Pass the Past

lets get nostalgic
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With whatever I have right now, it leaves a hell of a lot to be desired. I'm missing something in my life, and it ruins everything. Sure, I can seem happy, but I still don't think that I've got it all. Everyone else seems to have all their shit figured out and ready to go, while I sit here wondering what the hell to do with myself, and how to finally go about doing it.

Yeah, I fucking already know that for pretty much everyone out there it's not an easy ride, but it's just the fact that this illusion exists and is so powerful all the time. I know for a fact that things aren't perfect for others, especially after a few days ago, but I still can't help but want to hate the world for now. Yeah, life isn't fair, nothings fair, blah blah blah. If anyone knows the way the world functions, its going to be me since I'm a no nonsense kinda guy when it comes to life.

Still, I fell like shit. I feel lonely. I feel weak. I feel vulnerable. I feel like theres something terribly fucked up. It isn't right. I like to brush stuff off and keep on going in my old humorous, no nonsense, spur of the moment ways, but I feel stuck now, trapped. Nothing seems right. Like puzzle pieces just forced together, it just doesn't mesh. Looking back at the previous year, I'd love to think that I'm at an all time low, and I probably am. I need more people in my life, and not just anybody, but as much as I hate to admit it, I really doubt that I can get things the way they were forever, or ever again.

Mrs. Mystery!

[adult swim]
-
ITS THE UFOS!
-
Work until 11ish T_T
---

Funny thing today. I was leaving work at 11:20pm or so, and as I was crossing the street and turning the corner, the driver of the car stopped at the light quickly turned her head, eyes all lit up, and started waving at me all excited. I just kind of smiled and waved back since my obviously slow mind didn't make the connection that it was someone who seemed to have known me. A second later though, it finally occurred that maybe they knew me and wanted to say "hello" or something, but I figured it was too late for me to turn around and walk back to the car- besides, it was a traffic stop and they were probably pulling away in a couple seconds anyway.

Now, I tried to figure out who it was, and judging from the way her hair looked curled, I instantly assumed it was one friend of mine. The hair color matched, the curls, possibly the car, the location, it all seemed pretty probable to me. Of course, it wasn't her. She had no idea what I was talking about. Okay then, so who the hell was it? I mean, I don't really know of anyone else that looked like that, even though I guess that it was dark and I couldn't really make out who it was. Still, I don't have a call, email, facebook comment, text, or any of that other stuff from whoever this was. I know it's not necessary for them to do that, but it tends to happen that if you bump into people for whatever reason, they usually happen to leave you some sort of message about how they saw you. You know, in case anything that happened before two hours ago was suddenly erased from memory?

Maybe I'll find out tomorrow. Maybe it was just some nice person trying to be friendly to someone they don't even know. Until then, I'll be losing sleep over this, cause what if it was a friend and they saw me brush them off like that since I really honestly didn't even comprehend what the hell was going on until it was too late? I'm sure it's not going to be that drastic, but still, crazier stuff has happened.

So Little To Do, So Much Time

blaze a pound a weed, six days up out tha week

---

My little holiday break here has been pretty funny. I mean, I have had little nothing to commit to. Shopping- done online, work- I only work part time, and I don't have school since the semester ended, Family- not so much, Friends- keep in mind that Dearborn is hellishly boring and that I'm the only one with a car. It's kind of difficult to go out and have fun with people without slowly becoming the "drive me places" bitch. The one thing that I said I wanted to accomplish over these couple of weeks was to finally complete Bioshock in time for getting The Orange Box on the 25th.

I started my game over fresh since I was only a couple hours in, and going back, I missed a hell of a lot of stuff. I walked around for almost 40 minutes yesterday in the game doing stuff that I completely skipped over for whatever reason. Found 2 new tonics, tons of ammo and money (and I remember being pissed because I never had any ammo in my first try through), and a lot of people to kill. It was pretty damn satisfying.

Maybe I should go play it now instead of sit around writing?

Awesome New Stuff!

dR. dRE PRESENtS dETOX
---

So, the past few days were filled with some unexpected surprises that really made me happy.

First and foremost was a trailer for a Speed Racer movie made by the Wachowski brothers. It's at speedracerthemovie.com . To be honest, I'm not expecting a hell of a lot from this movie, but I'm still excited for the whole idea.

Second, Dr. Dre apparently set his final album Detox to be released this June. I'm fucking elated. I've been waiting years for this album. As far as I'm concerned, he's the best goddamn rapper/producer out there by a long shot. And I mean a really long shot, especially with the crap that's been passing for music lately. I'll be there at midnight if at all possible to pick it up and rock out for the rest of the eternity.

Other than those, I've only got class up to this Friday and I'm off the hook for break. I beat Quake4 earlier today, so that just leaves me with completing Bioshock before Xmas if at all possible since when I get the Orange Box I'll be pretty occupied. Combine that with reading Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, plus whatever else comes my way along with stuff like Super Mario Galaxy, it should be a fun time.

Taking Shots

OMFG TILA TEQUILA IS ON!!
---
As much as I find most of television to be absolute, unwatchable crap these days, especially MTV, VH1, G4, and FOX, I can't help but watch A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila. I don't know why. I hate reality TV. I don't think MTV is a very good network either, but something about this show has me hooked. It fucking pisses me off, but just because I feel like a hypocrite for liking it so much.

I guess I do like the show a bit, but what really makes it fun for me is just sitting down with a few friends, using their tivo, and replaying people getting punched in the face or that hard drug using, crack whore Amanda's facial expressions. Seriously, her facial features are grotesque with a mangled set of lips, wrinkled face, and bugged out eyes. She always looks like shes strung out on something hard. Maybe she does rails of coke between shots. I don't know. But it seems likely.

Pretty!

school
trying to do a goddamn paper
---

So I woke up at 5:50am today to register for classes. Apparently, tomorrow is the registration date, so I get to repeat the misery all over again! I was so tired this morning that I just slept through my class from 10:20-11:10. I know it's bad, but I would have literally just slept the whole time due to exhaustion. So I woke up around 11:30, took care of stuff, and then drove to school for my art history class. It was canceled. Damn it. I forgot to check my e-mail this one time, and I go to school for nothing.

So I got to come home and type a final paper/presentation for my psychology class. It's not long, and it was a really easy paper, but of course I procrastinated until now to do it. I started typing a 3 paged, double spaced paper at around 2pm. I finished around 7:45. Needless to say I have severe ADD and a horrible StumbleUpon addiction. Some good did come from this however, which was my discovery of the Unreal Tournament 3 demo.

This game looks so pretty, it's awesome. I can max it no problem, and everything is so fast and fluid. Being a big Quake fan, I like the game play a helluva lot too. The weapons are interesting, the alternate firing modes are cool, the physics are nice, feigning death is a nice move, and some of the vehicles (like the War of the Worlds -esque one) are kickass. I'm extremely tempted to buy the full copy soon if I come across some extra money since I'm that impressed.

Advent Children

school then work
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So, on my quest to watch some more movies I ended up borrowing my friend's copy of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children. I wasn't too sure what to expect from it. I heard mixed reviews of it, but I love cool looking CGI stuff, and although the only Final Fantasy I've fully played and beaten was Tactics for the GBA, I've always been intrigued by the whole universe and setup of the characters, especially VII because of its ridiculous popularity.

So all in all, the movie was okay. The cool visual were a definite plus, but I wasn't too enthralled by the storyline and the characters. I'm sure that playing and fully understanding the source material would have enhanced the whole experience ten fold, but still, whether I know the whole story or not, I should be able to get into what's going on.

I'm not stupid, and I did pay attention to the movie. I even know a bit about Final Fantasy VII, but the story didn't suck me in at all. There was something about it that just didn't click for me, something missing. I'm not sure what, maybe it was just development of the story, or maybe I do need to know all the events prior to the movie.

However, like I said, the CGI looked pretty, and the fight scenes were awesome when they worked right. The battle with Tifa in the church was probably the most memorable for me, just because of how fast and thrilling it was to watch. Sadly, some of the fights have a bit too much camera movement and quick shots of other stuff going on to really get me pumped up for whats going on. See, I really like it when the camera stays on the fight for a long period of time and I get action nonstop and uninterrupted. I don't care what the other people are doing, if it's that important to have them in the shot then just move them into it, but don't keep jumping from one person to another. That's just annoying.

Movies are awesome

playing in the snow!!
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I don't watch a lot of movies. I own a couple hundred, and I've seen less than 1/3, and remember less than 1/5 of those. I don't know why, I love watching TV from time to time, I love video games, I like making jokes all the time, and movies are a great way to not only get new material and ideas but to establish a connection with my audience, but I still don't see too many of them. I think I'm going to try to change that though.

Why? I think it's because of seeing Beowulf yesterday. That movie kicked ass for 2 hours straight. Everyone else said it was "good","okay", or any number of other responses indicating vague indifference. The "CGI layered on top of real stuff" effect was stunning. At times, I couldn't tell it was fake, other times it looked like an awesome video game (this is a good thing), and some times I could clearly tell it was animated, but only because the action and effects were so wild and out there that I just knew it wasn't real.

Everything that I wanted from a fantasy movie like this I got. Grendel blew my mind with his skin and screeching and blue fire. Pure genius. The dragon he fought? Spectacular. The liquid fire, the golden scales, how he flies when he gets his wing torn - I feel like a little kid it's so awesome.

Besides the movie, the previews beforehand were equally awesome. JUMPER, or JMPR, or whatever it is looked great, The new Tim Burton / Johnny Depp movie looks promising, and there was the new Cloverfield trailer out too which just made me more confused and anxious to find out what was going on.

So yeah, now I'm watching movies.

Thanksgiving

boys will be boys hiding in estrogen
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I just gotta say that I don't like Thanksgiving. People go absolutely crazy for it and I still fail to see why. Is the food they eat drastically different from what I usually consume every year? Are their families that much more entertaining? Are they spiking the drinks? I don't have the slightest idea.

All I know is that my food usually isn't that special. Yeah it's thanksgiving, but still, as far as I'm concerned, mashed potatoes can only be taken to certain extremes. Turkey can only get so good, and I don't even eat meat anymore anyway. Rolls are usually good, but you can't ever get enough and getting sick while eating is the worst thing in the world. Dessert is pretty good, but still - you only have so much room for food combined with there being 147 pumpkin pies and only 1 apple pie. I don't know why there is always such an imbalance of pies. No one ever finishes all the pumpkin pie and people always want more of whatever else is offered. I don't even like pumpkin pie that much, so it's even less for me.

Maybe it's me, but Thanksgiving sucks.

Waking Up

if only...
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So, I woke up really early this morning, sometime around 6 maybe, which is early for me. Naturally, I tried to get back to sleep, but I just couldn't, and I ended up having the most amazing lucid dreams.

Now, I've been having them a lot lately because of my sleep schedule, but this one was way different than the ones I've had before, and I don't know how this makes me feel.

Usually, they're just simple, stupid dreams I have about whatever is going on in my life or around me. This one though, it was about real people in my life, one person in particular, and some sort of confession of love. I don't know what this means, and I don't think there's anything special about it, but just the super realistic feeling of the dream combined with this sort of feeling of happiness of us talking and being together really makes me do a double take. I really don't want to think anything big of it, but what if I'm wrong?

Almost There

schoolin'
---
Well, the end of the semester is almost here, and I couldn't be happier. Yeah, it really is still a couple weeks until it actually ends, but for the most part its all downhill and I couldn't be happier. I'm still looking at classes and credit hours and that sort of thing, but it's not nearly as bad as I had assumed. Plus, my grades aren't seeming too bad at this point, so maybe that time spent in Ann Arbor isn't as far off as it seemed.

Speaking of which, I'm psyched to head up there this weekend for the OSU game. I don't have tickets of course, but I like going for the "atmosphere". Naturally, that's just what I tell everyone as a sort of euphemism for getting ham dammered. Saturday will definitely be a good day, and if we win, it's definitely going to be one hell of a night as well.

Other than that, there's a new episode of "Pure Pwnage" out, and since I kind of owe it to them for helping me get excited about gaming again, I'm about to go watch it. It's a great show to begin with anyway, so I guess it's not only because of its influence on me.

Beaten

at school. so cool.
---

I feel so stressed out right now, it's unreal. I've got quite a bit to do, such as studying, doing a project, getting a birthday present for my father finished, cleaning my car, doing lots of laundry, math work, registering for next semesters classes, setting up some kind of network for the computers in my house, work, and most importantly, sleeping, since I don't get nearly enough as I think I'd need to function realistically.

Of course, with my massive amounts of procrastination mixed with a very small attention span when theres a computer within 100 yards doesn't make it too easy to get all this done. I want to play Quake4 and get good again. I want some F.E.A.R. multiplayer action and to get the expansion packs. I need to beat Bioshock. I want some more Starcraft LAN action. I want to sit on AIM all day and look at Facebook for no apparent reason. I want to just blow all my money on amazon.com and newegg. Hell, I'm happy just shopping around and putting stuff in the shopping cart just to see how much it costs. Oh, and I'd love to start bringing my DS with me everywhere like I used to, but Tetris and Castlevania don't mix with studying or work.

So Happy!

smo to the gon
eating some lapita!
---

The car is back, and alive. The guy at the impound lot did us a favor and bent the stuff back out away from the back tire. Everything is still a bit messed up, but I'm happy. I probably could replace the stuff on the back of my car, but I'll just worry about making the exhaust pipe not all bent out of shape and crazy looking.

An End To Things.

I'm actually at my computer right now. Tricked ya, huh?
---

Got some news today, and it doesn't look like the car is savable. The 1993, pink, Geo Tracker with no airbags, a cracked front windshield, dog hair coated back seats, cup holders overflowing with change, isn't going to be around much longer. I'm really sad, it was my first car, and I honestly don't think that I'll ever have a car that will equal the supreme awesomeness of this vehicle.

I've had so many adventures in that car. The discovery of Canton2.0, my random 1a.m. trip to Toledo for absolutely nothing, getting lost in Detroit after a Keane concert, people wanting rides in it because of the novelty of it, and a lot more.

Yeah, the car was old, it leaked oil and some other fluids, didn't accelerate too well, and was kind of rusty, but still, it was cool, odd, and had a history to it. Whatever I get next probably won't have the same air of mystique to it. Plus, whatever I replace it with will be an old car anyway, so it's not like I'm getting a great performing car in lieu of losing my old one.

Though, in all seriousness, if anyone could get me a Pontiac Solstice, I'd consider taking it.

And It Only Gets Worse!

some bitch decided to hit my car
---

So yeah, if the away message didn't make things crystal clear, some bitch hit my car today. I'm fine I guess, but the back of my car - oh man. The whole thing fucking folded into itself in a way that made it so whatever is around the back bumper and exhaust pipe is curved inward and scraping my back wheels. Needless to say, I had it towed since the last thing I want is for the tires to get ruined too.

So now, I have no car, but I still have school and/or work 7 days a week, plus other family members that work and need to get around in one way or another. I really don't have any idea how this will work out except that it's gonna be very interesting.

Besides getting to places, I'm wondering how long it's going to take to fix the car, if it's even worth it. I really don't have any idea how long the insurance will take, and I've been told that with the insurance on my car, stuff might not get covered. I'm hoping for the best since I need a car, don't want to spend a whole load of money, and because I don't know what life would be like without my Geo.

Let's just pass the time away...

Not doing my papers/studying
---

friend: so i took mushrooms

tomkamrad: aaaaand?

friend: and we listened to rainforest music and looked at monkeys
---

So, I'm a pretty decent Starcraft/Brood War player. Or I used to be.

See, today I decided to do a LAN with my brother Adam in Brood War just to waste some time and get back into the game. I've always been okay at the game, and he's not too spectacular at all, so I figured it'd be a couple quick rounds. Maybe a few big battles if I moved slow, but nothing too exciting.

Wrong.

He beat me with the Zerg on a money map where I played Protoss. And he beat me pretty good too. I got kinda pissed, so I wanted a re-match with me being Terran and him being whoever.

Now, I usually just build a big lot of barracks, stock up on minerals, and make masses of fast cheap marines and rush the base in the first 4 minutes of the match- but today, Adam learned how to do the same thing, and he got Siege Tanks out a lot faster than me which sealed my fate early on. Not to count me building Firebats while he's sending cloaked Wraiths at me like its nothing.

So I lost again, and now I want revenge. I WILL BEAT HIM. Mostly cause I feel stupid since the student completely owned the teacher.

Crappy Halloween!

work work work
---

Can someone please tell me what's happened in the past few years to Halloween? Last time I checked it was about staying out all night long, getting 2 or 3 bags of candy, and being a kid. It's really not like that anymore.

Why? Well, it all started while I was driving home from work yesterday. It was just a few minutes past 9 o'clock. Once I got into the neighborhood I though something was weird, and it didn't hit me until I was parked in the driveway. Not a single person was out. I even didn't believe it at first and stood around looking for someone, anyone. Nobody.

So I go inside. Only one of my brothers went out that night. He was already in bed, and had just 1 bag of candy. Are people this lazy now? It was ridiculous.

Fast forward to today. My coworker went trick or treating. He's around 23. My friend Aaron went out with some people. They're 17-18. I'm kind of pissed at how these people are still trick or treating. It's not a holiday just for the kids, but still, I don't believe that people over 14 or 15 should be going out begging for free candy. Maybe I just don't get it - though I have a hunch that its probably most of these other people that really don't know whats going on.

A week in review

[Tuesday]
fucking up harcore
shitshitshitshitshit
---

Last Thursday was a pretty shitty day, mostly because of the whole "I've been working for 9 days straight" thing I had going on. I got Friday off though, which was needed beyond belief, although for all the wrong reasons. Instead of doing the "right" thing (in this case study like a mofo and do a weeks worth of review in all my other classes) I made the trip up to Ann Arbor in order to party like a fuckin' rockstar - and did I ever.

Through a bizarre twist of fate (kinda) I found myself in possession of a fifth of Everclear and a pint of Bombay Sapphire dry gin. Not counting the various drinks in the friends dorm room I was staying in, (I bought it for her, so she owed me anyway) or all the free, although shitty, beer that would be all over every party within 10 miles. Now, it's kind of been a dream of mine ever since I started reading Tucker Max to try his signature drink, the Tucker Death Mix. Made with Everclear, Lemon-Lime Gatorade, and RedBull, this stuff is literally the Special Olympics in a bottle. Combine that with the 7 or so shots I had afterwards and I was getting ready for a fun night out.

To start the night out we went to a highlighter party which was pretty fun I guess, except for the fact no one told me beforehand and I would have liked a t-shirt to write stupid shit on. I saw some random ass kid who I'm almost positive I've never met in my life and he fucking runs up to me yelling "Whats up man! How crazy seeing you here!" and giving me a high-five. I think he was the crazy one, and not the incident of us both being at this party. I played along though like a pro and we bullshit for a few minutes talking about how "random" it was seeing each other. Whatever, I'm sure it made him happy for the moment, and it makes a funny story for me.

After a while, we slowly made our way out into the street because this girls roommate wanted to go with some guy and we didn't feel like putting up with her whorish bullshit. Let her get raped, I'll still sleep fine tonight. We slowly made our way to this one frat's "Jimmy Buffet" party, which wasn't really my thing. None of his music, too crowded, and it was a total sausage fest. Oh, I wasn't too into the margaritas either, so yeah. Lastly, we went to the frat usually visited for pre-game festivities but no one was there and there was puke on the floor somewhere so we weren't too excited for that.

To end off the night, we stumbled our way to "Big Ten Burrito". The prices were more expensive than the Moe's I used to work at, and the burritos were smaller, but whatever it was 1 am and we were starving. I didn't realize until the next morning that I was somehow coaxed into paying for the burrito of the person whose dorm room I was staying in. An $11 burrito. Awesome!

Saturday Night was pretty great as well. I got off work around 10:15 or so, hung out with some friends, and then went to my ex-manager Mary's legendary birthday/Halloween party. The costumes were pretty wild, I got to see a few old friends, and they had 2 kegs of Rolling Rock, which was pretty damn sweet. Also, some guy from the Beastie Boys "Sabatoge" video was there. Random celebrities are pretty neat.

I Love Apple

[yesterday - 10:00pm]
kind of writing a paper
---

So I originally began to write this post on an iPod touch that I was trying out. I don't know why I didn't finish it, might have been because of class, or because of the campus' pretty shitty wifi (or at least it was for me.)

Anyway, for years now, I've been wanting an iPod, not any other brand of music player, just iPod. Of course, I've always put it off for some reason or another - Theres going to be a new one announced in a few months, I don't have the money, Its summer and I'll only use it during school so I'll wait, I have the money -but do I really want to spend it? - Yeah, stuff like that. So, around mid September, I said "Hey, I'm in school, I have a lot of free time between classes, I have money, and my birthday is coming up, I should get one. Not surprisingly, as soon as I start to look up some stuff, the new iPod line is announced. I loved the iPhone and its interface, so naturally, the iPod touch looked amazing to me. Sadly, my old job at Moe's had just ended, so I really was out of money, and I kinda put it off in my head again.

So, last week, at my Father's office, they got a whole load of different players for the new line of Ford vehicles that are fully integrated with mp3 players. I convinced him to let me "test it" for the weekend. I tried setting it up at his office, but I really couldn't since all my stuff is at home on this computer, and for some reason the area hes in doesn't have wifi, only the "presentation suites" upstairs. Why the work area doesn't have wireless internet, I don't know.

The thing handles like a dream. It's light, the screen is beautifully clear, at home the internet was fast, youtube worked awesome, and the songs/album/artist lists are just fun to use because you can throw the stuff around with your finger. The one thing I was always worried about was how the fingerprint smudges would look on the screen after more than 25 seconds of use. With the backlight on you don't even notice a thing (unless for some reason you release an abnormally high amount of oils from your skin, or just ate some sort of pizza). I read probably 5 or 6 of Tucker Max's stories and went on Facebook, and the screen stayed clear as always and I completely forgot about the smudges existing since they're invisible from that view perspective.

All in all, I'm buying one, plain and simple. 16gb though, because even though I only used about 5gb of space on that one, and i don't even listen to 70% of that music since it's not mine, most of my CDs aren't on this hard drive and I plan on having at least a movie or two on it, plus room for extra stuff and photos.

One last note, at the moment, I have in my hands a 30gb Zune. I'll be done with "testing it" tomorrow around 5pm, so I'll give some feedback on how it stacks up to the competition.

People say the funniest stuff

[AFK] School/work all the fuckin' time
---

me (12:02:04 AM): you'll need a passport

friend (12:02:29 AM): ain't hard to get one

me (12:02:17 AM): starting 2008 you need a passport

me(12:02:19 AM): im just sayin

me(12:02:21 AM): its a bitch

me (12:02:29 AM): why cant we be like Europe?

friend (12:03:08 AM): cause europe doesn't have Mexicans

Yeah, it's so true isn't it? I'll get an update in sometime tomorrow.