Olympic Ping Pong

>(cell phone)
---
It's on odd though to think that my father will be 45 soon. I'll be there one day. It's so far away, but I can see it coming quick. Hell, I just realized that the past 15 months have been a blur, and I'll be 20 in just under a year. Twenty years old and I still feel like a fucking child.

I need to get out of my nest here in scenic Dearborn and do something new. I need to move out of here; move to a distant college town where people are my age and I won't be so cutoff from everything. All my old friends moved out of town to their respective schools, and I know they love it. Why didn't I do it from the start? I can feel them slipping away too. Even the friends I hung with last year don't talk to me anymore. They don't call or text me. They never see me at school. They just went their seperate ways, even though they live right here, so close and still so distant.

I don't care for LCD Soundsystem. They are intensely boring.

Back to dissecting my ever more apparent sense of mortality, I am baffled by the though of the people I know actually dying. One day, they will simply cease to be who they are. No more thoughts, emotions, movements, words. Just their body. The minds' hardware. Everything that really made them who they were, a human being, will be lost forever. Then, the body dissolves and thats that. It's all so futile.

I seem to have nothing optimistic to say.

No, actually I do.

Fall is beautiful. This really is my favorite time of the year by far. The wheather, leaves, crisp air, holidays. It's awesome. I think I do more now. I love the outdoors, I take my dog for walks in the woods, sit on the porch and talk with my friends, and leave the windows in my room cracked just so that the air is chill and my soft, warm bed is all the more inviting.

That reminds me, I have a heated blanket sitting in my closet. It's a real pain in the ass sometimes, but I still use it daily during the winter. It's got two different temperature controllers so that each side of the bed can be individually heated, but all that leads to is a rats nest of tangled electrical cords.

It's got a little feature that makes it so that after 8 hours of use it auto shuts off and "locks" itself so that you can't overuse it until it bursts into flames. Well, that's what it's supposed to do. I'm not quite sure what happened to the sensor, but at random times the thing will go into lockdown mode. Or if I'm especially lucky, only half of the blanket will work thanks to two different controls reading two different sensors. My right shoulder and thigh are sweating, yet my torso and left half of my body seem to be frostbitten. Splendid. I've only used this thing for 3 months, last winter when it was brand new, so I like to think that this is by no means my fault.

Back in Business?

>beatbox my heartbeat. untie my shoes like I did my heartstrings
---
Hello world. It's been a while. My life has changed. No, my mind has changed - I just see life much differently now. My life's changed too. I guess.

I'm back into playing WoW, I play TF2 almost religiously now, and I'm only taking 9 credits in school this semester. I haven't been scheduled to work in a week. I like my classes, they are easy. I'm pretty much completely alone all day long, every day. By the time people start coming home, I'm either just starting to go to class, or have had to work. I feel insane. I think I'm starting to dislike other people around me. I'm uncomfortable. I think I'm going to start working out next week after my birthday on the 23rd.

Exile

>Bambino...
---
Well, it's just days before school starts. I feel like hell. I feel useless, dumb, blind, unwanted. I feel I need some sort of break to make myself better. Get rid of this sickness called reality. I guess I contracted it through an epiphany. My sluggish reactions to what life has thrown at me has caused everything I deluded myself into loving to come crashing down on me. I can't comprehend how to decide what it all means, so finding the meaning of the answer is impossible.

I need some sort of escape from my body and earth. From the universe. From suddenly realizing that everything that will ever happen and has ever happened means nothing in the grand scheme of everything or anything.

How do I lift curses?

Clarity

>someone is calling my name from the back of the restaurant
---
Lately, I've been having lengthy periods of a sort of nihilistic clarity. My mind just focuses on the larger picture of everything that goes on around me and it makes a sort of sense out of the world and universe. I swear that within the past few days I have learned the reason why everyone acts the way they do, how the universe works, and how it began and will end. It's bizarre, and scary, and unsettling.

Boggled...

>hey baby i hear the blues a callin'
>tossed salad and scrambled eggs
---
I don't even know what to say right now, my life is a mess. A horrible, horrible mess. Shit is fucked up. I'm not even sure where to begin the reconstruction. Relationships? Work? School? Home? Myself?

One thing I do know is that I'm on nasaimages.org. I'm fucking blown away. Maybe it's because I haven't been drunk in a while and I forgot the awesome feeling, but just looking at these photographs of hundreds of galaxies each with billions of stars, I can't help but want to simultaneously kill myself out of fear of uselessness and celebrate at the beautiful chaos of the universe. I'm fucking torn between the two. I've never felt so powerful and so weak at the same time. The mere fact that all of this exists is so excruciatingly wonderful and terrifying at the same time is almost like ecstasy.

Summer Blues: Part I

>looking for nothing
>dinner bah
---
My fucking life. Shit.

I can't even begin to explain what the hell is wrong with me lately. I have no motivation to do anything. It seems that work is the only fun I have all day, and that's definitely a stretch.

I can't read, I can't bring myself to play WoW, I can't make music, watch movies, eat something, anything. I just have no desire to do any of it. The only problem is what I do have attention for. I just tried drawing while listening to System of a Down. I came up with a face, and a little hair before losing all interest in art in general.

4chan doesn't amuse like it used to, nor does gamefaqs, facebook, myspace, wis.dm, or stumble. No one emails me, the only 2 blogs I read rarely update (kinda like me, heh...), and there are so few people that are entertaining on AIM it's sad.

Anyway, BAWWWWWWWW.

A New Job?

>I'm just waiting for your call/you're just looking for a pulse
>into dust
---
So I guess that I have gotten a new job that doesn't suck ass. A new job as in something that could actually go on a resume. As in not in the food service industry.

So, I'm working in the offices that ABC owns in the Renaissance Center in downtown Detroit on the pilot for their upcoming show The Prince of Motor City. I'm pretty excited to see what's in store. I know I probably won't be working on the show itself due to my lack of knowledge in anything production related, but I'll still get to see the show go from blueprints to real life.

Now, the only bad parts about this job are the commute downtown, it'll probably only last for another 2 months max, and I don't know how long of a workday I'm cut out for. Whatever though, cause now I'll have real experience with stuff, and make some good money doing it. Well, 130$/day is good money for me considering I make maybe 45$ a day at Buddy's.

Here I am, now where are the past three weeks?

>drop a heart/break a name
---
So here I am, still off the track of my life. I feel so much slipping away, missed opportunities, jokes, moments, people. I don't know what to do with myself. I'm in a terrible grind right now, merely weeks into my summer break. It's torturous. I need more excitement in my life, but I don't know where to get it from.

Drinking is always a fun escape, but I need new places and faces, I can't do the usual "world explorer" bit I like to do with gas prices this high, and there's also the little fact that I've explored so much stuff with my friends I have left little to be found. I think Toledo was the farthest any of them were willing to go on my adventures, but I know I'd take them out to California if they had the time and I had the money.

I can barely get into WoW. TF2 isn't cutting it lately. CS:S is a love/hate relationship. I keep forgetting that Half Life 2 exists. I don't want to replay Bioshock until I get DX10. Not enough people play Smash Brothers well enough for them to be a challenge or any fun at all. Anything else? Not game related.

Books are hard to read for me now, though this could be just my choice of reading materials. Hitchhiker's Guide is good, but so odd that I often lose focus on what the hell is going on. I keep trying to read my books on philosophy, but with my schedule the way it is I'm usually too tired to stay awake for more than a few paragraphs or have already made plans for a night out. I want to be enlightened though, just at a more convenient time.

So basically, I'm in a rut. A really fucked up rut, and I hate it.

Wow, I guess I need some philosophical studies to get some pleasure out of what I have.

Time Escapes Me!

>robotic
>enslavement and sorrow
---
It's been a goddamn month since I've written anything and I'm kinda pissed at my lack of drive to do something productive. At least I kind of accomplished some stuff like finished a semester of school with a 3.6 gpa, rearranged my room and computer stuff, and started playing CS:S. Well, I kind of started playing World of Warcraft again too. Whatever. It's summer and I need to do something.

Here are some goals I'd like to accomplish:
>make music with Julius Mode or Burlap Baby
>read a lot of literature
>work out often
>become more frugal so I'm not always dirt poor

Reach for the Schuyler!

>the definition of fucked
>wurkin
>listening to dre and writing a paper. i am happy
---
So there's this guy at work, the new guy in the kitchen. Well, he's actually been here for almost a month now, but he still acts like a new guy. I digress.

So, he was initially hired because he was a general manager at a Papa Romanos and was stuck working 70 hour weeks, so he wanted out. Everyone had high hopes for him, he's worked in food, he was a general manager, so he might know more than just kitchen duties, and he's used to working long hours, so he'd be good working the shorter shifts we have.

His first week of training, he was alright. Quiet, but alright. We figured he'd be more talkative once he got to know everyone, and would get a lot better at his job once he got used to the swing of things.

Nope. Wrong.

Well, only kind of. He's a bit more talkative now, but still moves like a snail when working. He still messes stuff up more often then he should, and still doesn't understand how to do a lot of stuff that should be self explanatory. One of the problems could be his eyes, or lack of vision. He obviously needs a new prescription because even with his glasses, he spends about 15 seconds squinting at a receipt before he can read it. When food is being rung in ever couple seconds, and stuff is coming out of the oven every other couple seconds, we obviously don't have the time to spend 10 minutes reading a pizza ticket because our eyes don't work.

Okay, yes, I am being very harsh and judgmental on this kid and his physical capabilities, or lack thereof. My points are well founded though, so I don't care. At least he has a personality. Or wait, never mind, he doesn't.

This guy doesn't know how to tell a story, or even a sentence without putting me to sleep. He says words, but they fall flat and go nowhere. Heres some examples (I am the">", he is the "-")
=====
>Man, I cannot wait to get out of class in 2 weeks. Freedom, friends in town, I can go out and drink and party all the time. It'll be a grand 'ole drunken time.
-Oh, you like drinking eh?
>(kinda freaked out at this odd question) Yeah, it's fun, and I love my friends.
-Yeah, the other day me and my friends went out and got some booze.
>Oh yeah?
-Yeah.
>...
-(for some reason, just walks away, off in some random direction)
>...
=====
Seriously? Seriously? That's it? You got booze? What happened? Who got thrown off a third story balcony? Who accidentally slept with their cousin? Who slammed the fifth of vodka in 10 minutes? Something has to have happened. Or it didn't. Maybe he just bought booze, drank it, then went and sat in the corner and cried. I don't know. What I do know is I don't need his mental drool polluting my eardrums.

Also, today, he told me and Scott a story about registering for classes at HFCC. It was excessively lame, but he had one classic line where his information got locked into the registration servers and couldn't be modified or moved. Apparently he was "trapped in cyberspace". We had quite the laugh behind his back, entirely at his expense. It was too good to pass up. Seriously.

Oh, and I know that he was thinking of that line for days. I just know. 3 nights ago, or maybe the next afternoon, he thought of being trapped in cyberspace and said, in his go nowhere, monotone inner monologue "I have to use this one! BALLIN'!". Seriously. I bet he even thought the word "ballin'".

Kwadruple Pheature

>work, then things after
>the things after work now
>so close... CRUNCH TIME
---
I've seen a record number of movies in the past week - FOUR! Here's what I thought of 'em:

Waiting...: Pretty funny, and somewhat true to life. As a restaurant worker, I could definitely see the similarities and people I know in what was going on. Dane Cook was actually tolerable too, which was a big surprise for me. Overall, I liked it.

Deja Vu: An action/thriller movie about some machine that allows people to look through a wormhole 4 days into the past in real time. The government uses it to investigate a terrorist attack on a boat in New Orleans. It was interesting, but the movie never gets too violent, too fast, too slow, too science-y, or too much of anything else. It kind of kept everything at a mediocre level, which sucked. Also, it was too long, at just around 2 hours. Taking 15 minutes off by speeding stuff up would have done wonders.

Dan in Real Life: I actually wanted to see this when it was first in theaters but never did. I really like it. It's a very lighthearted romantic/family/comedy movie which I enjoy, plus Steve Carell is a good actor and a funny guy. He was perfect for the role. Dane Cook was also in this movie as the somewhat dickheaded brother. He was tolerable in this role too, so I guess it's just his standup I have a problem with.

Walk Hard: I thought it was an alright movie overall. It has moments that are "random funny", "silly funny", and "vulgar funny", but nothing I found to be absolutely laugh out loud worthy. Still, I enjoyed it for what it had to offer, and that's probably why I don't outright hate it.

Baby Politicians

>wow, i fucking suck at css
---
Today, at school, were the student government elections. What a joke. For some reason, I was 20 minutes early to class - a rare occasion. As soon as I enter the building, I'm bombarded with fliers, people talking, hand gestures, and whatever else goes along with getting people to vote for you.

Some girl I've never seen before (big surprise) walks up to me. She's running for something. Not president. I don't know, maybe senator. She asks me if I'm going to class. No shit I'm going to class, does she think I like to walk around inside college campus buildings at 9 a.m. for fun? She doesn't get the hint that I want to keep walking and would prefer it if she stayed stationary. She follows me, opens up one of her little booklets, and props it in front of me so she can show and read it to me as I walk to class. Christ!. I get rid of her by going to the bathroom, then get rid of her pamphlets by introducing them to the garbage bin.

Fortunately, I found a way to Solid Snake my way around them for the rest of the day. Mostly because of fear.

I Panicked about Panic!

>philosophical endeavors
---
In regards to my thoughts on the new Panic at the Disco album Pretty.Odd, after giving it 30 or so listens, I like the new them. Not as much so as I did the original, but I still like 'em. They go from country sounds, to sounding like The Beatles, then to the Beach Boys. Some of their old lyrical style shows at a few small points, but for the most part its tragically toned down. Musically, they're vastly different as well, with nothing electronic on the whole album, and a whole lot more guitar action goin' on.

It's different, but it'll do.

Bone and Thorn

>O! Green World!
>I'm laughing at a rude awakening.
---
So the other day, like any other day, I got really bored of television, computers, videogames, or anything electronic, and decided I wanted to read something. That something happened to be the complete Bone series by Jeff Smith. Yes, all 1400 pages or goodness.

A quick back story of how I came to know Bone: I first read it in Disney Adventures Magazine probably 8 years ago now, and was really fascinated by Fone Bone and Thorn. This probably has to do with me not knowing anything about the series prior to reading it for the first time along with the fact that the piece I read takes place a little ways after the beginning which gave me no back story. Anyway, I've wanted to find out what this series was all about for the longest time. So, last Xmas, I bought the complete series for my brother thinking he would enjoy reading it since he likes much of the same stuff I do.

Anyway, some afterthoughts- I thought the story was awesome and very well paced. It keeps the main characters in the same places and predicaments for a few chapters and then resolves it and flows into the next plot almost seamlessly which really helps make the story varied and exciting, yet fluid and logical.

The artwork was beautiful as well, even in just plain black and white. I'm seriously considering picking up the full color series once I have the money and they're all released. I've seen them fully colored, and borrowed The Great Cow Race volume from my brothers friend, so I'm positive that the coloring is great looking, and probably enhances the series.

The characters were all interesting, especially Phoney Bone who was by far my favorite. Second to him would be Lucius, the tavern owner, and actually Phoney's foil throughout the series. The shape of his body, facial expressions, and entire character were really entertaining and visually interesting. My only character problem would be with Thorn, who I really wish would have been developed further. She goes from innocent farm girl, to mopey, then to heroine, and ends up as down to earth, still innocent farm girl, except shes the queen of the kingdom and savior of the world. She just made too many quick transitions for me to really follow her 100%. Jumpiness aside, I still really liked her.

Now I guess I'll have to finish Hitchhikers Guide soon too won't I?

I Threw Away my Childhood?

>hey eric, remember when i went over your house and we bought that neopets cereal? that shit was fucking stupid
>grotesque
---
Today while taking out the trash, I noticed some Pokemon cards in one of the clear plastic bags. Not just any cards though, some of my favorite cards, specifically a Lieutenant Surge's Electabuzz. For some reason, this didn't phase me, and now that I look back to 5 hours ago I feel a kind of awkward sadness.

See, I held onto the goddamn cards for this long, since fourth or fifth grade. That's 8 or 9 years spent keeping these things safe and in great condition. They're worth next to nothing in money, but always represented a really important part of who I was growing up. I used to play all the Pokemon games, watched the anime, and even played the card game - semi professionally. I played because I guess I was just that good when I was that age compared with all of the other underachieving dumbshits who thought they could play.

Anyway, it's odd that I didn't feel anything about these cards as I saw them there, sitting in the trash. I just threw away part of my childhood. A big part. And it didn't phase me.

I'm tempted to go out on a limb and say that maybe I'm actually starting to grow up.

Maybe I'm an adult now, maybe I'm not. All I really know is how much it saddens me to think of this happening. I didn't think I'd ever actually change. I thought I could just sit and play in my own little world forever and things would just take care of themselves, but it doesn't look like my dream is going to last much longer, let alone forever.

I have to work on my life.

Cannot Focus!

>new PATD on mtv website
>frankenmuth for some zenders
---
I'm supposed to be writing some sort of Political Science op-ed piece, but since I'm so easily distracted, and pretty apathetic towards the class I think I'll do something else. Also, it doesn't help I haven't listened to a lecture in a month and don't own the book yet.

So on the MTV website they had it set up so you could go on and listen to the entire new Panic at the Disco album. When I first heard this I was ecstatic at the chance to listen to one of my favorite artists new album a week before it came out. Unfortunately, my over joyous mood didn't stay at the apex it was at as I listened to the new stuff. There's nothing electronic. No beat machines, no synth, no super fast, off the wall, multi-syllabic words, nothing like that. They sound like a normal band, only somewhat mellow, and possibly even mainstream.

Now, I have no problem with them becoming mainstream. I wish them all the best in their music making career, but I liked them so much better as their original, techno-y selves. They were bizarre lyrically, musically, and image-wise, and that's part of what made them stand out so much.

I'm not completely sold on the new album - yet. I'll give it a few more listens, read the lyrics, watch whatever music videos they have, and then make my final decisions. However, I'm sad that the old Panic! was replaced with the new "Panic".

Brawl!

>SSBB FOREVER
---

Super Smash Brothers Brawl has completely taken over my life. I should be studying a million things right now. I should be sleeping. I could take the dog for a walk, or better yet, work out. There are books to be read, rooms to be cleaned, showers to be taken, and meals to be consumed, but KO-ing my way to victory seems to be of utmost importance at the moment.

I beat the story mode on hard mode without any help, cleared all 41 single player events, and all the multi ones with my brother. I got all the characters today and have classic beat with 6 of them. Now I just need boss rush mode done, the rest of classic, all star mode, finishing the trophy collection, sticker collection, getting that last 8% completion in the SSE, 100 man brawl, and shaping up my game for kicking other peoples asses.

There's a tournament next week at school with actual prizes and such, so I'm really psyched for that. I really want to see how I stack up to other players since no one that lived around me was very good at Melee. I think it helps that I never got too good at advanced techniques such as SHFFL and wave-dashing so the gameplay changes to Brawl don't mess with my play style as much as it will with others. Now, to go practice a bit more with good old Wario.

Matthew, Isabelle, and Theo.

>junpei
>feeling sick, watching the dreamers
---

As my AFK status implied, I'm feeling sick to the point where I could vomit, and I watched The Dreamers.

I discovered this movie about 4 months ago on the Independent Film Channel, or IFC. I was up in Ann Arbor partying for the weekend with friends, and when we turned in for the night and turned on the TV we happened to stumble upon the particular scene where Isabelle takes off Matthew's boxers in the kitchen. We had no idea what the movie was, or what the IFC was for that matter, so we just figured "Ooh! Implied sex scene on late at night R-rated movie". Once they started having sex on the floor, we were corrected. Now, this scene is about halfway through the movie, I was really drunk and tired, and it had actually been a long day, so I fell asleep maybe 30 minutes later.

Of course, this film intrigued me to no end after that point. It was so perplexing with it's talks of revolution in France, overt sexuality, and the fact that I came in watching it part of the way through which just shrouded it deeper in mystery. Naturally the first thing I did when I got home was research the IFC. Then once I had the title of the movie (The Dreamers), I researched that. Finally, a quick order off Amazon.

Now that I finally got my lazy self around to sitting down and watching it, I'm thoroughly happy with my purchase. This movie was beautiful to me in many ways. The weird, tense, sexual, interactions between the characters makes for something not seen in everyday entertainment, the frequent talks between the characters about cinema, music, and revolution, are intriguing subjects themselves, and I really liked the cinematography throughout the film, especially the use of mirrors.

For some reason, the films use of mirrors entertained me extensively. People seem to avoid mirrors, for good reason, but their presence in many of the indoor shots added an extra depth to the scene, mostly due to them being used to show the characters not directly in the shot. Maybe not on par with the mirror scene in Contact, but the entire bathtub segment is brilliant in that all 3 characters are visible throughout it through the use of the mirrors on the side of the wall. It's a strange way to see the action, but I found it oddly enjoyable.

I really liked The Dreamers, and I suggest people go out and see/buy/rent it if they can. It's definitely not the deepest, most revolutionary, or mind blowing film out there, but it conveys themes not found in other movies, and because of this, makes it something very special.

Oh, the Slump!

>REGULATORS! Mount up!
>it was a clear black night, a clear white moon
---

So, I'm on my "school's" "spring break" this week. Let's define the terms used first, and then see what's wrong.

I used the term "school" because I guess that the University of Michigan Dearborn would be considered a school of sorts. I don't consider it one however. This place fucking fails at everything possibly conceivable. The people are twats, the campus is small and boring, there isn't ever anything legitimately interesting ever going on around campus, and it's in Dearborn, one of the most boring places on earth for us underage peoples. Sure I could go to the bar and stuff if I went to the right places, but it's expensive, and I should have other choices besides destructive drinking every weekend of my life.

Why is this "spring break"? Because while it's labeled "spring break", we are not even remotely in the spring season (hence the 5 inches of snow on the ground and bitter cold days and nights). Most other colleges have theirs either next week, which is a little better, or in 2 weeks. I don't understand why ours is so early.

Yeah, so my break is kind of sucking. It's not just because of the total lack of things to do where I live, but also because without anything to actually do, I get really lazy. I get home at 1 a.m., which for me is pretty damned early, and I will sleep until 1:30 p.m. By the time I wake up and realize I've slept through the "me time" part of the day (ie- playing Pikmin 2 and Team Fortress 2) and there's just enough time to shower, eat, check my internet stuff, and be off to work. The vicious cycle has been going on the past couple days, which with only a week long break equates to most of my time off.

So, tomorrow, or I guess technically today, I will wake up, eat breakfast, do some stretches, and stay awake for the duration of my normal day without sleeping for a completely unnecessary 5 extra hours. I may need an energy drink, but I'll do it damnit!

Lists of things that keep me awake

>just kickin some ass
---
A list of the random shit that goes through my head

-I don't understand Kid Rock. His image is pretty much being a badass of sorts, and a lot of his music pretty much goes with it. However, on his latests album Rock and Roll Jesus he's got songs like "Amen" and "All Summer Long" which are loaded full of sentimental, religious bullshit. Totally not Kid Rock there. Besides, his next songs, "So Hott" and "Sugar" are loaded with lines like:

SO HOT I wanna get you alone
SO HOT I wanna get you stoned
SO HOT I dont wanna be your friend
I wanna fuck you like I'm never gonna see you again

or these excerpts from Sugar:

And I fuck hot pussy until it's cold
You can kiss my Anglo-Saxon ass
I'm the illest mutha fucker on the God damn planet

(Now keep in mind, the lyrics right there are from 2 songs directly after the sentimental religious shit I mentioned earlier.)

Now that's the shit I like to see! This is the Kid Rock we all love/loathe. I don't think anyone wants to pay money to have him talk about sending his kids to church or some girlfriend he had back in the day. We want the real Kid Rock. The 40 oz. malt liquor chugging, swear up a storm, donkey punch your wife Kid Rock. Now we're talking!


-Have you ever had to take a massive shit? Of course you have. However, when you sit, have you ever had a really difficult time gettin' that little fucker out? Like, it's almost too big for your asshole to process? It's usually really hard too. Like someone put a baseball sized rock in your rectum. Well, after the horrifying experience is over, don't you ever feel like your asshole is "spaced out"? It feels larger than before, like you forced something so big through it that it stretched it.

Let me say this: I had one so bad the other day, that after I left, it felt like I had been at a goddamned porno shoot for hours. It felt that large. Yeah, I know that's fucked up.

-What would it be like to write scripts for pornos? Like the cheesy ass dialogue. I really want to know how they do it for stuff like Big Sausage Pizza, First Fat Chick, and anything that picks up "random girls" on the street.