Lack of Enthusiasm

X-Games

2009-07-30T23:33:00.002-05:00

Here's a quick summary of what I watched tonight.

Skateboard big air - Bob Burnquist and Jake Brown tie for first place, during the final run Jake wipes out. Bob throws his run to give Jake the gold. Bob's a legend and I honestly believe he could have won the competition, but being the veteran he is and Jake being a young star without a gold medal, he threw the run just so Jake could have it. I don't deny that Jake is a very talented skater and definitely is due a gold medal, but I really feel like he isn't grateful for Bob's gesture at all. On one hand, I do find it honorable that Jake didn't want the medal just given to him, but to an extent I think it's that he's overly confident and doesn't give Bob the respect he deserves.

I watched Moto X Step Up next. Ronnie Renner and Ricky Carmichael both earned gold medals after Carmichael crashed. I really feel like the competition should have continued. If Carmichael couldn't continue, then he lost, sorry. I don't really see why they felt the need to award both gold medals.

Hopefully we'll see something good tomorrow.

-end-

Gamefly, Mercenaries, Wolverine, Batman, and Marvel vs Capcom 2

2009-07-29T07:27:00.003-05:00

Let's have a video game inspired update.

A few days ago I subscribed to Gamefly. The service itself has always interested me, but for some reason I couldn't justify the X amount of dollars per month it would cost. I finally looked over at the list of games I wanted to play but would not offer me enough replay value to be worth a full purchase and decided that this was the best way for me try those games out. So on Friday night/Saturday morning, I registered and queued up a few games. I got my first game, Mercenaries 2, on Monday and my other game, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, on Tuesday. Overall a pretty quick delivery, I'm interested in seeing how long it takes when it's not over a Sunday.

Mercenaries 2 is alright. For the most part, it's pretty simple and has a few difficult things thrown in here and there. I really don't have much to say on this game other than it's fun for a bit. I guess you would classify it as having a sandbox world because it is pretty much open as GTA, Crackdown, and Assassin's Creed. However, in comparison to the games I just mentioned, the world seems a lot smaller. While I admit that some aspect of driving seems to be a little extreme (mainly the hand braking), the vehicles handle very well in my opinion, by far better than GTA and Crackdown. I'll probably finish Mercenaries 2 before sending it back for the next game, we'll see.

I had heard the Wolverine game was actually good, unlike the movie it's based on. I must admit, I'm having a blast playing it. While talking to Ryan he made mention that it really is hard to screw up a game of this genre (third person beat 'em up) and I do agree, however, I also believe it's difficult to make a game of that genre really memorable. Wolverine's gore is absolutely over the top and it just appeals to that macho persona deep within me. The battles are so fluid in every aspect and while there's dramatic slowdown during crucial kills, it never got to the point of where I found it to be annoying. One of the first "wow" moments I had was when fighting Sabertooth, there's a moment where he bends over after a blow and Wolverine did a barrell roll over him before throwing him across the room. Flawless transition. I believe my favorite mechanic of the entire game is the lunge ability. For me, it's just so much fun to be able leap a fair distance and skewer a soldier. Overall, I'm enjoying this game very much and highly recommend it as a rent.

This brings me to my next tidbit. I really hope Batman: Arkham Asylum is good. Also, a picture of the Scarecrow made it's way to the web today. Here's a pic, taken from Kotaku's article. http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/kotaku/2009/07/scarecrow.jpg

I love the way he looks. The Scarecrow was redesigned in Batman: The Animated Series volume 4 to be a dark figure with a noose around its neck. I'm very glad to see that it retains that aspect. The gasmask is a nice touch, not something I would have immediately though of, but considering the usage of fear gas it makes a lot of sense that he would wear one. The best part is the glove with syringes as fingers. Freddy Krueger would be envious of such a glove. The Scarecrow isn't a fighter, but with something like that he might actually stand a chance in a bout. I'm loving this design.

Marvel Vs Capcom 2 came out onto xbox live today. It will take you for a ride. I've played about two hours of it and I'm really enjoying it. After I get some sleep I intend on trying out the actual online aspect of it. Hopefully I won't get completely mauled.

-end-

Vacation in Review

2009-07-27T00:55:00.002-05:00

So I've had a day to recover from my vacation and now it's time to post things that really stand out to me from the week.

This was my first time back in Florida in about 10 years or so and my first time to Destin. It was nice being able to go on a vacation with the sole purpose of just being able to relax, as opposed to having a schedule and things to do. The only thing that we ever had to make sure to plan for was dinner time and besides that, we were on our own to do whatever we wished. In hindsight I feel like I should have made it down to the beach at least once more than what I did, however, I really can't figure out what day I would have sacrificed to do so.

Being someone who doesn't care for seafood for so long I finally saw this as my opportunity to try some of the best seafood to see if I liked it anymore. For the most part, this wasn't true. Every piece of seafood I tried, I couldn't help thinking to myself how much I would have rather it been another type of meat. Some of it was tolerable and I could definitely eat it all had I ordered it, it just wasn't my preference. I did get to try a fried softshell crab sandwich though, that was interesting in its own way. I also did get to try real sushi for the first time in awhile. That I managed to eat without many problems and even enjoy. The only one I can really think of that I didn't care for was cucumber + cream cheese. Oh and hush puppies. Those were absolutely delicious down there.

As I've said many a times, the beach was absolutely beautiful when we went. For the most part the water was almost perfectly clear, the weather at all times was excellent. Everyone told me that it was a rarity to be there without a single day of rain or a day of extreme humidity. Not once while we were outside did I ever feel my shirt clinging to my skin as it so often does around here. Of course with the beach you also get the beautiful women. While not every female was absolutely gorgeous, there were quite a good amount of attractive women. Not just on the beach, but everywhere we went. Also, this trip reaffirmed that I love southern accents. Something about the phrase "sweet tay" really catches my ear.

Entertainment wise, we played a lot of games and saw a few movies. The movie theatre down there was excellent, as my post from a few days ago details. We definitely overestimated the amount of games we would play through while on vacation and were left with quite a few cases unopened. I wish I would have remembered that my monitor I brought was bad so Ryan could have brought his and we would have had two xboxes going uninterrupted.

Everyone keeps asking me if I'm glad to be home and I guess so. I'm really going to miss Destin though and will always remember this vacation. And as I've said many times during this past week, thank you very much to Ryan and his family for bringing me. In just a bit over a month I enter the work force that I've been dreading so much, this is definitely going to be one of my fond memories of my youth. So long, and thanks for all the fish.

-end-

2009-07-25T01:40:00.002-05:00

Our final day of vacation. Today we woke up about noon, went to an all you can eat sushi bar and hibachi grill just down the street for lunch. Ryan, Cam, and myself went down there and despite talking about it all week, the only one of us to get the all you can eat deal was myself. Three sushi rolls, a bowl of fried rice, a piece of cheesecake, and a scoop of fried ice cream later, I was stuffed to the point of feeling sick. Well worth the money.

Following that we went down the beach. Another beautiful day with absolutely clear water. Not the best waves, but definitely an enjoyable day at the beach.

For dinner we went to Old Bay Steamers again. This time I got the chicken alfredo and comically, they forgot to bring it out. So for the second time during this vacation, I got my food after everyone else.

Following dinner another night of boardgames with the other family. It was a good time, despite me losing most of the time. With us leaving early tomorrow morning, I should have been asleep a lot earlier than...well 2am. When I get home I'll write a full review of the vacation as a whole, since there are things that I'm sure I forgot to mention throughout it all.

-end-

2009-07-24T02:50:00.002-05:00

It's rather depressing to think that my vacation is almost over. Tomorrow is pretty much our last day here since we leave so early on Saturday.

Today we went down to the beach again. The water wasn't as clear as the other day but the waves were bigger. The sandbar was about the same as the other day. Overall a good day at the beach. For dinner we went to Osaka Japanese Steakhouse. It was my first time at a hibachi grill and it was a pretty good experience. The food was absolutely delicious and at the suggestion of Ryan's dad, I finally got some sweet tea since we are in the south. Normally I'm not the world's biggest tea fan, but I must admit that it was delicious as well.

Following dinner we went to Santa Rosa mall. After hitting up several gamestops and a Sears (got Crackdown for 10 bucks) we just explored it a bit. Nothing really stellar, but nothing horrible either.

After the mall we went over to the place where the other family that's vacationing with us are staying. There we played Rummicube (rummikube?) and even though I lost, I enjoyed myself. I wish we would have at least one game of up words, but it was getting late at that point so I can understand why we didn't.

Tomorrow we plan on heading to an all you can eat sushi bar and hibachi grill. I'm assuming the hibachi is not all you can eat and we're in reality just going for the sushi. Hopefully it'll be good. That's for lunch, not sure what's going to happen for dinner yet.

-end-

2009-07-23T13:10:00.002-05:00

So Wednesday's day of vacation consisted of Peggle, Sega Superstar Tennis, dinner, and Up.

Dinner was at a place called Perry's. It's about an 30 minutes to an hour outside of Destin's, a neat little hole in the wall seafood place. I do believe that place has filled me up more than any other restaurant we've been to. The hush puppies were better than Dewey's but not as good as the Lagniappe's. My actual meal was on time and probably better than the one I had at Dewey's.

Following dinner we went to see Up in 3d. I must say, Pixar is extremely good at invoking emotion with any actual dialogue. The movie itself was pretty good and definitely enjoyable. Not really a whole lot to say besides that. There was a short film before it that I really enjoyed concerning clouds and storks.

I feel the need to describe the place we went to go see the movie at. First of all, the theatre is done by a theatre called the Rave. The movie itself is cast on a DLP screen, versus the simple projectors at the theatres back home. Additionally, this one has an extremely nice surround system, something that I've always wondered why our theatres lack. I think this theatre was 14 screens and during peak hours would have three concession stands open, one in the center and one at the end of each wing.

The theatre itself is located in a place called the Destin Commons. I really love this place, it's pretty much a mall but located outside yet not lumped into the classification of a strip mall, at least in my opinion. I guess an appropriate way of describing it would be a village of strip malls. There's blocks like you would see in a regular residential neighborhood, but rather than separate buildings would be just one big building with multiple stores occupying it. Everything is done in a sandstone that just looks wonderful. The aesthetics of the place are only enhanced by the lighting and the foutains. Just a really pleasant place and I really wish I could spend more time down there. My only complaint is that the majority of the stores are all clothing stores that you'd expect to find in any mall. It just doesn't seem like the kind of place you would go to buy clothes, at least I wouldn't. It also lacks any form of electronics store which is a bummer for me.

I also feel the need to plug Sega Superstars Tennis. I bought this before we left on vacation for 5 bucks or so at Gamestop. This game has brought me hours of enjoyment since owning it. A highly recommended buy since you can get it pretty cheap. There's also a Sega themed racing game set in the same vein as Mario Kart on the horizon. It's from the same studio, so I'm definitely looking forward to that.

-end-

2009-07-23T00:48:00.002-05:00

I really should have done these blogs at the end of the day instead of at the end of the next day. I'm having a tough time remembering what all I've actually done.

Yesterday we actually made it down to the beach. It was my first time swimming in a large body of water (the Gulf of Mexico isn't actually an ocean, right?) and it was pretty amazing. While I can't really say I did a lot of 'swimming', the water was absolutely beautiful and so clear. I've never seen anything like it before. The sandbar at times was pretty high, resting only a few inches beneath the shore of the water. Yesterday was also a day when that hotel sold hot dogs and nachos. I guess it's not a frequent event because there was tons of people in line for them. They weren't bad at all and made a delicious lunch. Sadly, we didn't get any nachos because they ran out.

Because it was such a nice day, everyone decided to stay out on the beach for longer and we went to dinner later than usual. We went to a place called Dewey Destin's, the certain numbered grandson of the founders of Destin. After waiting a good hour and a half we were finally seated. The server came by and took our orders, whenever she finally delivered our food we noticed something was missing; my food. The server looked at us and said she'd check on my order. She came back out after 10 minutes or so and said that my food should be up any minute. Another 10 minutes pass and she came back out and informed me that they for some reason didn't cook my food and offered me a salad while I waited. So after crunching on some lettuce for a bit, she comes back out and informs me that they apparently ran out of pasta for my dish, so someone had been sent to go buy some from a local grocery store.

...

Yeah why I wasn't informed of this an hour ago when I ordered is beyond me as well. So then I waited, and waited, and waited. I finally got my dish (to go) and a free piece of pie. We also weren't charged at all for my meal. When everything was said and done, we spent somewhere in the realm of three to three and a half hours at this restaurant where only thirty to forty minutes of it being actual eating. To comment on the food, other patrons of our table complained that the balsamic dressing was nearly nothing but vinegar with a bit of worcester sauce mixed in. My salad was simply iceberg lettuce with ranch dressing and a quarter of a tomato. Their hush puppies were edible but not very flavorable, especially when compared to the amazingness of the ones we had the night before. Ryan's fried crab sandwich was alright as well. I tried a leg of it and found it to have an interesting texture but it tasted mostly just like fried batter with an odd aftertaste. The pasta was definitely not worth the wait. The alfredo sauce was good though, probably one of the better that I've had, but definitely not the best. The piece of key lime pie wasn't very tasty in my opinion. The crust was good, but really, just about any pie crust is.

While we were sitting there waiting on my dish, a server came up to who I assume was a manager or owner of the place and said something about a table getting ready to leave. The guy simply just said "I know". Very shortly after that while he was still standing there, another server walked up to him and informed him that a table just walked out, to which he responded again with "I know". So in addition to our table not having the best of experience with the restaurant, apparently another table was so tired of it they just left without paying their bill and the person in charge let them because it was the house's fault. Overall not the best place we've eaten and "alright" at best. I'd eat there again, but not if we have a repeat of what happened last night.

In video game news, we beat Dead Air on Expert last night and Ryan got his What Are You Trying to Prove achievement. We played Peggle for most of the day.

In closing, I present to you this image of how Twilight should have ended: http://imgur.com/3GUnR.jpg

-end-

2009-07-21T22:53:00.002-05:00

Day 3 of vacation. Woke up at around 2. Played some 360 (Penny Arcade episode 1). Saw the new Harry Potter movie last night. Everyone had told me that it steers very far away from the books. I guess I really don't remember the books because there wasn't anything absolutely staring me in the face that was wrong. Overall I thought the movie was pretty decent. There were parts that were somewhat slow and seemed unnessecary, but overall I thought it was good. I feel like I need to go and rewatch the previous movies as well.

Last night we went to a restaurant called Louisiana Lagniappe. It was quite a nice place, the wait staff was dressed fairly formal and the place had the most delicious hush puppies ever. I feel the need to type that in all capitals so you know I'm serious. Honestly though, I don't think even capital bolded letters would stress just how much I enjoyed those little deep fried balls of goodness.

I beat Penny Arcade episode 1 last night. I haven't actually seen the ending yet because I'm trying for an achievement that you can only earn during the last boss. I wasn't able to do it so I'm just reloading my save that's right before it. Hopefully I'll get that taken care of in the next day or two. Ryan and I also started a game of Marvel Ultimate Alliance. Hopefully we'll clear that as well. Tonight's game plan is Left 4 Dead expert run on Dead Air. With that beat, Ryan will finally get his What Are You Trying To Prove achievement and I hopefully will too, but I might not. If not then we have No Mercy to beat on expert again.

-end-

Vacation Part Deux

2009-07-20T13:43:00.003-05:00

Yesterday's events of vacation were pretty much resting up from the travel down. Played Penny Arcade Episode 1 a bit. Had a nice 7 hour session of Left 4 Dead where we attempted to beat Blood Harvest on Expert. We got stuck on the finale for a few hours until we finally found a glitch/exploit that actually worked for us to win. There's apparently two trees on the finale that you can just stand "in" and it will take you off the map. So at 6am today, we finally got it over with and I'm now half way to my What Are You Trying To Prove achievement.

Last night's dinner was at a place called Old Bay Steamers I believe. Ryan and his dad split a huge seafood medley consisting of King Crab, another kind of crab, mussels, oysters, and shrimp. I tried some in an attempt to see if I enjoyed seafood any more down here than I do back home and I'm pretty sure I don't. It's one of those situations where if it were in front of me, I'd eat it, but when ordering I'd prefer something else. Additionally, I tried capers for the first time last night. They're extremely salty and honestly remind me a lot of gorgonzola cheese. Not a big fan.

-end-

Vacationlol

2009-07-19T02:35:00.003-05:00

In an effort to blog more, I'm making myself scribe the happenings of my vacation. It began comedicly whenever it was discovered we were actually leaving a day early. I was under the impression the whole time we would be leaving Saturday the 17th when in reality, it was the 17th we would be leaving but that was actually Friday. So I scrambled to pack in a hurry and made my goodbyes. We left in the evening and drove throughout the night. The only real interesting things to note of the drive are a stop at a gas station where a statue of a giant chicken wielded a butcher's knife and wore a chef's hat located next to two strip clubs, one called the Boobie Bungalow. Scores points for alliteration and win. The next story is stopping at a gas station around 5 am where 12-15 people were sitting outside of the gas station and just shouting at each other in conversation.

Our actual arrival in Florida occurred at about 7:30 or 8 in the morning. With our place unavailable, we stayed with some friends of theirs for a bit. Throughout the night most of us were only able to sleep but a couple of hours, so it was nice to finally be able to stretch out and rest some. I went from sleeping in the back of a van to a single person loveseat + table chair. For some reason I felt like sleeping on that combiation would be a good idea. After a few hours, the friends we were staying with had their actual vacation room/condo open up, so we left this place and went to that where I got to crash on a bunk bed for a bit. After another hour or two our place opened up.

The place we are staying in is a 3 bedroom condo. It's pretty nice and I really enjoy it. My room is nautical themed which is pretty awesome. I have a wall fixture detailling all the different kind of knots one could tie. We aren't far from the ocean at all and I really should visit it one day this week. The complex we're staying at also has a pool, if for some reason I feel like swimming but not walking down to the ocean for doing so.

So far the sleep I've had has been sufficient. I'm hoping to get back to a somewhat normal sleeping schedule after today. I've had some weird dreams so far on this trip, mostly all in the same day. While napping earlier I dreamt that I ran into an exgirlfriend in a Mass Effect MMO. My last bit of slumber was plagued with a dream where someone would duel me and the duel would be a game on the PS3 where we'd have to rapidly tap either Triangle + Circle, or Square + X. Winning the duel would result in me not dying, only to be challenged to the duel again. Losing the duel meant I would have to replay the duel until I won. I'm pretty sure that's some interpretation of hell.

Of course, the most important thing to catalogue while on vacation is the food. This morning when we arrived into town we went to a place called the Donut Hole. Delicious omelletes and potatoes there. I can't comment on the actual donuts, but I'm sure those were tasty as well. Tonight we ate at a pizza place called the Mellow Mushroom. I believed they said that would be the only chain we eat at this week. I've never heard of this restaurant and I must say it too was quite delicious. I ordered a Buffalo Chicken pizza to see how it compared to some of my favorites back home. The flavor wasn't quite as spicy as I'm used to, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. For the amount of spice it 'lacked', it made up for by being sweet. Ryan and I noticed an all you can eat sushi place not too far from where we are staying. It definitely might be worth checking out. I'm making an attempt to overcome my dislike for seafood while we're out on vacation this week and hopefully that will happen. That's all for now folks, have a good one.

-end-

Start the countdown

2009-07-10T02:49:00.002-05:00

August 29th and I'll be a resident of St. Louis. Security deposits sent in already.

Last night I went to see No Doubt and Paramore in concert. I enjoyed the bands, but I feel bad for having low expectations going into the concert. Admittedly, the only reason I originally planned on going was for the cheap price of tickets. Paramore was good but I didn't really get excited for. No Doubt was awesome. It amazes me that Gwen Stefani has gone from being the frontwoman of such an awesome band to such a horible solo artist. I also destroyed my phone at last night's concert, but found a replacement today.

Had a long conversation with a good friend tonight. I'm really lucky to have people like that to help keep me grounded. Conversations like the one I had tonight really help to put things into perspective.

Last few days have been really busy for me. Finding an apartment, celebrating the fourth, celebrating two birthdays, and a concert. Really looking forward to relaxing in the next few days. But a trip to the zoo may be happening.

-end-

Another sleepless night.

2009-07-03T03:38:00.002-05:00

Despite my best attempts I am once again unable to fall asleep. Luckily there's a marathon of the Twilight Zone going on so I do have some entertainment.

I've found lately that I've been lacking enthusiasm (lolz) for updating my blog. I've come to realize that when posting on an "anonymous" and public blog there's a fine line between being too personal and not providing enough "entertainment". For those identities I know and are close friends of mine, I have no qualms about posting information about my day to day life and thoughts. Yet for those *checks Google Analytics* seven other people that have visited my site whose origins I cannot determine, well really what do they care about my life and what goes on? Thus I must also provide content that would be entertaining. One may ask, "what does it matter if a stranger views your blog?" Well I suppose it really doesn't. Strangers obviously don't care about specific people or events in my life, so then why do I care that they're entertained on my site?

Lately I've been entertained by Aimee Brock's blog. Despite a lot of her posts and twitter postings being reposts of others', I really do find her to be an interesting and witty person. It's this persona she has created of a sarcastic bitch that I find so amusing. Her site is one that encorporates both personal postings and ones for purely entertainment value. However, she tends to steer clear of posting items that may be too personal and thus not entertaining to all of her readers. So essentially, her blog is for entertainment purposes first, personal notes second. Almost the complete opposite of mine thus far. In a way I would really enjoy to have a site like Aimee's, where anonymous people visit and can get a laugh or two on a fairly regular basis. Conversely, I almost feel like that is the opposite of why I started a blog in the first place. I'm not entirely sure I'd be able to post on a regular basis and with content that someone would really be interested in reading. Maybe one day I'll try it.

On another note, despite being made nearly fifty years ago, the Twilight Zone still scares the hell out of me. It's just so creepy and I love it. Currently on are the episodes from the 80s. One that I just watched is literally a remake of one of the classic episodes. Sometimes I'm really amazed at how often shows and movies that are made now borrow plot devices and even entire story lines from this show. Ever since I first read The Monsters are Due on Maple Street in the sixth grade, I found Rod Serling to be a clever and skillful writer. The constant mimicry of his ideas only reinforces this belief of mine.

-end-

New update

2009-06-20T02:43:00.002-05:00

It's been awhile since I've posted, let's see what I can churn out.

Earlier this week I watched Amanda Palmer auction off random crap via webcam. An old glass sex toy of hers was bought by a fan for $530. A break up letter she got in the 6th grade was sold for like 250. I consider myself a big fan of some bands but I can not imagine paying those amounts for items for any other band.

Almost at the end of Lost Odyssey. Doing end game sidequests and such. It's an amazing game.

Brakes are screwed up on my car, that sucks. I'm going to have to shell out a few hundred to get that fixed.

So some friends and I have started this thing where each week one person will submit an album for the group as a whole to listen to. This week was an album by VNV Nation. I'm really not feeling it. It just sounded kind of bland to me.

Speaking of sounds, The Sounds were on David Letterman tonight. I missed it but I caught a really crappy clip of it on youtube.

I think that's enough for tonight. This weekend I'm celebrating someone's 22nd birthday and a wedding. Let's see what else may come up.

Current Affairs

2009-06-06T02:10:00.002-05:00

Just got back from the Cardinals game today. Seriously Cards, what the hell? 11 to 4 loss? Walking how many runs/bases tonight? I don't even remember. It was awful. But I was with good friends so it was a good time.

Stanley Cup is currently tied 2-2. I don't know who I want to win more, Detroit so our division wins the Cup, or the Penguins so Detroit loses. Tough call.

The Sounds' new album came out this past Tuesday. It is amazing. As of right now my prediction is that it will be my favorite album of 2009. That's a pretty impressive feat considering three of my favorite bands/artists have released albums this year already. Taking Back Sunday released one on the same day as the Sounds, Manson a week before, and Static-X sometime ago. Pretty much every song on Crossing the Rubicon is great. Some favorites off the top of my head include: No One Sleeps When I'm Awake, 4 songs & a fight, Dorchester Hotel, and Midnight Sun.

That's it for this post.

-end-

My sleeping schedule is screwed up

2009-06-02T02:23:00.003-05:00

I've been trying to go to sleep for the last two hours or so. I haven't been very successful. While laying awake and tossing and turning I began to think of random thoughts as my mind often does when I can't sleep.

We just passed June 1st. That is, I'm about 3 months from leaving home and starting my new life. It's really amazing for me to think that in 3 months I'll be gainfully employed and be a "professional". Everything that I've spent the last four years preparing for will finally be realized. Amazing. What's even more amazing is that everything I've done for the past 21 years will now be behind me. For the past month I've enjoyed staying up until 4am, sleeping until 1pm, playing video games all day, steak and shake runs at 3am, watching tv and movies all day, not having any real committments. In 3 months that all changes. It's 40+ hour workweeks, professional review (let's face it, I should have been doing that...), making new friends, watching my Ps and Qs (what the hell does that even mean?), just a complete lifestyle change. Not only am I going from a kid to an employed adult, but moving from this small town area that I've known for so long to a big city.

In addition to my ponderings about my future, I've also done a lot of thinking about my past. More specifically a year ago. A year ago I was preparing for my internship, getting ready to start what would be simultaneously the most beneficial and the absolute worst summer in recent memory. It's funny how similar things were between then and now. I had just seen Nightwish at Pops and I was preparing for my move to St. Louis. I was excited and nervous for the move. I was in the process of treasuring my time with one of my best friends who was going to be leaving for South Carolina soon. I was thinking about each of my individual friends and family members, all of which I'd be leaving. Last year it was the first step to my departure from the youth I've known. This year, I feel like it's the rest of the trip.

As I alluded to earlier but I've obviously detracted, I have done a lot of thinking about the past. Here are some memories that really stand out to me and probably will for a good while:

Lunch/dinner/gaming with the A-Kids of course.
30-60 minute paid breaks with Matt during ad-set where we'd walk to Kroger's and I'd get an 18 inch sub and he would get a box of yesterday's donuts. We would have competitions to see if either of us could finish our food. No one ever won.
Continuation of the above: showmes nomnomnom.
Spring break 2008 where I spent nearly the entirety of it at Austin's house playing Super Smash Brothers Brawl. I almost cried when I discovered we couldn't copy save data and I would have to unlock everything at my house.
Spring break 2009 in Tennessee. That was so much fun.
The countless Smash Brothers sessions with the guys; Austin, Seth, Josh, Kyle, Carl, and yes, even Andrew.
On a related note to the one above, Hard Right and UTSB.
Senior year of high school where I got to see one set of my best friends every day for lunch and in class and the other set usually every weekend.
Scholar bowl senior year.
Weekly movies with Denver (senior year as well).
My current movie partner Casey.
My relationship with what's her name and the hell she put me through last summer (I didn't say all of these memories were pleasant). If you ever read this, as of 06.02.09 2:56 am CST, you're still an absolute fucking cunt for how you handled (or lack of handling) that situation. And to my at the time best friend, I still think you're a piece of shit and it really sucks that many of my fond memories are tainted by you.
The countless steak and shake runs and days spent playing video games with Mark. That crazy cult leader that one night...the hell man. The only time I've ever actually driven to Paducah for a reason was because of him.
The roommates I've had thus far, for not being crazy and being pretty easy to live with.
This past semester's after class activities with my fellow classmates.
Cirque Du Soleil shows and all of the things my sister has done for me in the past. Many of my cultural experiences have been because of her.
I want to somehow cite all the concerts I've gone to as a fond memory, but there isn't one person that has been with me to all of them. So yeah, to all the people with whom I've gone to concerts with, thank you.
Ditto with sporting events.
I feel the need to elaborate on my time spent with the A-Kids, here we go:
Comics with Corey with our usual lunches afterwards. Can't forget about WizardWorld either. And this one late night at Wendy's our senior year.
Spending multiple summers working alongside Ryan. Doing nothing until about mid July where we then had tons of stuff to do. And selling video games as well. Countless talks about video games and the DCAU.
My entire collegiate program was spent with Jerod. Classes, tutoring, hating the same people, etc.
Last but not least, the wonderful stories I find myself telling to amuse people. The ones that are 100% true and always fun to hear: Strip club bachelor party, nearly getting shot at a casino, running into a cult leader, and there's more I'm sure.

Undoubtedly I'll end up making a very similar post when it literally is time for me to move, but as of now I feel like I've rambled enough. Obviously, not all of these events will stop, but a good amount of them will. Some of them already have ceased and I do miss them, but oh well. I guess that's what part of "growing up" is. Sometimes I really hate that I blog. I feel whiney and much like those teenager twilight fans. Other times, I do find it to be fairly therapeutic. After all, I've wasted a good few hours with this post and I can probably finally get to sleep now.

-end-

Every year I watch the MTV movie awards

2009-05-31T22:41:00.004-05:00

and for some reason I expect not to be pissed. Friggin Twilight swept the awards. I guess I can't be to mad because I've never seen that movie so maybe it really is as great as everyone says. I highly doubt it though. I really doubt it.

The guys from Twilight really annoyed me with their lack of "professional" dress, which I know is pretty common nowadays. Chances are their simplistic and overly casual shirts cost more than my entire best outfit, but man they looked like hell.

-edit- The new xkcd comic is awesome. http://www.xkcd.com/591/

New Transformers footage looked amazing. I cannot wait for that movie. Funny People will hopefully be funny as well as Year One.

Oh and even after the awards show, it still holds, I hate the Kings of Leon.

-end-

2009-05-29T01:03:00.003-05:00

It's been a few days, let's see what I can talk about.

Pointfest was amazing. We arrived at about 1 or 1:30 in the afternoon entered the crowd watching the side stages. I spent the afternoon boosting and carrying crowd surfers and watching out for the shorter people around me to make sure they didn't get someone dropped on them. It has been a long time since I've gone to a concert and actually put myself in the middle of the crowd. I had forgotten how much fun it could be and how much faster the crappy bands go.

That being said, let's talk about the actual bands. Ludo put on a great show. Towards the end of their set the lead singer asked everyone to pick up a piece of trash and throw it away on their way out of the area. Instead of doing that, everyone started throwing the trash around which prompted the singer to ask the crowd to stop and saying "that's not what I asked you to do". They also had us form a "circle square" and immediately fill it back in. According to the keyboardist, "that shit was intense". Anberlin put on a great show as well, probably drew the biggest crowd of the side stage bands. Cavo was alright. Not bad, but nothing that impressed me. Whenever my first hearing of a band is a live performance, the band has to really impress the hell out of me for me to really like them and Cavo just didn't do that. They weren't bad, but they just weren't impressing me. I enjoyed Shiny Toy Guns in all their pop punk style. Hurt...still wasn't impressed. That's the second time I've seen them and I still don't care much for them.

For the main stage bands, first up was The Used. Sometimes when I see bands that I don't like in person, I tend to like them more (3 Days Grace being a good example). I still hate The Used. Next band was Sick Puppies. Very generic sound and nothing really impressive. Then one of my favorite bands - Taking Back Sunday. Second time seeing TBS, first time with their new guitarist/singer. I love TBS and I hate myself for that. They're really not a very good band in all honesty but for some reason I really like them. That being said, I really hate their lead singer Adam Lazarra. All he does is show off and half the time it doesn't work. He has this habit of throwing and swinging his mic around. A few years ago Adam knocked out the guitarist/singer with the mic because he swung it too wide. This year, he just dropped it a few times. His mic also kept going out while he was singing. He did have a moment that made me laugh though when he was talking about how he could tell that the crowd didn't know what to think of him. His dialogue went something along the lines of "Those guys over there, they're looking at me and just going 'faggot', yeah well, this faggot's on stage with a mic'". Another fun moment of their set was when Adam started singing the chrous of Beyonce's Single Ladies during the last bit of Decade Under the Influence.

Chevelle was up next. After this, Chevelle is now my most seen band in concert at a count of three. Every show has been awesome and this one was no exception. They put on a great show and played a new song from their forthcoming album. Following Chevelle was the headliners the Offspring. We left about half way through their set, but from what we saw it was great. Dexter Holland sounds exactly the same live as he does on the albums. The most memorable moment of their set was the piano rendition of their song Gone Away. All in all, the day was great and well spent. It was my first Pointfest and I know it won't be my last.

My days recently have been spent playing Team Fortress 2. Valve recently released an update to the Sniper and Spy classes. Additionly, they also implemented a new way of unlocking weapons and items...randomly unlocking them based on play time. This has resulted in me (and a lot of others) idling in servers trying to get the items. As of this point, I'm still waiting to get my Huntsman and the Cloak & Dagger.

I've recently been playing Lost Odyssey as well. I'm on the last disc now and I feel like I'm quickly approaching the end of the game. I've logged about 36 hours so far and I can honestly say it's one of the best RPGs I've played in a good while.

Saw Terminator Salvation. Didn't really care for it. It was entertaining I guess, but nothing special. Best part of it was the previews in which I saw Gamer and Transformers.

Detroit Redwings and Pittsburg Penguins are their respective division champions and will compete for the Stanley Cup, a repeat of last year's matchup.

I feel like that's enough of a post for now, I need to save something to talk about at a later date.

-end-

It's funnny...

2009-05-20T02:34:00.002-05:00

Despite how much I talk about how I have absolutely nothing to do, I've found myself quite busy these past few days. I can't even tell you what I've been doing, all I know is it hasn't been spendin time on the internet. Craziness, no? Hopefully a 'meaningful' post will be coming soon.

FML

2009-05-17T01:40:00.002-05:00

I just submitted an entry to FML It reads something along the lines of:

Today, I played Dungeons and Dragons for the first time with some friends that have played for years. Despite enjoying it, I was embarrassed at the fact I was playing this game. Then I realized that everyone but me was married (or close to it). I'm single. FML.

So yeah, pretty much while partaking in something that is the epitome of geekiness with seasoned veterans, I realized I was the only one of the group without a significant other. Eff my life indeed.

No one sleeps when I'm awake

2009-05-14T03:24:00.003-05:00

This marks the first of I'm sure many blog posts that are either A) dealing with music or B) inspired by music. While I'm by no means a musician nor someone who is well versed in the technicalities of music, I do enjoy it quite a bit.

Tonight I had the distinct pleasure of seeing one of my favorite bands, The Sounds. After traveling approximately four and a half hours each way through a storm, and on one trip sitting through an hour of traffic, I can honestly say that I would do it all over again to watch them perform. The concert took place at The Blue Note in Columbia. Having never been to that city, much less the venue, I wasn't really sure what to expect. First of all, Columbia is not what I was expecting. I thought because Mizzou was housed there, the city would be huge. Not really, at its heart it is still just a college town. It does have more restaurants to choose from than us though. Some more points of interest (eg, The Blue Note).

The Sounds were amazing. Maja really seems to enjoy herself while she's singing. Of all the bands I've seen live, she really is the one 'lead' that I feel like genuinely enjoys her performance and it never feels like work. She's also much shorter and with better legs than I imagined. She's a really fit person overall, although her face seems somewhat emaciated at times, something I will attribute to her smoking. She's just as pretty in person as they make her out to be in the music videos and such. The rest of the band is just as talented as her. Overall I was really impressed by their keyboardist who also filled in on guitar, piano, and even backing vocals.

Combining my last two paragraphs into one point, I was a little disappointed by the venue for the band. They came all the way from Sweden for a US tour and here in the middle of Missouri they play a small venue that isn't even full. At most, I'd say there were only 60 people in the entire place. Granted, the type of music that The Sounds provide isn't necessarily main stream here in the states.

-Edit- Here's a video from the show I was at. From the cameras viewpoint, I was probably one or two people to the left. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCiIv85dw8c

A few days ago I got to see another of my favorite bands, Nightwish, live at Pops in St. Louis. This is my second time seeing Nightwish and they were just as good this time around if not better. One of the coolest things in my opinion about me seeing Nightwish is a certain collaboration they did a few years ago. On one of their albums they did a song with native american folk singer John Two Hawks. Nightwish refuses to play this song (Creek Mary's Blood) without John present so as one can imagine, it doesn't get played live very often. Well this tour it was announced that John would perform it at two shows, St. Louis and Louisville. So I got to see it there, and I saw it last year as well. I'm happy to know that I got to see something twice that some people may never see at all.

So far this is a good summer for me concert wise. I've got Pointfest in about a week and a half and No Doubt sometime in early July. Honestly though, after seeing two of my favorite bands within a week's time, I'm pretty content.

-end-

They say that starting is the hardest part...

2009-05-12T00:09:00.000-05:00

Shouldn't it be the most difficult part? A teacher once emphasized the difference between the terms 'hard' and 'difficult'. Something you hit or touch is hard. Something you do is a difficult. While largely inconsequential, ever since I heard this it is something I strive to remember. Remembering it can be kind of hard sometimes.

...

Get it? You see what I did there? Yeah...

While not a grammar nazi, because let's face it, I'm far from perfect myself, I do my best in trying to structure what I say and type as properly as I can. Language is a funny thing. When I make a blog post, I'm going to do my best to refrain from using curse words or what not. Another teacher once said to me that in his opinion, one does not sound very intelligent when using nothing but monosyllable words. I responded with "damn". It's really quite true though. When I walk around town or school and such and I listen to the conversations of others, I really do develop an impression of them based upon the language that they use. Quite honestly, most of the time my thought is "you're an ignorant fuck". Despite my short comings in speech and grammar I really do feel like I possess better soft skills than the majority of people out there.

Funny how my introduction turned into a post about grammar and my thoughts on speech, no? Randomness, it's what I thrive on. Yet at the same time I feel like I only take calculated risks and I know I spend a lot of time dwelling on decisions to be made and already made. Then again, maybe my insistance to dwell on decisions is actually the random aspect of my random personality? Actually at this moment all I'm trying to do is sound clever and deep. Somehow I think it's failing. Therefore, by recognizing it before someone else points it out that makes it less idiotic. Let's face it, no one is going to read this.

Anyhow, my blog. I've been wanting to start a blog for awhile now. I feel like I've got an abundance of thoughts running through my head. This is where I'll post them, in addition to the usual places. Not really because I feel the need to whore myself to the internets, but rather, I feel the need to just document it. Maybe it's a subconcious whoring, I'm really not sure. With me graduating and entering adulthood so to speak, I really thought now would be a good time to start. Not to get all cliche and such, but a new 'chapter' of my life is starting. I was going to start this blog on Friday after graduation, but a certain natural disaster put a halt on that pretty quick.

Topics that I can think of that I'll post about. . .let's see: entertainment (movies, music, video games, comics, etc), relationships (all relationships, probably mostly friendships), work (starting, looking for, etc), fears (future, spiders, etc), likes, dislikes. Generally any random topic. I also like to rant a lot. Maybe if I get ballsy enough I'll actually discuss controversial issues like religion and politics. Doubtful though, I don't really think I know enough about either to really adequately discuss them.

In short, this is my blog. With it I'll. . .blog. Hopefully I'll update it pretty frequently, if not, well I think we can guess why(ie, read the name of the blog).