to agree with me.

First, I’ll talk about instruments. The instruments used in ska are very old, much like the instruments in classical. As I know of, there are a drum set, a guitar and bass guitar, a saxophone, and some others. These instruments produce a sound similar to rock music, but it doesn’t have any screaming, like most popular bands. The instruments in classical were invented quite some time ago. These were mostly wood and brass instruments, that were popular in the 18th and 17th century, and I think the sound is less pompous, and more melodic. My general reaction to classical was soothing, and rhythmic.

The melody for the two genres is very different from one another. The melody for classical, was slow, and it gets faster. Each verse was unique in concertos. You may have noticed that I talk about ska like it is bad, but I love it just as much as I love bagels. That’s quite a lot, in case you haven’t known me for five seconds. Humor aside, classical is more of a formal genre, while ska is what a normal teenager would listen to at school. For example, The Toasters are a popular ska band. Look them up if you don’t know what I mean.

The popularity of the music is actually not very different. Ska is something you rarely hear in a conversation at school. Classical is only heard in expensive theaters and elevators. In modern day America, ska is considered by people to be a made up word. And if you ask someone what classical is, they’ll most likely talk about classic cars. They are almost totally nonexistent types of music, because most people, (General Public) only care about the top 40. Why would anyone buy something they can listen to for free on the radio?

These two types of music are similar and different in a lot of ways. But most importantly, you should listen to them both, and see what you think about it. I would listen to them both in any situation, under any circumstances. Okay, maybe not, but you get the point. They’re both really good genres. Actually, that’s just an opinion, but I think you would enjoy them quite a lot. Go ahead.