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!