Driving and Hoverboards

Last Monday, I went to Trader Joe's to get some of these great deep dish pizzas. I was wearing this cool t-shirt I got back at Nintendo World in New York last year*. It has Mario stomping on a Goomba, straight out of Super Mario Bros. While I was in there, three employees told me they liked my shirt, and I got into a deep conversation with the cashier about retro gaming. It was a good day.

 I went back to school from Winter Break this week, which is a bummer. But I seem to be adapting to it better that I used to, which is nice. Plus I get to see all my friends again. We're reading the Sherlock Holmes story, The Red-Headed League, which is lucky, because I've already read it. I dabble in Sherlock Holmes every now and then, and I've found them to be pretty good, if a little dry. One thing to note, though, is that he never actually wore that funny hat. That was an embellishment of the illustrator.

After watching the new Star Wars movie, I developed a strong desire for a toy lightsaber, and my family and I decided to watch all the Star Wars movies in order. So far, we've seen the first two episodes, The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones, which is pretty cool, since they're the only two I haven't seen. They're not as good as the originals, though.
We saw Attack of the Clones on Friday night, after having dinner at this new restaurant around where we live. I got a burger, but they were out of mozzarella, which I usually have on my burger, so I got Parmesan instead, which I soon discovered, while a cool cheese, was not the thing to put on a hamburger.

Then today, my dad took me out to a parking lot for my first driving practice. I got my permit over the summer, but I've never really used it. Mostly, I just got it for its use as a government-issued ID. I'm not a big fan of driving, and the skill will be obsolete in five years thanks to self-driving cars. The whole process is confusing and complicated, with all the traffic laws and regulations and etiquette and driving techniques and rearview mirrors and Tusken Raiders. But for the most part, I don't like the whole "gasoline engine" thing. It's complex and has a list of possible maladies rivaling only the human body itself. Not to mention that gas is EXPENSIVE. When I was a kid, I thought the price on the signs was a flat rate, and I couldn't understand why adults made such a fuss about it. But if you multiply it by 18 gallons, it really gets up there. And you have to refill constantly. The only other industry with that kind of a racket going is the food industry, because no matter what, you have to eat three times a day. Or, in my case, two. After three years of bad middle school lunches, I've learned to subsist on two meals a day, which should serve me well when I have to buy my own food. In another time, this may have been considered "unhealthy," but in this economy, it's frugal.
Not to mention, the horrible environmental impact it has on our environment. I'm no enviro nut, but there's billions of cars every day spewing out carbon fumes and killing our atmosphere. And we pay people to be able to do this.
Though hybrids have helped, I still don't like the whole "gasoline" thing. Electric motors would be a lot simpler and easier. When they develop a sustainable all-electric car that can go more than 2 miles before recharging, I'll get a car. Self-driving, hopefully.

Ranting aside, the driving practice. It all felt very weird. I hardly went any faster than 5 mph, because I was not confident in my driving abilities. I mainly did a lot of turning. I suppose I didn't do too terribly, for my first time. But it's going to be a long time before I'm actually qualified to get out on the road.

Also on the technology front, I'm afraid I have some bad news. Remember how I was planning to invent a hoverboard?

Well, it appears that somebody has already beaten me to the punch. A company in New Mexico called ARCA Space has created the ArcaBoard. I mean, sure, there have been sort of hoverboards before now, like the Lexus hoverboard, but they all work on magnetism, so they need a track to work, which really limits where you can go with it. But this is the first one that uses electric ducted fans, using air to keep it aloft, the way mine was designed to. But that doesn't mean I'm throwing in the towel. My friend Adam reminded me that I can still improve it. I mean, it is by all means a hoverboard, but let's be honest, it's an awkward shape, it only runs for 6 minutes, and it costs $20,000 dollars. There's a lot of room for improvement in the field of hoverboards, and when I'm done with them, they're going to be awesome.

*I just realized that I didn't blog about that trip, so I'll give you a bit of an overview: last winter, soon after we got back to school, my Biology class went on a trip to New York to see this Body Works exhibit thing. It's basically where they have all these bodies on display, with all their muscles and organs showing, propped up with formaldehyde or whatever. You've really got to have a strong stomach for it. But what I was really looking forward to was that Nintendo's store and "base" of sorts in America, Nintendo World, is up there, and our Biology teacher, Patrick, said we could stop over there. My friend, Michael, who's also a big gamer, went with me. As it turns out, it's really not as big as the name would suggest, but it's still an exhilarating experience, being surrounded by all that Nintendo stuff. I got this really cool shirt, and a Pikachu amiibo, which is a little statue with a chip in it that communicates with the Wii U system. All in all, it was a really fun trip, especially the bus rides, chilling with my peeps.