IAtionary: OMH

OMH [oh-em-AYTCH] inj.

1. Oh My Harvey!

The Case of the Exploding Rubik's Cube

As you know, there are a whole lot of Rubik's cubes hanging around the IA at any given time. A couple of days ago in Spanish class, Mike, who is known to be the best speedcuber in the grade, and the school too I think, was playing with his 5X5X5 cube. Those things are insane. The 125ish pieces are so tiny and there are so many of them... it's basically impossible. Well almost. So anyway he was messing with it and one of the pieces popped out. It didn't fly out, just came out of its place and he had to snap it back in. As he was going to do this, the cube exploded. Not fell apart, not broke, not cracked, exploded. I think it must have been because the pieces are pressed so tightly together. Pieces the size of my pinky nail go flying everywhere, and Mike has to enlist everyone around to help look for pieces, continually reminding us that if he lost just one piece, the whole cube would be useless. He did find them all eventually so no harm was done, but an exploding cube is not an image I am likely to forget.

IAtionary: THIF

THIF [tee-AYTCH-eye-eff] int.

1. Thank Harvey It's Friday!

Pictures 'n' Stuff, Part I

I recently realized that I have another problem, very similar to the one I had a couple of days ago. I want to add some new pics to the comics section, but don't want to add them to the ani gif because it takes too long but also don't want to take up too much space. The nice thing about similar problems: they often have similar solutions. I'm basically going to do the same thing; click "Pictures 'n' Stuff" down there to see them together. Although I don't think I'll bother to leave them at the bottom of the page- I'll just eliminate the comics section and use posts instead. Here's today's fill (you can click them all, which, in most cases, will result in their becoming bigger) :











A couple of these I stole from Winnernerd, go read about Winnernerd-doings there. Specifically, for more funny pictures that I like but cannot find a way to relate to IA, click here.

If you're a burrito and you know it...

In Spanish class the other day, we were reviewing something that we have learned at least three times already. This happens at the beginning of every year, but still gets a bit annoying. It's the kind of thing where it seems as if you've already done all the examples before already done all the examples before... woah, déjà vu. That sort of thing. Anyway, Student A tried to say "Yo estoy aburrido," or "I am bored," but accidentally said "Yo es burrtio." I is burrito. He asked me not to use his name... I wonder why...?

What happens when a SMARTboard meets a touchscreen?

By now, most of the teachers at IA have SMARTboards in their rooms. They are fun to mess around with, but they can be a bit annoying when they don't work. Mr. Giromini doesn't have one; he opted to use a touchscreen so he can write on the screen without having to go over to the board. Today in physics, someone asked him why he didn't have a SMARTboard. He said that both the SMARTboard and the touchscreen were meant to save the teacher from having to walk back and forth between the computer and the board. The touchscreen allowed him to stay at the computer, while SMARTboards let teachers stay only at the board. Having both would completely defeat the purpose of having either. Someone raised a hand and asked, "Mr. Giromini, what would happen it you had a touchscreen and a SMARTboard?" After a short discussion, we concluded that the touchscreen would become the SMARTboard, and the SMARTboard would become the touchscreen.

2000 Mockingbirds All In The Same Place!?

We're studying measurement in physics. Again. It is a well known fact that no IA science class would be complete without a couple of weeks spent reviewing significant figures, conversions, and of course, metric prefixes. So Mr. Giromini gave us a few problems to do, and I went home just a touch annoyed, because several of the problems were copied exactly form the worksheet we did last year. Measurement may have gotten a bit old by now. However, these feelings evaporated instantly when I came across the problem below. It just appeals so directly to IA humor... and it's in a textbook no less! Ok then, here it is (By the way stuff in bold was in the textbook, stuff not in bold is me thinking):

Use the SI prefixes to convert these hypothetical units of measure into appropriate quantities: (Ayy this sounds kinda dull...)

a) 10 rations uhhh...well let's see, a decameter is 10 meters, so 10 rations is... a decaration. Oh. Like decaration. Haha very funny.
b) (I'm skipping b for now- saving the best for last)
c) 0.000001 phones ok... 10 to the negative sixth power is micro-... microphones. Hehehe I see a pattern.
d)0.000000001 goats Nano-... so nanogoats. Huh? Oh like nannygoats. Ok.
e)1000000000000000000 miners 10 to the eighteenth is exa-... examiners. haha.
And the best of all...
b) 2000 mockingbirds Ummmm... well 1000 is kilo-...

Two Kilomockingbirds. Wow. Only at IA. And in a textbook, no less!

IAtionary: Blackboardoodle

Black-board-oo-dle [blak-bohrd-OOD-l] n.

1. The combination of the two websites, Blackboard and Moodle, that we use at school for communication, distribution of documents, forums, etc.
2. A convenient alternative to cognitive thought
3. A possible excuse covering a broad range of mistakes, including, but not limited to, forgetting one's homework, not participating in class, failing a test, being tardy, and accidentally confusing 'Mr.' with 'Miss,' 'Mrs." or "Ms."**

Language of origin: Girominean

Alternate pronunciations:
Bloodle [BLOO-dl]
Mlackboard [MLAK-bohrd]
Mooackboard [moo-AK-bohrd]
Mooboard [MOO-bohrd]

**WARNING: Professional driver. Closed course. DO NOT ATTEMPT.

Some Fun and Out-of-Context Quotes, Part I

The Problem: That quotes section on the left is fun and all, but it's been there for a while and its getting too long to fit nicely into the page. I want to put up some new quotes, but I don't want to get rid of the old ones.

The Solution: I'll keep the list over on the left, but whenever it gets too long I'll transfer the old quotes to a post to make room without losing them. You can see all the previous quotes by clicking "Some Fun and Out-of-Context Quotes" under Labels near the bottom of this page. That is one of my more brilliant ideas. And between you and me, that is saying something. Here are all the old ones, and I have at least two new ones to put over there <===== so don't forget to look!

"If you like to see your ridiculous babble in print, I suggest you start your own Google idiots group to which you can post lost pencil messages to your hearts content."
-Mrs. Miner

"Today we're going to talk about transformers. And no, they're not robots in disguise."
-Mr. Lyons

"So if you're walking around in Mexico and you come across the Taj Mahal (Taj Mahal, by the way, not in Mexico)..."
-Sra. Riggs

"My coordination consists of Grand Theft Auto 4, Call of Duty 4, and Halo 3"
-Mr. Giromini

"I tengo a problem"
-Sudheer

"I don't know about you guys, but I think I'm pretty normal"
-Moose

Are You Smarter Than A Lit Teacher?

Last year in Lit class, while we were reading The Great Gatsby, Miss B gave us the following assignment: on our assigned day, each of us needed to lead the class in a 15 minute discussion of the chapters we had read the previous night. Most people prepared a few questions and asked them to the class, but I decided to mix it up a little. I found an awesome template online, and made an interactive PowerPoint presentation entitled Are You Smarter Than A Lit Teacher? which I used to play a game similar to the TV version, 5th Grader.
The game put the class against Miss B, asking questions in the categories below and basically following the rules of the game show.

It was a lot of fun, and the kids in the class did surprisingly well. At the end, when my 15 minutes to present was almost up, I clicked on the $1,000,000 Question button and invited Student A, who loves to make fun of Miss B more than anyone else in the class (and who's good at it too!) up to answer. The IB style question came up on the screen, and Student A was able to answer it correctly, with a little help from the class. I clicked the 'correct' button, and this slide came up:


"Well done, Student A!!" I said, and pointed directly at Miss B. "Now please go to that camera over there and tell the world that you ARE smarter than a Lit teacher!" Student A had quite a bit of fun with this opportunity, and it became obvious why I had picked her. When she was done drawing the declaration out for as long as possible, she sat down satisfied. After a glare or two from Miss B, my time was up, and I went back to my seat appreciating evermore Miss B's lasting good sportsmanship.

The Candy Caper

So school started today. Well... not exactly. I volunteered to help orient the disoriented freshmen at the creatively named Freshman Orientation, so the preparations for that started today. So, now that I'll actually be at IA, you all can probably expect some more posts than you've gotten recently. Anyway, today, one of the jobs we needed to do to prepare for the incoming freshmen was to fill paper bags with candy to give them. Each bag was supposed to end up with a peppermint, a piece of chocolate, a Dum-Dum, a Starburst, and a candle. So we set up an assembly line, each of us adding one of these to each bag from huge Sam's Club sized bags of candy. Sounds simple, right? If you answered yes, go back and read some previous posts until you change your answer. It started off pretty well, until someone ran out of candy to add to the bag. Luckily, we had another bag of the same candy, so the delay was reduced to the time it took said person to open the new bag. Several minutes later, someone else ran out of Dum-Dums, and there was no replacement. Production stopped, someone declared a "federal emergency," and the girl in charge called a friend asking her to stop by the store for Dum-Dums. When we got bored, we continued putting stuff in the bags, sorting them into Dum-Dumed bags and Dum-Dumless bags, until someone else ran out of candy. The friend was called again and asked to add another bag of candy to her list. While we were waiting this time, we thought we'd count the bags to see how many more we needed. Well, it turned out that we had had enough since before we ran out of Dum-Dums. We called the friend again to say that her trip to the store was no longer necessary. Just then, someone decided they would read through the slip of paper that comes with the bags: "Chocolate to remind you that life can be sweet, a candle to show you that you can brighten someone else's life..." etc. Suddenly: "Smarties to let you know that..." Wait what? Smarties? "Yeah hi again, can you go to the store after all and pick up 370 packs of Smarties? Thanks." So we ended up individually stuffing 370 packs of Smarties into 370 paper bags. Lemme ask you one more time: Sounds simple, right?