I just finished reading the novel Peeps by Scott Westerfeld. It definitely was...Interesting. I now know more about parasites than I really ever wanted to know. Definitely a good read though. Here's one of its many entertaining(and gross) chapters about the parasite world.

The natural world is jaw-dropping's horrible. Appallingly, nasty, vile.

Take trematodes, for example.

Trematodes are tiny fish that live in the stomach of a bird. (How did that happen? Horribly. Just keep reading.) They lay their eggs in a bird's stomach. One day, the bird takes a crap in a pond, and the eggs are on their way. They hatch and swim around the pond looking for a snail. These trematodes are microscopic, small enough to lay eggs in a snail's eye, as we used to say in Texas.

Well, okay. We never actually said that in Texas. But trematodes actually do it. For some reason they always choose the left eye. When the babies hatch, they eat the snail's left eye and spread throughout its body. (Didn't I say this would be horrible?) But they don't kill the snail. Not right away.

First, the half-blind snail gets a gnawing feeling in the pit of its stomach and thinks its hungry. It starts to eat but for some reason can never get enough food. You see, when the food gets to where the snail's stomach used to be, all that's left down there is trematodes, getting their meals delivered. The snail can't mate, or sleep, or enjoy life in any other snaily way. It has become a hungry robot dedicated to gathering food for its horrible little passengers.

After a while, the trematodes get bored with this and pull the plug on their poor host. They invade the snail's antennae, making them twitch. They turn the snail's left eye bright colors. A bird passing overhead sees the brightly colored, twitching snail and says, "Yum..."

The snail gets eaten, and the trematodes are back in the bird's stomach, ready to parachute into the next pond over.

Welcome to the wonderful world of parasites.

This is where I live.

One more thing, and then I promise no more horrific biology (for a few pages).

When I first read about trematodes, I always wondered why the bird would eat this twitching, oddly colored snail. Eventually wouldn't the birds evolve to avoid any snail with a glowing left eye? This is a nasty, trematode-infected snail, after all. Why would you eat it?

Turns out the trematodes don't do anything unpleasant to their flying host. They're polite guests, living quietly in the bird's gut, not messing with its food or its left eye or anything. The bird hardly knows they're there, just craps them out in the next pond over, like a little parasite bomb.

Its almost like the bird and the trematodes have a deal between them. You give us a free ride in you stomach, and we'll arrange some half blind snails for you to eat.

Isn't cooperation a beautiful thing?

Unless of course, you happen to be the snail...

I'm bored. So I thought I'd post some new avvies...

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

And the Title Is...

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows As you've probably heard, that will be the title of the 7th Harry Potter book. Picture curtesy of Tealin http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6200745.stm

I'm back!!

So you might be asking yourself where and what I've been doing these past days. Or you might not. Whatever since I'm going to tell you anyway!! I've had both my chorus and band concerts in the last two weeks. Our choral concert was...spectacular. Seriously. One local radio station even talked abut how good we were. And then there was my band concert. Which was good too, but not as much. (I'm a flute player for those who don't know) We played a good piece from Phantom of the Opera as one of our songs. But some of the other songs were ok. Our band teacher picks too many slow *cough*boring*cough* songs for us to play. When I get around to uploading some pictures of the concert I'll post them here.
And besides the concerts what have I been doing? Well actually a lot of stuff, but mostly the reason that I don't post as often is that I'm lazy. :D Hopefully I'll post some more stuff during Christmas brake.

Maximum Ride...

Maxium Ride #3 is coming out May 22, 2007. Its full title is Maximum Ride #3: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports.

I saw Happy Feet last night. But I went as much to see the cute dancing penguins as to see the Harry Potter and the Order of the phoenix trailer that they were playing before the movie. I have high hopes for the 5th movie based on the trailer. It looks like they're going to focus more on the war against Voldemort and make the problems with the ministry second. Instead of how they just mainly focused on the minisrty in the book, and towards the end they finally remeber there's an evil wizard. So I'm hoping they make the whole movie as dramatic and focused as the teaser.

Wooo I Feel Smart!

*gasp* Yes, i actually figured out how to turn a word file into a website! Go me! Anyway, here's a story I wrote for a language arts assignment. Incase anyone's interested. http://www.apirateslifeformebyalannah.bravehost.com/A%20Pirate%20Life%20for%20me.html

Sorry I've been so lazy in posting everyone. I've been working on my huge Romeo and Juliet project due Friday. I found this while google searching pictures for Romeo and Juliet. It's hilarious. http://www.theplainjane.com/peep_plays/rj_scene01.html

Pick the next 7 world wonders...

Vote for what you think the new Seven World Wonders should be. http://reference.aol.com/geography/seven-wonders

My Chemical Romance has a new CD out. Its called The Black Parade and its excellent.

HAPPY 14 BIRTHDAY JEN!! 'nuff said.

More Renaissance Pictures...

Here's some pictures of my friends and I in our costumes waiting for the bus that would take us to the Renaissance Fair.

Renaissance Fair

Our 8th grade chorus went to the Renaissance Fair yesterday for a singing competition. We ended up getting 3rd place. Thats kind of impressive since we were competing agaisnt high school kids. There was tons of awsome stuff there like jousting, fencing, hypnotists, bag pippers and fire eaters. I also got to see the play The Twelfth Night acted out. Although we weren't allowed to have cell phones out at the fair I managed to take some pictures anyway. I'll post some pictures of me and my friends in our costumes later.
The falconer guy.
One of the actors dressed up as Shakespeare.
Scenes from the play the Twelfth Night.

Because I'm still obsessed with Twilight...

Here's some of my favorite pictures I found online for the books Twilight and New Moon. I love the avatar in the uper left corner the most.

Why October Rocks:

October 2^nd: Wintersmith, the new Terry Pratchett book comes out.

October 3rd: New Jet CD, Shine On in stores.

October 4^th: First meeting of Junior Academy of Science

October 9^th: Science fair thingy, which I’ll be going to with a bunch of my friends.

October 10^th: We launch rockets in my physics class

October 12^th: I have a field trip to the Renaissance Fair! I’m enetered in a singing competition with the rest of my chorus there.

October 13^th: New (and Last?!) Snicket book, The End, come out

October 28^th: I’ll be going to a Halloween party thrown by one of my friends.

October 31^st: HALLOWEEN!! Probably the best holiday of the entire year.

Brought to you by http://quesowhat.blogspot.com/

Twilight Fans Unite!

My parents drove me for 2 hours to get to Borders bokstore in Bridgewater, New Jersey for the Twilight and New Moon booksigning. Stephenie Meyer, the author, was there answering questions and signing copies of the books. I had a great time, and I got to meet tons of other Twilight fanatics, not to mention the author Stephenie Meyer herself. Here's some pictures I took
My signed copy of Twilight.

Me and Stepheine Meyer{and someone's thumb :) }
Two girls who were standing in line in front of me, waiting to get their books signed.
Meredith, Shawn, Amanda, and Caitlyn, four Twilight fans who I made friends with during the booksigning.
The author Stephenie Meyer answering questions before the book signing.
And finally, here's a picture of one of the balloons I snagged from the bookstore. It says 'I love Edward Cullen' curtesy of my black sharpie marker. :D

Crappy Poem...

Here's a crappy poem I ended up scrawling in my notebook today in science class. My friends have told me it's funny, so I decided to post it here.

The subject science is one I adore,

But my physical science teacher is such a bore.

As I fall asleep in his class,

I can't help but think he's such an ass.

For giving us surprise quizzes that have to do with math,

And yelling at any kid in his path.

Please, oh please, don't let me fail,

Cause' if I do my parents will go off the rail.

Say goodbye to my iPod, cell phone, computer, and TV,

Now it's just studying for me…

What do you think?

Brand New Fanfic!

In a sudden burst of insanity I teamed up with another author from fanfcition.net to write my second piece of Artemis Fowl fanfiction. It's called Artemis Fowl and the Starbucks Invasion. For those of you who are waiting for me to update Arty Cam, don't worry. I should be writing chapter 2 this weekend. Anyway, here's a look at the Starbucks invasion Chapter 1 if you're curious: http://www.fanfiction.net/~piratesforlife This is my profile page, on account that every time I try linking to my actual story something goes wrong. Anyway, you'll have to sift through random quotes and tedious facts about me, but you should find a link to my story at the bottom of the page. Enjoy :D

How to destroy the Earth...

I stumbled upon this link in Tealin's blog. This website is pure genius. It's from a website by Sam Huges:

Destroying the Earth is harder than you may have been led to believe.

You've seen the action movies where the bad guy threatens to destroy the Earth. You've heard people on the news claiming that the next nuclear war or cutting down rainforests or persisting in releasing hideous quantities of pollution into the atmosphere threatens to end the world.

Fools.

The Earth is built to last. It is a 4,550,000,000-year-old, 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-tonne ball of iron. It has taken more devastating asteroid hits in its lifetime than you've had hot dinners, and lo, it still orbits merrily. So my first piece of advice to you, dear would-be Earth-destroyer, is: do NOT think this will be easy.

This is not a guide for wusses whose aim is merely to wipe out humanity. I (Sam Hughes) can in no way guarantee the complete extinction of the human race via any of these methods, real or imaginary. Humanity is wily and resourceful, and many of the methods outlined below will take many years to even become available, let alone implement, by which time mankind may well have spread to other planets; indeed, other star systems. If total human genocide is your ultimate goal, you are reading the wrong document. There are far more efficient ways of doing this, many which are available and feasible RIGHT NOW. Nor is this a guide for those wanting to annihilate everything from single-celled life upwards, render Earth uninhabitable or simply conquer it. These are trivial goals in comparison.

This is a guide for those who do not want the Earth to be there anymore.

Here's the website for anyone who wants to see it: http://qntm.org/destroy

Post of the Many Pictures.

I saw Smashmouth in concert September 9th. Great concert, they played a lot of songs that are going to be of their new CD.

Here is my friend Jen's new puppy. Awwwww :)
And finally, this is a picture of my friend Joey with a baby squirrel on his leg.

In memory of the Crocodile Hunter...

I know this post is a little late, but anyway...
Steve Irwin died at 44 September 4th in a freak accident where he got stung in the heart by a sting ray while filming a documentary. I couldn't believe it when I first saw the news. He was a passionate enviromentalist, he cared a lot about animals, and his television shows were seen in over 100 countries on cable TV. Only about 3 people die every year from sting ray bites.
*sigh* Its sad. I grew up watching his shows. He was a great guy.