Newsletter- Contest Entries

alright, here is how this is gonna go, i am going to post all the notes i was sent, and i will number each one without disclosing the names of the writers, what i want you to do is this-
-read EVERY entry
-Grade it like this:
-Topic:1-10 points
-Content:1-20 points
-once you have decided the respective score, add it together, and send the final to my email
-you must rate EVERY note or your vote is thrown out
format something like this please:
1.29
2.14
3.23
etc.

one last thing, if you read this, please don't toss it aside, PLEASE rate, i need all the voters i can get, especially seeing as entrys weren't in entire abundance.

contestant 1

How about I start with an favorite, just because I don't believe it can be beaten to death from over discussion. My personal belief on the perfect circle thing is that they most certainly can exist. First of all, a circle is a geometric shape whose perimeter is infinitely small, and any examination closer than with the naked eye is just overkill and wasting your time. But, for the sake of argument, if you did look that close, it would look absolutely no thicker than before.

Now that that's taken care of, let's talk (or whatever it's called where one reads comments typed possible way before the time of reading) about Hollywood, or more accurately, the Televison Industry. When they air a new television series, they and they alone have the power of deciding whether or not that show will air. Now, they NEED to take a clue from our own government and instill some checks and balances. Currently, when a show is starting to lose viewers or the industry thinks they are tanking, they consult only themselves and cancel the show, almost with no warning.

My gripe with this is that people are watching these shows (I've never heard of a show that absolutely no one watched), so they should either poll these people and ask them if/tell them that the show should/will be canceled, and then go from there, either cancelling the show, move the show to a sister, parent, child station or even the Internet. With the expansion of popularity of TV on the Internet, this is becoming more and more of a certainty.

Next, hows about something I was pondering while working a week ago? Can you treat someone with respect and equality? For example, when you call someone "sir" or "madame," you have successfully and satisfactorily treated them with respect, but that name insinuates that they are of a higher class/position/etc. than you, eliminating equality. On the other hand (side note, it would be great if someone could tell me a single word for that phrase, thanks), if you say something like "'sup, dude" or "what's going on, bro?" as long as your roughly our age, you are treating them like an absolute equal (and not desperately trying to be their peer, that's you, annoying, obnoxious parents!), but are you treating them with respect?

Finally, randomness. This is quite arguably the greatest thing the human mind is capable of. Personally, when I button mash on my keyboard to make Microsoft Sam/Anna (depending if I'm on XP or Vista) say something rediculous in the speech function, this gives me a laugh and a joy nearly no movie can give me (except for the scene in Bruce Almighty when Bruce was making Evan speak gibberish). It's the surprise/shock factor that makes this so awesome to listen to, because (usually just the first time you hear it) you have no idea what's going to happen. Njiernuipeabrnobren mioimoaejbiajioiomn qrveimivcnniunfrener cuinrinure hugthuyt ghuigtnuigftv vhbhyugtrnuibgtrbihgvtr huibntnugtrv bbvgftrbnuibgrnuniub grnjuiob gunbgrniubguhb ngbfnjghujngwbnui bgnjuignnuivnucnujioncfnc qmjicfnnuvg ngrvnnipvgnuigvrnn jini egninigbniu gbfnniu gfbnuiubnigruibn, ui. Put that into your speech function, make them say it on any speed (fast works best), and tell me you are not roflmao'ing all over the place. If you are, I rest my case. If not, you need to ask yourself when the last time you truely laughed was.

This was fun, thanks for reading!

contestant 2

A lot of these notes seem to have to do with psychology/philosophy/ideology, but
I think I'm gonna take a shot at something else (at least at first) and that's
sociology. I've got a theory about that and to put it simply, WHY CAN'T WE ALL
JUST GET ALONG?!?!....seriously folks. I'm not quite as oblivious as everybody
chalks me up to be, and as somewhat of the "resident psychologist/counselor/listened"
in my group of friends, I've realized some things. I think the biggest problem
in this world is that it's way too easy to forget that everyone else is human.
Think about it, how often do you consider somebody as actually having their own
life, their own issues, joys, dreams, pain, aspirations, etc., etc. as opposed
to just their role in your own? I know I'm just as guilty of doing this as
everybody else, but I think if we could all realize this and somehow remain
conscious of it, it might be a good step to actually cleaning up the world
(corny, I know :-P).
So just think about that, the next time you're upset with somebody, somebody's
upset with you, or whatever else is going on, they're still people. Especially
with technology and everything, it's way too easy to just dehumanize everyone
else in your life. But I think that's enough corny, be a good person blah blah
blah. So I'll move on to a second topic, as suggested.
Another trend with these notes seems to be reality v. perception v. theory, and
when that brings up all that comes to my mind is idealization. Everything in
life is idealized, there's no such thing as perfect anything. I'm going to put
in a plug for my minor and bring up physics. It's pretty much the one science
that admits that what it says isn't necessary true. For those of you who have
taken a course in it, how many times do you remember hearing/reading something
similar to "under these circumstances 'object' can be taken to behave as an
ideal 'object'" "ignore air resistance" "ignore friction" and even though there
are models that incorporate those things and "non-ideal" systems they can be
come rather complicated, and can't always account for everything going on,
they're just approximations, and that's all they claim to be, unlike biology,
chemistry and the rest which state how things are, while at the same time
telling you how every previous scientist for the past thousands of years has
been wrong. This applies to real life too. All measurements are rounded,
everything is approximated, nothing is exact, and it would be impractical to
have it that way (measuring things down to the last atom would be horribly
unnecessary). We live in a world of man-made definitions and man-made
approximations, because well, that's all we have to go off of. We have to define
our world as we see it, and that seems to be very much what Josh and Brad are
about in these notes, and it seems like a rather promising start. Hopefully I
gave you guys something to think about, and if not self-indulgence beats out
doing physics homework. Congratulations to whoever wins this. Josh and Brad,
keep up the good work.

contestant 3

Have you heard of the question: what came first, the chicken or the egg? well the egg had to come first.
Chicken DNA comes from zygote. The only way to get this zygote is from DNA mutation from two chickens. now to get those you need a zygote. That means this zygote must have come from a species that was like a chicken. zygote only forms in a chicken egg. So that means this species like a chicken laid an egg and forms this mutated zygote to form a chicken. Feel free to disagree. In fact please disagree if you do because i like to see peoples opinions on this.
Is this war necessary. A lot of people say no. I think it was very necessary. Iraq had a ruler, Saddam Hussein, abusing power. Iraq could do nothing about this. Who do you call for help? AMERICA. he helped them and now they decide to attack us since we made them look foolish. is that right or wrong? if we didn't fight then the USA would of had some serious problems. So fighting back was the best solution at the time.
People has a problem with Barack Obama. Everybody critsizes me on this. I dont like him. I am not racist. I just perfered John McCain. So as this just being a side note, please dont critizes people for not liking Obama because in the end he is our president and I am proud of it.
MCAS. I dont think this is necessary. Colleges dont look for MCAS results.
A-Rod. Heard about the steroids? well i dont think it matters if he did. He is bigger now then he was in 2003. 1994 Seattle Mariners 17 54 4 11 0 0 0 2 11 3 20 3 0 .241 .204 .204
1995 Seattle Mariners 48 142 15 33 6 2 5 19 58 6 42 4 2 .264 .408 .232
1996 Seattle Mariners 146 601 141 215 54 1 36 123 379 59 104 15 4 .414 .631 .358
1997 Seattle Mariners 141 587 100 176 40 3 23 84 291 41 99 29 6 .350 .496 .300
1998 Seattle Mariners 161 686 123 213 35 5 42 124 384 45 121 46 13 .360 .560 .310
1999 Seattle Mariners 129 502 110 143 25 0 42 111 294 56 109 21 7 .357 .586 .285
2000 Seattle Mariners 148 554 134 175 34 2 41 132 336 100 121 15 4 .420 .606 .316
2001 Texas Rangers 162 632 133 201 34 1 52 135 393 75 131 18 3 .399 .622 .318
2002 Texas Rangers 162 624 125 187 27 2 57 142 389 87 122 9 4 .392 .623 .300
2003 Texas Rangers 161 607 124 181 30 6 47 118 364 87 126 17 3 .396 .600 .298
2004 New York Yankees 155 601 112 172 24 2 36 106 308 80 131 28 4 .375 .512 .286
2005 New York Yankees 162 605 124 194 29 1 48 130 369 91 139 21 6 .421 .610 .321
2006 New York Yankees 154 572 113 166 26 1 35 121 299 90 139 15 4 .392 .523 .290
2007 New York Yankees 158 583 143 183 31 0 54 156 376 95 120 24 4 .422 .645 .314
2008 New York Yankees 138 510 104 154 33 0 35 103 292 65 117 18 3 .392 .573 .302

those are his stats. he did a lot better before and after 2003.

contestant 4

So, this is something I’ve been thinking of for awhile, and before I begin, I’d like to say that I mean no insult to anyone, it’s just a thought.

First a little bit of back-story:

So when I was little my parents raised me as a Catholic. I was baptized, went to church occasionally and did the whole first communion thing. And then I started really thinking about religion, and why I was even a Catholic; other than that I was raised that way and I realized that there was no good reason why I was still religious. First of all, the entire Bible reads more like a fiction novel than anything else, and in my mind I began comparing it to say Harry Potter.

What if one day the only document that became a proof of our existence at this time was Harry Potter? Would people interpret it word for word as truth? Would they show discrimination to people based off of a description in a novel? And despite no proof of there being people with magical abilities, would they believe and base an entire religion off of such a story?

Thinking that, it’s easy to make such a comparison to the Bible. Should we then, just because its written down and widely regarded as truth, take the Bible to be just that? Does anybody truly believe that life began with Adam and Eve?

Using Harry Potter is only an example however of what my true point has been from the beginning. My Harry Potter analogy, at least in my eyes, gives me reason enough to doubt having ever believed in such a religion. For me, my lack of belief led me to become an atheist (though I suppose I could also be described as agnostic, however if I could choose, I’d just say non-religious without having to categorize it).

When I told my parents my decision, they began to question me. What did I believe then, if not in God? To which, my response was that I didn’t believe in anything, because whatever created the world created the world, and for me, that was enough. I didn’t need to explain the universe or the world, I just wanted to live in it.

Which brings me to my ultimate point in all of this rambling. With no true basis or proof of the existence of any religion, is not faith in many ways quite similar to superstition? People who are superstitious believe the things they do and behave the way they do out of blind fear for consequences that are irrational to begin with. Will seeing a black cat really cause bad luck? No, probably not.


Why then would denouncing a religion send you to hell, or whatever the equivalent may be in another religion? I know that for me, being a good person is what I hope to accomplish in life, among other things, and if not worshipping a religion or a god spells doom for me in the afterlife, well, then it probably wasn’t a god worth worshipping anyways.



All right, well, that’s all I’ve got for now. If you like what you read, vote for mine, and hopefully there will be more to come!

contestant 5

forgive me for not being grammatically organized.

lets start with talking about time travel. i dont believe in it. i mean, im sure it will be possible in the future, i just dont think it would be a good thing to use. i believe that if you change one thing in the past, you might change youre entire reality. people have no idea what other things will/could change along with the event you went into the past to change. they might not even know if they changed something in the past. and what i mean by changing more than one event purposely/accidentally, is that if you change an event, fate/luck needs to change other events that lead to the event that you changed.

this leads me to my belief in luck. i believe that luck is the master of events. fate is its partner. i think that luck controls peoples actions. if you have a lot of luck, good things/things that have little chance in happening, they will happen to you. if you have little luck (no such thing as no/negative amounts of luck) then bad/undesirable things happen to you. to connect this to that other paragraph, if you change something in the past, in your favor, then fate/luck would have to go back farther in time to change events where you gain more luck, enough for your event to occur. people who read my note about the 25 things about me would remember how i dont believe in time travel, ur welcome for elaborating. the thing i dont like about it is the whole loss of control thing, and the thing about it changing your personality. mostly the latter.

i say changing your personality because of the fact that the events in your life shape your personality. im not quite sure how to elaborate on this. (i like saying elaborate. and personality. brad, give me some synonyms! and you dont have to post the stuff in the perentheses.) certain actions upon your psyche make you a jock, or a punk, or a prep, or a friggin alien! i hope that clearly defines my belief. if not, comment! and youre personality is just a small detail that time travel can alter/destroy. it could alter life as we know it. it could take away the whole drug fananza of the 70s, or the british couldve won the revolutionary war, or, even dinosaurs living with humans. the changes are limitless, and extraordinarily unpredictable, unless you have an iq of like, 400.

now what can i discuss, hmm. i dont believe in christianity. i think that it just may be as crazy as scientology. as in, i think it was just a story written by a rather creative fellow, and went out of control. although its fiction, it gives humans something that they neeeeeeed. and thats belief in something you cant prove. every one needs irrationality in their life to be rational. its an opposites thing. i dont believe in a story, but i do believe in, well, all that ive discussed.

now, when i say opposites thing, i mean that life is a roller coaster. one day youre happy the next ur sad/in a bad mood. on moment ur in pain, the next, u feel amazing. on second ur thinking about math, the next ur praying to something you cant see, something that doesnt talk back, something that made a virgin mother. excuse me, a human virgin mother. you need down to be up, cold to be hot, sick to be healthy.





thats all of them now, so please vote, and the winner will be posted on wednesday, i would have said tuesday, but i feel as if i shoud give some more time.


February 22-2009
-By Various Authors