Off to KC

I'm heading to Kansas City today for the weekend to visit my buddy there. Probably won't post while I'm gone, but I'll try to take pictures. I just want to relax and take it easy this weekend. I'm pretty damn stressed out over school and I just need to take a breather from home. Hey I'll probably even get drunk for once!

Almost a mile!

So I started my run of with 0.6 miles without stopping to walk, I finished it with 0.3 miles running, which could have been longer but I started too close to my stopping point, and I walked the rest of the 2 miles. Total running nearly 1 mile. I'm so excited! But boy are my legs tired...

I remember!

I was going to say that I think it's time for a name change. I'm probably going to keep the web address but I think it's time to change the name and logo/banner. I don't know to what yet but I'm sure it will come to me.

I got my school books today. They were nearly $200 used. I guess I could have bought them online but I waited too long to do that really.

School soon...

I start school on Monday and I'm fucking scared. I don't wanna go to school, mommy! Monday begins 4 years of study. I keep trying to look at it like that but I can't help it. It's totally daunting. The problem is I've been idle for too long and I haven't been social for a long time. Fuck... It's gonna suck. At least at first. Afterwards it might be better. I dunno.

I cannot get Pork and Beans by Weezer out of my head. I've literally been thinking the song for days.



I had something else to talk about but I forgot. I'm tired.

Midlife crisis? Not yet...

This video from youtuber mickmusing on the 5oldgays channel was really helpful to me, even though he is talking about midlife crisis, I found a bunch of the stuff he said to be quite interesting and helpful. Check it out.

Manual confusion

Has it ever happened to you that you forget how you normally do something? Yesterday I pulled my toothbrush and toothpaste out of the medicine cabinet and something went wrong. I just couldn't seem to figure out the way I normally hold them. Usually I hold one in each hand, unscrew the toothpaste cap with the brush hand, squeeze it on, replace the cap and put the paste back in the cabinet. I normally don't have to think about it all; I just do it. For some reason yesterday I just failed miserably. I had to set the brush down in order to unscrew the cap, put it down and pick up the brush, squeeze the paste on and reverse. How frustrating!

More progress!

So today I was actually able to run 0.4 miles (according to google) without stopping to walk, and total running distance was 0.7 miles. I'm very happy with these results, especially since I didn't run or walk at all the past 2 days.

By the way, this guy frezned from Youtube is awesome. He's happy and friendly and just awesome, and I think he might be my new favorite youtuber! Watch!

The World of Warcraft blues and a good thing

This game World of Warcraft (WoW) really affects me strongly. I don't know if I can explain how I feel right now. I've been playing all day long. For the past 5 hours or so I've been in raids, which if you don't play means fighting in a very hard place with 9 (in this case) other people. It was my first time in one of the raids and it was really really difficult, and my brain just fried out. I put everything I had into it, and when we left that one I moved onto another one, albeit an easier one. An hour or 2 into it my brain just shut down. I lost focus and turned into this zombie just randomly clicking my party members and healing them. Along with healing it was also my job to be casting shackles on one of the mob (monster) we were fighting, which for those of you who don't know holds them in place and keeps them from attacking. Someone mentioned on voice chat "I think someone is supposed to be shackling this mob." I realized at that moment that I had completely zoned out into nothingness land. Before that not a single thought had crossed my mind. Just click and heal. Click. Heal. And I woke up, and realized it was time for me to log out.

For some reason I have this unhappy, almost angry feeling towards the game right now, like it's some kind of horrible addiction that's corrupting my mind. I mean my brain actually hurts right now. There's plenty of frustrating things that happen amongst the group too that just really get me going, and I'd love to rant about it but I don't think my brain can take it right now. I don't know, maybe it's time for another break.

On a positive note I talked an old friend online (via yahoo messenger which I just recently started using again) for the first time in years. It was really good to talk to her, and if it hadn't been for the WoW raids I could have talked to her longer, but I only had the short time between raids to take a break.

I really miss having friends and feeling comfortable around people.

Progress!

It's been almost a week since my first walk/run thing, and today's walk/run... Ok wait. Let's just call it a run, shall we? Today's run was the best yet. I was able to run longer and more often than all previous runs. I noticed today that my legs are no longer whats keeping me from running longer, it's my lungs. I just can't keep it up long enough, so thats the next step. I have to catch my lungs up to my legs, and beat the lactic acid build up.

New word: Internecine

This word comes from Entertainment Weekly's review of the HBO movie Recount, which honestly I couldn't care less about, but it's something to read in the bathroom.

Courtesy of thefreedictionary.com, the definition is:
adj.
1. Of or relating to struggle within a nation, organization, or group.
2. Mutually destructive; ruinous or fatal to both sides.
3. Characterized by bloodshed or carnage.

It's definitely a good word to describe the current presidential primary race.

And by the way, I cannot express how fucking pissed I am that 75% of this issue is about Sex and the City. I do not enjoy this show, and could not care less about it, and the last thing I'll do is read any of that bullshit. Anybody else? No? Am I the only one that doesn't watch it? Sigh... I just don't get it. I really don't think it's that good. I tried watching it. I really did. I got nothing from it. They're not even attractive enough to keep me interested. At least Tila Tequila and all the lesbians are fucking sexy...

passive "aggressive"

I just found 2 of the coolest websites I have ever seen.

One is The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks, which I discovered by reading blogger.com's newest blogger buzz post. It's full of submitted photos of signs with odd, incorrect, or just plain unnecessary quotation marks, and is really quite hilarious.

When I followed a link within "the blog mentioned above" I found passive-aggresive notes, another site with submitted photos, this time of notes people leave for other people, and they are also just freaking hilarious.

I've just noticed on the sidebar of the quotation marks page there's a whole list of links to sites just like that one with different subjects. Can't wait to check them out.

By the way, this is my 50th post. Yay!

Selfishness

I have all these ideas floating around in my head right now, and they keep just briefly coming into focus and its not long enough for me to get something concrete and cohesive down in this blog entry. So...I dunno.

I'm just feeling weird tonight. I feel like I might be at some kind of a weird crossroads in my life. I feel like I've come a long way in the past couple of years, mostly in the last year, and I'm headed on a good path. Everything is going pretty well. Behind me is of course where I came from, and I do not ever want to go back there. That's not something I would have said 6 months ago. 6 months ago I was TRYING to go back. I felt like I had changed in some bad way, and that I needed to go back to who I was a long time ago, during or even before high school. But it turns out that isn't the case, at least that's how I feel at the moment. I'm finally starting to think that I've done something right. I took my life and steered it the way I wanted it to go.

The problem is that in order to accomplish this change I had to sever a lot of connections with people. I even burned a bridge. At least one. Basically I had to become selfish. See, I used to pride myself on being selfless. It was my goal to take away people's pain, and the only way to do that is to take it and make it your own. I used to mediate my friends. I was their middle man, the one who solved all the group's problems and all the individual's problems. I took their secrets, kept them private and gave them my word. I took their pain, sadness and anger for my own and gave them my comfort, happiness and compassion. It destroyed me. My soul was empty. I had nothing left to give, and in order to start getting it back I had to break the chain. I had to remove myself from the middle man position, and I did so. Unfortunately I also felt the need to reveal one particularly big secret. In doing so I put the final nail in the coffin of a failing relationship, and at the same time lost a friend. Since then I have been unable to have the empathy for other people that I so enjoyed. It's no longer possible for me to feel for somebody else. That was the price I had to pay for breaking that trust.

See this is where the problem comes in. Although I'm in a better position than I was some years ago, I can't shake the selfishness that was required to get me here and out of that hole. I'm afraid this is going to end up hurting me even more in the long run. I'm starting school in 2-3 weeks and I'm not sure if I'm going to be able deal with all the new people.

I'm not sure but I might not be able to feel anything at all.

I have to stop this here.

New word: Waffle

I've just learned, thanks to seanbedlam's use of it in this secretnaughtybedlam video, a new (to me anyway) definition of the word "waffle" courtesy of thefreedictionary.com:

Verb: to speak or write in a vague and wordy manner

Thanks seanbedlam!

Improving my vocabulary through Youtube

Through a comment to a video on Youtube I learned a new word today. The word is "twunt". Say it with me now: TWUNT. T-w-u-n-t. Awesome. Combination of twat and cunt. Its just beautiful. I suppose you could invert it and say "cwat" as well, but I don't think it's as good; It just doesn't have the same punch.

The video was one of Youtuber seanbedlam's alternate channel secretnaughtybedlam, on which he makes 10 minute, uncut, stream of consciousness videos about all manner of subjects.

Pardon the interruption, but I just noticed that I have yet again stayed up way too late. I'm going to bed.

No pain no gain

When I woke up this morning I was pretty sore, but it wasn't too bad once I got up and moving. So I went for another "run" today, and I could definitely feel the burn. When I got back I could barely stand. I just got out of a nice hot bath, and I feel pretty decent. My legs are totally floppy and a little sore though. I am pretty sure I'm going to be sore as hell tomorrow, which means I'll be doing light, if any, walking tomorrow.

Yay for exercise!

Today I went for a run for the first time since high school (which means it's been about seven years). And really, it wasn't a run. It was more like a walk with some running involved. But I'm still gonna call it a run, mainly because my legs are dead as hell right now. According to Google maps the total distance is 2 miles, which is actually quite farther than I thought it would be. I'm going to try and make this a daily thing, and hopefully in a week or two I'll be running the whole 2 miles. Ha!

International Feel Sorry for Yourself Day

Well it's International Feel Sorry for Yourself Day, and I am. I just got out of bed. I have no energy. When I woke up I felt pretty shitty, so I climbed out of bed, peed, and then returned to the bed where I watched TV all morning and afternoon. Until now. At which point I watched cutewithchris's video about International Feel Sorry for Yourself Day:


What a coincidence.

Internet reminiscence

So I downloaded yahoo messenger tonight, which I haven't used for something like 4 or 5 years. The cool part is I was looking through the old screen names and so many memories were coming back. Whats weird is most of them are girls. I don't really talk to girls. Come to think of it I don't talk to anyone really.
One person in particular stands out. I just remember talking with him fairly often. We talked about smoking weed, and sex stuff. He always tried to get me to come over and have a threesome with him and his girlfriend. I never did it. It kind of weirded me out; I didn't feel like I could trust him. Like maybe he didn't really have a girl over there. Or maybe they just wanted to prey on someone.
So I searched his screen name today and found his myspace. I matched a picture in his album up with the one from his yahoo profile, to make sure it was him. He definitely has a girlfriend and she is good looking too. But this was probably 6 years ago.
Ever wonder how different your life may have turned out if you made some decision differently in the past? I would be a totally different person if I had gone to see him. No matter what happened. Maybe we'd all have sex and have a jolly good time (it would have been my first time). Or maybe they would have tied me up in the basement and kept me there for weeks. I'd bet against that one. But if I had it all to do again, I'd probably do the same thing. Thats just me.

Shopping cart escalator?!?

I just discovered this totally awesome thing called a shopping cart escalator.

Shopping Cart Escalator - Amazing videos are here

The Shrine of Relaxation

So I put up the new blog last night, you can view it at this address:
The Shrine of Relaxation
It's going to be all about relaxing images, videos, stories and anything else to help with that. It's still totally a work in progress, and the whole site will probably look different when I'm done.
Now one of the reasons I wanted to create a second, more focused blog was so I could make some money from ad revenue. Well, I'm not about to put ads on a page devoted to relaxation. Of course, Murphy's law strikes again.
In other news you couldn't care less about, I woke up feeling the worst I ever have this morning. My head just felt totally fuzzed out. I kind of felt like I couldn't breathe. I dunno what the hell is going on, but I really wish I had health insurance so I could go see an allergist. I don't even feel like eating.

Another idea!

Ok. I've got another idea. I'm going with this one. I just need a good name.
I think this one is a keeper.

Just relax...

I was feeling kind of anxious and wound up until I found this quite relaxing and enjoyable video on youtube of a girl dancing ballet or ballet-like. She disabled embedding so I can't post it, but here's the link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iJgdyzqavY
You could also check out her myspace page.
I haven't worked on that new blog idea I had yesterday at all. The more I thought about it the less I liked it. That happens with pretty much all my ideas. I always find something about it that makes it so the whole thing fails. I justify it by thinking that when I find the thing I can't find anything wrong with, it'll be "the one." Sigh. It'll never happen, will it?

Another day, another dungeon

That's actually the title of one of my favorite books when I was young. I feel like I should read it again.
Anyhow I wasted most of the day away playing WoW again. I got a few internet/computer things done beforehand though, so it wasn't totally wasted. On the plus side I may have just come up with a good idea for another blog while I was in the shower. I might post something like a promo just to feel it out. I don't know if I'll finish it tonight because it's really quite late. This is the latest I've been up since before I left for California.
I want to say a few things about the players in WoW. There are WAY TOO MANY stupid people there. I don't know why you have tell an inexperienced player how something is supposed to be done 100 times before they finally get it. Sometimes these things are totally common sense, simple things to do. It really makes me wonder how these people survive in real life. I know, some of them are kids. But A LOT of them are not kids. A lot of them are college students. Worse yet some of them have actually survived long enough to get a job, start a family and crank out a few kids who can learn how to be stupid online just like their parents.
I spent something like 2 minutes trying to help this idiot navigate around a bookcase that was too tall to jump onto. I said,
"You have to jump on the table first, then onto the bookcase." So what did he do? He kept trying to jump directly onto the bookcase. So I told him again. And again. AND AGAIN! FUCK! I just wanted to rip my eyeballs out so I would never have to see it again.
Great, I've thought about it too much. Now I'm going to have nightmares where I'm surrounded by idiots trying put food into their nose holes...

Three cheers for laziness

I decided to just embrace my inability to do anything productive, at least for today. I got back into WoW for a few hours, and enjoyed myself thoroughly. I think I really needed that.
Tomorrow is another day and another chance to get some work done.
By the way, photos from the trip have been posted on flickr, here's the link:
California Trip 2008

Sunsweet update

I just got off the phone with the lady from the FDA. She took a full report of all the info I had about the raisins and it sounds like she is starting some kind of investigation. Exciting! Anyhow we'll see if anything comes of it.

Here we go again

Well I woke up this morning feeling the worst I have in a long time. I'm having the same old allergy symptoms I always did when sleeping in this bed; Sore, dry throat, stuffy nose, fuzzy head. I'm sick of it.
Also when I got out of the shower last night I didn't get a damn thing done. I talked on the phone all night until I went to bed.
Today I MUST accomplish something.

Too many mind

I badly need to center and focus myself. My thoughts are going off in a million directions, exploring so many vitally different routes I could take to get something meaningful accomplished, and not settling on any one thing long enough to grab hold and make it concrete.
I'm going to shit, shower and brush my teeth and when I come out and sit down at this desk I'm going to calm my mind, bring myself in and get something done.

Blah

I woke up feeling pretty much the same as I did on the floor bed, but not as bad as I did previously when sleeping on my bed. Regardless it was disappointing because I really expected to wake up feeling better than normal. I'm going to stick with it and hopefully it will improve with time.
I found myself totally unmotivated again today. I studied a little C#; Maybe an hours worth. Other than that I did nothing productive. I've been watching videos all day and playing with blog stuff. Thinking about things. New blog ideas. I have kind of given up on my previous new blog idea. It's still on the back burner, but I'm not gonna go anywhere with it right now. I'm thinking I might go with a fiction blog of some kind. We'll see.
Anyhow I found this really cool site which apparently a lot of people already know about, but I didn't. It's called freakingnews.com and it's a site that hosts news related photoshopped image contests. There's some really hilarious stuff on there, check out Partial Face Transplants for a good sample.

The end of the floor bed

Today I completed numbers 3, 5 and 7 from yesterday's post; First, I got a new cpu fan at this cool computer parts store I found. This place was like the stores I've seen in California, and always wanted to find in St. Louis. It's kind of like a resting place for old computer hardware, software and electronic equipment with nowhere else to go. They've got everything from oscilliscopes to network switches to 4 foot printers to games from the 90's, and all at a pretty good price. As far as I can tell this is the only store like this left in St. Louis. You can check out their website here.
I also figured out yahoo sitebuilder for a friend, and also posted the vacation pictures. Exciting!
Also today I took steps towards fixing my sleep problem. I went to a mattress store and bought a dust mite cover for my bed. I then removed all the sheets and pillowcases and washed them. I also removed the futon cover and washed it. Boy was putting that back on a pain in the ass. This thing completely surrounds the bed, the mattress is heavy, the bed is in a corner so 2 sides are difficult to get to, there isn't enough room in here to pull it down onto the floor, and being a futon mattress, it's all floppy so I couldn't just stand it up. Whew... I also vacuumed the surface of the mattress itself and the floor surrounding the bed. Tonight will be the test, and if I wake up all stuffed up and dizzy tomorrow morning who the hell knows what's causing it.
Also, I started using Feedburner, so welcome to any new folks that result from its use, and enjoy!

There's something wrong with Sunsweet and their raisins...

A month or two ago I purchased some Sunsweet Jumbo Red Raisins (this was not the first time) in an 8 oz package. I got the package, took out a handful, and slammed the whole thing. As I chewed I realized they tasted horribly like pesticide or poison or some other nasty chemical. I mean it was really really strong. I spit them out and rinsed my mouth a dozen times to try and get the taste out. I smelled the bag and... Ugh. I'm nauseous just thinking about it. I recorded the info stamped on the bag and returned them to the store for a refund. Well this week I tried them again, and I could smell that same smell inside the bag. I very lightly placed on raisin in my mouth and it was the same as before. So yesterday I wrote an email to Sunsweet detailing what had happened, along with the stamped info from both packages. Today they responded with this:

"Thank you for your email regarding your disappointing experience with Sunsweet Raisins.

Our goal at Sunsweet is to maintain the highest quality standards in our products and our packaging. State-of-the-art processing equipment, strict quality controls, continual quality checks and a dedicated work force strive to ensure that only the best premium Raisins are delivered to our consumers.

So that we can send you replacement coupons, please email or contact our Consumer Relations Department, by email or toll free, at 1-800-417-2253 with your mailing address. Our representatives are available to assist you weekdays between 9:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

Thank you for your comments."

I was so pissed. What the fuck is this bullshit? Its a god damn form letter! I wonder if they even actually read the email. Plus, it wasn't just disappointing, it was totally and completely unacceptable on a massive scale. Who knows how many people have bought these raisins? I mean what if a kid eats a whole handful and dies from it? All they are concerned about is sending me "replacement coupons." Fuckers.
So I called Missouri's FDA branch today and left a message. With any luck they'll call me back tomorrow and I'll give them all the necessary info. If anyone has had the same experience, or any similar experience with another food or drug product, please contact the proper authorities.

Julia Nunes on Uketube

I wanted to bring to everyone's attention a performer known as Julia Nunes. She is this totally awesome ukelele and guitar player from youtube. It's hard to put it into words, but her videos affect me like no musician I have ever heard before. She is also very attractive and likeable as a person, which just makes her a joy to watch. She's definitely my favorite subscription on youtube.
Check out her youtube page.
Also go to her eventful.com page and request a Julia Nunes event in your area!
You should also visit her website.
This is one of my favs called "Regrets":

Masturbatory? Motivatory?

A greeter at Walmart should say "Hello. Welcome to Walmart." Or whatever the fuck they're programmed to do. But this guy didn't. This guy was "handicapped" - he was in a powered scooter, probably about 25-30 years old. One eye was crooked. As I walked in I thought he was looking at me, but he was just staring straight ahead. I was going to say hello. Passing him I realized he was busy with other tasks. I realized that his hand was completely inside his pants, scratching and/or massaging his crotch. I don't care what the rules are, this guy should be fucking fired on the spot. It's almost as bad as if you hired a guy with cursing tourette's syndrome to work in any customer service position. I mean this guy might not have even been capable of saying anything at all. I'd fire him on the spot if I saw him with his hand in his pants. I thought it was fucking funny. I laughed. Out loud. I called people and told them. It was a grand ole time.
Moving on, I'm feeling wholly unmotivated today. I planned to start on the new blog - get the intro article written, maybe finalize a name, and at least get some content down on paper, but I haven't. I haven't done shit. I've done nothing but sit around all day watching youtube videos. I was gonna go to the store and get some exercise clothes and start running. I didn't do that either. I don't know what happened but as soon as I woke up this morning I lost all desire to do anything productive. I'm hoping writing this might inspire me to start.
Maybe I'll make a list of things to do... In no particular order:
1. Write new blog articles
2. Get exercise clothes
3. Figure out yahoo sitebuilder for a friend
4. Work on another friend's website
5. Post vacation pictures
6. Come up with name for new blog
7. Get new cpu fan for computer
Yeah. Let's get started.

Thank you Pell, whoever you are!

So I'm home. The flights sucked, as always, but both were early and everything went smoothly.
I arrived home to find a letter from my school about my financial aid application. It said my Pell grant is enough to cover DOUBLE the tuition fees, so I'm getting over $700 as a refund plus my school is fully paid for this semester. I cannot tell you how excited I am! The past 10 days have really been the best days I've had in a long long time, and it seems like it just keeps getting better.
I'll be posting trip pictures and stuff tomorrow. For now, I'm pretty tired and kinda dizzy from the flight, so it's bed time.

1 hour til departure

So I'm hanging out in the airport here, waiting to board, and thought I would make another post. The airport is pretty dead; I literally had 2 people ahead of me when I entered security. Also my gate is the first gate inside the terminal and I have a bathroom right next to it. All signs say my flight is on time. I have one stop in Dallas which is the only bad thing about this trip. I don't really like flying and I didn't realize I had already deleted the music off my phone before I left home, so I have nothing to keep me occupied. I can't read or write during the flight because it makes me sick.
I think they should be able to offer Xanax for purchase at the gate or before the flight takes off. Or maybe even before security. I think it would make the whole experience much more tolerable.

Home, home again

So tonight is my last night here. It was a great trip. I had a really good time and took lots of pictures (I'll be posting some here and lots probably on flickr). I ate lots of good food: Thai, japanese, mexican and more. I did a lot of fun things: Butter and eggs day parade, Giants game, visited with many friends, had a "puppy party" and more. It was an action packed, fun filled, excitement extravaganza!
During the trip I came up with a few ideas for the new blog title, as well as some more ideas for articles. I also spent a little time working on some software ideas that hopefully will come to fruition fairly soon. I have three weeks until school starts and lots of stuff to accomplish during that time, so I'm going to get started as soon as possible on Sunday. For now, sleep!