The Happiest Place on Earth, Sort Of...

Headed down to Irvine to Downtown Disney for the first time with some friends last night, its the new Universal City like area immediately adjacent to Disneyland and California Adventure... Pretty cool place, although it was quite trippy to be so close to my favorite place in the world without going inside... ;) Alas now it is New Years Eve Eve and I must sleep so I can get crankin at 5am tomorrow morning, whoopee! :) Ooh forgot to mention rewatched The Breakfast Club (still good) on DVD with some friends who had never seen it (a crime) and checked out The Royal Tenembaums (who knows how its spelled) in the theaters, gonna have to give that one a below average 3 M's, it just didn't tickle me much, although some other people in the theater seemed to like it, and it seems to be ripping up the IMDB ratings... Was a sort of comedy/drama, but a lot of down time, maybe it was becasue I was tired, basically falling asleep through sections that didn't interest me...

I'll probably be gone from 5am tomorrow til 5am New Years Day, so don't expect another post til I'm ready to fill you in on all the girls' number's I got! :P

Quick Blurb...

Caught Ocean's 11 last night, I thought it was quite good, 6 M's. Course the fact there were like 23948234 actors and actresses in it that I personally enjoy helped. So did the setting in a casino actually.. :) Your typical bad guys who we treat as good guys stealing from good guys who we see as bad guys type of movie ala Robin Hood... Other than that and the yummy Chic-Fil-A (wonder how that's really spelled) I had prior, a whole lot of nothing going on around here... A lot of sleeping/resting/stretching stacking up for the big day/night on Monday... Possibility of me headed out tonight too, and will probably just spend all day tomorrow watching movies or something...

Really need to get around to burning like 30 cds, anyone have any good ideas as to what can be done during the process to make it more exciting? :/

Rule #1, Don't Fall

So yeah, found myself up at the buttcrack of dawn again yesteray, same song, different verse, a little bit louder, a little bit worse..

Ended up going to bed around 9pm the night before, and getting up at 2:30am or so... Fiddle diddied around with my comp for an hour or two then got all set up and ready to go. Borrowed my sisters van (my parent's old one she inherited, the 93 Voyager not their new one the 2002 Town & Country) and headed off to pick up the six peeps that ended up going with me. That was around 4:20, but we didn't actually get on the road until 5:15 or so, had some "delays" with people forgetting stuff and taking too long and not being awake yet, etc... Made it to Big Bear without much problem, although it was like an hour just from where you get off the freeway onto the mountain road near Riverside... Some awesome views, but pretty nerve racking driving as you putz along on the edge of cliffs and around switchbacks... Had some McD's on the way, although I was a little depressed I couldn't get my Deluxe Big Breakfast while I was driving, had to settle for a #3, Sausage McMuffin with Hash Brown and a Large OJ (I drink a TON of OJ, three meals a day while eating at the DC at school).

The whole parking/buying tickets/renting equipment thing went pretty well... Little did I know my boots were at least a size too small, I would pay for that later... First time off the lift I of course ate shit like everyone always does, although I blame the person next to be generally. ;) Had some serious wobble problems at first, but eventually got the whole center of gravity balance thing down... The one plus about skiing is its easier to just be motionless talking to ppl or resting or whatnot, rather than always having to be "praying to the snow gods" as my father calls it, or sitting on your ass... I did my share of eating it, the worst of which happened on one of the easiest beginner slopes, strangely enough... I actually did the majority of falling there trying to learn how to turn and stop on the two edge as well as the heel, never really got that down, but managed to be facing the hill at one point when my heel edge just dug in and sent me flying backwards over it, eventually landing on my ass, then having my head whiplash into the ice... This was followed by a chorus of "OHHHHHH that one hurt him" from the lift overhead...

Two of my friends started off skiing, but one of them shattered his boot and ended up renting a board to have fun with us, thus there were about four of us boarding who basically sucked ass, which made it fun. :) At one point we ended up on this REALLY flat run to the point you'd get up, not move, and eventually fall again... Finally one of us would get moving, run into someone else, and we'd both go down again... Needless to say my muscles just about all over OTHER than my legs are bein pretty painful today... A couple of the other guys had no problem getting up and made fun of me, until I pointed out that lifting 130 pounds off the ground is a bit different than 200... (oops brought up my weight, yeah twenty pounds by new years isn't actually happening, but that's good, because I needed a new years resolution! ;) harder to exercise at home anyway, no pool, no reccen, no friends/exercise partners readily available :/ )

So yeah, had a great time, spent some time with some fun ppl, had some interesting convo's to/from the place during three hour or so ride... Ended up going to TGIFriday's on the way home, chowed on some pretty good chicken fettucine alfredo, had some more strange conversation about everything, managed to wake me up enough to safely get home the rest of the way.. (driving down the mountain road in pitch black dark was uh, interesting. Actually wasn't that bad, but everyone else was asleep, so I had to pay attention a bit more, and getting hi-beamed every 15 seconds wasn't so cool either...) Managed to drop everyone off and eventually make it home around 10 or 11pm, when I was reminded about the aforementioned dentist appointment...

So the jury is still out on Skiing vs Snowboarding, although both are fun enough, I'll probably end up doing whatever the majority of the people I'm with are doing each time I go. ;) Or should I say the majority of girls. Hm...

Going to be a lot of downtime until Monday when I'm up before dawn again to head to Dland, gettin excited just thinkin about it! :)

[yawn, snore, growl]

The below post was actually like 8 hours earlier, but Blogger was down, typical...

So anyway, traditional Wilson xmas with the kids... My parents were always trying to devise ways to keep us out of the living room where they'd laid out all the presents from Santa and our stockings full of candy and whatnot, and thus hopefully keep us quiet so they could sleep until a sane hour... (6am was the usual wake-up time) All the bedrooms open up into the same hallway in this house, so if they could find a way to block that they would succeed in their task... The most popular year consisted of lots and lots of newspaper, to the point they had covered they entire space between the walls ceiling with it, and placed all the scissors in the house on the other side... The kids woke up around 2am and spent the next hour or so taking a snip every 10 minutes with an old corrugated pair from my sister's sewing set... Around 3 we finally had a big enough space to crawl through and the living room was ours! Another year they tried the bells on strings approach, with all of them connected via some contraption, so that when we cut one we had to catch them all before they hit...One of their final attempts was talking trash about getting a "motion detector" for about 3 months, to the point my dad even took my brother shopping in that section a couple weeks prior at an electronics store... Turned out they had this elaborate setup with flashing lights and what looked much like a motion detector, but was really an intercom. The whole wake-up scene was always pretty elaborate on our part... A few years we'd have very loud music start playing (Lion King's Circle of Life was always good), me blasting on the trumpet, and my brother screaming or yelling or doing something else obnoxious as we kicked in the door to the parents bedroom...

Anyway, as you can see, Christmas is a quite complicated occasion at the Wilson house, starting at about 6am, ending around 10 or 11 depending on the year once all the presents have been opened, candy been stuffed in, and breakfast caserrole been finished off...

Part of my gifts to the family were candy bars to each of them with a rhyme associated to it... For example my brothers:

"I just wanted you to know I'll always think you're pure chunk;
no matter how many girls call you a:"
Then there was a large BIG HUNK candy bar attached to the paper... My father's was pretty good too:

"You did very well skiing, proving false my hunch;
that you'd go flying off the hill into a tree, and I'd hear you go:"
And of course, a large CRUNCH attached to that one.

Harhar. Me so funny. So anyway. Did pretty well on the recieving end, picked up a swiss army knife I finally clued into needing about the 80th time I was looking for scissors or a kitchen knife to open a package or whatnot this break... Also got the usual wolf shirt, (i'm a big wolf fan, their eyes are almost as cool as mine, and their personality is basically the same ;) ) although this one is the prettiest so far, and various t-shirts with clever or funny sayings that I'm infamous for wearing on a regular basis... Also picked up the latest edition of Creative's sound card, which combined with my speaker system makes mp3's, games, and movies sound pretty amazing...

A grand ol time was had by all! Next up is a description of "The Next Day" (tm) when I ended east for the mountains... Will save that one for tonight.

Chipmunk Cheeks

Nothing better than 9am dentist appointments to get cavities drilled that you forget about til the last minute. Especially when you're up late after snowboarding all day the day before and thrashing yourself into a berjillion pieces. Really. Its great.

...

So I guess while I sit here waiting for the whole numb thing to screw off so I can eat because I'm starving I can catch up on some storytelling from the last couple of days. Its been quite fun actually.

[ten minutes later]

Okay this sucks. I'll do it later. I'm going to sleep.

Not A Creature Was Stirring...

Other than a rather large male, plopped in his usual chair listening to the whirrrrrrrrr of his case fans...

[bends his ring finger back and forth gingerly, realizes it doesn't hurt, and flexes]

Teehee, looks like it won't be a problem for the snowboard trip. Now for the skiing story...

Got up there at the crack of dawn, after downing my usual Deluxe Big Breakfast that I tend to snag at McDonalds before big events that require waking up early... Hooking into all the gear for the first time was quite complicated, and once you have these six foot extensions of your legs on its quite cumbersome at first... I must say I'm proud that for the entire day I managed to never eat shit off the lift, unlike just about everyone else there... Apparently snowboarders have the most difficulty, I had quite a grand old time watching two of them faceplant about four feet off the lift, finally stand up laughing at themselves, and getting their legs taken out from under them by the next pair diving forward... :) The challenge for the skiers was to dodge the pileups at the top of the lifts that kept occurring... Strangely enough it was about a 10 to 1 snowboard to skier ratio, which suggests that the former is the easier sport, especially given some of the people who were managing to make it down the hill...

Spent the first few hours on the usual beginner hill, getting the whole turning stopping etc deal down, then went on to some lower intermediate hills, which were quite a lot of fun. The main problem I faced throughout the day was the worry that I was going to get run over by the high speed snowboarders that were blasting through the lower hills from the advanced ones at any given moment... Many a time I either caused one of them to swerve out and crashed, or did it myself.. My one major mistake was trying to get on the express lift too fast and knocking over the two people in front of me who were waiting for it... Got me a stern talking to from the guy up top, he apparently didn't realize I was a first timer and thought I was "bullying" them... So yeah anyway the view from up top was pretty amazing, was crystal clear out towards Victorville and Vegas, could see for hundreds of miles. Mountain High is only about a 90 min drive from my house, which means larger crowds, but is more convenient for a random weekend excursion.

At any rate, the top crash of the day was when I was on the hardest skill level slope I ended up trying, got going way too fast, caught an edge, skidded out, flew about four feet through the air at about a two foot height, slammed into the slope, and managed for some reason to keep both my skis on, even though they were pointing at opposite diagonals, which did in my groin pretty well... Its unknown which crash ended up spraining my finger, or whether it happened later in the day or something, just started giving me a lot of pain that night. Strangely enough I didn't end up feeling the usual soreness or pain the next day, I was feeling bouncy as ever. I'm sure snowboarding will do in the knees/ass a bit more than skiing did. I'm hoping it'll be easier, less appendages going in different directions... Not to say I suck royally at skiing, I think I did pretty well for a first day. :) My dad performs very well for a man of his age, and managed to show off a couple times going off various jumps and screaming down steep inclines, he enjoys proving he's better than me in anything he can, a rarity given he's getting old, and I'm not quite through my prime just yet... :P I did manage to avoid finding a tree with my name on it, and my dad managed to run over about five times the snowboarders that I did. ;)

Had a "family dinner" tonight for Chistmas Eve, which consists of barbs being thrown in random directions and memories from previous christmas's being brought up and laughed about... The usual high level of terrible jokes was available from the mother and father, while the sister and brother did their best to keep up with me... (head grows to obscene levels and explodes). Anyway, always entertaining when all five Wilson's are at a table together.

I actually managed to get out and snag everyone a gift this year, even though some are of the funny variety... :)

Hm, past 1, I suppose I should be getting to bed so I can be awake for the usual trumpet in the parents ear awakening around 6am... There's been a tradition in this house for ages that the parents try to keep us from getting out to the living room to see what Santa brought, using all manners of techniques of blocking the hallway and/or threats... I'll be sure to detail some of the better ones tomorrow. ;)

Merry Christmas everyone, and Happy Holidays. May the spirit of giving help all of those in need.

Another Unfortunate Excuse...

Actually this is a valid one, managed to jack up my finger at the resort yesterday, causing it to hurt like all living hell when I bend it, etc, so typing is pretty horribly slow at the moment. Plan on a big ol explanation of the injury's occurance and the other fun times I had skiing for the first time on Saturday at Mountain High as soon as the pain has toned down to a tolerable level. :/

Still planning to snowboard at Snow Summit on Wednesday, the swelling should be gone by then, one would think...

Dayam, me foine!

Ah, hadn't been conceited within these pages in a while, needed to fit that in somewhere. :) So yeah, decided on a whim last night that I was going to try snowboarding for the first time ever... Turns out some friends of mine are going next Wednesday, so I'll be hittin the slopes at the crack of dawn, and if I'm lucky, won't break any bones. :)

Of course this requires "winter clothing" of which I have none. I'm a t-shirt/shorts kinda guy, even when it drops to about 40 (the coldest southern california ever gets) so this whole "heavy jacket" concept was new to me. Ended up raiding sportmart for some pretty spiff threads if I don't say so myself. (too late) Got the whole blue/silver color coordination goin, and with the whole hood/neckwarm/facecover and shades on, I look pretty much like those guys who rob banks. I figure its always good to draw attention to yourself, especially when you're about to look like a total idiot rolling over and over and over down a mountain... :)

Should be interesting, I'll probably also go with the father sometime this week or next to do the whole skiing thing as well, get at least two days of mileage out of the new threads. Speaking of mileage, I'm at 99,996 in my car at the moment, bout to roll over to the big 100k mark. That means I've put about 20k miles on it since I picked it up three years ago, including countless SB to LA to SB and back again traverses. Not bad for a car we picked up for $2500 that's 15 years old...

Oh and one more thing...

geek>
They finally released drivers for my Win TV card for WinXP to allow me to cap both audio and video at the same time!
/geek>

That basically means I'll be able to create avi movie files on my computer of just about anything on TV, commercial free of course. I'll be collecting 24 episodes for sure, and probably capturing some other special event type things as well. If anyone has any requests for things they want forever enshrined on their computer, feel free to let me know. :) Half hour shows end up about 100 megs, and hour long ones end up about 220. So obviously, you'd have to be on broadband, or REALLY patient, to be able to get them from me.

One Ring To Bring Them All, and In The Darkness, Bind Them.

Those who don't recognize the above quote have missed out on a classic piece of literature... Don't get me wrong, I'm generally not a fan at all of the fantasy genre, but when it comes to arguably the most popular series of all time that has lasted for generations, even I have to give it a shot. I must say after giving The Hobbit a once over and busting through the initial book of the trilogy The Fellowship of the Ring today, I believe its been time well spent. Of course, I was in quite a hurry moving through the 400 pager tonight given I was planning to attend the 12:01am showing at the local theater... I always tend to leave these things to the last minute, but its just a crime to watch a movie before reading the book, so alas the task was completed.

Now for probably the first ever review by someone who saw the movie in general release... (no other moron is staying up even later to type this) I think I'm going to go with a rating system of my own, we'll say 1 to 7 M's, just to confuse the random reader. The scale will be as follows:

1 - Not even worth the 10 cent CD to burn and add to my collection.
2 - Just barely worth the 10 cents, just to be complete. Very poor for multiple reasons.
3 - Below average, not something I would pay to see. Maybe downloadable if really that bored. Possibly "weird."
4 - Average. Your typical movie. Worth the 3 bucks to rent. Maybe even a bargain matinee.
5 - Above average. Entertaining. Good in some ways, bad in others.
6 - Excellent. I would pay to see this in the theater. Anything that provokes a feeling from inside, be it joy, sadness, excitement, or despair.
7 - Top of the line. I've probably seen this multiple times. I probably left the theater a different person than when I walked in. I would probably have forked over a hundred bucks to see this if I knew how good it was. This will not be a common rating.

Now, the more important part, examples of the above ratings, so all those who don't agree with my tastes can realize I'm a bumbling idiot and ignore any movie review they come across in the future.

1 - The Last Starfighter. I don't care how cool it was in the 80s. I watched it twenty years later, and it sucked. Bad.
2 - Magnolia This one's controversial, but it leads the "weird" file. I'm not into weird movies. Other possibilities for this group would be Requiem For A Dream or Pi. I need a movie to make sense, have some sort of logical plot, or at least some sense that the elements of the movie are connected somehow. Not randomness.
3 - Bounce No beef with Ben, no beef with Gwen, it was just a poor movie. Not much to it. Could have been 20 minutes. Wasn't.
4 - Cast Away Love Tom. In a lot of things. Long movie, again, didn't need to be. Disagreed with the ending. Make out, then back into the house she goes? Lame. Sure that's the way its supposed to be, but dangling ends just wouldn't work for me in real life. I'd be obsessed I bet.
5 - Just About Any Decent Action/Drama Movie A whole lot will fit this category. Anything that the media probably hyped, looked good, I went to see it, came out pumped, jabbering about how cool the stunt sequence/car chase/fight scene/computer animation/battle footage/cinematography was. Spy Game is an easy example here, just saw it.
6 - Gonna go with an off the beaten path one here. Snow Falling on Cedars Disclaimer: I was in a white male/asian female relationship at the time. So it struck home pretty hard. Might have caused some bias. Other side of the spectrum, Saving Private Ryan. Still to date, the most powerful opening twenty five minutes I've ever seen.
7 - Time to make all the men groan out there... Titanic. Say what you will, but this movie had everything. Effects, action, romance, a score with portions that to this day make me feel energized, and portions that water my eyes. Only a handful of movies have managed to yank tears out of me in public, and I'm not worried about letting people know that. The only three hour movie during which I never even hit the indiglo to check. On a more cheerful note The Breakfast Club. Probably in my top ten of all time. I've seen it easily a dozen times, and laugh hysterically every time. The scenes where they're not even talking are some of the best. (pixi stix and captain crunch in a sandwich, classic).


Okay I know I had a point here somewhere. Ah that's right. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring comes in at 5.5 M's. It suffers from the fact I've read the book, and realize how much has been left out. Parts I was excited to see were just skipped over as the plot was changed somewhat. This happens in all book turned movies though. I do however applaud the depiction of the Dark Riders, I'll be having nightmares in my sleep for a while. Easily the most freaky point of the movie though was actually caused by Bilbo in a rather creepy state, generating quite a reaction from the packed theater. (I know I'm a spoilsport, but you won't know what I'm talking about until afterward I'm sure...) Speaking of which, I did mention I was with all the cooky hookies at the 12:01am showing. Its the second time I've attended one of those, the previous being Episode I: The Phantom Menace. (6 M's) There's something about having grown men dueling in the aisles with wanna-be light sabers during the preshow that makes the whole theater going experience more entertaining. Tonight didn't quite achieve the energy that Star Wars created, during that one as soon as the first note of the theme played and the text started scrolling, I couldn't hear much of anything for the next several minutes as the crowd hooted, hollered, cheered, whistled, stomped, threw popcorn, and celebrated in general revelry. Tonight we had the usual mass booing every time ANOTHER preview started though, and the rousing applause lasting for quite some time when it was over. The movies effects were quite impressive as expected, with the costumes and makeup superb. The acting was on the plus side, my one beef being casting the sunglasses bad guy from the Matrix as Elrond the elf. I kept thinking he was going to hiss "morpheussssssssss" at any second, his voice was just too representative of that movie for me. Besides which he didn't really look like an elf anyway. The archer Losolos or something or other was much more what I had mental picturized. Yeah that's a verb now.

So it would appear that for the next couple years I'll at least be able to rely on sequels and trilogies for entertainment, other than The Lord of the Rings and Star Wars I found out that Men In Black II will be coming out (the first one was awesome on the effects side of things and Will Smith and Tommy Lee are just too cool, 6 M's) as well as Blade II (original had plenty of action, 5 M's) and a few more Matrix and X-Men sequels, which I'm also looking forward to. Course I won't be waiting til then just yet, still have four or five movies I'm planning to see over the break. Maybe more, who knows. I get bored. :)

Looks like I'll be seeing you at the theater, everyone.

One Good, One Not So Good...

Headed out to the AMC 20 with a couple high school friends, paid to see Spy Game then theater hopped over to Not Another Teen Movie. In case you still haven't figured out the header, Spy Game was excellent, the wann-be comedy was not. It was basically an imitation Scary Movie, only not as funny and much more nauseating. That is, unless you like looking at naked male ass. Ugly, naked male ass. Back to the more pleasant subject, I thought Robert Redford and Brad Pitt both performed well in the former, quite entertaining.

Probably going to be handing out a lot of reviews this break, plenty of movies out I'd like to see. I'm sure I'll head over to the mall for a 2 or 3 movie outing at least once or twice (hey, its cheaper that way).

geek>
Been playing a lot of Empire Earth, a new game based on the likes of AOE2 and WC2, its time consuming, but that's pretty much all I can say about it to this point. I'm used to the Civ2 type progressing through time, and its much more difficult to achieve that in this game. Basically its build the biggest army and go crush the opponent, which isn't the type of strategy I generally use, so I've been getting worked over by the computer pretty good. It cheats, I swear!

Also been replaying RTCW on the most difficult skill level, still going to have to give it the best graphics/gameplay award of the holiday season. Ghost Recon is a close second, but given they're different types of games they can't really be compared. FIFA 2002 and NHL 2002 have been providing needed breaks as well, nothing like body slamming an opponent into the boards to relieve stress, especially if playing against a brother or such. Haven't yet tried Madden 2002, getting around to it. :) I think I'm looking forward to the multiplayer aspect of RTCW most, its based on the Q3 engine which I have always performed well at, should provide hours of fragfests. Of course playing in cooperative mode in games is another thing I've always thought was highly entertaining, and being able to do that with Ghost Recon against foes set to a very high difficulty level should prove to be quite challenging.

/geek>

I've always thought that the perfect woman for me would be one that was at least interested in computer gaming, if not a gamer herself. I could go on for days talking about something I'm interested in, like how far I got in a certain game or how many people I fragged that round, but if its just the "smile and nod" response I just don't feel loved. :/ I know I'm always impressed by a gamer of the female type who gives me a thorough ass whooping. Its something to admire. Ah, wouldn't it be nice if someone like that was out there. ;)

I R Here.

Everythings good to go back at home. Raided the place of all edible material. Now planning to sleep til the cows come home. (shouldn't be too long, my siblings will be arriving soon)

Seems Like This Happens Way Too Often...

Packing up the ol comp again, this time headed home for a month for Winter Break. Should be up and running later today knowing me, but might just leave it til the morning. Finally decided to get off my butt and pack, this whole only guy in the dorms thing is cool for a while, but since the deadline to get out is 10am tomorrow anyway, might as well leave tonight rather than actually wake up before noon. :) Those in the LA area, feel free to ring me up during break, I'll probably be absolutely desperate for things to do. Think you live too far away to be of use? Think again! That's what cars are for. :) Besides, I miss a lot of u ppl! :/

Guess I Owe an Explanation...

Its like this, I'd rather waste my time doing something else if I know the thing I'm going to be reading is going to be boring and pointless. So I figure other people feel the same, and if I have nothing to say, I should wait until I do before filling these pages with randomness.

The reason its been dullsville around here is that as previously mentioned I have no finals to take, but everyone else has had their head in the books. Thus, I haven't been doing much other than exercising, reading, burning cds, playing games, wasting time, eating, etc etc. Did I mention sleep? Yeah, been getting plenty of that.

So I finally met up with the girl I met over Thanksgiving online who's a freshman here, we had a grand ol time walkin over to Freebirds and chowin on some grub. Strangely, I was more nervous heading for the place we decided to meet than I thought I would be. Its not the first time I've come into contact in real life with someone I met solely through the internet, and I'm sure it won't be the last. I'm very gung ho about the whole internet thing, tend to be very trusting about various issues such as chatting with random people and purchasing products or winning auctions online.

Called up one of my exs on her birthday the other day, she said something that kind of bothered me when she called me back... "Yeah, thanks for calling, I felt bad because I remembered in May, but I just felt awkward..." It seems the popular attitude towards one's previous girlfriend is negativity and disdain, which I just don't understand. I've always tried to maintain friendships with them, just as I would any other friend. I've never dated anyone that wasn't a good friend first, so I see no reason why it shouldn't stay that way afterward. In this particular case we only see each other about once a year, but it just kind of bugged that she would say something like that. Maybe I was just in an easy to be bugged mood.

Began watching the Band of Brothers HBO miniseries that I downloaded a while ago, only two eps into it but this far its pretty amazing. I hear it only gets better, looking forward to viewing the rest. Also decided to make Pearl Harbor one of the DVDs for my Columbia House deal... For those who aren't doing it you get 4 DVDs for 49 cents each along with 1 for 10 bucks at the start, and then have to just buy 3 at regular price over the next two years (tends to be around 20 bucks). So Overall you get 8 DVDs for 72 bucks or so. I guess if you find really good 9.99 each deals in stores its about the same, but the brand new releases tend to be upward of 20 or 25 bucks. I picked up Titanic, Gladiator, Braveheart, The Patriot, and Saving Private Ryan with my initial deal, all movies that just REQUIRE 5.1 channel Dolby Digital sound. :) That's the one downside of my large collection, its all 2 channel sound, no bullets whizzing behind the head or birds fluttering across the room.

Not entirely sure when I'm going home, the dorms close on Saturday so I'll definitely be out by then, but if I find some reason to be home earlier I'll probably head out. Packing up everything is such a pain, I'm sure I'll slack until the last possible moment.

Time Flies When You're.... Doing Nothing.

Man, you'd think over the last three days something would have happened that would have been worth more than two sentences.

Nope.

Doremifasewlatidooooooo

Made an awesome decision tonight in cancelling plans with some friends in order to attend a concert I'd already said I would go to a week prior (I never remember these things)... It was the fall concert for Naked Voices, the only a capella group here at UCSB. My friend on the fifth floor was performing, as well as someone I knew from the third floor last year. The first song they did was "Earth Song" by Michael Jackson. This had been a favorite of mine from years ago, back when his HIStory cd first came out. Hearing it again was like a blast from the past, and they just performed it beautifully. I was seriously amazed, a lot of what they did was just mind blowing.

Literally made me want to go try out then and there, then came the realization I was most likely not at the talent level that they need, and might not be able to mesh with the group and such. Basically a lot of the reasons I end up not going through with a lot of things I consider. I've never thought I had very good range as a vocalist, and no one outside my mother has ever taken me seriously (guys singing = cute, but not cool). I'll probably get into something music related some day. One of those things I do on rainy days. Teach myself piano, sing, whistle, anything to make the day a little brighter.

Tried something new at Carrow's tonight, which tends to be a pretty rare thing when it comes to me and food. The southwestern crispy rolls, or something. Yummy stuff, although unhealthy as my eating buddy pointed out. Then came a petty argument about something not worth arguing about. Least to me it seemed petty. We settled it eventually though, striking a deal to not bother each other about a specific thing that we felt was important even though the other person did not. So anyway. If only all riddles and relationships were so easy to solve.

ShuffStaffel!

No idea whether I'm spelling it right, and most of you probably don't care, but some of you will recognize that as a familiar grunt from the enemies in the first person shooter (fps) computer game that started it all, Wolfenstein 3D. I must have been in about 6th grade or something when that originally came out, even before the grandaddy of them all, Doom. Made quick work of its sequel tonight, of the title Return to Castle Wolfenstein. The differences between the games are profound however. Largely due to my graphics card, some of the visuals are just breathtaking. By far some of the best World War II areas such as bombed cities and factories I've ever seen in a computer game. It was very realistic, almost like it was right out of Saving Private Ryan or Enemy at the Gates. The set pieces were incredible, they did things I've never seen done in that type of game. Of course, it was created based on the Quake 3 engine, my personal favorite, so I suppose I'm a little biased. Still working on finishing Alien vs Predator 2, which thus far has also been very impressive with some absolutely humongous level sizes, albeit a short game altogether.

Now that those of you who don't share my passion for computer games (all of you) have fallen asleep... I'll do the same. :)

Highway Run Into the Midnight Sun...

Downloaded "Faithfully" by Journey tonight, not sure why I didn't have it before. I'm an 80's fan for the most part, enjoy collecting the songs I heard so much growing up. Some melodies just stick in your head for ages, hearing them come on the radio is like hearing a familiar voice, catching a whiff of a familiar scent, or tasting a favorite food. The ones I catch myself whistling randomly even if I haven't heard them in a few years.

Had a contemplative conversation with someone I met recently tonight, interesting enough that it had us both up at 4am. If there's one person its useful to know, its the one that can give the best back massage. Had the usual conversation about my driver's license picture...

Them: HOLY JEEZ YOU WERE SKINNY
Me: Gee thx.
Them: No you're not fat now, well I mean you're fatter than you were but its not bad, I mean, well you know?
Me: ...

General consensus appears to be its nice not to be skin and bones, but I could use some improvement anyway. Guess I haven't been honest with myself updating the weight lately. After the first five pounds or so it seems to be quite stagnant. I'm sure going home will change things, since at home what you eat tends to be what you fix, and if you don't fix you don't eat.

Winamp's shuffle just managed to pick Mark Schultz's "He's My Son" out of the mix. Still one of the most heartfelt songs I've ever heard. I remember the first time I heard it, when I was on my way to work last summer. The story behind it told prior and the song itself kept me in the car an extra five minutes, causing me to be late to work and earning me a reprimand. Truth be told, I didn't care. Just a really touching song. Word of warning, its hopeful, but not cheerful.

COME ON DOWN!!!!!!

Thursday was Price is Right day. This was cool because I only found out about it the day before from a friend of mine on the 5th floor. Each two floors is considered a unit hall that meets together and such in this building, so mine is the 3rd/4th. Unfortunately (for the girls) there is a greater number of them this year, so the floor breakdown is 5 girl/3 guy. So anyway, the 5th/6th are both female floors, and they were the ones going, but needed drivers, so I was able to go. In other words there were about twenty girls, their R/A and our ARD, and me. I wasn't complaining.

Ended up having an absolute blast like I always do when we go to the Price Is Right (this is my third time, once each year). It started out kind of crummy, we left at 7:15am to a chorus of rainstorms and traffic, ended up taking WAY longer than usual to get to LA, almost got there too late, were supposed to be there at 10:30 and didn't make it til 11, luckily enough of us got there on time to hold down the fort and save our slots.

We went through the usual five hour screening process, where you get your nametags, get a short interview from the producers, and so on and so forth. Eventually got inside, got to hear the same speech by Rod Roddy (no idea on the spelling there) and eventually the show started. There's an absolute ton of energy in that room, reminds me of Disneyland at New Years. So to make a long story short, I didn't get picked again (sniffle sniffle) but our ARD did, and ended up winning a cool 13 G's in cash. I should mention that if you take a group of twenty or more people they guarantee that one of them will make it into contestants row. Rolando (the ARD) ended up making most of his money on the big wheel, spinning .35 and .65 for a grand the first time around, and then hitting the 1.00 on his bonus spin for another ten grand. Must be nice... :P

Afterward we all went to Universal Citywalk, somewhere I'd never been before (sad, given I live in LA). That place was actually really awesome, plenty of cool restaurants in there, fun shops, the whole area seeming much like an amusement park (it basically is). Wow, major abuse of parentheses in this post. We ate at the Hard Rock cafe, had some yummy burgers and such. Drive back was actually really lame, both the friends of mine that were riding with me fell asleep, and I had some major trouble trying to keep from hitting the sack myself (while driving). Ended up pulling off in Ventura to circle surface streets for a bit and shake myself back into it, where I ended up seeing a fire in progress, ambulances and fire engines and everything. That shocked me awake to the point the rest of the drive was no problem, but was still pretty boring. Then again any drive is boring after you've done it over fifty times.

More later, I'm only caught up through Thursday, and its Sunday night/Monday morning now. :)

ASDLKJASFDLKJ

Okay, I'm bad. So I'm gonna start posting in chunks since a full post on the last few days would be really, really, long.

We'll start with Wednesday. This was the day I carried out a decision I made the week prior. Well I guess I have to start there, really.

So I'm doing my math homework on Wednesday, planning to drive home much later that night. The thought occurs to me that I have no interest in the field of math I'm doing homework in. Then I come to the realization that I haven't enjoyed doing homework or going to class in quite some time. So to make a long story short I hop in the car around 3pm, fed up with what I'm doing, what I'm not doing, and life in general. Its about a three hour ride down to my house from UCSB if I take the winding Highway 1, and on a day such as the Wednesday before Thanksgiving I tend to go that way, since I'd rather enjoy a peaceful ride with a wonderful view all along the way, than sitting in the smog and horn honking wilderness that is the 405. So basically on the way home I decide I'm not going to major in computer science at UCSB. Yeah, kind of bad to come to this conclusion once already seven quarters into college. Then again, that's better than being twenty years down the road and deciding you hate what you do.

So after hours of discussion with the parents (the father was less than pleased that this last quarter has been wasted repeating classes I ended up withdrawing from) it was decided that I'd switch over to Business Economics. The theory is I got four's on both the Macroecon and Microecon AP's, and have always liked/been good at it, so I shouldn't have any problem with the major. Besides which, a Buis Econ degree will be useful in the same companies I was planning to work at preferrably, specifically something to do with the recreational technology industry.

Hm, rereading that I spelled Busi differently in two places. Turns out its Busi. That doesn't really work when tryin to say "bis econ" like most people do. Hm...

So Wednesday was spent following through with all the paperwork, in order to change college/major, and also withdraw from the current quarter and get reaccepted into the Winter one. This was basically an eight hour process, from an early morning appointment through the middle of the afternoon. One particular piece of paper (the application for withdrawal) required signatures from like eight different places around campus, which meant crisscrossing campus on my bike at least a dozen times. In particular Housing and Residential Services made my life a living hell, as they tried to tell me I would have to move out of my room for the next two weeks and give it to someone else, just so that I would move into somewhere else next quarter once a registered student again. Retarded.

So finally got all my stuff in the mail, turns out my Econ classes and such stay registered for next quarter, so I'm done with all the paperwork and mumbojumbo that was required. Basically for two weeks I can focus on other aspects of my life that have been recently ignored. Next update in a bit.

More Apologies...

Its only 9:30pm, and I'm more tired than when I hit the sack at 7am. Insanely long/tiring day today, gonna hit the sack early. However, big story about a life altering event that has been occurring over the last few days, as well as one about how fun today was (til the last hour). I promise I'll have it up tomorrow. Now I just need to sleepaseprajserakserjlkaaaafffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

A Quick Note...

Been busy filling out mounds of paperwork and tracking down tons of signatures today, too tired to tell the story just yet.

Also leaving at 7am tomorrow to appear on The Price Is Right, wish me luck! I want a new car! ;)

"I Think He's Pretty Cool."

Such a simple statement, that. Yet one would be amazed how much of an affect it can have on a person. It can take a particularly gloomy day and cut a ray of sunshine through the storm.

Was at Carrow's with a friend of mine discussing our woes when we bumped into another friend of mine and her roommate who had been there at the same time as us, randomly. At some point during the conversation my initial friend made a joke about me, and after a pause my other friend's roommate followed up with the line above. Even though I was being referred to in the third person, it still made me feel really great. I don't know the girl very well, but it still made a difference. I'm still smiling. :)

Speaking of woes, its been an interesting few days, basically life altering. Things have definitely changed for the better though, and I'm optimistic about what the future may hold. Its a long story, I'll fill you in later.

Ooooohhh Ahhhhhhh

The feel of a keyboard that doesn't sound obnoxious... The joy of an optical mouse that causes the cursor to actually move to where you tell it... The comfort of a leather chair perfectly fitted around your person... The silence whenever you want it...

These are the wonderful things about being back at school that I love so much. That and the fact there's actually a social atmosphere. Pretty uneventful day other than the driving, unpacking, relaxing... Had a wonderful drive up Highway 1, didn't see any traffic at all, and it was just a gorgeous day. This post is making me feel old, I'll cut it short. :)

The Mack Attack Is Back Jack

Er yeah, back in the dorm, phone plugged back in, and all that jazz. :)

Here's To The Night's We Felt Alive...

And unfortunately, could not sleep a wink... Another one of those wide awake mornings when its only 1:30am, strange, must be something in the water down here.

Just had another invigorating conversation with someone I've never met, I'm not sure what makes me so into those. Something neat about discussing random issues with a random someone, hearing opinions you've never heard, exchanging smilies with someone you've never seen before. I guess its all due to my physicality complex, I've always thought I was just average looking, not exactly the type of person one would meet and be like "WOW HES SO HOT." Meeting people through forums that doesn't include physical appearances always allows me to show them what's really there, escape all the premature assumptions.

Chatting with a friend as we speak, and said something close to what's above, and she seems to think girls find confidence attractive. If that's the case, I'm probably screwed. I've never had the swagger that some drunken orcs have when they stumble into a room full of women, and suddenly become chick magnets. Then again, I guess I'm not really looking for that kind of person anyway.

Strangely enough, I'm not as desperate for female companionship as it might seem. Now that I think about it, I'm perfectly satisfied with having a berjillion female friends. The only thing missing there is the deep commitment, and the physicalities. Yeah the first would be nice, but if it isn't there, why force it or kill myself looking?

Why does this feel like a pep talk.

Anyway, back to the random someone. Turns out as is sometimes the case I'll actually end up meeting her at some point, which is cool. Think I mentioned at some point my random trip to Ohio to meet one of those random people (wasn't female though, and I'd known him online for a few years through a computer game, scary thought as it is). She actually seems to be the type to do her homework, get good grades, all that academic stuff, maybe it'll rub off. :) In any case, she satisfies the three requirements I have in friends I enjoy spending time with: 1. Breathing. 2. Good decision making skills about certain issues I feel strongly about. 3. Can put together a coherent sentence with words longer than four letters not including "like". :)

Yeah, its kind of sad now that I think about that I have a selection process for friends. I guess some things are just very important to me, and I feel more at home with people who are like minded. I think we're all that way, whether we admit it or not. Subconscious assumptions, stereotypes, categorizing, etc.

This is a pathetically convoluted post. See what 3am gets you.

Anyway. Back to school I go, manana.

Sex In Space May Not Work

"Scientists who have been looking into the movement of sperm in space, with its lower gravity, believe that they have found out that sex in space may not lead to pregnancies because the lack of gravity causes a change in it. Spem, when in space, moves around a lot more than it does on the earth, but unfortunately the lack of gravity means that a enzyme that is supposed to tell it when to stop moving does not kick in, so it cannot fertilise an egg." (www.shortnews.com)

Damn. Remember how I said I would be part of that first mission to live on Mars? There's a kink in my plans.

Wait a second. They don't mean sex won't work, they mean PREGNANCY, don't they? Hm.. Maybe that's a plus, then. :)

Don't get me wrong, I love kids, its just... well dangit, never mind I'm going to go force myself to sleep more.

P.S. I'd like to thank BRUCE from the St. Louis area, someone I met online through an online gaming thing and have kept in touch with, for happening to be active on my AIM list and entertaining me for several crucial minutes on the path through boredom. You go, girl.

Tick, Tock.

Tonight was one of those nights where you go to bed relatively early (meaning 10 or 11pm) and after a nice full sleep wake up feeling fresh and ready to start the day, glance over at the usual digits, and see 1:30am. Bust. At school this would be a good thing, time to catch up on homework, movie watching, or go invade someone's room down the hall. At home for Thanksgiving, that just means internet surfing until anyone sane will log on and talk to you.

No dice so far.

I wonder if I've ever repeated a little heading thingy title. I hope not. That would be so, not creative.

So I was having fun with google (not a pet, the search engine) and dumping in random things, trying to find interesting people in my general area of the world. I think it was "friendly ucsb" that ended up bringing me to a particular female's page. It was an excellent read, neat that there are people like that out there. I then proceeded to make a retard of myself by posting a hundred something line entry in her guestbook about how cool that was, next to all the two and three liners. I guess e-mail would have been more intelligent. Sigh.

Some people get that "don't know what say" or "frog in your throat" thing when talking to new people. My problem tends to be I talk a lot, and end up saying something that just sucks. Case in point:

Scene: Airbus from Oakland Airport to BART station, window seat next to strange looking young man.
Conversation lead in: Discussing why we're both in the area, him because he's looking at Berkeley for graduate school having just come from MIT, me because I'm bored.

M: Yeah, glad that we're on vacation now, finals week was a real pain, physics just blew me away. I'm glad that there are other people crazy enough to pursue the subject, because they're saving me a life of torture. So, what are you planning to study?
New Person: Quantum and Theoretical Physics, actually... [nervous giggle]
M: [grabs his sneaker, inserts it orally, and proceeds to choke] Ah, hehe. Well, there ya go, everyone does what they like, whatever floats your boat, blows your skirt up, that kind of thing.
[the bus door opens, and the young man hurriedly escapes]

I was reminded of this because the new girl is also a physics major, something that impresses me, even if I loathe the subject myself. Real world problems are cool when its a ball bouncing, a man running around a track, cars racing, etc. Integrating the ocean moving across a region of the sand bottom in relation to the tides causing wave formations, is not cool.

Hm. There was a strange piece of hardware sitting over here next to my father's computer. I picked it up cuz it looked fun, was able to bend back in forth. Then it broke in half. Luckily, it was because there were about twenty individual parts that were fastened together, so it was easily fixable. Remind me not to touch things like that anymore. :/

[Shoulders Some People Out Of the Way To Reach The Computer]

Ah, finally some time on the ol keyboard. Least once everyone goes to sleep there's some peace and quiet around here.

My legs feel pretty well dead, like they're about to fall off.

Made the mistake of going over to play soccer/football with the brother at the ol high school stomping grounds. That's two ol's in four sentences. WAYYYY too much old people influence around here. Next I'll start exclaiming yeehaw and screaming "WHERES MY DENTURES." So anyway, found out I can punt a football 50 yards in the air, but can only kick like a 48 yard field goal. Must be the fact that when you kick its end over end, but punting spirals and if you have wind that helps, or something. Playing soccer in the dark is pretty tough. Depth perception just isn't there.

The biggest mistake came when I challenged him to run a hundred yards in less than sixteen seconds, turned out it only took him fourteen eight. This of course caused me to have to do it to see if I could still move faster than the usual couch to fridge chug, turned out I snagged thirteen six. A far cry from my twelve flat or something days of high school track (don't get my wrong that isn't fast, my events were the half and mile, but that was fast for me :) ) but its decent enough anyway. This of course led to exclaims of cheating with the watch, so we both had to go down and race at the same time. I let him get a jump start to give me something to catch (I'm insanely competitive, its what keeps me going in most sports even when it seems like there's nothing left to give) but it turned out I was gaining on him pretty much the whole first fifty yards (lengthening my lead that is) until he began to pull up with some sort of miraculous knee injury (that was fine five minutes later). So anyway, still faster than the brother. Something tells me the quads and hammys are going to be angry with me in the morning though, even though I stretched before and after.

Just to put the above in perspective in case half of you out there are ready to brag about your hundred yard times (I'm setting off my own inferiority complex with no outside help, how pathetic is that) consider the fact that I'm two hundred pounds, and my bro is two fifteen. In my track days I was at least one fifty, probably more like one thirty five.

Speaking of the whole weight thing, the scale here read 199 this morning. Course then there was Thanksgiving. Then again I did get a lot of exercise afterward. We'll have to see how the rest of the weekend goes, and what the scale I've been using regularly at school says when I get back. 195 maybe? Heh. We'll see.

Hooppee Belated Turkey Day All!

Fat People. And Lots of Them.

Yep, I'm home again. :) [waits for the boos and jeers]

Had a pretty boring 3+ hour ride instead of the usual <2... Listened to some old tapes from my childhood, found one where I recorded myself singing Richard Marx - Right Here Waiting, which was especially interesting since my voice hadn't changed and was a few octaves higher. Creating a melody with a younger version of myself, scary thought.

Highway 1 at first seemed like the intelligent move given the hour long process it took just to get out of Santa Barbara... Til I discovered there was a twenty mile detour, and later got stopped by a cop blocking the road so someone doing at least 100mph could come blasting by being chased by like six cruisers. Then there was the usual road construction and missed signals, anyway, I got here. :/

Met my new grandmother for the first time tonight, that was... interesting. My dad's mother died about five or so years ago from cancer, she was always really nice to me. My dad's father just recently remarried, so my dad's having fun struggling with the term "stepmom." Must be pretty trippy, especially fifty years into life. She smokes, so that's annoying, I'm allergic to basically the scent, or being around it for long periods of time. Its a good thing too, or I'd probably be at the casino more. :) Other than that she seems nice, other than the usual tries to fit in with the family too soon and "treat her new grandchildren like her old ones" as she said. That involves things like batting my hand randomly when I was cracking my knuckles because she disapproved. To say the least, hasn't gone so well so far. Not like I'm allowed an opinion on the topic or anything, its a done deal, and given there won't be much contact, I'll try to ignore the situation. The best I can do is be civil.

Going to be doing a lot of thinking this weekend, could be some major shakeups in the realm of my future.

Darkness.

It's kind of pathetic when the only reason I know its time for bed is when I see the sun rising outside my window, and the only time I know I should be getting up is when its getting dark. Was out late last night with an old friend at Carrows, one I hadn't heard from in quite some time. We talked about the usual anything and everything, over the usual glass of strawberry lemonade.

Watched the new episode of 24 tonight, and made my first attempt at capturing it via TV card onto my computer. The main problem is with Windows XP I can't capture the audio and video simultaneously, so I had to use someone else's computer to cap the audio, and am in the process of putting it all together as we speak.

Won't be going home for Thanksgiving until late tomorrow (Wednesday) night, due to traffic being boring, and me not exactly having a long line of hot dates waiting for me when I get there.

Pop.

Was sitting in here with a friend tonight helping her with math, with the door halfway open, when quite the unusual event occurred. There was a balloon just sitting on the other side of the hallway outside my door minding its own business, when suddenly my sentence was interrupted by the sound of a large object stomping down the hallway and to our surprise, leaping into the air trying to stomp both of his feet down onto the balloon before he landed. He of course glanced off, and basically ended up launching himself horizontally further down the hallway and slamming into the ground with a resounding thump. The whole incident took about two seconds, but it was enough to keep my friend and I gasping for breath for the next several minutes.

The guy eventually managed to pop the balloon, on about the third stomp.

THE SKY IS FALLING!

Wow. I must have said that at least a million times tonight while watching the meteor shower.

The depressing thing is I almost missed it, inhibited by the fog that was very dense over campus and the surrounding area. On a hunch I hopped in the car and drove north a ways, planning to just get some exercise somewhere along the way with a nice jog, if I couldn't escape the fog. As luck would have it, it just got denser, to the point I was having to go about 30 mph on the freeway just to stay on the road. Luckily my luck changed, as I picked an exit to get off and turn around finally, I suddenly popped out of the fog into the most fiery night I've ever seen.

They came from all directions, all shapes and sizes and colors and brightness. There was a line of cars where I ended up, and the oohs and ahhs went on for hours. Being from LA originally, seeing that many stars is a unique experience in itself, but seeing them flying all over the place in a magnificent display was just breathtaking.

They say its not going to happen to that extent again until 2099. Well, I plan to be alive to see that one too, but figured to be safe I better not miss this one. :) To all those who missed it, I feel sorry for you. :/

Progress...

Yikes, big ol poker game tonight. Ended up even after four or so hours, after everyone else but one guy had been cleaned out. Needless to say one guy took home a nice share of the pot. That's generally what happens though, eventually it'll be me. :)

Played a foursome in racquetball today, including the best girl I've played with so far in the few years I've been hammerin away... She and I ended up winning a game and keeping the other two pretty close against two better than decent guys, pretty impressive I'd say.

Starving again, and its taking a lot of willpower not to eat the muffins/cookies in my drawer. Last night I had to basically slap myself to keep myself from doing it, managed to survive until the morning. I figure as long as I don't eat before bed, and exercise daily, I shouldn't have any problem reaching my goal.

200 flat said the scale, it'll be my first time under the dual century mark in at least a few months. 180 is the goal, here I come!

Twenty Pounds...

What do ya think, by January 1st? Think I'm gonna make that my goal. Who knows if I'll get to it, but I'll at least make a strong effort.

No more late night eating, overeating at meals, eating out all the time. More exercise daily, more sleep at normal hours.

I've said this before, I'll probably say it again. :/

202.5 said the scale today. We'll see where it takes us. Anyone want to join the crusade? Feel free, its a big ol party. :)

SHHHHH Here He Comes...

Just had quite the awkward experience. One of those times when you walk into a room and someone has their back to you and is saying something, and the other person in the room motions/signals/whispers for that person to be quiet, given your approaching presence. That's actually the first time I've been in that situation in a while. Not entirely sure what was being discussed, but it didn't seem positive.

Kind of annoying.

Immediately following my entrance I was asked quite the random question about whether I would date one of my friends (the one who had been talking when I came in), one of those questions you can't answer at all without changing things in one direction or another. Once the question is out there, things are already different, whether the change is miniscule or mind boggling. I was honest, that's what I expect from myself.

To tell you the truth, in a lot of people's books I'm "dating" a lot of my friends, just because I do things alone with them like movies, dinners, or the like. Some people just can't handle that two people of opposing gender thing without getting "weird." Its just never been a problem for me. I think if I actually had the remotest hunch that the person might be interested, the thought would at least cross my mind, but without reciprocation there's no reason to bother.

Only got bout an hour of sleep last night, and another hour nap during the day, guess I'll take another nap before the intramural game. Looks like we're going to be short tonight, or at most have the minimum number of players, so I'll be dying running around out of shape again. Really need to do something about that.

Grand Theft Log

I hear that's goin around, so I decided to continue the trend...

1 minute ago: I was reading a log of someone I've never met.
1 hour ago: I was blissfully asleep.
1 day ago: I was out eating, as I tend to do when people decide they're willing to make snack runs at 3 in the morning to Jack's, Carl's, Freebird's, Carrows, or any number of other late night hangouts.
1 month ago: I was belting out Livin on a Prayer with the top down on the freeway, challenging the wind to make me deaf.
1 year ago: I was lighter.

5 minutes ago: I was rolling over, thinking "please tell me its like 7am so I can get up and just get ready for the midterm and the day and whatever else," and seeing the clock say 1:45.
5 hours ago: I was still trying to get my tv capture card to work, having goten everything working except for when it tries to capture audio, which eliminates the whole purpose of using my computer to archive stuff.
5 days ago: I got a compliment. From a girl. Wow. Rare.
5 weeks ago: I was getting pulled over. For having my license plate light out.
5 months ago: I was realizing college was half over. Depressing.
5 years ago: I was lighter. Like, way lighter. I was also in shape. People sometimes ask if you could repeat a part of your life, would you. I like to think that I have no regrets in life, but I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't do certain things differently the second time around. Yeah, I'd go back to sophmore year in high school. I'd keep running. I'd know then what I know now. I'd know I wasn't immune to getting out of shape. I'd know that there WAS room for another fifty pounds on my body. I'd avoid like the plague the essay prompt I chose for Academic Deacthlon my senior year. That's still the most depressing single event of my life to this day. I wouldn't have worked any harder in school though. I'm not ashamed of where I go to college, I'm happy here. If anything, I would have slacked more, getting by with whatever was necessary, nothing more, enjoying life even more than I did.

That's the point, after all?

If You're Sexy And You Know It Clap Your Hands...

Busy shakin my booty over here to 112 - Dance With Me, quite a catchy lil rhythmn there. [awaits the hoots and giggles]

More problems with XP, turns out the TV card I bought today has some issues with it, corrupt video, hoping I'll call up tomorrow and they'll have some sort of workaround for me, otherwise its all about the refund/exchange back at CompUSA... gr. Gotta love 15% restocking open box fees. Hurray.

Watched Chicken Run tonight, and unfortunately its yet another in the string of not as good as I thought it would be movies I've been watching lately. I guess when I watch an animated movie I expect Disney quality/funniness, and when I watch a computer generated or stop motion one I'm expecting Pixar, and I guess the trend when watching other productions tends to be lackluster. Ah well if all movies were perfect we wouldn't know what perfect was.

Hooray for three day weekends.

Found a really amazingly good read of a log a couple days ago, got linked to from another one that I read. Its basically a string of overheard conversations and sound bites, about all manners of issues, very eloquent in the way it's written.

One day I'll figure out how to add in links here (i'm htmilliterate) and share the spiffyness of the pages I stumble across. :)

Success!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alas, the first post from a new operating system. Hooray for XP.

Notice the time, and feel sorry for me. Took a while to work out the kinks. :) Guess its finally time to hit the sack.

So Not Unique...

Man, I thought it was weird that someone has the same first and last name as me on my floor. I didn't know the least of it. Apparently, out of the sixty or so people on my unit hall (my floor and the opposite gender one below it), FOUR of them have my same birthday. How whack is that. No other birthday is even shared by two people. It's gonna be like Happy Birthday to you, and you, and you, and you! Crazy.

Tripled my money in poker last night, wee. Slept like way too many hours, such that its almost 2am and i'm not even remotely close to being tired tonight. Hm.

My shift key is being retarded. Whenever i try to hold it down to type a word in all caps it ends up like ThiS WHERE soME ENDs up in CAPS AND SomE doeSNT. I'm really abusing my backspace key because of that. Sheesh. I wonder how long it would take me to learn to use the right shift key instead of the left. Hmm... Wow This Is Hard. Its Like Trying To Unlearn How To Ride A Bike.

So anyway.

UR URRRR URRRR URRRR

To the best of my ability, that's what my alarm sounds like in the morning. Apparently its not annoying enough. Managed to sleep through something I shouldn't have, causing all sorts of problems like me having to fib a little about certain aspects of my morning, yadda yadda yadda. So anyway, it was all uphill from there. Now that I think about it that saying is retarded. Saying "thing went downhill from there" generally means the day got worse. Then again, saying "its all downhill from here" tends to mean things are getting easier. Basically the same sentence meaning total opposite things. Hoif.

So anyway, at some point during the summer I was bored and signed up for a lot of those online dating meeting friendship whatever type sites that you post your pic and profile to and wait for "the one." So I get an e-mail from one of them today. Among a few other things it says "are you really that old, you don't look that old you look really young, I'm really 16 so e-mail me back but you don't have to if you don't want to if you're really 18 i'm sorry." A couple things make this interesting, first of all the fact my profile states I'm 20, not 18. Second of all the fact that someone thinks I look younger than I am, especially given I tend to be seen as a twenty-something by most, and have been unfortunately been offered alcohol at restaurants since I was about 17. The third and perhaps strangest thing is that at that particular site that the e-mail came from, in order to contact other members you have to use up one of your "credits" with the site. You start out with zero, but can purchase them at a rate of ten bucks for three credits, with better deals at a scalable rate at higher denominations. So someone actually paid at least three bucks to send me that random e-mail. Weird. Quite.

Tried installing XP today, had a file error on the cd, going to have to find another image of it or something like that, even though it installed perfectly fine on another computer with that exact image. Strange. Will fiddle more this weekend, got three days due to the holiday, should find plenty to do.

Er, Thursday?

So I slacked. Its even hard to motivate myself to log these days, sheesh! I figure I'll blog a lot, but shorter, makes it easy to just pop it open and update randomly instead of typing up a huge chunk at a time.

So I'm playing intramurals tonight, we get slaughtered as we tend to, had some fun, but the best part was afterwards when I went over to thank the refs and one of them (female of course) said "i like ur shirt!" (i was wearing a t-shirt that says "WHAT PART OF (a really complicated formula) DONT YOU UNDERSTAND?") I swear, those kinds of random compliments from people I don't know are enough to make me float in the clouds for at least a day or two. Seems like they come once an eon, so when they do, I savor every moment. :)

You must be thinking two things: 1. I'm really pathetic if I get excited over a random clothing compliment. 2. I'm a total geek for wearing that kind of shirt.

Well, right on both counts. ;)

Monday Already? Pooey.

Another non-day today, as Sundays usually are, woke up way too late, going to bed way too late, a whole lot of muddled time passing in between.

For some reason I got about 1/10 the usual amount of junk e-mail today. I dunno, I'd rather at least have twenty e-mails to scan and decide whether or not to delete, rather than a big fat ZERO staring me in the face when I religiously repeatedly click the big ol inbox button

Going to find out what I got on my other two midterms this week, I don't know why I'm worried, I know I did well, I guess I'm just hoping for perfection rather than imperfection. Its all going to come down to the finals regardless, but the more bargaining power I have coming in the better.

Played some Civilization 3 today, the new game by Sid Meier, basically based on the previous two, but with today's graphics and speed. Still as fun as it used to be, some improvements are nice, others quite annoying, I guess they make the game harder. Hadn't done any movie or tv episode downloading in a while, started up a bunch of queues again, should have some fresh new stuff by tomorrow morning to report. Man, its a good thing every weekend isn't like this. I really do nothing well.

Reading that last sentence again, I realize it can be taken two ways depending on whether "nothing" or "well" is emphasized, both of which are possibly true. I'm good at doing nothing, is what I meant. :/

Dup E Dup E Doopie Doop Doop Doop

Cmon, you gotta admit that's the best Dance Dance Revolution song. Well its my favorite anyway. :) Spent a few hours over at a friends house tonight working up a decent sweat skidding around on the pads, was loads of fun. If only I'd get addicted to exercising like that, I'd be one fit little boy. :P

So the math midterm went very well, I'm pretty sure about everything except the extra credit problem, which is of course, extra credit, so who really cares. Also got my cs40 midterm back, and ended up with a 81 out of 93, which with the class average being 61 ended up being about 5th highest in the class. Missed an easy five point problem too, should have had the highest grade overall. :/

So it looks like operation Keep Me In School is in full effect, with of course nothing really meaning anything until finals week. Ooh goodie.

Worked out pretty hard tonight, found out to my dismay they actually DO have an inverted bench with pads for inclined situps in the fitness room, so I don't really have an excuse to let my tummy grow any wider. Darn. I think I can actually motivate myself to head downstairs pretty often though, so we'll see if at least I can gain some muscle, even if I'm not losing any weight.

I'm feeling better about the way friendships are building this year, at first it seemed like I wouldn't find anyone to have close ones with like previous years, but I've met a few people out of nowhere who have become really good friends of mine. These last few days two of my friends have given me random hugs, which really made me happy. :) If there's one thing I miss about a relationship, its having a hug whenever you need one.

Had a whole big ol discussion with someone about male/female friendships, and whether they can ever truly be platonic, etc etc. I've always been of the opinion that if there is no physical attraction it is easily possible, although there seem to be a lot of people who disagree. I've never worried about any of my friends finding me attractive (self-pity I know, but its true) so I think nothing of random hugs, or even sleeping in the same room or on the same bed if that's what's most logical at the time to prevent anyone from being extremely uncomfortable on the floor or whatever. For a lot of people that's taboo though, which must stink if you're the one who ends up on the floor. :/ One of my friends made the claim that there is always a sexual tension between a guy and a girl, even if they're just friends, and even if they're not physically attracted to each other. Maybe its because I'm not all that interested in the physical aspect of relationships, that causes me to be immune or most likely oblivious to the "tension." I just get along better with girls, that's all. I'm not into getting drunk, laid, or wrestling, so I tend to have more in common with the opposite sex than my own. I don't think its a bad thing, it just works out that way.

Anyway, three cheers for hugs, and those who share them.

Hump Day.

I know, I know, its been a while. Let me start by rattling out a few excuses, such as the fact I had midterms Tuesday and another one techinically today (Thursday morning as I write this, test not til 3:30pm), both of which I have to nail. I'm basically three quarters of the way through acing midterms, with one still to come. Thus far I've been quite proud of my performance, and the next one should prove no difficulty either.

So, the CalTech story. My friend is giving me a tour of the campus and we see a large group of about thirty "Techies" (as they call themselves) running around making strange noises, climbing the olive trees, shaking them, even throwing brooms or shovels at them. As we come closer we notice that several are carrying around cd's, and there appear to be more in the trees. We pull one of them aside and discover that the theme of the day is "lumberjacks." They've been enlisted by their group leader to "cut down" all the trees, and thus first have to save all the "owls" from their natural habitat, the one collecting the most wins. This is the kicker, the "owls" are the AOL cds. At first I had no clue, until the girl explained it like three times... (Owl, AAA-OL, get it?) And I thought my friend was wierd. These people make her look as normal as they come. This was just one of many strange practices I heard about while there, such as their interesting eating procedure... First the president of the school gets up and rings a gong at the designated time, and gives a speech, with pauses to allow all the students to pound on the tables to show their approval. Then comes the meal, which is brought to them by waiters. If they want another helping they just raise their glass or plate. In addition, if they ask the waiter for permission, they're allowed to throw their bread, or bread bowl (I'm not entirely sure which it was, maybe both) at someone else. However if they hit a waiter, or knock over someone's water glass, they get "floated." Being floated is apparently very common among freshman due to various offenses, and involves dumping a large bucket of ice water on the unlucky person's head.

Needless to say, its quite a strange place.

Tonight was Halloween, which at UCSB is the biggest party of the year. They expected twenty thousand people in IV tonight, most of which coming in costume, of some sort. I saw some incredibly creative ideas walking around the hall, and then of course the incredibly bizarre. Biggest eye popper on this floor went to the girl who had just painted a large hand over each of her breasts, and gone topless other than the body paint. That had some of the guys up here pretty googly. Some were really elaborate though, from a maid, to a chicken, to some random superhero, and enough guys in thongs to last me a lifetime. Unfortunately I'm not the gung ho lets go get wasted type, or I would have gone to join in the fun laughing at the antics on DP. I tend to enjoy the IVTV episode focusing on the weekend however, and get my fill of the antics of DP without ever having to actually go get groped by some guy myself.

I'm actually quite glad the math midterm is tomorrow, I'm going to get about ten hours of sleep, whereas most of the class probably will sleep through the test, and in the land of the curve, my good score will become perfect. :)

Watched the rest of Almost Famous today, it was okay, but not exactly the desperately wonderful movie everyone had made it out to be. I think that's my problem, I rely too much on other people's opinions, and by the time I finally get around to watching a movie six months later its just anticlimactic, not the fabulous movie I was expecting. Also downloaded Swordfish in great quality, still one of the coolest explosions to open a movie that I've seen. My list is growing more and more popular, just about everyone on the floor has come to borrow a movie at some point or another. I've had to cut a few people off though, I hate it when people abuse the privledge, and just start copying mass quantities of the movies, without making any effort to contribute to the collection in any way. Die freeloaders!

Wish me luck on the math midterm, I'll try to be a good boy and update daily now that all those are over. At least this post was long to make up for it. :)

A Revelation.

So I'm sitting in lunch today, and absolutely randomly have a revelation, that the smoothie girl worked on the Move-In crew with me, helping people move into the dorm, and that's where I'd met her. I'd never seen her before that, and hadn't seen her since, hence my lack of intelligent thought on the manner. Stranger still is that she managed to remember who i was. Chalk it up to randomness i suppose..

So Caltech was fun, although driving kind of sucks. The way there was worse off because the people i was with were asleep the whole time, leaving me to fend for myself... On the way back the one girl I gave a ride to was very talkative about how her weekend went, so we exchanged stories and had a good time. More details on what CalTech is really like later (believe me, its not what you think, if you're thinking anything at all and haven't been there).

MJ's new album is out tomorrow, I'm quite interested to see how well it does, and if I personally think its any good. Should be worth the download to see, anyway.

Jeez, i've done that like twenty times. You'd be amazed how easy it is to fit a finger in the gap between the top of a drawer and the desk surface above, and how painful and hard it is to get it out.

...

Anyway...

On the Road Again...

Off to USC/CalTech, back in a while. Have a good weekend all. :)

They're Cooky and They're Spooky.

Somebody pointed out today that whenever I use a random number in a sentence, its always eighty-seven. Its weird how other people notice these things. Last year someone noticed/complained about the way I used to say "hellllooooooo" when I met people in a cheerful way, and overused the word lame in the tone "lay hay hay hay meeeeeee." So now I've basically cut both of those words out of my vocabulary, just to avoid the peer pounding that resulted from repeated usage. It's strange how much other people can affect us.

So tonight is Friday night of Halloween weekend, which means a lot of glugglugging will be goin on. Thus me being probably one of a dozen or so people left in the dorm. Being by the elevator however I did get to see a parade of people in costume headed out to "sow their oats" as one of them referred to it as... There were some pretty impressive costumes, someone walked by with a wig the size of my door, in a disco 70's style getup, made me roll around on the floor for a while...

Today's obsession song is "Everywhere" by Michelle Branch. She's pretty young, but very talented. I'm always impressed by female musicians who don't need a studio to blow me away.

Looks like I'm headed south to L.A. to visit a friend tomorrow, luckily managed to convince another friend to ride a long, so chances are there won't be an update tomorrow, don't miss me too much. :)

When it Goes, it Goes...

The above title is apparenly in reference to my memory...

So I get up this morning before my alarm goes off even, go figure. Decide since I'm up an hour earlier than usual I'll treat myself with a smoothie from Jamba Juice at the Ucen on the way to class. My friend's girlfriend works at the one on State Street, and she had like a million of those buy three get one free coupons thingies already stamped out, and I was given like 10. (SCHWEEEEEEEET, btw) So anyway, I wander in and the girl working the register goes "heyyyy what's up!" and I look up and see a very familiar face. Unfortunately the name, or where i know the face from, is just totally gone. So after the initial confused stare, her commenting "you don't remember me do you" and me saying "oh yeah, yeah I do, how are you what's been up" I am just at a total loss as to where I know her from.

The real kicker was what happened next though. She takes my order, and instead of asking, says "it's Matt, right?"

...

I was basically floored, usually girls can't remember my name five minutes later, much less at least six months (I'm pretty sure I know her from last year sometime). So I follow that up with "wow, I'm impressed" immediately realizing as I say that, that she might ask me what her name is. Luckily at that precise moment I happened to see her nametag on her hat. Turns out she didn't ask me anyway, and we didn't say anything else. But damn, was I stunned. It was like someone had randomly told me I was the coolest guy on earth. I guess that's when you know you've reached a new level of desperation. When someone remembering your name is life-altering.

Haven't the foggiest idea what I know her from. :( And boy, wouldn't I feel retarded asking.

Warning, Unpleasant Visual Ahead.

So I'm playing indoor soccer tonight, as I do every Wednesday night in the Mens A league with some guys that I know. The ball heads into the corner and a guy chases me into it, so I try to do a really cool blast off the wall so it richochets off and flies towards the center of the court to a teammate.

It was one of the harder kicks I've hit in the last few years.

I took it full on in the face off the wall.

Just finished showering, there was this interesting yellow/orange juice from my eye mixing with the reddish blue blood from the nose, it was almost like an artist's pallete. The right side of my face is numbed to the point it feels like I just had novacaine put in for a cavity drilling.

My nose feels crooked. I don't think it is. It doesn't look crooked. Just half of it feels like someone else's nose. Sort of.

More in a while, that wasn't even the most shocking thing that happened today. :/

What?

Such a non-day. Woke up at like 5am, couldn't get back to sleep, got up for a while, went back to bed at 7am stupidly thinking I could wake up again for class, missed class, decided screw it then I might as well keep sleeping, got up at 1pm, did laundry, went racquetballing, ate dinner, twiddled around for a few hours, and here I am. These non-days are quite frustrating. I need to eliminate these in order to get the grades I need to get this quarter. Gr.

Oh. I forgot the best part. I retardedly drove to the reccen, forgetting that even though i usually go at night, in order to go during the day you have to put money in the meter, because its only after 5pm that it's free. Thirty buck parking ticket. Whoopee.

I think one negative side of keeping this log is I find it hard to motivate myself to e-mail people I keep up with regularly. Its like, I just told my life story for the day once, and I'd just be repeating myself in an e-mail to the person. Most of them read this anyway. Maybe that's just me being impersonal. I haven't given 'go read the log' as a response to a friend's question in the real world as of yet. That would be pretty lame.

I think it's healthy though. This whole talking to one's self thing. They say your dreams are the way your mind regurgitates the information gathered during the day. I guess this is kind of like that.

Wow, this post sucked. I apologize.

Phew.

Relief.

It's a wonderful thing.

Heard from my most recent ex-girlfriend tonight, for the first time in quite some time. Turns out she had been ignoring/avoiding me due to a misconecption, part of which was my fault.

We had a really good conversation. What's funny is that when I tell people that they immediately ask "so you're getting back together?" Heh. No. Its been over a year, and that is definitely not in the books. For some reason I'm different than most people, my few relationships have always ended in friendships, I don't just get the "screw you, well screw you too" type of results that cause people to hold grudges and be uncomfortable.

For a while I was worried about this most recent one though, it seemed like she wasn't at all interested in maintaining any kind of friendship at all. This was quite depressing, given she was the best friend I ever had. There were things I shared with her that no one else knew, including my family and other close friends. Two and a half years is a long time to spend with someone, and by the end of that time even if you find out you're not perfectly compatible, you still have a bond that will always be there.

The conversation started off with us basically strangers, with a smiley eventually breaking its way in, and three hours later, progress I'm extremely happy with. I found out all about the new beau in her life, who truly seems like a perfect fit for her. We talked about anything and everything, just like old times. Maybe I'm exaggerating. It's a start though.

I hope it continues. She's a fun person.

NummyYummyNummy

Went over to a friend's house tonight, her two roommates had gone home for the weekend to attend a funeral, so she had the place to herself. Was in the mood to cook, so I helped out with whatever I could (open that can please, pass me that dish please). :) Ended up quite the scrumptious meal, some green bean caserrole (wonder if that has two r's), a rice and noodle concoction, and some teriyaki chicken. We then were forced to zip over to the store because she was in the mood for an ice cream sandwich, but I didn't mind snaggin an ice cream snickers bar and one of those things with two big chocolate chip cookies and ice cream between them while we were there. :)

When we got back we took in The Great Train Robbery directed by Michael Chricton, based on his novel of the same name which I thought was excellent. Pretty cool movie too, although as is usually the case they left out a lot of stuff from the book. Sean Connery is in it, but its from 1979, so he's still in his James Bondish looking era. That was just one of a long list of movies I'm "getting around to seeing" since I have them sitting around. Printed out my complete list and stuck it on the back of my door, basically because I got bored of watching people flipping through one of the huge binders full of movies that I have trying to decide what to watch. I have this whole system on my door now, a list where people put their name phone and room number, what movie, and when they checked it out/checked it back in... Says the Human Blockbuster at the top, since that's basically what I've become... Just gives me a bit more control over what is where and how long its been there. Those reading this must think I'm a Nazi now. :/

Suffering from a cold these last couple days, strangely immediately following getting an "Immuno Boost" with my Jamba Juice smoothie... (its all about Strawberries Wild, by the way). Apparently the 1200% Vitamin C or whatever it was of my daily value ended up achieving the opposite effect... Then again I probably caught it a week ago and its just been in hibernation. Who knows.

Managed to find some Wonder Years episodes online, man that series ruled. That is totally one that i would watch as a marathon someday, I don't think I ever saw all the episodes as a whole, just bits and pieces from time to time. Will have to make an effort to add that to my collection of downloads. :)

SNIFFLING SUCKS!

A Bright Idea...

Decided I'm going to write posts in another proggy and paste them in only when ready to put them up, to avoid such frustrations in the future. Oig.

Finally got around to watching the first episode of Enterprise tonight... (waits for the boos hoots jeers and insults) Go ahead and rip on me, I was a Lt. Data fan, and man Levar Burton with that visor thing, I wanted to be like him when I grew up... The new series appears quite entertaining, has a cool opening sequence with a remix of Rod Stewart's "Faith in the Heart" on it that makes ya want to go and build a science project or something...

My problem with TV shows is I'm never around/available to watch them regularly, and I always end up missing stuff and getting annoyed that I'm out of the loop... Thank goodness for the internet... I've gotten into download TV episodes and even full series lately, the quality is about the same as a VHS tape, and if you have the space or the CDs you can even store your favorites. :) Course the best reason is the people who capture them always edit out the commercials and rifraf, so you can watch the usual half hour sitcom in just over fifteen minutes, or an hour's worth in forty. Makes it easy to watch them back to back to back too, and you don't have to wait a whole week each time. :)

Been stacking up all the episodes of Band of Brothers, the miniseries on HBO produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks about World War II, I've heard nothing but great things about it. I figure it'll be a Saving Private Ryan type great movie, except much more in depth. Each episode runs about seventy five minutes without commercials, and I'm pretty sure there's going to be at least ten, possibly twelve! I'll probably end up watching three or so at a time, dedicate a weekend to it or something.

The people across the hall are having WAY too much fun now that they've discovered hotornot.com, I've been hearing them screaming ratings for like an hour now... You'd be amazed what can hold the attention of certain kinds of people. :)

Haircut today, its been a bit over a month, I figure I'll stick to getting one around the 15th each month, that way I won't let it get too overgrown or waste money getting it cut too soon. Wonder how much money I would save if I just bought the tools and did it myself. A hundred fifty a year, probably. Hm...

Gr. GrGrGr. GRGRGR

I do not like eaten posts. I do not like them Sam I am.
I do not like eaten posts with gravy, or with ice cream. I do not like them in the slightest.

That is all.

Ew, Midterms.

Sheesh, back to back this morning, the best part being that I woke up three minutes before the scheduled start of the first... Needless to say I was wearing the same clothes I was yesterday, and a hat to hide the "HOLY CRAP DID YOU LOSE A FIGHT WITH A WEEDWHACKER" hairstyle I'm always sporting shortly after waking up. Need to stop lying down to rest in the middle of the day, I always end up napping and then waking up more tired than when I lay down... Hm. Laid down? Lay down? Lie down? Hm.

Discovered I have another regular reader the other day, must fit in a hello to them somewhere...

Hello.

Now that I handled that... I need to find more regular blogs to read, I only keep up with two or three at the moment, must find more interesting people...
Not sure what is it about reading about people's everyday life that's so interesting. I guess its the fact I usually learn something, if not something about them something about the world around me. Its kind of like having an intelligent discussion about a random issue with someone, except you're talking at different times. Guess that makes no sense. GAH MIDTERMS MAKE THE MIND GO MUDDY. :(

Study Study Bo Buddy Banana Fanna Fo Fuddy...

Went to a review session for CS40 tonight, that's one of two midterms I have on Wednesday... There are multiple midterms in both the classes which is good, acing them both would give me quite the bargaining chip when it comes to final grades which are oh so important this quarter...

Also attended a little workshop meeting thingy in the formal lounge today with the coroner... Was a very informative discussion and slide show regarding alcohol, drugs, and the real life results... Some very graphic pictures were shown, and I could tell it was affecting some of the people in the room as they witnessed what could end up happening when they head to IV on a Friday night. He was giving us numbers like 18 alcohol overdose deaths so far this year, a number that seems huge, one he said you won't read in the papers due to respect for the families involved. Amazing to me that people can make those kinds of decisions about their life.

Had a pretty horrible dream last night, managed to remember it while talking to a friend, although its really one I would have rather not. I'm stacking them all up, I promise I'll get to them at some point when I'm bored. Believe me, it'll happen. :)

Wind, Wind, and More

Its been an interesting weekend thus far...

Last night we had the usual poker game which was pretty uneventful, other than me betting the living crap out of someone on a hand that I thought was a straight, which turned out to not be. Basically pure retardation cost me a couple bucks. :/ It happens... Ended up heading out to IV for some eats afterwards, which is significant because in the last couple years here I've never ventured into IV on a Friday or Saturday night... Strangely enough ran into literally everyone I knew while out there... Couldn't walk ten feet without someone calling me over or waving hi, was pretty neat. :) Intended to eat at Freebird's but ended up at Woodstock's, the usual pizza place. Pretty yummy wild bread and cinnabread, still have some of that left over.

Tonight was another trip up to Chumash... The night started off as good as it can, sat down and plunked some money in SpinIt Poker, four aces, boom sixty bucks in the black right off the bat. Unfortunately was pretty downhill from there... Although I did play back at the Seven Card Stud and Hold 'Em tables for the first time, turns out they aren't only for high rollers as I once suspected... Ended up next to a guy going to SBCC who was actually a dealer thirty hours a week... He helped me out a great deal, I ended up pretty even there. It also takes quite a long time to lose (and unfortunately in turn, win) anything. I guess that's a good thing just as much as it is bad, you can spend the usual few hours without suddenly being down a hundred or two... Still haven't gotten that last paycheck from summer in the mail yet, so tonight wasn't so bad. :)

The best part was actually the trip up... We went in my friend's girlfriend's little SUV Jeep type thing by Suzuki, and they took the top back thingy off so that it was basically a convertible back there. I was just livin the good life in the back, enjoying the wind in my hair, the sun in my face, the deafness in my ears... Had a grand ol time belting out "Livin on a Prayer" by Bon Jovi at the top of my lungs. Had their greatest hits CD on most of the way up, they're a really great band for hanging-head-out-the-window-screaming type road trips, their tours are always very audience oriented. I was feeling "Wanted, Dead or Alive" and "Lay Your Hands on Me" rumble through the speakers plenty as well... Speaking of which downloaded another pretty song called "The Dream Within" by Lara Fabian after hearing it on the Final Fantasy movie credits...

Got my webcam working again, so at times the workings of my room are being broadcast all over the world... Kind of a scary feeling at times, at first I was worried about picking my nose or whatever... But then I figured what's the worst that can happen, besides humiliating myself to someone who if they are that important would probably have seen much worse from me already. :) I guess that's why I don't have any problem airing my dirty laundry in this journal of sorts... If the person is going to be the one, shouldn't they know everything beforehand?