First things first, this post will probably be something I'll be writing in all day. So please excuse how long or scattered my topics may be or seem!

Last night I went to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Not to spoil anything, it's about a man, Benjamin Button, who is ages backwards. So he is born an old man and continuously gets younger as time passes. I found it very interesting and it was a three hour movie but it didn't seem that long at all.

Throughout the entire movie there life lessons scattered all about. Lessons that I guess would make you want to appreciate life.

The message I got from one of Benjamin's narrations was to live life as you choose. If you choose to stay the same or choose to change it is all alright and that we have our whole lives. While he is speaking it portrays Benjamin all around the world doing all sorts of jobs. Some jobs not as prestigious as the last but for some reason it was respectable to me. Of course this message to me was huge as I'm sure it'd be huge to anyone else with my mind set. But of course the message was helped by wonderful imagery, a monologue and melancholy music to help the mood!

As I've grown older I've realized that I'm not one for romantics. When I was younger, in middle school (ha) and high school, I figured I was going to be a great boyfriend! I always thought to myself how I would be a much better boyfriend then the boyfriends I heard girls gossiping over. I thought I'd be always understanding, charming, whatever else the perfect boyfriends from movies are like. But, looking to the past at the experience I have had as a boyfriend or even husband, I find I am not what I thought I'd be. This isn't to say I'm a bad husband or boyfriend, that is subjective though, but I am actually just a husband/boyfriend. Meaning, I'm not the 'sweep you off your feet' guy or the 'I'll beat you and harass you but you love me still' guy. I'm just your average boyfriend! if I were to judge myself, I'd say I can be insensitive sometimes and even negligent. I think sometimes I can sweet talk myself around the girl, but I'm not sure.

What makes me mention that is Benjamin Button. Who seemed to be a pretty romantic fellow.

To end this abruptly, I didn't right as much as I figured I would. Too busy ha!

Later

I'm Having Fun

Death

Yesterday around noon time, Doe texted me on the computer and she asked me if I could pick her up from work because she needed to see her Aunt. I suppose you could say 'Great Aunt'. She is Doe's Grandmother's sister. But Doe calls her an aunt.

Also, before I got on, I don't think Doe would mind me talking about this. Actually, I know she wouldn't mind.

Anyways, her Aunt has been at the Winchester hospital for about the past month. I'm not even entirely sure what the issue was, I believe it was cancer that spread into her stomach. Either way, everyone knew she didn't have much time left.

Doe's father had called Doe as he was at the hospital and he told him that she probably only had a few hours left. Doe tried calling me but I left my phone at home! (My phone at home plays another inconvenient role later) After calling my phone a million times and trying to 411 my work, she had trouble since I guess my work isn't listed, Doe finally found my mobile aim address and texted my from her phone. I left immediately down 93 and 95! When I got to Doe's salon she was teary eyed and a little frantic.

After a bunch of traffic, we got to the hospital. I remembered the last time I was at this hospital was because Natty had gotten hit in the head at a show. Well, we went up elevators, down halls and finally to Doe's Aunt's room. Doe's Aunt, Madeline, was in the hospital bed. She looked pretty uncomfortable and in bad shape to be honest. Doe's actual 'aunt' was already there along with a bunch of other family members that I had never met. I felt like I shouldn't have been there. I didn't know Madeline very well, I didn't know these other family members very well and it seemed like a time where a 'stranger' like myself isn't wanted.

Doe was in the room with Madeline just staring at her and I stood outside looking in with some other members of the family. Specifically, Toni (Doe's aunt), an elderly woman (Madeline's sister), another older woman and older man (cousins I think Doe said). The two cousins and the sister seemd oddly 'regular' in the situation. But I guess that doesn't matter.

I didn't want to go into Madeline's room because I, again, didn't feel like I belonged in there at all. If anything I only wanted to go in and give Doe whatever comfort I could offer. When I did walk in I got a better look at Madeline. She looked older than I last remembered. Obviously. I remember I kept thinking "This is what Death is." but unfortunately not feeling any sort of sadness inside myself for what was happening. I got sad seeing people crying, but not so much when I saw Madeline so lifeless. I want to say it's because I didn't know her very well. But I also want to say that it's because I understand. Meaning that I understand it's just life and death. But, I can't say this because I'm ignorant to death. This was my first actual encounter with it. Face-to-face. I'm not sure if I'd feel different it was my grandmother or grandfather. Right now, I want to say I would not care as much as Doe or her family seemed to care. Maybe it's because I'm not very close to anyone in my family. But then when I think about people who I know I'm close to dying, I don't feel a huge amount of sadness. The lack of emotion there is definitely, undoubtedly because I'm not dealing with it right now. I've mentioned this before, but I know I'd be sad if I didn't really get to say good bye. Closure, you know?

Another thing I think about is when Ryan and Lane first lost their cats. I've also mentioned this before. I had never had any real pets. Ryan and Lane both had lost their cats and were pretty bummed out about it. At the time I think I felt similar apathy. Obviously, sad for Lane and sad for Ryan, but not really realizing what they were probably going through. I remember when Ryan decided to stay home for a couple nights to spend his last couple nights with Patches, I was being pretty selfish. I kept thinking to myself "Ryan is being stupid and should just come over" or something probably along the same lines. I didn't know how much pets could really mean to people. Obviously, not having three cats of my own I'd probably do the same thing Ryan did. I get sad even thinking about it. What I'm getting at is maybe I don't feel anything for Doe's aunt leaving because I've never had to deal with death.

Doe has apparently lost a lot of people in her life. I haven't lost anyone. I'd like to think I could accept it since it's just part of life and we have little impact on the world if one of us is removed. I think if people take a look at the bigger picture, everything else will be easier for them. Myself included.

For some reason I want to be that understanding about everything. Cold hard logic! People who know me know I'm not cold and even less logical. But maybe I want to be that way because I'm not that way. "The grass is always greener..." that kind of thing.

Anyways, I left right as Doe's other aunt from Vermont arrived. She was in terrible emotional shape. I saw as one person lost their composure everyone else followed. Even I got teary eyed. I wasn't even sure why. Empathy?

Even more so, I felt out of place and like I shouldn't have been around. Family members were hugging and crying just trying to comfort one another as I stood in the middle looking around trying to not look awkward. These are very selfish thoughts I realized, but for some reason I couldn't escape these glances that seemed to tell me "what are you doing here?". I suppose maybe I never got those kinds of glances and I'm making them up in my head, but you never know.

I left because I had been gone for two hours from work I think. I told everyone I'd be back and left back to work. This is where my phone at home created more 'issues'. When I got to work I found I had an e-mail to me telling me I was going to be late coming back from lunch. I was thinking, I wonder if Jason was CCed on this in secret. Because someones you can mail to multiple e-mail address without showing everyone who is CCed. Turns out he wasn't. Since he had no idea where I was. I had to explain that to him. I guess he even called Jaclyn asking where I was and she called me. But my phone was at home so it all didn't matter.

I worked until five, got Doe some food and went back to the hospital.

It was more of the same. Except this time I didn't have Doe with me. I went back to the room with food and I couldn't find Doe. She had apparently went outside to talk to her sister (Elizabeth, Doe's 21+ sister whom she had not talked to in a year and a half) so I had to wait for her. I stood outside of the room with Doe's grandfather. He's a nice old man who seemed humorously naive sometimes. He's not senile I don't think, but he says somethings that were funny but were surely not suppose to be. I don't know if Doe would think this is funny, but when her Grandfather arrived, he asked the doctor "Is she in a coma yet?" in a very innocent, old man way and I let out a mind smirk. Everyone quickly answered she wasn't in a coma. I was wondering what would make him ask that. I assumed it was because his friends who had died in the past probably went through comas before death.

I wait probably half an hour outside of the room waiting for Doe. During my wait, a priest came to the room to read Madeline her last rights. Her a circle around her, the priest and various family members held hands and prayed around her and then they proceeded to chat with the priest. They were chatting about Madeline and then sooner after other topics that had little to do with Madeline or even with death for that matter. I felt that it was odd hearing chatter and laughter coming from the room of a dying woman. I finally found Doe who was waiting for me in another room for some reason, thanks to her funny grandfather.

After eating and talking to her sister, Elizabeth, for a while we went back to Madeline's room where everyone was. We had got there just in time to see Madeline's doctor leave. I guess people discovered that Madeline skipped many doctor's appointments that could have very well 'saved' her life. But I was thinking, she's 73 and I don't think that I would personally want to extend my life anymore. If it were me, I wouldn't want to go through the trouble of therapy, the sitting in bed, the doing nothing, all so my family could pay the bill after. Madeline didn't do much. She just lived at her sister house spending whatever money she had on cigaretts and lottery tickets. I don't blame her, she was 73! I'm just sayinig if I were in her shoes I wouldn't want to go through all the hassle.

Anyways,now I'm in a room full of family members who are just talking around Madeline's bed. No one being especially quiet or anything like that. People began to reminisce about Madeline, but I was a little shocked at how quickly the conversation turned from Madeline to the television. Doe's Uncle, Greg (the sad, really depressed version of Ryan's Dad), was watching TV and a show where they were making food popped on. Greg started calling out "Hey Dad, dad, check it out." Greg started naming whatever foods they were putting into a pot and everyone seemed to turn to the tv and sort of give a hunger moan. Doe's grandfather saying "Ooooh, I can't watch it. I want to eat!". That merited another mind smirk from me. But I looked at Madeline and how she was unconscious, breathing heavy and everyone was just chatting.

Another thing I realized is that many people in the family never had great things to say about Madeline. Always saying things like "all she does is sit in bed and buy lottery tickets" or things along those lines. But I guess death resolves all that.

I guess it's all things I'm going to have to experience someday and then I'll really know what I feel.

I was going to end it there, but I figured I'd say something about Madeline from the short time I knew her.

Madeline was a seemingly senile, hard of hearing old woman who sort of reminded me of Mister Magoo. She could be crabby sometimes, but for some reason I felt most comfortable with her when I went to family gatherings. She never gave me any fake niceness I feel I have to exchange with the other family members. Not that I don't want to be nice, but it's easier to just be neutral.

I heard a lot of stories of Madeline, hearing that she lived a crazy life. I think Doe even said she had tattoos on her chest? I'd rather not think of elderly woman chest, but i think old people with tattoos are cool.

I'm not going to end it with RIP Madeline, because I don't find it proper for some reason.

Holidays, April Accident, Life

Holidays
I haven't been posting as frequently as I used to or would like to. I still like blogging but I find that my free time is wasted doing other things. Mainly other more unproductive activities.

The end of the holidays are upon us! Thanksgiving has passed and Christmas is again around the corner. The pressures of gift giving is forced on me. I don't mind gift giving, it's that I'm awful at getting gifts. Maybe it's because I'm unobservant to want a particular person would enjoy as a gift. My Mother, Doe, Stacey, I have no idea what they'd want.

My Mother always says not to get her anything. I say this to her and we usually don't exchange gifts and I'm fine with this. But she often does something to make it a Christmas gift. She's a hard lady to shop for too because she's so picky about things. If it's not practical than its just taking up space and she'll most likely return it. So if I do get her a gift, I'd like it to be something she uses. Maybe warm clothing?

Doe says I don't need to get her anything but who doesn't say this? The thing is if I was walking through a store I might see something Doe would want. But only if I'm not looking for it, if that makes sense. Basically, I blank when I try to think of things that Doe would want.

It seems like I'm just trying to convince you people that I'm a terrible person/husband.

I still have to think of gifts to give to other people, like Doe's parents, friends? It's too expensive and I think gifts should be given spontaneously! Everyone is forced to buy things for other people because of Christmas. That said, the gifts don't mean as much, do they? If it were spontaneous, I would know I was being thought of.

Maybe I'm unappreciative of gifts comes from when I was young and my parents would tell me to make Christmas list and they said there were only going to get the first thing on the list. Also, I'm not sure if they told me to do this or I felt guilty about it, but I would never ask for anything over $50 dollars. I always wanted video game consoles and stuff like that but I'm pretty sure my parents would do that. Either way, as the Christmas' past with this gifting code, I soon lost interest and I didn't want to make my parents buy me a gift when it seemed so bothersome. So, one year I didn't ask for anything. I even remember making an empty list and putting in my stocking for my parents. When I went down that Christmas morning I found Stacey and Duc unwrapping gifts and things I felt left out I guess. Of course, I did it to myself, but I was still young (I think I was nine or ten?) and still selfish in that way where if someone has something I want something. I remember my parents still got me this odd gift though. It was a guitar. But not like a real guitar, one of those guitars with a bunch of keys on it and you just press them and they make noises. I think this made matter worse. I think I would have been better off with no gift, instead of this gift my parents got to probably make themselves feel better. But then I might be overlooking the "they were thinking about me" aspect and the "me being ungrateful" aspect. Either way, I felt sad about not getting a gift.

The next year though was the same thing from me, but I guess I cared less! So as the years went on Christmas just became another day.

But now as I'm older I do feel obligated to give gifts to people. Seeing as I have the means to. I know it should be out of the good of my heart, but I still feel like it's a task. I do like giving gifts and having people admire my gift! But they won't admire a gift that's shitty. I also don't like fake enthusiam. But maybe it's not fake? Maybe I'm one of those people who gives gifts and says right after "You don't like it do you? We can return it."

April Accident
So! I was in a car accident April 1st this past year. Blah blah blah, it's December and I'm still trying to get shit settled!

Well, it should be all settled now. I've been recieving collection agency notices since October and I've had to call my insurance agent, Lahey Clinic and my health insurance. Talk about annoying. And if you know me, I'm not so good on public speaking. So my conversations with these people are mumbles and a lot of 'Uh, oh!'.

Well, my car insurance agent told me a couple days ago that I shouldn't worry anymore and that she got everything settled. She said I shouldn't have to pay anything and I surely should be dealing with any of this 8 months since the accident.

General Life
Work has been 'good'. Depending how you like your work. I like my work to be semi-busy. Busy enough to make the day fly, but not so busy that I'm stressing over deadlines. Recently it's been the good kind of busy. Where I have shit to do everyday and I do it, and it's done.

We moved into a larger, more professional building. I like it a lot. It makes me feel professional. I just wish I was getting more money now. I'd like to live more comfortably, instead of living paycheck to paycheck!

I started putting money into my 401k too! So I actually am saving money. Doe seems to be doing fine, she always seems to have money to spend. In turn, I always have money to spend. It's unfortunately spent on food. I don't know why myself and others can't just not go out to eat. But there aren't many options.

I believe that our eating habits will change once we get into a house where we all live together. I won't fantisize about it here as I feel like I fantasize about it too much already!

Well, I guess I'm done for now, hopefully things are posted more frequently.

Thanksgiving

It was alright!

Fears and Death

Not fears of death, but fears AND death. Also, I found that my posts nowadays seem to be more rants about whatever then anything else. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

Anyways, I was driving last night to get Doe from her work and I was thinking about brain aneurysms. I recently watched a movie, Son of Ranbow, where this kids father died mowing his lawn because of a brain aneurysm. I remembered a long, long time ago an acquaintance I had in middle school, Justin O'Neil, he died of a brain aneurysm. It's just a random way of dying. Scary to me too. Not because you die, but because of how sudden it is I guess. Basically, I'd like to have closure before I die. I think that's really all I care about in terms of death. I'd like to think that I'm not afraid of it, but my opinions seem to always be changing. Indecisiveness!

Saying 'bye' in some form is something I think I value a lot. I can't describe what is it, but I hate just leaving anyone without saying 'good night' or 'see ya later'. It's an awful feeling to me I guess, even if I'll see them the next day. When I was a kid, I used to get really sad at school and even cry if for some reason I didn't get to say 'bye, love you' to my mom. Not sure why. I want to assume it has something to do with my parents?

I'd like to know the intricacies of my upbringing. Basically nature versus nurture. Am I like I am today because of my family and friends that I surrounded myself growing up? Or genetically was I built like I am? I guess that's one for another day.

So, I figure I'm afraid of dying suddenly. I'd like to write a quick note before being put down. Something like "thanks [names]" and "thanks for nothing [names]".

As lot of people may know and I'm not ashamed to say this, but I'm terribly afraid of the dark. I guess who isn't in some sense. But when I have to walk to my car at night after leaving the Basement I'm afraid of what could be out in the shadows. Just last night when I had to park outside the gates there were times where it was really dark but still enough ambient light that I could make out figures in the darkness. I ALWAYS see a human figure and I stop and kind of wave my hands around in front of me, but of course ,there's nothing there. It doesn't help that it's autumn and there are leaves bouncing across the pavement making it sound like there are people sort of tip-toeing around the driveway.

The danger isn't over even when I get to my car, after seeing numerous 'people' on my walk to my car, I calming but at the same time frantically, pull my keys out of my pocket and as I turn the key to unlock my car doors I'm afraid there will be some horrifying, looking person sitting in my car and staring at me as the interior lights turn on. Obviously, that's never the case.

STILL, even after getting into my car, the danger is not over. I jump into my car, lock the doors and rush to put my keys in the ignition. I hesitate before turning on my headlights fearing the same situation. I don't want to turn on my headlights and see some man or creature staring at me again! Again, that is never the case.

This brings me to the drive home where I try to calm myself before I have to walk into the darkness of my home, where all sorts of shadow creatures could be waiting for me. But the drive home isn't a walk in the park. I try searching the radio waves for some talk show where it's fun and uplifting, but it's always music that doesn't do a thing. Looking in my interior rear view mirror is a risk for me because I fear looking into it and seeing the empty, black eyes of some dead girl sitting in the middle of my back seat. She is never there.

When I get home, I get out of my car, walk to my front door but very wary of what might be sitting in the dark street or the dark woods across the street. I again search for the right keys to unlock my front door calmly but also a bit panicked. When I finally get the door open, I step in and turn on the lights immediately with the same fear that I had when unlocking my car door and turning on my head lights. After the lights are on and the cats have greeted me (making me feel much better) I need to lock the glass door. So I do, but as I do this, I'm always afraid someone/something is going to run in front of the door screeching and scratching at the glass door. But, this never happens.

I walk up my stairs and head for the bathroom. Entering the bathroom I'm afraid of finding a bloody corpse in the bathtub with blood just EVERY where. I'm glad that has never happened. I then decide to brush my teeth and I don't know about anyone else, but I like looking in the mirror when I brush to make sure I'm brushing all the right places. But having three mirrors in my bathroom is a curse! If I'm staring into on mirror I see in the reflection the other mirror. I'm always so afraid of seeing something in the reflection of the other reflection. Anything! A girl, a figure walking out of view at the last minute. It's awful.

When I walk into my room, I hope the TV is on so I can see Doe sleeping in the bed. It usually is, but even then I'm afraid that it's not Doe in the bed and that it's some crazy lady with big, frightening eyes, who jumps up as I approach the bed and she's screaming and her hair is waving the snakes that rest on Medusa's head! Happily, it is just Doe sleeping peacefully to some anime that was left on by Cartoon Network.

That's basically what I go through every night I leave the Basement after midnight. Sometimes even after ten. Ha ha.

What really scares me is what if one day I imagine so hard (unintentionally) that these things happen? That I actually go crazy and through my mind these fears come to life? I hope that never happens, I'd rather be dead. Ha!

Strength and Power

The past week I've started doing the old three sets of twenty before bed. It's mainly because I haven't worked out in three weeks and I don't want to lose all my strength, although it's clear I have. It's also not about look jacked or tough, but so I have maybe someday will have the ability to do a one-handed handstand haha. Segway into Planet B-Boy.

One-handed anything was a common trick down by many of the B-Boys in the documentary I watched last night called Planet B-Boy. I'm sure you can guess what the subject is about. Break Dancers of course! Everyone has their opinion about breaking/b-boying. A lot of people think it's stupid, silly and I guess rediculous looking. I think it's amazing. These guys are atheletes who have amazing physical strength and skills to be able to jump 6 feet in the air just to land on two hands and do some crazy stall into lets say a headspin. The moves they do are very impressive to me. I'm not so much into syncronized dancing, not at all actually. But when there are "B-Boy Battles" I think it's awesome.

More...(spoilers)
The documentary focused on teams all around the world that represented their repective countries and went to compete at the biggest gathering called "Battle of the Year" i think. That's a stupid name, but so is the term b-boy. Anyways, it focused on a two teams from Korea. The Gamblerz 2002's BotY winner, and Last for One. Korea gets two teams because last years winners automatically gets to return to defend their title. France's team was a name that I can't remember. I didn't like the France team, more on that later. America had Knucklehead Zoo, I didn't like them either, but their name is so stupid I remembered it. More on this later. Japan had a team called.. Ichigaki? Not sure, it was something weird. There were teams all over the world who competed, but these teams were chosen to focus on.

Japan's team was awesome. They were all very happy and very expressive in their breaking. But the same goes for the Korean team, Last for One, who was my favorite out of all the teams. They seemed very innocent and not focused on winning, but just with dancing. One Korean who looked very young said "I'm not dancing to make money, I want to make money to dance."
I thought that was awesome for someone to be so passionate about something that is really looked down upon in Korea. Now don't go saying, "Well, drug dealers are passionate about drug dealing." or "I'm passionate about getting drunk." Of course I have a certain moral bias towards one thing or another. Also, I'm not sure you can be truly passionate about drugs or alchohol because I feel like those things aren't really as respectable. I mean like, it takes a b-boy years to be able to do some of the things he does, while I could just go out and get drunk and it'd be easy? I'm not making sense and I'm just arguing with myself.

The American and France team were the once dancing for the wrong reasons. Wrong being subjective. But the reason they wanted to win was to basically TO win. Now, I guess going into any competition, you want to win. I want to win. But, the days before the competition, the France and US team were hostile towards each other. Not physically and not even verbally because they didn't speak the same language. But they didn't want to be in the same room and they shot glares at each other. One person from the US team said "The French think they're just as badass as we are.". And you could tell, the US had that self imposed "We're the best." and the French had the same attitude, even though they were bashing Americans for that attitude.

Either way, in the end, it came down to Korea (Gamblerz) vs France for third (Korea won, I was glad because the French didn't deserve it) and Korea (Last for One) vs Japan. Last for One took the win for first and I was glad because I favored them. The documentary was good in my opinion and I'd definitely watch it again.


I'm still keeping my eyes wide open for Bang the Machine though.

Back to my original thoughts. I first got into martial arts a long, long time ago because I wanted to be able to fight I guess. I soon realized I was fairly weak but I felt my technique was good. Year later, we started just started training in Lane's Basement. After a while, DH and CP started lifting in his Basement too and somehow we just all decided lifting. I remember saying, "I'll lift for a while to build strength then go back to boxing/kickboxing." and I guess I never really went back. But I'd like to. I enjoy fighting so much more then I do lifting. I do like lifting though. I liked seeing my progess as each week went by and being able to lift more and more. I didn't see much difference in my physical appearance to be honest. Notable my chest. But then I always liked it because if I'm getting stronger, but I still look scrawny, people will underestimate me. But maybe I still look scrawny because I am weak and scrawny? It's weird I a lot of my motivation for physical improvement was fighting someone, even though in my entire life I've never been in a fight. I'm due for one sooner or later.

Some things that sort of turned me off to MMA was the wrestlers at the old gym and UFC. The wrestlers at the gym were assholes. They loved to drink, beat people up (usually undeserving if I heard right) and wrestle I guess. They would act intimidating to new comers to the gym, probably so they knew their place. They just radiated with an "I'm better than you" aura. I don't know, I didn't appreciate it. They were never assholes to me actually. The instructor was sort of the wise cracking tough guy who gave you a hard time in means of teaching you. He was the only wrestler I liked I guess, maybe because he was teacher. Actually, one thing he taught me that I still take with me to this day is keeping my head up when I do push ups. It was after a kickboxing class, and I was doing push ups and he yelled sternly at me three times "Head up, head up, head up!" I didn't know he was talking to me, but when I did realize and I did put my head up while doing push ups he said "Don't be lazy.". So whenever I do push ups, I remember to put my chest to the ground (not resting) and keep my head lookign straight forwards and not towards the ground.

UFC! UFC is flooded with all these idiots who wear UFC/Tapout merch and just thing they're awesome. BASICALLY, the wrestlers from the gym except they only want to learn MMA because it's the cool thing to do.

Anyways, I've been doing the quick three sets of twenty the past week during the night and I'm moving up in sets each night because I've found I've gotten pretty out of shape. Ah well!

Thanksgiving next Thursday. Wish I was being lazy that day, but sometimes it's more work than an actual work day aha. I suppose that's how I feel about most, if not all, family gathering oriented holidays.

I think I need to do some Christmas shopping. Blerg.

Politics, People, Whatever!

Politics
Hey, I know the election was last Tuesday and most of the hype is over a week later, but I guess I'd still like to get my ranting about it over with.

Barrack Obama is a black man and he is now our president. I've heard a lot of people disappointed about it and I've heard a lot of people happy about it. If you asked me what I thought I'd say I don't care. A lot of people asked if I voted and also gave me a disappointed toned 'Tom!'. But I brushed it off.

I figure I should care about the direction my country is going in, but there were a lot of things turning me off about voting. To start, I have no real way of trusting any information I get about either candidate. I can't watch television because it's either conservative or it's either liberal. I can't talk to anyone about it because they are also either one or the other. In terms of talking to a person, it's fine about whatever they think. They can be the most righteous whatever they want to be, I won't stop them or make judge them. But for some reason I can't fully devote myself towards one side of most things. I think it's usually based on ignorance on my part. But I don't think I could rightfully support one candidate or the other because I don't know these two people. They're just talking heads who I'll never meet, never really know and I'll never soundly make a decision about which is the better candidate. But I guess it's like my high school math teacher said to my class "You're voting for the lesser evil." but that was said in 2004 when it was Bush v Kerry and I don't really think the majority liked either.

I also can't help but feel that politics and voting has become some sort of terrible trend. I'm looking around at Facebook or Myspace and I just see status updates and bulletins stating "Just got back from voting :) Go [[Candidate]]!", "[[Political Party]] [[Insult]]".

Now, I don't know if voting has always been this trendy with people my age but the difference is there hasn't been a places like Myspace or Facebook for them to show off their trendy-ness, but thinking back to 2004, I didn't think it was this popular amongst people 18-21. Maybe it's a good thing, maybe it isn't, I don't really know. What I do know is you have ignorant young adults voting for this guy to be president and I can guarentee they don't know anything about him/her. These people are just looking for something new to be a part of. But I'm being pretty dramatic about, obviously.

Being a part of something isn't a bad thing. That's not what I'm saying. Who doesn't like being part of a group that share the same views as you and you can feel like you're really a part of thing! Anyways, I guess for stupid reasons I'm annoyed at people saying "Go Obama" or "Go McCain". What really is annoying though is the slander or gloating. One kid (not sure why he's my 'friend' on facebook) said in all caps, but I'll spare you that "Yea go obama it's awesome being on the winning team, go Obama/Biden" and later he said "Annoy a conservative, think for yourself". Correct me if I'm wrong (and I very well could be because my knowledge of politics is very weak) but aren't conservatives the ones who believe in personal responsiblity? I really don't know and I could just search it in google and maybe I will, but I'll let someone else correct me.

People/Whatever
I think I misjudged Bernie Mac. In the morning the Bernie Mac show is on and where I did hate him before (hate being an exaggeration) and I really didn't care for his show or his humor I found that I actually find his show pretty entertaining. Sometimes I laugh! I still don't think I appreciate his stand up, I don't actually think I like many black humored stand up. It's all too black for me. Not being racist, but if you've heard one black comedian I feel like you've heard them all. Sorry, young, Eddie Murphy. RIP Bernie Mac I apologize for not caring about you dying.

Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming around the corner and they're coming fast. Call me lame, but I pretty sure I'm too lazy to do anything anymore. Well that's not true, I'll still do holiday themed parties/get togethers. I guess I'm too lazy to do anything with family. I don't like feeling like I have to act a certain way and I certainly don't enjoy eating at a table formally. Oh well!

Brian Babino started a joint blog (like the Fighter's Dream! except not about Street Fighter) with an Evan. Evan? Apparently, Evan is was a junior when we were sophmores in high school. I don't remember many of the sophmores. Whatever, the url has his name in it. http://ata.evanscandalous.org Their posts can't be more pointless than my own. They could be.
I'm feel very tired.

Late Night

This weekend was pretty good despite the lack of moving that happened, but to me it was awesome.

Saturday I sat on my bed, played Street Fighter a bit and watched a lot of 30 Rock. Also, during these activities my cats would be sleeping on my lap and I can't tell anyone how much I enjoy it. It's also very warm. Even now Noa and Konrad are on my lap sleeping. Konrad is purring and he randomly sprawls out and stretches during his sleep putting his paws on my stomach and pushing. It's nice. Bradley, unfortunately, sleeps separate from me and the younger ones. I'd like to say it's because of jealousy, but I'd fear that's crazy cat lady talk. He does still randomly curl up on my lap when the other two are around and he'll nap for a bit, but that's very rare. More often he'll curl up with Konrad which is always a cute sight.

Saturday night after five Doe came home and we hung out for a bit and had dinner. I dropped her off at the train station and she went off into Boston to hang out with her friend for the night and some of Sunday. I went to The Basement and played more Street Fighter and watched more 30 Rock. Repeat that until five and that was my night. I woke up, played more Street Fighter and got Doe from the train station and ate with her again. We went home, watched more 30 Rock, getting her caught up to where I am, then we watched King of Kong, watched more 30 Rock then I played a bit more Street Fighter. That brings us up to here, where I blog with Cats sleeping on me.

Anyways, I can't saw how much I enjoy 30 Rock. So I'm not going to try.

Street Fighter was as fun and frustrating as always. I'm more conscious of my yelling but nothing prevents my from getting mad yet.

I don't know why I think about this, but some people may say I had a boring, life wasted weekend. I debate I think about this because I think this or because I think other people think it about me, which I'm 100% positive there are. I'm not really feeling that I wasted another weekend or that I'm in any sort of denial. To me it was a fun weekend with friends and activities that I find really fun and worthy of my time. I didn't run a decathlon, go skydiving or discover new lands, but who's to say I really want to? well, I guess I wouldn't mind traveling, but the point is I value the time I spent in the activities I participated in. Some consider it embarrassing but that's because they have different views then myself. Obviously. I don't know why I think about other people's opinions so much. I guess it's because I feel like people are looking down at me. No one likes that feeling. I just don't like people looking down at me for doing things I like. Now, I know I'm being a hypocrite again. I know I sometimes look down at people for enjoying things they like. But I've never looked this far into it until now and I've never looked this far into my activities until now. (well I probably have, but never have really thought about it).

Lets take drinking as an example. I do look down at people who drink. But not all people. It's mainly people I dislike. I have plenty of friend's who drink and I could careless that they drink. I feel like I'm not explaining this right and I'm going to stop trying because I can't think of how to salvage it. But I'll leave the broken though here for those who might understand.

Basically I understand there are opinions about what people should do in life to make it all seem worth while. I just want to do what I feel is worth while to me without feeling like people are looking at me like I'm some sort of idiot or loser. Taking King of Kong, for instance, you have Steve Wiebe(wee-bee) who plays Donkey Kong breaking world records and investing countless hours into an arcade game. There are people out in the world who think he's a guy who just lost countless hours of his life to that machine, but then there are people like me who admire him and wish I was in that sort of position where I'm recognized for something like that in the gaming community. Specifically, Street Fighter, not so much Donkey Kong. I actually never cared for that game and still don't even after the documentary.

I'm not sure why I like Street Fighter so much, but something about it has me thinking about it more then I should think about it and it has me coming back to play it everyday.

I guess in the end I need to stop worry about the opinions of others as they are ultimately useless to me and in the big picture. I should just try to enjoy the choices I make, the time I spend, the music I listen to or whatever and just ignore any hateful or negative insight that comes my way.

It's probably better if everyone minded their own business and did what they thought was right. Except murder, because I think it's generally agreed that cold-blooded murder is a wastes of time, socially unacceptable and usually crazy. But, there is no absolute answer to that REALLY being bad.

There's just so many ways to look at everything that I don't know why everyone isn't as indecisive or indifferent as I feel I am. But I guess I'm not really that indifferent to somethings, but I really do wish I was indifferent about everything. I'd seem more open-minded and generally annoying to talk to, either being neither too good or too bad.

I could stream of consciousness all night so I'll stop it here.

Also: Street Fighter blog here I started so for anyone who doesn't care to read it doesn't have it. I want to have multiple authors on that blog, so tell me your e-mail address and I'll put you on the authors list!

Yadda Yadda

November 4Th is right around the corner! A new president will be elected and I guess we'll see where it goes from there.

Right now it looks like Barrack Obama is going to be President, at least that's what it seems like to me. A person who doesn't really follow the debates and issues like a 'good' American should. But then, I don't really care.

I hear a lot of people (usually older people) saying I should vote and that I'd make a difference even though I'm one person. A woman at my work tells me I can't complain about what happens if I don't vote. I sort of think it's a silly comment because technically I can always complain about anything. Either way, whoever becomes president is useless to me anyways. I don't think anything is going to happen that will directly affect me. That sure is an ignorant thing to say, but whatever decisions happen in the White House won't really change my life all that radically. If something does happen I'm sure I'll get through it or die trying.

The harder people push politics on me and the harder they push me to vote, the more I don't want to be involved. I just feel there are so many people yelling at each other and arguing about their political views. I don't care that they're arguing and trying to get their opinion heard, but it's the fact that they're not changing any one's mind. They're not going to make a die-hard Republican into a Democrat and vice-versa. I guess they are yelling and screaming to try and sway independents and undecided people like myself towards their end, but I'd rather not have a part of it.

I'd also have to say it's due to radicals. I can't stand radicals. Obviously, I'm a radical about somethings and I'm sure I'm just as annoying. But people who love being a Republican so much that they can't even think about talking to someone who is a Democrat is so annoying. There are some people at work who can't talk to each other around this time because of the debates and stuff.

I feel it's like religion, well I guess any debate. I hate people who are overly religious and I hate people who are overly against it.

Well, I'm going to stop writing about things because I find I just repeat myself over and over in different ways.
The bottom line is:
I like being generally indifferent and neutral about whatever is happening.


Halloween is this Friday. So far I'm planning on going to walk with Doe, her father and sister going trick or treating. Doe has work Saturday morning as usually and it wouldn't be a good idea for her to be staying up and out too late I guess.

I'm sure most people will be going to Salem, MA. Have fun. I'm not really a fan I guess. I do like seeing people in costumes, but that's really only fun after an hour. It's generally cold and is that all there is to do? Walk around and look at costumes? Of course there's visiting the Salem stores and browsing but never actually buying.

I think having a Halloween party would be fun though. Food, music, costumes and maybe some mingling. Next year if the plans on moving to a cool house/apartment takes off, a Halloween party is something I'd like to pursue. I think it's because I've never been to one is my main motivation. I wouldn't know if the housemates would be for this event but I wouldn't know why they'd be against it.

I watched Office Bloopers (odd because I've never really watched The Office) and I really wish I was an actor sometimes because of bloopers. I unfortunately don't have the looks or charisma one usually needs though. I get too nervous. Also, I know people tell me I don't. But I can't get past this lisp I have when I hear my voice played back to me. But anyways, bloopers are always fun for me and no matter what show or movie I'll always watch them and laugh. Even High School Musical. Maybe.

Also, Doe and I got Netflix last night and thanks to Ryan we have month free! But so far I like the selection of movies and I'll be able to catch up on those 'trendy' shows I feel like I hear everyone talking a bout (The Office, 30 Rock, Arrested Development, Flight of the Concords, Curb Your Enthusiasm, maybe even Heroes). Recommendations are welcomed.

Media

Movies
Just reading Geekologie and I Watch Stuff and I see an article "Matthew Perry is 17... Again!" so I clicked it and watched the trailer.

Like they basically say in the article, age-changing movies are stupid. It's a bad premise and I feel like there's never a believable, good explanation as to where the 'grown up' or 'child' version of themselves have gone. I wonder what Matthew Perry's story will be. If you didn't watch the trailer, Matthew Perry is going through the normal stuff that happens right before you turn back into a kid. Marriage/Family life is going down the tube, thinking about how you would have done things different, half-heartedly saying you wish you could do it all over again, getting sucked into a swirling vortex that transforms you into a child, the usual stuff.

Oh, Big! Big was a good movie.

I like Matthew Perry and I don't care who knows it! I think he's funny. So I assume he'd have a bigger part in this shitty movie. You know who plays Young Matthew Perry? That faggot, Zac Efron, from High School Music.

1. There's no way Matt Perry looked that good when he was kid.
2. He looked more like this:

I don't know Zac Efron, I don't know the quality of his work. What I do know, is he's in a movie called High School Musical. That has to be bad. That has to be bad.

I watched Knocked Up with Doe a couple days ago. It might be because I was working and not really watching the movie, but I was not impressed. It might also be because of other factors that I'm sure many are aware of, but I laughed a couple of times but for the most part it was just a movie. I wouldn't say I hated it, but you know. I have no interest in seeing Forgetting Sarah Marshall for the same reasons. I did like Paul Rudd (He makes me want to see role models) and for some reason Jonah Hill is funny for some reason even though he seems like he'd be an a-hole in person. I think it's because he just talks about penises and other inappropriate things and it makes me laugh. The same way Natty laughs when I talk about dicks and other shit. We're so gay.

Speaking of gay, I got Fable II a couple nights ago and I'm having a blast. If you liked the first Fable, you'll definitely love this one. The game play is generally the same, some changes, the whole game is generally the same as the first but with upgrades.

More in Fable II

• They have a more dynamic moral system (Good & Evil, Pure & Corrupt)


• You get money from working as a job rather then doing quests like in the first game(Bartender, Blacksmith, Woodcutter, Assassin,Bounty Hunter and 'Civilian Displacement Agent' which means slave trader)


• The world is Ten times the size of the world in Fable (so they say) and they have a saying "If you can see, you can explore it". For the most part this is true, but you can't expect everything

Moral
I'm still very not too deep into the game, but so far the decisions I chose to make have kept me neutral in terms of Good and Evil. I've helped out people I felt needed help and they were worthy in my eyes of deserving help, and I've killed people who I felt shouldn't have been doing what they were doing. Unintentionally, I'm neutral. I always like playing these kind of games like how I would react in real life to see how the game judges me.

In terms of corrupt and pure, I'm more pure then corrupt. I believe it's because I got married and I sleep in my home with my video game wife (I got married early in Fable II just like in RL!) and people in the city view that as good, who wouldn't. I own four homes and a various vendor stands. Three homes I rent out and the vendor stands all have their respective employee (each an individual identity), but I manage the prices. I could raise the rent or raise prices on either of these places but I would be seen as corrupt, lowering would make me seem more pure. That's not stopping me though, I just haven't felt the need to raise or lower prices yet. But I might raise prices because some stands make as little as 10 gold a sale, which others are making me 73. I'm going to have to fire someone. I don't know if it'd be firing them, or killing them.

Work
Not only am I making money from rent and my vendor stands, I took work as a blacksmith! I realize my adventure seems really mundane compared to what else I could be doing, fighting mythical beasts, using magic powers (I have time control and lightning powers at the moment), exploring the land, but I am having fun trying to make money and buy out this city. I wish it was this easy to make money in real life. I also wish I had time control powers and lightning powers in real life.

Even when I'm not playing, every five minutes I'm collecting income from tenants. Not sure if it works the same for my stands.

Story/The World
I can't say much about the story because I haven't been through much of it. What I have been through has been just as interesting as the first game. I'm glad the game is co-op but I haven't played my game much with a friend and if you know me, you know how much I hate exploring areas alone especially when ghosts do exist in this game. Also, if you remember Demon Doors, they still scare the shit out of them when I'm just walking down a path and all of a sudden a face bursts out of a wall screaming some cryptic message about whatever it wants. Also, I don't look forward to fighting Balverines.

There's more for me to find out about the awesome adventure of a game and in time I'll write more about it.

I should also add, people who are particularly keen on video games, but love a good story and whatever would like this game too since it isn't hard to play. pressing X is your only melee attack, Y is your only long ranged attack and B is your only magic attack. So you'll be hitting one button in combat more often then not. It's still fun for some reason though, especially with cool slow motion death scenes sometimes.


Music
So off of a friends myspace I heard this band Ratatat. I don't know if anyone has heard of them. I know I haven't and I find that a lot of times I find out about bands sort of late in the game. Anyways, these guys are sort of techno, hip-hop. Their songs vary a lot, but I really enjoy the synth. Their music reminds me of The Postal Service except there is rarely a singer. I'm liking it more because it doesn't have any vocals. When there are vocals it's usually someone different from the last time.

It's also incredibly soothing and something really good to listen to when doing work. When it's good for me. I imagine I'd like driving to it.

Thanks friend, for letting me hear this.

Some songs by them Brulee, Cherry and Lapland is where it's at.

Misc
When I think about moving out I think about getting a nice TV for our living room. Nothing like a movie screen, but a good size screen. I find a lot of them on Woot and they're really cheap. I think I saw a some LCD screen for 129.99. That's not bad to me.

Well I'm ending another media post.

That's Money

10am at work. I'm terribly tired and listening to the FIGHTER'S DREAM playlist that everyone contributed to on Saturday night.

The past weekend was a lot of fun for me personally.
Starting on Friday
I got out of work around the time of 5:30. Doe and I went directly to The Basement I think where we found Ryan in some sort of terrible sleepy/awake limbo. When we got down there the lights and TV were on and Ryan was sort of diagonal postion (in between laying down and sitting but not really doing either) and he had a blanket over his bottom half.

When Doe and I made our way into the room, Ryan looked over with heavy eyes and gave us smile. I believe Doe and I gave him a pat on the head. Ryan let us know that Emily was on her way and I was surprised she was home and excited because I hadn't seen or talked to her in a while. CP woke up from his sleep in the movie room and hung out with Ryan, Doe and I but I could tell he was still sleepy. We probably waited probably half an hour until Emily came, but I think we left immediately to get some foods. Panera specifically. I was a texting fiend!

I was texting Lane, Jim and Lina about whatever. Well Lane and Jim I was trying to figure out where they were at so they could join us in this party, but I wasn't having any luck. And Lina is a small, asian girl friend of mine who works at the mall and Doe was interesting in buying boots. 'Sloucy boots' to be exact. I laughed when Lina said "we've got ugg and boots but not so slouchy". I think only I find that funny, I'm sure. Another text I found funny was from Jim later in the night when he said "Shut the fuck up. Everytime you talk i get embarrassed." But if I told that text to someone they'd laugh, but only because Jim said fuck.

Anyways, we got to Panera and it was awesome. I enjoy soup and a small sandwhich with red onions in it. We just ate and talked about whatever. CP had some notably funny comments in Panera. After we all ordered, Doe was telling CP we got a bowl of soup and half a sandwhich for however much it was and CP said he got a whole sandwhich and he wish he was getting what we were getting. Doe said he should have looked at the menu a bit more and CP exclaimed "How am I suppose to know, they're ain't no pictures!" But he said pictures like "pic-chas" I laughed because i was true and sometimes I feel like I'm not snobby enough to really eat at Panera.

I should also note Natty was with us and had only gotten 3 hours of sleep and he was very quiet and sleepy. He told me the next day he was trying not to be grumpy. He wasn't grumpy at all and I found it interesting he was trying not to be grumpy which is hard to do after so little sleep.

After Panera, we drove down mall road to the mall to just walk around and check out whatever. The parking wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be on a Friday night, also the mall rat count wasn't very high in my eyes. Maybe it's the mall cops on their stupid Segways but I doubt it.

Natty decided to stay in Ryan's car to sleep while we hung out at the mall. It was cold out so I wonder how he did with that.

We did mall shit, walking around looking at stores. Notably, I went to Journey's with Ryan and CP and visted Lina who was just standing in Journey's working as hard as a mall employee does. It reminded me of when I worked at Spencer's. I just stood at the entrance and said hello to assholes all day then occasionally did stupid work, like climbing ladders and putting stuff in stupid places. Anyways, I talked to her for a while and coincidentally ran into another friend I knew, Ashley. Not any Ashley any of my close friends would know of. But I met her through working at the mall. Aqaintences more than friends I guess. After the pleasant visit with Lina, Ryan, CP and I ran over to delia's where Emily and Doe were. The workers at Delia's greeted three guys with a bunch of sarcasm, as expected I guess, asking if we wanted to try something [inaudible]. I just told them I was looking for two girls, then asked if anyone of them was the girls I was looking for. I was met with awkward glances and maybe some giggles. I saw Emily and Doe in the corner trying on stuff. I got some change from Ryan to buy an Airhead (Delia's sells candy!) and CP was trying really hard to push Canadian change on me and Ryan. I felt dishonest doing it and Ryan almost did it but he didn't do it either.

Whatever, the mall sucks!

We went home, I dropped off Doe and got my PS3 controller. It was half an hour since Jim texted back asking where everyone was, he was kayaking with his mama. I think, I realized now how I could be wrong. Oh well. Either way, he was at the basement alone! But we got back to him and we all hung out doing whatever! Clark and Lane came shortly after and it was grand time. Just hanging, street fighter and doing whatever.

I'm having a hard time seperating Friday and Saturday night. I know Pat was with us as well as Mac, but I don't remember who was where when. Oh I think, Pat was with us Friday night because we went to ihop that night. Mac came Saturday night and we went to CVS.

Sunday Night I went to ihop with Doe, Lane and Jim and we all talked about moving out and I'm very exciting for this to happen. I wish it could be sooner to be honest.

I called in yesterday because the morning wasn't a good time for me. I worked from home.

Well I'm tired of writing and I'm sure you're tired of reading.

I personally wouldn't read this because of how stupidly written it is. It's all filler for nothing! Plus most of the people who do read this know what I did on what night HA!

Work
Real quickly. This has to do with this client I have who is a moron and I can't believe how dense he is. He is a canadian and I've been working with him for two years and he still doesn't get anything we're doing.

Now I'm going to paste his e-mail to me, but I should have you know that I just sent him a report of activity that went through his site and I've been sending him this same report for two years.

He writes:

Thanks Tom



What does files uploaded mean? Everyone has 0 uploaded files.



What do proofs mean? Is a proof an actual completed flyer that might have been downloaded and used?

These questions seem pretty harmless, but only if you're new and not after it's the 100th time I've sent you the same report. I'm not sure why he decided he'd ask so late in the game. I responded with all the facts that he should know, but I was very annoyed.

uhhhh yah.

Also, Lauren posted about me rarely posting! I feel like I post too much. I post many times over the course of the week. I do not post on the weekend unless I have the 'time'.

If it wasn't for the terrible free time (shhh) at work I have I would probably never blog. When I would blog it would be about things a bit more intimate I would image.

Chipper

I'm in a good mood so far today. I've been pretty productive at work and it's about my lunch break.

I'm pretty alert and awake, I say it's because I've been listening to Polysics and Hit the Lights and they just have me dancing or singing quietly at my desk. Which is possible because I have this office to myself at the moment. Hope no one walks in.

I've been drinking a lot of water again. It's more of something to do now. Like I finish a document and I take a sip of water, so it's always disappointing when I go to take a sip but my cup is empty. The problem with it being more of a habit then thirst is I find myself going to the bathroom easily twice every fifteen minutes. I fear Pam will think I have a UTI or diarrhea.

I don't know if anyone caught the Geekologie article:


A guy I knew of as Dustball when I used to lurk Newgrounds.com a lot started coming out with these literal music videos. They're pretty funny, personally I like the literal Take On Me better but I think it's just a better song too.

So if you watch the Head Over Heels video like I did you might notice that it's a terrible music video. I've never heard of the song before and I'm not surprised with how stupid the singer looks and how absurd the music video was. I feel like they were trying really hard. I'm not sure what they were trying to do, but they were trying to do it hard. I'm aware that A-HA's music video features a handsome man and a woman in a diner who have adventures in comic book, but it was a catchy song and a very unique video in my opinion!

This next subject may not be desired more so then other subjects I talk about. I think it's because I think and talk about it so much.

Continue Reading...
Street Fighter Babble
Damdai, the administrator and creator of 2DF recently added something he called a skill Growth chart. Every week there is a rating period and the site calculates your wins and your loses and then it calculates the current rating of your opponent. At least I assume this is how it works. For example, a guy who is rated 1200 beats me how is rated 1500, he gets a substantial rating boost because of how much lower he is rated. I'm sure you get it.

I think it's a really neat feature Damdai put in and it's pretty accurate. Everyone starts out with a rating of 1500 until they start playing. My rating is around 1555 right now which I suppose I would call average. I believe I am an average player and everyone who above average is well about me in rank and rating. Some of the best fighters are almost hitting 1900! CP is around 1700. He says a lot he shouldn't be ranked (probably rated) as well as he is, but Natty and I said he always says that and it's not true. He's good at Street Fighter and he uses Ken who apparently isn't top-tier, which I believe because of certain aspects that Ryu and Akuma have that Ken doesn't have. A lot of the tactics I've developed with Gen have probably spawned from watching/playing CP and him giving me useful advice. He says I should really get my anti-air down, which is very true because after my recent skill development I use it very rarely as a defensive measure and almost entirely as an offensive tool. After playing another Gen who caught me in it so many times I realized I need to start using it how CP advised. The reason I didn't is because my play style turned into a lot of pokes from Crane stance which as some may know doesn't have my AA move, and it's difficult to switch stances that quickly and execute the move in time. But I'm going to try to work on that and hopefully see my Skill Growth go up!

It's really terrible how much I think about Street Fighter and how serious I take it, but it's a gross amount of fun for me. I don't see how it's any different from other hobbies though that people would look down on me for loving it so much. I could go through so many hobbies that are stupid in my eyes, but I'm sure the people who do it love it. Also, my hobby is virtually free. The only costs are controllers I want to buy and the occasional frustration and rage I experience!

I should learn sportsmanship.


That's the end of that.

MGMT, Religion/Mythology

MGMT
Been listening to a lot of MGMT. I wonder when I'll grow tired of them like I know will happen, but I'm thoroughly enjoying them right now.
I was listening to the song that apparently made them famous over in the UK "Time To Pretend" which I think is also CP's favorite song by them. Anyways, I really liked the following lines a lot.

I'll miss the playgrounds and the animals and digging up worms.
I'll miss the comfort of my mother and the weight of the world.
I'll miss my sister, miss my father, miss my dog and my home.
Yeah I'll miss the boredom and the freedom and the time spent alone.

This song, to me, touches on growing up and leaving the security of childhood. Also realizing this song too has something to do with children/youth. My interpretation of the song might be completely wrong, but I guess there might not be a wrong answer towards interpretation. Either way, if you read the rest of the lyrics there's other lyrics about living a fast life and basically being reckless and crazy. It made me imagine those guys from the 80's who had their leisure suits on with the sleeves rolled up and they just did drugs and had a bunch of sex with whoever. I felt like the song was saying they were pretending to be happy. But who knows.

Religion/Mythology
The main bulk of this post was to be towards Religion and Mythology. It's not going to be about "Religion sucks" blah blah blah, but you'll find out.

To get started, like I mentioned before, I watched The Forbidden Kingdom with Jet Li and Jackie Chan in it and it was about The Monkey King and The Eight Immortals. I did a bit of research on The Monkey King and I found his history to be really interesting and awesome. Basically he was determined and ambitious. He wasn't born with immortality like most of the Gods but he gained it by "battling heaven and earth"

I believe he was initially 'evil' or perhaps just a rowdy ape with a terrible amount of power. There are stories of him causing trouble in the Heavenly Kingdom, where I believe the Gods lived. The Jade Emperor thought giving Wukong a title and job would help keep him in line but they gave him a shitty job (wiki says "head of the Heavenly Stables to watch over horses). Sun Wukong realized what they were doing so he rebelled and proclaimed himself "Great Sage, Equal of Heaven".

After Wukong did that and allied with demons on Earth the Jade Emperor appealed to Buddha, same Buddha who put Raijin and Fujin in their place? Buddha challenged Wukong in a bet...

"The Buddha made a bet with Wukong that he could not escape from his palm. Wukong, knowing that he could cover 108,000 li(54,000 km) in one leap, smugly agreed. He took a great leap and then flew to the end of the world in seconds. Nothing was visible except for five pillars, and Wukong surmised that he had reached the ends of Heaven. To prove his trail, he marked the pillars. Afterwards, he leaped back and landed in Buddha's palm. There, he was surprised to find that the five "pillars" he had found were in fact the five fingers of the Buddha's hand. When Wukong tried to escape, Buddha turned his hand into a mountain. Before Wukong could shrug it off, Buddha sealed him there using a strip of paper with the mantra Om Mani Padme Hum written thereon in gold letters, and Wukong remained imprisoned for five centuries."

He was later released from imprisonment because Guan Yin (a Taoist Immortal) was searching for disciples to protect a pilgrim who needed to travel to India to retreive Buddhist Sutras. This was the Journey to the West, which I believe Lane has in graphic novel form and I'd like to borrow it!

That took a lot longer to explain then I thought.

As a lot of you might know, I'm not religious. I don't know much about it. People who do, I have a question. Does Christianity have epic tales of hero's and demons? It's a legitimate question. The only real tales I know of are Noah's Arc, Jesus' crucifixion (of you want to include that), The Moses Adventures! (Leading slaves through the Red Sea and the Ten Commandments), all of these to me are not 'cool' or epic (that's what we say, right?). Maybe it's because the way I was raised and maybe I need war and violence for something to be awesome, but I feel like there are much better religion/mythology then Christianity in terms of stories, not religious ideals and whatnot. Also, have we classified Greek/Roman/Japanese/Chinese/etc. religion as mythology or has it always been mythology? Could I attempt to saying Christianity is simply mythology as well? I'm not sure what the requirements for mythology are.

I suppose I'm full of questions. Also, found some pretty cool pictures.

Well I found one cool picture. This second one is spooky!

Look Up and Follow The Stars!

This day will probably be one of those days where in the middle of work I'll randomly open up Notepad and blog about whatever I'm thinking about.

I'm sure my blogging is heavily influenced by the music I listen to. Last time I had a flurry of I believe I was listening to Ben Folds a bunch. Now it's The Management's (MGMT) songs "The Youth" and "Kids". Until I put them next to each other I didn't realize they had a common theme.

Either way, they're both really good songs in my opinion and they make me feel sort of nostalgic about nothing in particular and also maybe enlightened. But of course, I'm not sure what it feels like to be enlightened. I'd imagine it felt something like this? Who knows.

I feel very productive today too because there are clients that need help and I have tasks I need to get done. I am getting them done too so in between I find time to type a couple sentences about whatever is going through my mind.

I'm pretty excited to each lunch. Doe and I have been buying these cheap meals from Market Basket. They're a dollar a box and they're usually filled with vegetables. It makes me feel healthy I guess just eating vegetables. I think they're pretty high in sodium, but my mom said I'd live. I'd like to start eating better, and I think I have. Last week due to money shortage I primarily ate soup for lunch - well now that I recall, due to money shortage I also went to KFC a lot for cheap meals. Either way, for the most part I'm doing all right. I think I'll be trying to stick to water again. Last night I did have a dream where I was drinking Pepsi. I wasn't upset about it, but I remember drinking the last drops and hiding the bottle away from anyone who might see me drinking it.

Soda has a firm grasp around my mouth and mind. There's something about the carbonation and taste that I really enjoy. But I'm going to stop again. Not because I want to lose weight (it honestly didn't do anything for me) but because the stomach pains and constant throat gas (I can't burp) was really harsh and not worth the taste. I also know it's not the carbonation that gives me these issues because it happens when I drink fruit punch and iced tea as well. Pure water is the way to go.

I really want a new video camera/camcorder. One that will work on Vista. I've probably written this before, but that's the only thing stopping me from making more videos. I no longer care to use my old computer and because of this I can't get my laptop to recognize my outdated camera. Someday it'll happen though.

This just in:
A developer just walked into my office with Ginny the accountant. I forgot his name already, I want to say Peter. Either way, looks like a nice average guy who quite possibly experiments with drugs or some sort of substance abuse. I'm not saying he looks creepy or anything, but he had this look. Sort of wide-eyed and alert. He looks like a nice guy but when I went to shake his hand it was damp, soft and a bit cold. I'm sure he didn't think my hand was pleasant either, it being dry, callused, and a little warm. He also grabbed my hand in a sideways manner, in a way I couldn't fully apply my full gripping strength. He didn't grip very hard and I felt like he had the advantage in hand positioning anyways. It was a terrible hand shake and I hope he doesn't think I'm a homo for it, since I think he's sort of a homo about it.

I hope to god no coworkers ever read this.

I'm pretty curious to know who actually reads this, if anyone, outside of my circle of friends.

If you do, let it be known. Maybe it'll inspire me to write about things with relevance.

Mostly Media

Good morning.

It's Tuesday but I guess because of Columbus Day, it's kinda like Monday.

So the weekend was basically really eventful and I'm glad it happened. I look forward to visiting up there again in the future, especially if Doe were to come up. I felt bad that she couldn't and it might be hard getting her up there since she works on Saturdays. But that will work itself out.

So yesterday I went to Burlington with Ryan and Doe to a bookstore but it happens they are closed every Monday. I decided since we were in Burlington we'd check out the Spirit store across the mall. I didn't exactly know where it was but I remember someone said it was across the mall. Ryan helped out by saying maybe it's in the Tower Record building and that made sense to me. So we went there and it turns out the Tower Record building is some sort of make-up store. I drove out of the parking lot and proceeded to drive around the mall until I found out where the store was. But when we passed the Newbury Comics/Tower Record lot again we found the Spirit store was where this old sports store was a while back. I had to drive around in circles to get back to it.

After getting into the store I found everything was as over-priced and sort of lame as I remembered. Masks, costumes, wigs and whatever little gadgets you could find littered the ground like I remembered from working at Spencer's. I started to wonder if the people who worked here had to recover the store at the end of the night, but I feel like they didn't just because it didn't look like it. I wouldn't want to recover if it was just going to get destroyed again and it seemed like people managed just fine by digging through a pile of masks on the ground. I just walked around, sometimes with Doe, sometimes with Ryan and sometimes with both. I was looking for ideas for what I'd like to be for Halloween because I felt like doing something this year. I still don't think I will because I couldn't find anything worth the money and I didn't think of anything interesting. Ryan did find a hat that is typically worn by Asians. Rice hat? Asian Hat? Bamboo hat? It had no price on it, but I actually liked it a lot and decided to buy it. I wouldn't have bought it though if Doe didn't also want to pick up some eye lashes.

When I got up to the register I saw Melinda. A little Asian girl who I met one day when I was hanging out with my other two friends Steph and Lina. I met Melinda quite recently so I remembered her instantly. I probably would have remembered her anyways since she was pretty outrageous when we hung out. Running around, telling stories to Lina and Steph that I found pretty funny in both subject and her way of telling them. She was just pretty outgoing and I thought it was cool. She seemed a bit more reserved yesterday and I assume it was from being at work.

So when I went to pay for the hat, I said hi to her and joked to her and the two guys she worked with about the hat. There was no price tag so they had to search for the price. They had a price book and they had to find out what the hat was called. They asked Melinda and she said "Asian Hat?" they looked around and found it wasn't called that. I think it ended up being called a Chinese bamboo hat? Either way it was good encounter/laugh at the Spirit store.

Later Doe and I watched two movies.
We finished the Forbidden Kingdom because we fell asleep the night before and then we watched Penelope.


Spoilers/Review
The Forbidden Kingdom follows some noob from South Boston who gets thrown back into History/Mythology after getting his hands onto the Monkey Kings Staff. I don't know how accurate the Mythology in the movie is, but I'm going to research it because I really like what the supposed lore was about. The Monkey King and the 8 Immortals. It sounds cool to me, but I'll find out what it's really about later.

Anyways, so this Kid Jason needs to get the Monkey King's staff back to the Monkey King to free him and then The Monkey King and defeat some evil Jade Warlord who took over after the Jade Emperor left to meditate for like 500 years.

I guess I won't spoil anything, but I guess I still might in telling you what I thought about it. But it wasn't a great movie so if I spoil it for you, you wouldn't be missing much.

Anyways, there was a plenty of wire-fu in this movie, which is sort of bad considering I used to like how Jackie Chan used to do all his own real stunts. But he is really old now, so I shouldn't be expecting him to be doing such things. The gimmick of the movie was the union of Jackie Chan and Jet Li, two huge kung-fu movie icons. They only fought once but I'll say their kung-fu is strong. In their fight there wasn't TOO much wire-fu, but maybe just the right amount. The kung-fu was cool in the movie, as cool as kung-fu is. But as always the story kind of sucked. But thinking back all kung-fu movies never really had great stories and you'd always watch them for the fights.

There were a lot of things bad with this movie. The main character was a white kid with no kung-fu but he learned some from Chan and Li throughout the movie with funny montages. I'm glad they didn't give this kid a terrible typical Boston accident because they probably would have made this movie unwatchable. Anyways, when the kid got to old china he obviously spoke English. At first, all the Chinese only spoke Chinese. But when Jackie Chan came along he spoke English along with every other Asian that the white kid came in contact with. At first I thought it was some magic power the kid got where he could understand Chinese, but it was in fact just them speaking in English. I thought it was stupid.

Penelope was a dramedy, more of a comedy but there was still the drama. It's about a girl who is cursed with a pig nose and pig ears (but the ears don't really come into play) and to be honest, Christina Richi didn't look half bad with a pig nose. It's a happy ending.

Music
I've recently started listening to MGMT and Vampire Weekend. I'm sure it's a phase but it's a happy, nice feeling phase.

I'll be back again soon.

Weekend Summary

This long weekend is over and it was a pretty eventful one.

Friday evening we left for Montreal, Canada to meet Lauren, Lane, Jim and CP. I am just realizing the majority of the readers know this so I'll cut out that bullshit.

It was a five hour drive and I was surprised CP did it as often as he did, especially alone. I tried thinking of things I would do for five hours on the road. I couldn't think of anything fun.

Anyways, when we got to the outskirts of Montreal I saw the city skyline all lit up in the night. It wasn't very impressive I guess. It just looked like Boston's to me. I can only imagine a skyline being impressive if it had something impressive. I guess that's the best way to put it. Montreal had no Eiffel Tower or Statue of Liberty (although I guess you wouldn't consider that a part of the skyline). It was just an ordinary city skyline with a bunch of buildings with their lights on.

When we arrived it was midnight I think. I wasn't very tired because I was pretty excited to be somewhere new. When we met up with everyone we went to get some food. We when to some street that was full of clubs and assholes who littered the streets. I call them assholes only because they were different then me and I don't really even know if they were assholes. I just didn't like the scene. Techno beats blaring out of various clubs, drunks stumbling from here to there and long lines of chain smoking trendy people. Short skirts and popped collars basically.

We ended up at this place that was basically fast food but maybe a little better because they were actually cooking things. They handled the food pretty harshly with ungloved hands, spilling food and shoveling back onto their intended plates. They spoke to me in french which obviously threw me off a little bit. The lines were long so the cashier didn't have much patience in asking me three times about something I still don't even know what he was talking about. I just guessed yes on the 3rd time. First I assumed he wanted to know what drink I wanted and second I asked him What?

After leaving there I had a stomach from probably eating too fast and drinking sprite. It was this night I remembered one of the reasons I stopped drinking soda. Soda usually makes my stomach feel terribly bloated! It also didn't help I had to simply take a dump. Oh well. I told myself soda is taking a break again for a while.

We walked around Montreal until maybe 3am when we decided to go back to Lauren's apartment. I think it was three. Stayed up with Jim and Ryan until five playing Street Fighter then I fell asleep.

Saturday everyone went out for another walk around the city. Visiting places I don't care to remember. Not that they were bad experiences, I just don't remember what they were called or care if I knew them or not. Anyways, we visited a lot of shops and walked a lot just looking and talking and having a good time. Although I don't remember many names I really liked the city.

I know everyone probably thought the same thing but many of the women there were beautiful! Compared to our city anyways.

I'm peacing for now.

More Mundane

Hey readers whoever you may be, I'm sitting here at 12:30 with two kittens/cats (They're both happily making the transition into adolescent cats but they're still small enough to be called kittens) sleeping in my lap with an old episode of the Venture Brothers running in the background. I haven't posted anything in a little while and I'd like to so here I am doing just that.

Good News!
My mother is talking to Doe and myself again. Just as randomly as she got mad at us she was talking to me like nothing had ever happened. It's sort of weird but I guess it's always how my mother operates. My mom and I don't hug or kiss each other on the cheeks like I see happen a lot in other families. I don't really mind but it's weird when I have to hug and kiss any in-laws. Not that I don't want to do that little transaction but it is a bit out of the norm for me. Either way, she's not upset anymore and that's never a bad thing.

Today...
I had to train someone in the generally useless program I specialize in at work. This guy was of Hispanic descent I think and he clearly didn't care what I was talking about and I assume he'll be fired soon after he gets back to Texas and his company realizes he paid no attention to any of the training he received from me and my coworkers. I felt comfortable training him though, I think it's because he didn't care as much as I did. Or maybe it's because I'm getting less awkward when it comes to speaking with strangers. I hope it's the less awkward option.

Future
One of the major things I look forward to in the far future is moving out. Being able to live in a house without any restrictions other then my own seems so fun and new. I just wonder who will be involved and where we'll be. I'm sure it'll be fun and as ignorant as I'm being I can't see anything going wrong haha.

I know I don't have the voice or the annunciation skills, but being a voice actor would be sweet. I always have mini-fantasies of voice acting in something stupid. I'm not sure why. Personally I hear a lisp whenever I playback audio of myself. Everyone claims it's not there, but I hear it. I also mumble like it's my job. Often when I meet new people I have to repeat myself over and over. Only people who've known me for a while can really hear what I'm saying. When I talk to new people I also trail off into silence a lot about nothing in particular. Only some have called me out on it. Usually in a mocking manner but I don't kur. I'm not going anywhere with this.

I guess that's all I'm blabbering about tonight!

Canada this weekend.

Really Tired Baby

I just wanted to type I guess. I'm a really tired baby and I don't look forward to going to work tomorrow.

Things are still looking bleak at home and it sort of has me caught in this weird feeling. I can go out and having a good time with Doe and our friends but I guess I always coming back to what the situation is at home.

My mother is still ignoring me. She's actually responded to Doe a couple of times, but still not to me. This just shows that it is actually something I did. Doe narrowed it down to me 'huffing and puffing' about helping my mom remove the AC from the window last Sunday. This might be true because last time this happened it was because I gave my mother attitude when I was asked for electric bill money.

In my defense I usually reciprocate the emotions sent towards me. So last Sunday when my mom asked for help she was unpleasant to begin with. This put me in a bad mood because I felt like she was mad at me for not helping her without her asking even though I was in bed and told her to get me when she wanted to get the thing out of the window.

Last incident when I gave her attitude about money was probably because I was in a bad mood to begin with and I didn't want to think about money. I just don't like it when my mother needs to explain to me why she needs X amount of dollars. I just want to give her the money and be done with it.

I could easily be at fault. But no matter how wrong I could be it doesn't mean I should be ignored and treated like this.

I've been wishing for money lately.

Augh, Good Grief

I am concerned!

About my cats anyways.

Doe and I might be thinking of running away to her parents basement for the time being until Ryan, Lane and whoever else is in for moving out, can move out.

Like I've told some, my mother is still ignoring us for some reason. When we got home last night I heard her talking on the phone in her room. She sounded fine I suppose. I figured she was talking to my sister or maybe my white grand mother, I guess maybe even Duc. I didn't hear what she was saying as I walked by her room but she sounded normal. I knew she wasn't gossiping or complaining about Doe and I at least I don't think she was. She told me once that she can't complain to them because they don't seem to care. Again, I've said this to some already and I guess a lot of this might have been heard before, but for some reason she seems to treat me the worst. Of course, that's really bold to say that and a little dramatic. She puts up with a lot of crap from my brother and sister though and they don't ever seem to get her quite as mad as I make her.

My brother is constantly spending hundreds of dollars on his car putting a lot of his expenses on my mother credit card. He pays her back of course but she complains to me about how he's crazy and just spends too much money. But I guess he's making a lot of money now at his new job, I believe almost as much as my mother.

My sister can get really cold to my mother as well as really demanding, wether it be for rides, sometimes materials for whatever she's doing and my sister ignores her sometimes when she's preoccupied on the computer or watching tv. My sister also did less to help out. My sister never had to do dishes or had to vacuum around the house, my mother just never asked her. I might sound bitter towards this but I'm really not. It just goes back to my mom and how she for some reason expects so much from me in terms of chores. I just want to vacuum my room when it needs vacuuming or clean up my dishes when I use them. I don't want to take of a whole house when I'm only using 25% of it. I sound selfish and sort of lazy, but I pay for whatever my mother askes me to pay for. I give her 80% of basically every pay check.

I can get neglagant towards my mother as well sometimes. Usually when I'm playing a video game, which is no excuse. My mother is rather patient most of the time. But she can have radical mood swings.

Maybe she treats me the same as Stacey and Duc. I've been told I'm too sensitive many times and I'm sure I am, which is obviously a bad thing. My brother and sister and usually pretty passive when my mom gets mad I guess. They either ignore her or in my brother's case just gives her some back talk and she doesn't seem to do anything about it.

I almost forgot what started this post, my cats.

I feel bad for them. If say Doe and I do relocate to her parents house we'd get this room in her basement for ourselves. But our cats will have to stay in this one room because their are other cats who live in the house and one of them isn't very friendly when it comes to other cats. This room is a lot larger then the bathroom Noa and Konrad had to be kept in, but I still like letting my cats roam. Especially Bradley who I feel likes his time alone away from the other two.

Also, as much as my mother can be a bitch, I don't want her to be completely alone and I would like to leave Bradley at home because my mom loves him. But I hate thinking about Bradley not having two little buddies to hang out with. I don't want any of my cats to be separated but to not be an asshole I think I'll have to, but then I think I'm being an asshole to Bradley. This is my crazy cat lady speaking I believe too. Since any 'normal' person wouldn't be nearly as concerned with a cats feelings as I am. Not even Doe is as concerned about them as I am. Which isn't saying she doesn't care about them, I just care about them too much. I'm not sure why. Either way, it's going to be rough with whatever happens. It looks like I might have to leave Bradley with her because thinking of my mom on her couch watching tv on a saturday afternoon with absolutely no one in the entire house makes me feel really bad.

Tim and Eric Direct a Ben Folds Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eP9csWhlHWM

I'd embed it, but that feature has been disabled.

Also, I find that Eric is a more attractive man wife then Tim. But that's just my opinion.

Days Late

I'll admit my last post was harsh but it happens.
I wrote this post sunday night, but my net was out and couldn't post it.

----------------------------------------------------------------


Well this weekend was pretty neat.
Friday started out alright, Doe had gotten a job interview the night before at a Salon (Virgo) somewhere on the Burlington / Woburn Line as the receptionist. The manager loved her and basically asked Doe to come in the next day and sort of try it out. She worked Friday 1-5 and then Saturday 9-5. She's making as much as I do and she's working forty hours a week. It's really sweet!

This makes me think about couples who have some odd competition over who's more successful or who makes more money. I don't feel any of these feelings that I've heard of. In fact, if Doe somehow started making a million dollars I'd just quit my job and laze around for the rest of my life. Well I'd probably do the extracurricular activities I still do (video games, working out, hanging out) I'd probably do these more often. Basically I don't have any sort of desire to be the main provider (but I obviously don't care if I am) and I just want do to be as successful as she can be.

Anyways, so Doe has the job there and she is just a receptionist for now and her manager was basically saying that's all she's going to be because that's all they're looking for. Doe being persistent and charming told her manager that she likes the job so far and she likes all her co-workers but she knows she'll want to be a hair stylist and I guess her manager agreed that later in her career Doe will have a shot at it.

Since Doe had to work 9 on Saturday she decided not to go out with me on Friday night so I just went over to the Basement by myself. I found Jim, CP, Ryan and Natty laying in the movie room just having a chit-chat I suppose. We watched Tim and Eric's season finale and it was sort of disappointing compared to their other episodes but it still was worth watching. For the rest of the night I just hung out playing Street Fighter and just hanging I guess. Clark arrived at The Basement and as always was given a warm welcome. There was more Street Fighter play and more laughs. Towards the end of the night Dan Hall arrived with delicious treats to share. It's been a while since we've seen Clark or DH so it was an exciting night I suppose. I left later on around 2 or maybe three, I don't think it matters much.

The next morning I woke up around 10. This day we planned on driving to Winchendon, MA to check out an arcade that was having a special event for Street Fighter IV. I sat around until about 12 when Richard (A kid we met on 2DF) called and let me know he was leave to get to Wellington so CP and I could pick him up. I called CP to wake him up, but I felt bad since he didn't sleep much because he had to drive his parents to the air port at 5:30. Since Doe had my car CP was needed to get Rich.

Dipping into the Rich subject a bit, originally CP and I were going to meet Rich in Boston to escort him out because he was new to the city. The idea is rediculous! But me being me, I'm a push over and sometimes too accomindating. So when I told him at first he could either take the Lowell commuter to Wilmington, or we could pick him up at Wellington Station on the Orange Line he declined because 'he was new to the city and was going to get lost'. I tried to tell him it was easy but he denied the fact and just trying to be nice decided I'd just go in and basically hold his hand out of Boston. CP later helped me convince Rich that the idea of us spending money to go on the subway to help him to Wellington was a waste of our money and time. It's true, it's so easy to navigate the subways of Boston I don't know how you could. There are maps everywhere and I don't see how they could make it more clear about how to get around. After Rich gave CP a weak argument as to why we SHOULDN'T go into Boston to meet him, CP convinced him that he needs to meet us at Wellington. Thankfully for CP we saved some money and a useless trip.

Blah blah blah, Rich met The Basement people we hung out for a while (until 5:30) then left on our way to Winchendon to find the Arcade. Jim graciously volunteered to drive the other car and after an hour and some odd minutes (we sort of took some wrong turns) found the Arcade. I'd like to say that this Arcade couldn't have been placed in a more obscure location. Winchendon is in the middle of no where. I forget how desolate western Massachusetts can get, but I was reminded this Saturday. Either way, we got there and it was exciting to say the least. I'm not sure when the last time I was in a real arcade and to make things even more unique it was an 'authentic' Japanese arcade with Japanese machines and all that. I prefer them a whole lot compared to American made arcade machines. I won't go into detail.

The crowd wasn't at all what I had expected either. There was an overwhelming amount of minorities. Not just asians but I felt like I saw a lot of black people and hispanics. Also, no one was quiet as dorky/geeky ask I imagined either. Sure there was the occassionaly skinny, small kid with glasses and an awkward haircut - actually there was a shit load of dorky/geeky kids.

Now I recalled seeing a good amount of dirty Nu metal kids with large sweatshirts with skulls on them and large raver jeans that were tatters more and more towards the feet.

There were some gangster looking kids as well and I was pretty surprised to see them there and playing street fighter. There was some trendy looking kids there too, with their tight sweatshirts and tight jeans and hair delicately handled and combed to the side. Again I was surprised to see them playing as well.

I'd like to point out on asian I saw playing who fit my last descript (tight clothing, etc.) looked like he was having a geniuning good time. Like to described to Jim, I'd watch him playing Street Fighter III and he would just crack a smile here and there. I guess I thought it was cool how he looked like he enjoyed just playing. I imagined he was smiling about strategic moves that were just made and he just loved the challenge and over coming it! But that is just what I think. Basically I just enjoyed his love for Street Fighter, he was skilled as well.

Street Fighter IV was an awesome game! It's the newest edition to the Street Fighter series and Capcom really did an amazing job trying to revive the franchise. I won't bore you anymore about it, but I can't wait to play it agian.

later later later, we left around 12:00. I was surprisingly tired and didn't mind leaving. I had a good time at the arcade and would love to go back there and try to get better at using a joystick and whatever. It took us about 35 minutes to get back to Lowell where I stopped at iHOP to let make use the bathroom. It's late in the game, but I guess I should point out the group that went to the Arcade was, Me, CP, Jim, Lane, Mac, Clark and Rich.

In my car was Mac, CP and Rich. After stopping at iHOP I got back onto 495, to 93 to get Rich back home. Since it was after 12:45 the subways had stopped and we had to go into Boston by car and get him to his apartment. It was quite the annoying journey and I'm really glad CP and Mac went with me. We got to exit 26 which heads towards Storrow Drive. I'm familiar with the area because I drove there a lot to get Doe in the begining of our relationship. The google maps directions didn't fail to dissappoint and of course had flaws in the directions. It told me to take a right after being on Storrow Drive. I'd like to point out that at no time did I see a right that was labeled as google maps had labeled it. Luckily I skipped that step and just drove to Claredon St(sp?) which was the next road. I got there the only way I knew how. After that we drove around following the directions as best we could. Rich kept suggesting other ways to go, but I ignored his advice and just followed the directions. We did pretty well doing this, but after a while I did take Rich's advice because the directions fucked up. Anyways, when we got close to Rich's apartment he failed to tell me to take a left at a certain point. He mockingly said "Heh, uhh you're going the wrong way." and I responded, "What? Where was I suppose to go." I'm going to do this in an easier dialogue format.

Rich: Well I'm supposed to be over there (points across the road where I would have no way over getting over there because of mediums and bullshit)
Me: Alright, well I didn't know that.
CP: It probably would have helped if you told us.
Rich: Hah, well I just figured you'd know.
CP/ME: What?
Me: I've never been here before, how the hell am I supposed to know where I'm going.
There was just silence.

Me: I'm just going to turn here. (I was taking the first right off the road)
Mac and Rich told me not to, but I'm not sure why. No one knew where the current road was heading and it wasn't like they knew where this new one was going. Either way, it's a good thing I took the road. After a couple of turns I ended up at Rich's apartment even though I felt people doubt I knew where I was going. But I'd like to point out that I used common sense to figure it out and it wasn't at all that hard. Needless to say after we dropped Rich off we got even more lost. I ended up missing a vital left turn to get back to Storrow Drive and ended up heading into Club-ville. I underestimated the idiots that would be up at 2am in Boston. There was traffic because of drunk clubbers staggering across the street looking for taxi's. It was so annoying having to weave around people just walking in the middle of the street. I said plenty of times to Mac and CP that I wish I had a gun sometimes. CP jokingly turned my wish for an actual gun into a wish for some sort of fictional gun that teleports whatever I shot back to The Basement. So we discussed how I would shoot us back home, CP noted that I'd have to shoot us one at a time. First the car, then him, then Mac the myself. ANYWAYS, after I got back to Claredon St (the way we got into Boston) I remember along time ago I drove here to drop Doe off when she lived/worked around the area, in turn I remembered how to get out. Mac's friend was on the phone and as she was some help she didn't help us get back to Storrow Drive. But she still helped. Basically we got home and all was fine, whatever!

All in all I was annoyed I had to make the trip and how nice I was during the whole thing, especially for someone who hardly appreciates it and basically just demands and demands.

Oh well!

Sunday was me in bed with a headache, but I liked the time with Doe because I basically didn't see her for two days! I didn't like the headache, it felt like my left eye ball was being pushed out.

It's late! Trying to sleep but I took a nap from 4 - 7:30, good night. I don't look forward to working.

In my opinion, this was a wordy post and too hard for even me to follow.