It's a Christmas Miracle!!1!!!!1!one!!1

I've met a woman.

"I met a woman. The kind of a woman that makes you want to go back in time to before you met her. Whatever the hell life was like then, it's not as bad as the hell now. Knowing she's out there and you can't have her."

- Ricky Gervaise, Ghost Town. Submitted without comment.

Just maybe though.

Next time a girl says she's waiting for her Prince Charming, you should fill her in on the fact that in the first, original context that it was used, it didn't actually say "Prince Charming." It was miss-translated. The original text says that the Prince was charmed.

So what I'm saying is that if you're waiting on your very own Prince Charming, maybe you should spend some more time trying to charm some more Princes.

"Charles Perrault's version of Sleeping Beauty, published in 1697, includes the following text at the point where the princess wakes up: "'Est-ce vous, mon prince?' lui dit-elle, 'vous vous êtes bien fait attendre'. Le Prince charmé de ces paroles... ne savait comment lui témoigner sa joie". ("'Are you my prince?' she said. 'You've kept me waiting a long time'. The prince, charmed by her words... did not know how to express his joy.")
It has sometimes been suggested that this passage later inspired the term, "Prince Charming", even though it is the prince who is charmed (charmé) here, not who is being charming (charmant).
In the eighteenth century, Madame d'Aulnoy wrote two fairy tales, The Story of Pretty Goldilocks, where the hero was named Avenant ("Fine", "Beautiful", in French), and The Blue Bird, where the hero was Le roi Charmant ("The Charming King"). When Andrew Lang retold the first (in 1889) for The Blue Fairy Book, he rendered the hero's name as "Charming"; the second, for The Green Fairy Book, as "King Charming".
Although neither one was a prince and the first was not royal, this may have been the original use of "Charming".
- Wikipedia.

It could be worse though. You could have the Dorian Gray kind of Prince, who ditches you (and then you inevitably commit suicide).

"Then, Oscar Wilde's 1890 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray refers ironically to "Prince Charming", perhaps the earliest use of the exact term. The main character, Dorian, is supposed to be a young actress's "Prince Charming", but he abandons her and in despair she commits suicide."

Honestly though, maybe if there were more girls that acted, or even looked, like Disney Princesses, maybe there'd be more Prince Charming's (the Disney version) crashing through windows and stabbing people for you.

Just maybe though.

I got called smart today.

A friend of mine came up to me and asked me what her belt-loop was called. I told her "a belt-loop." She apparently thought it was called a belt pocket or something. I'm not really sure.

"Man, you're so smart Greg."

I'm smart because I knew what a belt-loop was called. Cool. Although, I'm not really sure if that's a compliment to me, or an insult to the rest of the world.

People, it's called a belt-loop. Inform the masses. Increase the populous intelligence levels. I refuse to be smart.

Seven Shots

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven.

I can hear it out my window, the clamor of the night. Shadows swiftly take delight in other peoples plight. Everything the light wont see comes out to play at night.

One.

I can hear it out my window, the horrid scream of silence. Seven shots ring out the might of hate, malice, and violence.

Two.

Above the moon rains down the gloom, the boom, the clattering scurry. "Hurry hurry we have to go!" A man with a gold chain hushes. Another man lays on the ground, his vision getting blurry.

Three

First responder, always ponder, "who is this man?" and "why?" "Will he live? Will he die? There's little time to squander."

Four.

He's just a man, late at night, all emotion latent. Not just a man, the man's a doctor, he's lost another patient.

Five.

Lonely mother, lost another, wont make it through the night. Nervous, crying, praying silent, no one to hold her tight.

Six.

Heart sank deep, the crooked creep, the one who did the deed. "How could I take another's life, just to feed my need?"

Seven.

I hear it out my window, seven shots ring in my head. Seven billion people here, just now there's one more dead.

Consumerism costs your heart and soul.

"Research shows that intrinsic values not only promote personal, social, and ecological well-being, but can also act to immunize people against materialism. It's that see-saw again. As intrinsic values go up, materialistic values tend to go down. So part of the trick is to build a life that expresses your intrinsic values. That might involve spending more time with people you care about, finding meaningful work, even if it pays less, or taking part in volunteer opportunities for causes you care about."

You heard the man. Love what you do and you'll have a better life. Remember that, everyone, ever, as you go from high-school, to college, to the real world.

If you watch the video and really pay attention, you'll see characteristics described that you see in people you know, and you can learn a lot about them when you connect the dots.

These videos? They're essentially random.

I got a webcam recently, so I started making these stereotypical-type vlog things because I honestly have nothing better to do with my time. These are the first three. So there you have it.

Watch them on YouTube. Give me some comments. Tell me I'm stupid. I don't really care. As a matter of fact, go to YouTube and leave a comment that just says "you're stupid" and leave your name so I know who left it. It'd make my day.

I Earned My Mexican Card Today

As a precursor to this story, I have to say that it's a 100% better read if you have The Spanish Flea by Herb Alpert playing somewhere in the background.

As an after-note to that precursor, it's my personal belief that your whole life will be 100% better if you have The Spanish Flea by Herb Alpert playing in the background.

It all started when a careless Hispanic man left a small glass bottle of habenero hot sauce on a table. A busser picked it up and handed it to me.

"Que quiere este? Lo encontre en le mesa."

Since I had no idea what she said, but half guessed it was something along the lines of "here, take

this sauce," I shrugged and took it to the back. My co-worker Junior, who is about 90% deaf, was

standing at the table in what I consider the "break area" (because we don't have an actual break

room). I jokingly motioned for him to drink some. He laughed and said "No, you crazy" in his

soft-spoken Spanglish dialect.

"Whatever man. I'm totally going to find a use for this though." Later that night, as I got off work, I

went back into the kitchen. "Hey Nico, I wanna make a pizza with this."

Nico, one of the main chefs, examined the bottle. "Habanero XXX Hot Sauce. You want a pizza

with this? You're gonna die."

I shrugged. "Probably, but I'm hungry, so I might as well kill two birds with one stone."

Five minutes later, an ominous red miasma permeated the whole kitchen. The pizza moaned and

growled as it lurched out of the oven. The person who cut it suffered third degree burns all the

way up their arm, as well as in their nose, mouth, and eyes. As it was being transported, it

melted right through the metal pan, and had to be brought to me in via wheel-barrow. The whole

building was evacuated for their own safety, and we had to disengage the sprinkler system for

fear of it activating.

Okay, not really, but seriously, it was hot.

I set it down on my table just as my boss, a small Mexican man named Alex, was coming over. "I

bet you're gonna cry."

"I'm not going to cry Alex."

"Good, I don't want to see you cry." He pulled out his Iphone. "But when you do, I'm gonna take

a picture."

I was laughing to hard to eat my pizza. When I finally calmed myself, I took a bite. I can still feel

the raw spot on the top of my mouth from the burn. I kept my composure. All I could say was

"wow."

"Is it hot?"

"Yeah. But it's good. You should try some."

"What's on it?

"Onion, pineapple, pepperoni."

He brought a piece up to his nose and smelled it, then looked me dead in the eye and said "smells

like... crying."

"Yes, it's made from pure extract of crying. Just try some."

"Oh, this not hot at all." He said. I winced. "Nico, come try this. Is good."

Nico came over and put a piece on a plate. "Is it hot?"

"Yeah, it's really freaking hot."

"Mm. Okay. I'll try it." He ventured into the back of the store. About thirty seconds later he

came back out, looked at me, laughed, and shook his head.

"Was it hot?"

"I only took one bite. It's too hot. I couldn't even swallow it."

Junior came out of the back with a look of horror on his face. "You want some man?" He looked at

the pizza, then at Nico breathing heavily and fanning his face with his hand, shook his head, and

briskly walked away. I ate another piece. "Hey Alex, I didn't cry. Does that mean I'm a Mexican

now?"

"Yeah, you can be Mexican now. Here your Mexican card." He pretended to hand me an

invisible card.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the story of how I earned my Mexican card. Just so you have

some point of reference, the jalapeno (approx. 5000 SHU, or Scoville Heat Units) is about 1/20th

as hot as a habenero. The habenero (in between 100,000-350,000 SHU) is approximately

1/12th the heat of the worlds hottest known pepper, called the "Trinidad Scorpion Butch T"

pepper, which clocks in at 1,463,700 SHU. This pepper is so hot that you have to wear gloves to

hold it, and if it gets anywhere near your eye it will temporarily blind you. You have to wear a

body suit or a chemical mask just to cook it.

Or for another point of reference, this pepper is hotter than most law-enforcement grade pepper

sprays, which range from 500,000 to 2,000,000 SHU. If I were to extract the pure chemical

that causes the burning sensation from a pepper, called "capsaicin," it would be 16,000,000 SHU.

Ingesting pure capsaicin would cause you to convulse for a few seconds, and then drop dead.

I swear, I'll revolt all over this business.

Look, since the government obviously doesn't have anything better to do with its time than declare that pizza is a vegetable and enforce the same internet censorship used to such countries at Libya (you remember, that one that had all those protests and stuff about how they wanted their internet back) and China (you know, the Communist one), I honestly don't see why we keep them around at all.

Seriously. I hope they had just gotten out of a thirteen hour debate about how they're going to get us out of debt, and on the little coffee break were like, "man, pizza has a lot of veggies and stuff, let's make it a veggie too." Bam, done in five minutes, then back to the big problems. Don't waste America's time like this, Congress. It's not funny anymore. And leave our Internets alone. We're out of jobs, we're out of money, and if you take the internet away, it's the freaking last straw. Revolt, anyone?

Where's Guy Fawkes when you need him.

If you don't already know what's going on, please educate yourself on why America as we know it is about to change forever, if we don't do something. Do you want to end up like Libya?

PROTECT IP Act Breaks The Internet from Fight for the Future on Vimeo.

To e-mail your representatives, please visit this site: http://fightforthefuture.org/pipa/

"What PROTECT-IP will do is cripple new start-ups because it also lets companies sue any site they feel isn't doing their filtering well enough. These law-suits could easily bankrupt new search-engines and social media sites. And PROTECT-IP's wording is ambiguous enough that important social media sites could become targets. Lots of trail-blazing websites could look like piracy havens to the wrong judge. Tumblr, Soundcloud, an early Youtube, wherever people express themselves make art, express themselves, broadcast news, or organize protests..."

This whole post is like one big fat rabbit trail.

I think the problem people have with classical music these days is that it takes too long to appreciate. Unlike modern music where you have the verse and the chorus, with relatively same music traveling over the first and second verses and choruses, classical music requires patience, and that you actually listen to how the different instruments blend.

Take any mainstream hip-hop or rap song, for instance. Ever since the sampler was invented in like, what, 1980? People have been able to take like, a 15 second audio clip from anything they wanted, play it over and over, and sing to it. You see this a lot in the more electronic music and hip-hop, but it's slowly becoming popularized by the alternative/indie genres as well.

The point I'm getting at is that when you're listening to music on the radio, you can get an aesthetic feel for the song in the first eight seconds, give or take a few. Classical music can change tempo as much as it wants. It might go from the saddest thing you've heard, to suddenly you're being chased by a serial killer, and then bam, you're lying naked in a forest with flecks of gold falling from the sky.

Not that I've ever experienced that feeling or anything. Have you ever wondered what it'd be like to lie naked in a forest with gold shavings raining down from the heavens? I certainly haven't. But I'm sure that if it wanted to, Classical music could make you feel like that.

The reason human beings are becoming so increasingly impatient with the world around them is because the world around them isn't making us wait for stuff as much as it used to. Text messages, wireless internet, T.V. dinners... everything is being designed to be done in minutes or less. Even our exercise and weight-loss schemes. So much, in fact, that the whole education system is being shot to pieces because of it. All around the world people are trying to find a better alternative to sitting in a classroom for eight hours a day, and then sitting at home for another like, four hours doing the same stuff you did the other eight hours earlier on in the day.

The point is that I think the whole world needs to slow its roll and calm its bits. All this million-mile-an-hour living is bad for your health.

So... yeah. The sampler's a pretty cool toy. If you wanna know about how it created about six different genres, you should check out this video.

If you just so happen to hate music, and also spend your time brooding over ways to ruin children's lives and audit ice-cream truck drivers for a living, then maybe you'd be a little more interested in seeing why the world is ruining education.

Click on those links. Learn something today. Do everyone around you a favor and use your brain.

3 AM Philosophy: Chance.

When you grow up you'll probably be one of two people: the person who says "I should have taken more chances in life." Or the person who's lying in bed with liver disease, osteoporosis, arthritis, deaf in one ear, lost the nerves in one of his hands, missing one toe, and has a smokers cough. Sometimes you gotta remember that chance and risk are synonymous. Just remember that chance and risk mean the same thing, and every time you're taking a chance, you're taking a risk.

Then again, the latter person is also probably saying "lets go again!" like their life as been some sort of roller coaster.

So there you have it. Now, go rethink your entire existence.

I remember the strangest things...

When I was little, I remember specifically very few things. I don't know what kind of stuff I enjoyed, or what I did to occupy my time other than a few little things. For as long back as I can remember, however, I have a vivid memory of what I imagined in my mind, as far as how the universe worked. I thought that everything had to be symmetrical. When I built things out of Lego's, they were equal on all sides, and were uniform in color. If I built a house, the house had the same number of rooms on one side as the other. All of the walls had to be one color, and that color was usually yellow, because yellow was the most abundant color block I had. Of course, my house also had knights to guard it and laser cannon security cameras. That's not the point though. Haha.

I also remember that for the longest time I was extremely picky about which order I tied my shoes. It has been and continues to be that put on my right sock, then the other, and then I tie my right shoe first, followed again by the left.

Everything had patterns. I was obsessed with even numbers. I would count the steps I took, and I would never end on an odd number. I thought odd numbers were possessed. I also always started walking with my left foot, so I could end on my right foot being an even number.

Okay, that's pretty normal compared to what I'm about to unveil.

In my head, I thought Satan himself was sitting up in my brain with a bunch of demons, watching my life on television screens. Satan and his cronies would get some sort of weird joy out of odd numbers and my left foot, and every time I would do something like tie my shoes right to left, or step an even number of steps, it would be like they were on fire, and the television screens would start to get blurry.

Is that not one of the straight up most ridiculous things you've ever heard?

Either I was possessed by demons when I was little, or I have one of the most insane imaginations ever.

As for the rest of the weird stuff I did when I was a kid, some of it crossed over into my older years, and I still do now. I still try to avoid stepping on the cracks in the sidewalk. I still keep my legs inside the perimeter of my bed because I think the invisible force field will keep the monsters from eating me. I still talk to my cats as if they can hear me. I still go up the stairs at my house on all fours sometimes, like I'm some sort of feral beast. And I'm gonna be honest here, I have a really good time doing it. Haha. I think in some aspects we never really grow up.

Oh well.

Epic... Gay Best Friend Self-Esteem Building Rant? Part VI

"Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." I call shenanigans on this phrase. I know it's just something teenage girls quote when they're sad about a guy, but seriously, I hate that logic. Don't cry because it happened, smile because it's over. Think about it: you're crying because something is over, but the only way something can end is if it happened. Therefore, the fact that it happened made you sad. You can smile now, because it's not like it's going to end again. Besides, if he couldn't see that you're the best he'll ever have, he wasn't good enough for you anyways. Dayum girlfran. *finger snaps*.

Epic Mood-Runing Rant Part V

You know what's weird? Winter. The number one feeling associated with the Fall and Winter seasons is warmth. However illogical that may seem, let's be honest here: everyone knows that Winter is cold, and the only thing people want to do when they're cold is be warm. Everyone's wearing six layers and finger-less gloves. Everyone and their dog is drinking hot chocolate, hot apple cider, or hot cappuccino. The second most feeling is change. Everyone with a significant other is breaking up, and everyone without one is finding one. I've seen more relationship changes in three months than I have in the other nine months combine. I think this is because people do associate this time with change, and here's the deal: I know women that change boyfriends more often than they change shirts. Women: if you randomly feel like breaking up with someone during this time of year, but can't really think of a logical reason, I hope you think about the fact that you may just be feeling like everything around you is changing, so you should change something too. I'd love/hate to hear some guy say "My girlfriend broke up with me."

"Why?" His awesome and concerned friend would ask.

"Because it's Fall." He replies with a sigh.

Epic Mood-Ruining Rant Part IV

Friday isn't anything special either. Friday is like a weekend placebo. People try to convince eachother that it's great, but for what? You still work on it. You still go to school. You still have to wear pants. Speaking of which, I don't care for "casual Friday" at all. It's a sham. It's a cheap facade. A plot, whose main device is to trick you into thinking you can be happy just because you get to wear a different color shirt, or jeans instead of dress pants. I think dress pants are more comfortable anyways; jeans are rough, but dress pants are like having your legs dipped into a giant vat of sleeping kittens. Breakfast is another trick. Its main purpose is to make you think there's a good reason for getting out of bed anytime before 10 AM. There isn't. Eggs aren't even that great, and toast is like some odd competition to cook bread a second time and try to get it slightly burnt, but not burnt enough that it tastes burnt. It's just like food; what's up with that?

Epic Mood-Ruining Rant Part III

I never understood that either. Why's it called a "weekend?" It's not like anything's ending any more than something's beginning. As far as I'm concerned, Saturday should be "the weekend" and Sunday should be the "weekeve" or the "weekstart." I'd be willing to bet that statistically, Saturday is the favorite day because it is neither a week day nor the day before the week, during which you are in tense anticipation about the mundane, laborious things to come. I recall Sundays being equally miserable to Mondays, if not more, because the only thing you could think about on Sunday was how awful tomorrow was going to be.

Epic Mood-Ruining Rant Part II

As a matter of fact, the 1% of the time you are happy, it's probably because of some flaw, some relapse in your consciousness that causes you to momentarily forget about how awful the world is today. Or always. Whatever floats your slowly but surely sinking boat. Tomorrow is going to be just as awful as today was. Tomorrow is just like today. Every day is just like the last day, and the next day. The only reason any of you wouldn't believe so is because of the way society has constructed their own schedule and forced you to conform to it. Everyone in the modern world could tell you that you're supposed to work during the "week" and you're supposed to have fun during the "weekend."

Epic Mood-Ruining Rant, Part I

"I never understood the concept of wishing at 11:11. Your wish is going to be unfulfilled and disappointing at any other time of the day, why wait until you're about to go to sleep? I like to ruin my days early off, so I don't even have the prospect of being happy. The prospect of being happy is just about as disappointing as the fact that your wishes wont come true 99% of the time, because the chance of you being happy is equally low." To be continued...

11/11/11 11:11 is coming. Brace yourselves for the Facebook status', the Twitter updates, and the teenage girls sending you texts reminding you to wish.

November is my melancholic ranting month.

So, I'm going to rant about stuff. Stuff I don't like. Stuff I do like. Stuff other people like, and I don't really have an opinion on, but I'll still rant about them just because I like to spark up controversy and be argumentative. The list could go on.

Rant about them in one blog post? Too mainstream. Seeing as how I can't find the time to take thirty minutes out of my daily schedule of getting overly-excited when one person "likes" one of my incredibly insightful status on Facebook and playing the five real chords and one chord that's probably a chord but I just kind of made up in different sequences and tempos on the guitar I stole from my parents closet in an attempt to make something cool sounding, I'm just going to disperse my rant that I've already written over the next week, or month, or however long I feel like it, because I can do what I want, and also because forget you, society.

Also, that last sentence was over 100 words long. I'm mentally patting myself on the back right now.

So there.

The Halloween Issue

Many people love the Fall season. The leaves are changing, you can wear a scarf without looking like a pretentious hipster, and for me, there's a holiday which is really a huge facade for scaring the crap out of little kids and gorging myself on fun size Butterfingers and Runts. But only the banana Runts. Everyone knows the banana ones are the best.

However, coming from a Christian home my parents never let me go trick or treating as a kid because apparently participating in this holiday was Satan worship and I was going to burn in hell for being a rebellious heathen.

Or something like that.

Pictured: the epitome of evil and Satanic

I however, firmly protest that just because Halloween has a sketchy background does not mean that simply by acknowledging its existence I was included in its sketching going-ons.

That's like saying that because I live in Salem, Mass. I'm a witch-hunting conspiracy theorist.

Originally it is thought to have stemmed from a Celtic Festivus type thing where people would stand around a fire (like a Festivus pole of sorts) dressed up like ghosts and spirits and other costumes in hopes that when the other real spirits showed up they'd be like "aw naw, this place taken already man, lets haunt some other town." Personally, if I was a ghost and saw a bunch of other ghosts standing around a big fire I'd be like "'sup guys" but that's just me I guess.

Now instead if we have a ghost problem we have one man in a robe come to our house and shout things written in an ancient manuscript and sprinkle water on stuff.

But that's not the point.

In the 8th century some Pope decided to make a holiday the day after the Celtic festival (called Samhain, and not Festivus, sadly) that was a day of remembrance for all the saints and martyrs ever, called "All Saints Day." The day before it was henceforth named "All Hallows Eve," (I said henceforth in a sarcastic manner, because I honestly have no idea what the connection between "saints and martyrs" and "hallows" are. I don' even know what a "hallow" is.) and later just "Halloween."

So what I'm saying is that Halloween isn't even like, a big deal. Don't think of it being a day when your kid is trying to ward off spirits so much, and think of it more like a big party before a day of remembrance for all the people who sacrificed their lives in one way or another for the greater good.

If you're still not convinced it's a wholesome activity for little kids to do, let me tell you two things. 1: you're taking away a huge part of your son or daughter's childhood by removing this awesome holiday in which they get to dress up like superheroes and demand candy from strangers. And 2: since you probably don't like this holiday because you're a God fearing person, Christmas was originally called Saturnalia, aka an ancient Roman festival that happened early-mid December to worship the god Saturn and involved everyone exchanging gifts, if you had an indoor growing tree it was decorated and topped with a light (not a star like we do, but a sun), garlands and wreaths were hung on doors and on doorways and such... sound familiar? Yeah. You're just as much a heathen for celebrating Christmas as I am for having a good time on Halloween. This was invented around 250 BC, which is like, 250+ years before Jesus was born. Think about that for awhile.

R.I.P Steve Jobs

You may have seen this picture circulating around the inter-webs recently. Let me begin by saying that I don't mean to lessen the death of Steve Jobs or the millions of adorable African and other third world babies. My family actually supports a little boy in Haiti. He's super cute. His name is Pierre.

With that being said, this comparison is like equating the death of Obi-Wan Kenobi to the deaths of the thousands, and possibly millions, of clones and rebel soldiers.

Steve Jobs was a world renowned icon for technological advancement and perseverance, and was, to many, a hero. Obi-Wan was the mentor of Luke Skywalker who trained him in the ways for the Force, and is, to many, a hero. (Nerd query: would "the Force" be considered a proper noun, thus needing capitalization? I did capitalize, just in case. I have no idea.) Those children are people we have never met, do not know the names of, and are dying every day. Clones and rebel soldiers are faceless, nameless, not really important at all, and drop like flies (not to mention their aim is atrocious).

It's like equating the death of Princess Diana to the deaths of the approximate 146,000 people by natural or unnatural causes every day.

It's like equating the death of Boromir to the death of the thousands of Gondorian soldiers that died in the second and third Lord of the Rings.

It's like equating the death of Tupac Shakur to the death of the hundreds of Chinese children every day from poor living conditions.

It's like saying that you should mourn the death of someone you passed on the street once just as much as you should mourn the death of a relative you saw all the time and knew and loved. It's just not the same.

I could go on.

You have to understand that people do care about those deaths. People die every day though, and if I had to be sad about every single one of them, I'd just be depressed and the the freaking time. There's a disconnect in the human brain that allows us to trudge on through life despite the fact that everywhere in the world the vulnerability of life and the proclivity towards death is being demonstrated.

Please excuse me while I pull a Forrest Gump; and that's all I have to say about that.

#bandnameeuphemisms

Sometime in June of this year, my brother, parents, and I were driving through the desert towards Las Vegas, Nevada, from Kingston, Arizona. It was about a three hour trip, and understandably, my brother and I got pretty bored sitting in the back seat. Like most teenagers, we turned to our phones for entertainment. Nobody was texting really, since it was about five in the morning, but Twitter came running to my rescue. I decided that to entertain myself I'd tweet all the band names I could think of that could be taken as a euphemism (if you don't know what that is, it's a dirty joke). This is what I came up with.

*warning: maturity levels may be tested*

Passion Pit

Enya

The Strokes

Explosions in the Sky

Big Smith

Rammstein

Flogging Molly

Finger 11

Blue Man Group

In response, my brother came up with these.

Notorious B.I.G

Bob Marley and the Wailers

The Flaming Lips

Third Eye Blind

M.C. Hammer

Doug E. Phresh and Slick Rick

Bang Camaro

If you're a fan of funny tweets, you should follow me (IncredibleGreg) or my brother Doug (McDouggery). Each tweet is like a tiny, condensed blog, if you want to see it that way.

Hipster Logic

Since it's mainstream to hate Vevo on Youtube, and hipsters are against the mainstream, hipsters love Vevo.

Since Vevo usually only supports large record label bands, hipsters must now listen to mainstream music, because they now love Vevo.

Since they listen to mainstream music, they're no longer hipsters.

However, since it's mainstream for hipsters to listen to obscure artists, hipsters still have hipster cred for listening to mainstream artists?

Therefore, classic hipsters are no longer hipsters?

Usher in the new era of hipsters!

Parachute pants, cummerbunds, capes... I can see it all now. As if California wasn't freaky enough already...

She'll Never Live That One Down

"Liverpool Laundryman Arthur Pepper got ambitious when it came to naming his new baby daughter. Not wanting any letter of the alphabet to feel jealous at being left out, he used all of them, naming the child Anna Bertha Cecilia Diana Emily Fanny Gertrude Hypatia Inez Jane Kate Louise Maude Nora Ophelia Prudence Quince Rebecca Sarah Teresa Ulysis Venus Winifred Xenophon Yetty Zeno Pepper." - Ripley's Believe It or Not, copyright 1999.

Submitted without comment.

Arrest Me, I Speak in Maths! (bonus points for getting this song reference)

I have to be at work at 11. This means maximum number of hours of sleep would be 8 1/2, leaving me thirty minutes to physically and mentally prepare myself for work.

Probability that I can't find my other work shirt and will need to wash laundry: 100%.

Approximate time to compile, wash, and dry dirty laundry: 2 hours.

Therefore MST (Maximum Sleeping Time) is reduced to 6.5 hours.

Chances of me waking up too late to wash laundry: 70%, reduced by 5% per alarm I set on my phone.

Time wasted picking random times as my alarms so they will be perfectly spaced out between 0 - 100% consciousness (with each alarm increasing consciousness by 10%): 2 minutes per alarm, with an increase of 1 minute for every alarm after the 3rd.

For every one minute of consciousness tonight I waste approximately 2.5 minutes on Facebook/Memebase/Failblog/MLIA/videogames (aka F-e-b-li-ga).

If I set ten alarms at 8:00, 8:10, 8:15, 8:20, 8:30, 8:32, 8:35, 8:38, 8:39, and 8:40, following the previous formula, then I get (2+2+2+3+4+5+6+7+8) = 39 approximate minutes wasted on my phone trying to calculate perfect alarm times (aka browsing my "recent contacts" over and over to see if I want to text any of them). Then we calculate the FEBLIGA time (39 x 2.5) = 97.5 minutes, or 1.625 (97.5/60 minutes) hours of time doing FEBLIGA.

For the ten alarms I set, leaving me with 100% consciousness at exactly 8:40, I have done this: (10 x 5%) = 50%, leaving me a 50% reduction in the probability of me waking up too late to do laundry, or 20% chance of doing so.

What this means is despite having achieved 100% consciousness, there's still a 20% chance I'll somehow manage to screw up doing laundry. However, this can be countered by setting four additional alarms to remind myself to wash my shirt and other unmentionables (the four alarms are 4 x 5% = the remaining 20%).

(9+10+11+12) = 44 minutes, resulting in a 110 minute, or 1.83 (110/60) hour increase of FEBLIGA. This results in approximately 3.5 hours of FEBLIGA tonight.

Those 3.5 hours of FEBLIGA put my approximate sleep time at 5:40, leaving my MST at 3 hours.

Ability to do math at 2 in the morning: unhindered.

Probability of me blogging instead of going to sleep: 100%

Amount of screwed am I tomorrow at work: a lot of screwed.

There's a Joke About Love Bugs I Failed to Make. Oh Well.

So, maybe my imagination is a little more out of control than it should be, but here's how the story goes.

Alright, I'm driving down the highway, right? And I'm doing a good 90. I'm bookin' it. I'm fairly focused on the road, not really paying attention to anything other than weaving in and out of the "oversized loads" and that idiot who doesn't understand staying in the right lane when he isn't going fast enough to pass anybody, when suddenly something catches my eye. Some poor wasp managed to fly his little buggy self right in front of me. Too bad for him, right? It gets worse.

His little insect head managed to slide into the space between the hood of the car and the side. What I see is his silly stingy butt flopping around in the wind as he gets helplessly dragged along for a ride. For as sucky as that must have been, the only thing I could think was "you know, this reminds me a lot of relationships."

He made this face, no doubt.

Yeah, you heard me, that's what I said.

Let me break it down for you.

So you got this girl. She, like most girls, is "crazy, outgoing, funny, awesome, ditsy, and hyper." (Question: how many girls you know would describe themselves like this? Probably like, all of them.) She's just doing what girls do; going a billion miles an hour and not paying attention (lulz). Now before you ladies get mad at me for making fun of your tendency to not always pay attention, let me make fun of guys first in an attempt to cater to your desire for equality in sarcastic stereotype jokes.

Now you have me, the guy. I'm a dumb insect flying across the highway like a retard. (I know a few people who'll enjoy that image too much.) Some Mustang Sally comes cruising down the road and smacks me in my stupid wasp face. Bam, I'm trapped under your hood, arms flailing wildly in the 90 MPH winds, probably dead.

Relationships, right?

The guy'll be just minding his own business, flying around the highway, maybe looking for some sexy windshield to splat on, if that's what he's into, when Miss Ladyface swings along and picks him up. "Cool!" He might think. Cool indeed, dumb bug. But then the trip gets cut short when she hits a bump and you get knocked out of your cozy hood-noose-thing and go plummeting to your sad, sad demise/get decapitated.

Well, that's what happened to the bug anyways.

So there you have it. Cars and insects = relationships.

I Do What I Want Every Day!

When I see a girl with a shirt that says "No boyfriend, no problem" I think one of two things; one, that is girl is awesome and understand that not having a significant other is like waking up every morning and saying "well, looks like I'm doing what I want today, again!" or two, that she wants the world to know she's single and desperately wants a boyfriend.

True story.

I Wrote About Cursing Without Cursing Once. That's Impressive.

Lets be honest here. If you tell people you can't say frick because it's a substitute for the F word, you might as well tell them they can't say butt because it's another word for the A word. Or they can't say penis because there are words out there that are deemed unacceptable to say in public by society that mean the same thing.

Let me take you on an etymological journey.

Way back in ancient times, people spoke other languages. One of these languages was Latin. If you know anything about anything ever, you probably know that Latin was the root language for what are commonly referred to as the "romance languages." No, the romance languages are not languages you use to romance pretty ladies. They refer to languages such as Spanish, German, French, Italian, English, Portuguese, Romanian, and a handful of others that have roots in Latin.

For instance, Buena is Latin for good, bueno is Spansh for good, bene is good in Italian, etc. As you can see there is a physical spelling similarity. We derive words such as beneficial and benefactor from the Latin word good.

Now, have you ever heard someone refer to modern day curse words as "vulgar?" If you have vulgar language, as define by society today, you probably get slapped a lot.

The word vulgar though, actually comes from the Latin word "vulgaris," which means, "the general public."

Long ago, there weren't any Bibles written in English or French or whatever language you happened to be speaking at this undisclosed time period. So some people decided to write some "Vulgate Bibles." Don't ask me to get specific with this History stuff. As far as I'm concerned Gandhi wrote the Vulgate Bible. Go do some of your own research, lazy. What do I look like to you, Wikipedia?

I promise to the good God above, if any of you go complaining that I called the Bible vulgar, I will go into a fit of unquenchable nerd rage.

The Vulgate Bible was written in a language that everybody could understand, so that way people wouldn't have to listen to some boring priest tell his version of the Bible instead of reading it for themselves.

What I'm getting at here is that when people use "vulgar" language, they're using language that the common man understands.

So this, for instance, is not "vulgar": "Salutations, my amiable acquaintance! On account of the ominous fulminations overhead I think it best we remove ourselves from this large, open plain, lest we become the victim of precipitation!"

This however, is "vulgar": "Hey man, we should probably head inside, it looks like rain."

One day I suspect there will be new slang that's a public no-no to say, and all all the kids are going to be running around saying "f*** this applesauce s***, get me a ************* corndog, mom!" and people won't think anymore about it than they do when we say "screw Burger King, it tastes like crap, get me a dang McGriddle!" right now.

Times change. Holding onto tradition never hurt anybody, but if you refuse to move forward with the changing times, you'll do just that; you wont move forward. You're either with society, behind society, or ahead of society. If you're behind you're outdated, if you're ahead you're an outcast, and if you're with it you're with it you're a conformist. There really is no winning.

My Thoughts on Marijuana

I had to write a short speech concerning a debatable topic recently, and I wanted to share it with you guys. So there.

Inscribed on the stone of the temple of Apollo in the city of Delphi are the words “nothing in excess” and “know thyself.” While being applicable to pretty much anyone in any situation, I think in the modern world, with currently 15 states having legalized marijuana, it is suited perfectly for the growing availability of addictive drugs.

Former Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders calls for it's legilazation on CNN, saying "It's not a toxic substance." She wasn't necessarily saying that it has no side-effects, but that the ones that do exist aren't typically life threatening. It's nearly impossible to overdose on marijuana. It would take over 8000 joints (marijuana cigarettes) to overdose on marijuana, and even if someone was trying, they would pass out before they got there. According to a study done by the U.S. Government, a grand total of zero people died from marijuana in 2007. The CDC has reported that marijuana, as an underlying cause, caused 26 deaths between 1999 and 2007.

According to the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids, approximately 400,000 people die annualy from their own smoking, with another 50,000 from second hand smoke. That's over 1000 deaths daily, related directly to smoking tobacco.

The reason there is such a drastic difference between the death toll for tobacco and marijuana is actually due to chemicals used to grow the plants. Both are natural substances, but while tobacco is typically grown with pesticides, herbicides, and other chemicals to help with crop production, high quality marijuana is typically grown chemical free. After harvesting, tobacco is mixed with even more harmful substances such as tar and other fillers that cause cancer when burned and inhaled. Marijuana is left in it's natural state after being picked and smoked as is.

Marijuana is also known to have medicinal properties. It is used to treat chronic illnesses, arthritis, headaches and migraines, etc. throughout the United States and many countries world wide.

I believe that due to the aforementioned reasons and statistics, marijuana should be legalized in all States for medicinal purposes.

Because I Can

Do you ever notice random stuff? I do. It's what I do best really. The manager who's worked at my work for like, three years didn't notice that one of the signs was upside down, but I did in like, a week.

But anyways, Mac Miller totally re-used this beat made by The Blow in their song "True Affection."

The house in Disney/Pixar's UP totally reminds me of the house in this video, because of it's crazy colors and because of it's surroundings (she's even being kicked out 'cause they're trying to build stuff there. Story stealers much?).

I'm also pretty sure Riot Games stole this character for their MMO "League of Legends" from the movie Return of the Living Dead, a B-rated 80's horror film. I'm not including a link for the other picture 'cause she's all naked and stuff, but if you really want to go Google "naked blue girl from Return of the Living Dead," go right ahead. And by the way, for an 80's horror film, it had some crazy good animatronics, and it's totally one of my favorites now.

Please tell me you notice this crap too.

Society's Got Me Shaking My Head Once Again.

Please, before reading further, click on this link.

With that being said, let me tell you why.

At a conference in Baltimore last week, a group of psychologists and mental health professionals decided that "that "minor-attracted" individuals are largely misunderstood and should not be criminalized."

"Minor-attracted" is code for "nasty old pedophile."

That's right folks, society has made yet another leap downwards.

The psychologists and mental health professionals that are saying this, or as I'll be referring to them from now on, the psychos and mental people, think that pedophiles should have their say in how society views them, and should be able to change how pedophilia is defined in the DSM, or the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders by the American Psych Association.

In my mind, that sounds a little bit like saying "hey, crazy menace to society, why don't you change around how we define "menace to society" so that you and your pedophile friends can run around freely.

Are we going to let murderers define murder now? "I know I stabbed him in the head eight times, but he was homeless, and section 6 of the Psychotic Murderer Handbook Pocket Edition says it's okay to kill hobo's and bums, so it doesn't really matter." This, of course, is an equivocation, but you get my point.

Individuals at the conference who were using their brains were like, "you know, this kind of seems like a sham to make kids accessible to adults." One Professor even said "Oh, they're very clear about that. Their goal is to take all shame out of the lust for children."

If anything, I think society should listen to Jerry LaVigne Jr.

So there you have it;

Pictures: a How-Not-To

Sometimes when I'm carousing through the frivolity and stupidity of Facebook, soaking it all in until I become inebriated with enough disgust to stop, I find myself browsing through some girls photo album devoted to pictures of themselves and stuff they've done, named something like "summerrrrrr :))) <3" or maybe some snippet of obscure lyricism. Most of the pictures don't phase me. I've seen the duck face, and I've seen the pretty girl "lets hold each-others hips and lean out while tilting our heads way too much," and I've seen the mirror self portrait with the "I'm trying to make it seem like I'm displeased with my appearance by making a distorted face" twist, and even more numerous so I've seen the reassuring train of "cute! :)" and "hot dang!"

I'm an observant person. Don't judge me.

But something that always catches me off guard is this picture that some third party took of girl one (and perhaps her sassy counterpart, girl two, and boy-crazy girl three) from behind with their necks straining to even make eye contact with the camera.

Lets be honest here girls. Why are you taking pictures of your bootays?

When I see this I think to myself the dialogue that might have been going on that night while you and your friends were taking these pictures.

Girl 1: "Hey, wanna take like, two hundred pictures of ourselves, upload the twenty that we decide we don't like ugly in, post them on Facebook with captions like "Oh God, we're so ugly!" and comment "plzz delete this!" even though we totally agreed to upload them?

Girl 2: "Hay gurl hay fo sho you know that's how we DOOOOO!"

Girl 3: "Only if I get to stick my tongue out in half of them! Guys love tongues!"

*all three* "Woo hoo!"

Girl 2: "Hecks to the yes! What kind you wanna take first girlfrans?"

Girl 1: "I think we should like, all stand in a row and like, lean in and like, make duck faces."
Girl 3: "I bet the guys are gonna love our duck faces!"

Girl 1: "This is fun! Next lets all turn around and make crazy faces even though the purpose of the picture is to show off our totally hawt jeans!"

Girl 3: "Guys do love hawt jeans! Especially on us!"

*all three giggle*

Girl 2: "Oooh girls I hope you brought you low cut shirts, I'm mo' def' feelin' some pictures of us laying on the ground so we can show the world our cleavage! Mmhmm!"

Girl 1: "Deal, but like, lets finish these pictures of our butts first, I wanna get these pants off, they're like, four sizes too small!"

Girl 3: "Guys love small pants!"

This is a dramaticized re-telling, of course. For the sake of the reader I made it painfully obvious what was going on. Even in my wildest, saddest dreams nobody says this stuff (out loud (I hope)).

What I'm trying to say is you look ridiculous. Stop it. I could probably just totally ignore all the stuff in the world that bugs me, and I'm sure there's some girl out there going "Oh em gee, if he doesn't like it he can just not look at it." Lets be honest here. I'm trying to help you. These pictures are like a giant cliffhanger creeping out of the nostril of your existence. I'd be a bad person not to inform you. There's a better way to show off your body, and it doesn't involve the internet in any way. Go out to a party. Wear trashy shorts. I don't care. At least you can tell when some creepsack scumtrash nastybag old man is checking you out IRL.

Yeah, think about that one for awhile. I'm just trying to keep you safe.

And one last thing. Any girl I see doing a duck-face automatically triggers a subconscious reaction that replaces their lovely little head with this:

I hope you all know that in my mind, you're Steven Tyler.

Good day to you all.

Sometimes...

Sometimes I feel like I can't make fun of politics because it'd be too easy.

Sometimes I feel like if llamas controlled everything, the world would be a better place.

Sometimes I get the feeling that women have a strange complex within themselves that force them to go after dudes who are obviously a lollapalooza of suck-fest-ness.

Sometimes at night I think something, then stop myself and say "no, that's retarded."

Sometimes I watch movies with subtitles in different languages.

Sometimes, when I hear "wish upon a star," I like to imagine some little alien wishing upon Earth from someplace far away.

Sometimes, when I go to social events and I notice people sitting off by themselves, reading or texting, I make fun of them, even though I'm sitting off alone making fun of people.

Sometimes I make random noises.

Sometimes I listen to Christmas music in the Summer.

Sometimes I intentionally put myself in a bad mood for no good reason.

Sometimes when I'm bored I talk to myself.

Sometimes when I'm walking around I skip just to weird people out.

Sometimes I make random lists about stuff.

Sometimes I feel inspired to do something, but waste it on some worthless piece of turd idea.

Sometimes I'm overly suspicious about other people's motives.

Sometimes I try to imagine what it'd be like if I wasn't alive, but it just hurts my brain, because if I wasn't alive I couldn't be thinking about being alive because I wouldn't know what being alive was like, and then *blam brain-a-splode*.

Sometimes when I concentrate I make funny faces.

Sometimes when I'm hyper I get shifty eyes.

Sometimes I can type like, 100 words a minute.

Sometimes I get fed up with the rules of society, which makes me want to study them so I can learn about how much they suck, just to justify my hating them.

Sometimes I'll spend up to an hour on Wikipedia clicking link after link learning as much as I can.

Sometimes I think it'd be fun to do something illegal.

Sometimes when people analyze everything I do it makes me hate them.

Sometimes all I feel like I need to be happy in this world is a good hug.
Sometimes I rhyme just because I can.

Expanding Your Musical Horizons

Every now and then you find something you really enjoy, and you feel the need to share it with the world. That's been happening to me a lot recently, particularly with incredibly good yet underrated songs and artists. A lot of Indie genre stuff doesn't go far in the musical ocean because their target demographic is hipsters and people who actually listen to Indie music. I think that's a real shame.

So I invite you to go forth and experience the overwhelming sea of unheard genius. Envelop yourself, develop your taste for the sound that makes the world spin around. Let me introduce you to some of these up and coming young bloods. Go forth and listen.

Mansions on the Moon

Freelance Whales

Wax Tailor

Right Away, Great Captain!

Macklemore

I'm big in France

Is English like a second language in France? If not, I'm even more confused. I'm not complaining or anything, and I actually think it's pretty cool, but apparently more than like, half my page views come from France.

So to all my French readers, bonjour, how do you do? Glad to have you here. I don't really know any French other than bonjour, except what Flight of the Conchords have taught me (baguette, Jacques Cousteau!), so please forgive me.

Anyways, thanks to all the readers everywhere. Brazil, Germany, Australia, France, America, or anywhere (these are all places that have come to my site). Much love. Mucho amor. L'Amour. Have a nice day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlyXNRrsk4A

My List

Someday, I want to marry a girl. A very special girl. So special, in fact, that I don't even know how to describe the girl that I'm looking for.

Short hair is cute, long hair is beautiful, blue eyes are pretty, brown eyes are deep, green eyes are sexy, tall is attractive, short is adorable... I know some people make like, a check list of things they look for in a significant other; I could never do that. Every time I start a check list, bam, some girl who doesn't fit at all comes in and steals my heart.

Women do that. They steal your heart. Your mind, your money, your soul... occupy your dreams... invade your priorities like a pillaging Mongol, ravage your sleep schedule like a rabid badger. Make your heart melt.

I guess, in reality, the special girl I'm looking for does all that stuff. She doesn't have to look like anything. Someone you can be crazy with. Crazy about. Crazy for. Crazy without.

There's a girl out there who'll turn your world upside down. And man, she's a keeper.

Loopholes Loopholes

Haha. Oh Google, you so funny.

So pretty much, here's what happened. My Youtube account got suspended because of a video I made when I was like, 12 (for copyright reasons). Since Youtube was bought out by Google Inc. some odd months ago, they made a new feature to have to use only one log in, which would be your Google account. Since my Youtube turned Google account became suspended, it also effected my Blogger account, since it too is owned by Google. However, instead of full on suspension, it apparently just removes your ability to post, except for blog titles? I dunno, big corporations are stupid sometimes.

Anyways, since I still had some sort of access to my Blogger, I was able to get in and tweak with the settings to allow another person to post, which in this case, would be me, just under another pseudonym.

So bam, loophole exploited, the little man wins, Google sucks. Hardy har har. And now I'm not stuck with that e-mail address that you made when you were like, 8, and are ashamed to give out to anyone. Besides, who uses Hotmail anymore, anywas?

Thanks for making me get an upgrade I guess. Even thought it was an upgrade... to you. Hm. It's all a big conspiracy!

For some reason, Blogger decides to post the titles to my stories, but not my stories. So the question is, how long can I make these titles? So far, they are seemingly infinite in possible length. This is a test.

Things that make me want to cry.

Have you ever had one of those days where you just need to sit down and think? Well, that happens to me all the time. And for some inexplicable reason, these songs help me get the deeper, more tender part of my brain to start working. I don't have like, a written out list of things that make me weepy, but these music pieces I've compiled here are just a few of the great works that make me feel all mushy on the inside.

I'm back, bay-bay!

So I was laying around the other day, wasting my life eating junk food and playing video games, and having an awfully grand time doing so, when suddenly I said to myself "sick flying pickles, I've got a blog!" So I hurried the fricksticks right up my stairs to my laptop, which brings me to here. I have been feeling a severe lack of writing, and I think this'll cheer me up. (I don't know if "this'll" is a correct contraction, but I like making those up, so I amn't going to change it.)

You know, I can honestly say that I'm pretty awful at pretty much everything. I mean, I can play some instruments pretty well, but I can't read music, and I never got a grade on how fast I can play something I made up on piano. I couldn't do Biblical Exegesis because every time something had a deeper meaning I took it as literal, and vice versa. Math? Well, that's pretty much a lost cause for me. Chemistry? That's just a fancy way of saying "more math." I enjoy languages but the translations over and over and over and over bore me. Words. I love words. If there's anything I can do in this world, it's list off synonyms for pretty much any word you throw at me. And you know the sad part about all this? Last year, at school, I did awful. I was awful because they give me all these classes that I have no idea what I'm doing in, while at the same time I wrote a grand total of about four papers the whole year.

And for serious, that's probably the reason I started blogging. We all know that my good friend Matt Woods and I had a sort of blog-battle in the beginning, but I seriously just wanted to write. Writing makes me feel good. I didn't have any classes where I could let out all this compressed creativity, and frankly it was screwing with my brain. I'd start getting sarcastic on my homework answers. I remember specifically answering "beats me" and "I dunno" multiple times on my math work. There was one particular case where I flat out said "who cares about the falling velocity of this kids baseball?"

So anyways, it feels good to be writing again. Writing is my mistress, and frankly my dear, I'll never get tired of you.

Encounters with Nature on the Way Home from Work

It was a night like any other, as I walked, neither briskly nor slowly, towards mah humble abode from CiCi's Pizza. My legs were weak from standing for four hours at work, but I was feeling otherwise content; the three hour nap I had earlier in the day kept me feeling awake, and my tum-tum was full of num-nums. Suddenly, a wild rabbit appears! Or perhaps not. Upon closer inspection, it wasn't your ordinary street rabbit. No, this was a large bunny rabbit, the kind you keep as a pet. It's adowabwe fwuffy white tail bounced up and down as he hopped along gaily. I approached slowly, with curiosity abounding. Oddly enough, the big-eared fluff-ball surprised me with it's not-running-away-ness as I neared his little twitchy nose and shifty whiskers. He eyed me, then continued with his grass-munching. I stepped once; he hopped away once. I stepped again; he hopped away once more. I got close enough to touch his soft fuzzy-wuzzy hair, and then he was all like "hey bro, I'm just tryna eat some grass over here, do you mind?" (of course, he said this with his big round eyes, and not a voice. I sadly didn't discover a talking rabbit). We continued our little dance of one step one hop for near five minutes, and I attempted to persuade him to come closer, to no avail, with some grass I plucked. He eventually grew tired of me looming over him like a freaky bald thing that walks on it's hind legs, and he scampered off to do other rabbity things.

Just minutes later, I was busy making a moron of myself trying to open the locked back door. I eventually wisened up and made my way to the side garage door, which is left open about five inches so our cats can come and go. I pushed my way through the makeshift barricade put in place so it wouldn't fly about in the event of high winds and found myself not being able to see anything. I widened my eyes as much as I could, expecting somehow to catch more light rays or something. Suddenly, I caught a glimpse of the devilish beady gleam of the eyes of a raccoon. My initial reaction was something along the lines of "hey kitty." My second reaction was "AAAAAIIIEIIEIEIEIIEAIEIEIEEEH!!!" I quickly tried to close the door, which in hindsight, I had no idea what the heck I'd do if I managed to lock the thing in there. Keep it as a pet? Probably. Anyways, I was unsuccessful in closing the door because of the block of wood that was totally put there to keep it open. In the process however, I found a big weird stick with a funky crook at the end, which was good enough for me. I swung it around frantically, not really wanting to hurting to thing, but still sort of freaking out. He almost fell into a hole that I'm not really sure of its purpose, but still made his way through the open door. I don't know that he'll ever be coming back, because I know that I sure wouldn't. 

MJ

Earlier I was listening to the radio when I heard a familiar catchy tune; young Michael Jacksons voice came over the speakers. I heard him and his siblings from the Jackson 5 sing one of their greatest hits, "ABC," and I couldn't help but remember back to when he first died. I was sitting in my best friends mini-van, waiting in the parking lot at Swan Bros Dairy company when his mom got a phone call. I don't remember her reaction, whether or not it was negative or indifferent, but I remember we all just kinda sat there for a few minutes until one of us said "Michael Jackson jokes will never be the same."

Throughout his life, he had be the object of all different kinds of slander, praise, glorification, defamation, and everything in-between. I was young enough when most of it was going on that I didn't care much for it at all; I only knew what others told me. And not that there's anything particularly wrong with secondhand information, but maybe I shouldn't have listened to as much of it as I did. I was absolutely apathetic when I heard that he had passed away, but I knew absolutely nothing about him. At this point in my life I knew maybe two or three of his more famous songs, and thought of him as some creepy pedo with freaky white skin.

Something changed inside when I happened upon a live stream of his children speaking at his funeral. First off, they were like, ten? Courageous kids.

But they weren't just up there to say goodbye. I remember one of them talking extensively on how, despite all the media's attention to what would seem like him being a poor father, he was "the greatest daddy ever." I know it's easy for a kid to say that about their parent, but just hearing that little voice broke something inside of me.

Since then, I've somehow disregarded most of the awful things I've heard about him, and it may just be respect for the deceased, but I've gained a whole lot of respect for the man and what he went through over the span of his whole life. He was, and is, the king of pop. Forever and always. He was immensely influential, sort of like the Beatles, except with catchier music, and created some of the most awesome dances ever, like MC Hammer, except without the parachute pants. He wore a fedora and pinstripe suits. He wrote a song about zombies. Truth be told, he sounds like the coolest man ever.

Rest in peace MJ. You're an inspiration, and you could walk backwards while seemingly stepping forwards. I applaud you.

This ain't Monty Python's Meaning of Life.

The way I see it, or from the unbiased point of view I'm trying to see it from, the purpose of life is to pursue that question of "what is the purpose of life?" Depending on what you believe, it's probably something along the lines of pleasing a greater being, God. This works, because it is a purpose that cannot be fulfilled untill death, or untill we stop wanting to please God, in which case our lives purpose becomes pleasing ourselves. If you are an evolutionist, then pretty much your only purpose is to die and hope that your spawn have the heads of dinosaurs or something, I don't even know. Although, that would be pimpin' on a whole new level. If people didn't ask questions, we wouldn't have to think about the "purpose of life," and people would live life instead of wonder about it.

Since we are chasing this evasive question, we assume that there is an answer. Is there really a purpose to life? As a human being, probably not. I was born, I will live for a small while, and then I'll die, fertilize some dirt, something like that, tons of fun, eaten by maggots. But honestly, if you don't already have a purpose written out somewhere *cough* the Bible/Quran/Book of Mormon/Skymall *cough* then you're probably doomed to just look under leaves and whatnot.

"Oh leaf, why was I put here on earth?"
*rustle rustle*
"Should I be taking notes?"
*rustle*
"Oh I'm sorry great leaf! I didn't mean to anger you!"

His name is Russel. He's angered by the fact
that you're taking notes on his brethren.

Yeah, something like that. Do you have a purpose for living? Christians: yes, God put you here to do his bidding and whatnot. Deists: no, God left you here like an unwanted baby at an orphanage. Evolutionists: no, you were an accident, you're also like an unwanted baby, but you werent even put into an orphanage; you're the Sasquatch of the universe. Atheists: sure. In the (paraphrased) words of Dane Cook, you get to live, die, turn into a tree, then be chopped down by a sweaty lumberjack, turned into paper, and have the Bible printed on you. Do you even believe there is a purpose to life? You confuse me on a voluminous level. Congratulations. Muslims: yes! You are to spread the words of Mohammed el Prophet and kill those pesky infidels. Or, if you choose to believe that the whole of Islam isn't a radical terrorist group, you can just live out life and wait for your 72 virgins. Catholics: you are to follow Cathol and all his teachings (source: Eddie Izzard). Also, you have lots of nice orphanages (but not for Deists and Evolutionists.)


* Note: I know very little, and I realize this. However, if you still feel inclined to remind me, I welcome it with open arms. Also, I wrote this when I was like, fourteen, and edited very little. It's probably nor so good.

Class: unrelated to desired career. (for the time being?)

The other day I was trying to think of a way to get myself motivated for high-school Chemistry (which for some reason is taught out of a college level textbook?). Understandably, I had some difficulty. One solution I came up with was that I'd think to myself "every time I go into Chemistry class, I am a chemist!" And then I remembered that the only kind of chemist I'd ever be interested in is this kind. I got to thinking about my other classes as well, and my careers didn't match up with anything I'm really interested in.

• Every time I walk into Chemistry class, I'm a chemist.
• Every time I walk into Biblical Exegesis, I'm a Biblical scholar.
• Every time I walk into Government class, I'm a politician.
• Every time I walk into Anatomy class, I'm a physical therapist.
• Every time I walk into Greek class, I'm a scholar.
• Every time I walk into Algebra II class, I'm a failure.
• Every time I walk into Literature class, I'm in a book club.
• Every time I walk into History class, I'm a historian.

Is there any way we could have a sign language class? Or maybe I should just drop out and join ROTC. The military could be a good career. Admittedly, being a physical therapist wouldn't be too bad. If I was one, however, I'd want to work with injured soldiers, helping them regain a little bit of their civilian lives after suffering a serious ouchie. That'd be cool. And sign language, that's always been a dream of mine. Think maybe it could count as a language credit? Spanish is practical, but sign is elite; I'd be able to fit in with all the cool deaf kids.

Don't get me wrong, I love all most some of my classes just for kicks. Greek class is the flea's sneeze (it's like the cat's meow, but not). I just don't know if the schedule that's available is really an optimal use of my time based on what I want to do in life.

Has anyone ever seen Accepted? (It had Jonah Hill playing a fat idiot before he was a really famous fat idiot). I wouldn't suggest it, it's an awful movie. But it raises a good point that when people have the option to pick classes that they would enjoy immensely, they can draw learning out of some pretty crazy places. For instance, a bunch of skateboarders are studying applied physics by calculating equations about force and gravity and mass and all that good crap to see if a trick is possible, and then they're just like "dude" and they go out there and do sick flips and junk. Sitting in a classroom doing physics = whack. Spending half the class on a half-pipe doing tricks you just invented using physics = awesome.

Just a thought.

Fat, hilarious, famous idiocy.

Honestly, it sounds like a hunting manual to me.

In my life there have been more than one but less than a few things that have completely confounded me; things that after looking into almost every option possible I still sit and obsess of what the mystery truly is. Not even the great enigma that is woman have I allowed to consume too large a portion of my time (although it has indeed, and a portion larger than I'm willing to admit). I probably wont ever fully understand them, and honestly, I'm okay with that. I love all my friends, male and female, equally (exceptions being my besties, whom I love more than average.)


I even found the elusive Kyle.


But this thing... this book that I've been assigned to read in my Christianity in Literature class (or as my poor teacher unwittingly puts on our absentee sheets, C. Lit) has been mentioned throughout my life, and I'm sensing some sort of government conspiracy. I remember distinctly three different occasions that I've inquired "what is this book about?" and for every time I asked, there's a huge blank spot in my memory.


What is this great riddle, you ask? This is truly the single most unsolvable thing since someone asked "why are these people so amazing!?" about Mumford and Sons. This conundrum is none other than the higly acclaimed book To Kill a Mockingbird.

I read the back of the book, trying to get a general idea of what this "great literary piece" was about. "The unforgettable novel of a childhood in a sleepy, Southern town and the crisis of conscious that rocked it." Wait, the crisis rocked the childhood or the sleepy town? And the story is about a childhood? I probably couldn't write two interesting paragraphs about my childhood.

"Compassionate, dramatic, and deeply moving, To Kill a Mockingbird takes readers to the roots of human behavior - to innocence and experience, kindness and creulty, love and hatred, humor and pathos." I thought this was about some kid, not a philosopher. Here, this part really gets me. "Harper Lee always considered her book to be a simple love story." A love story... a kid love story? Maybe it's about a philosophical child's first crush. How cute!

I asked a couple of my friends what the book was about, and most of the replies went something along these lines. "It's a really interesting book. It's not about just one thing though. It's about like... everything. You know? It's an everything book. You'll just have to read it yourself."

I still was unsatisfied.

Turning to the ever-trustworthy Wikipedia, I found myself incredibly... not informed at all on a plot. "The story takes place during three years of the Great Depression  in the fictional "tired old town" of Maycomb, Alabama. The narrator, six-year-old Scout Finch, lives with her older brother Jem and their widowed father Atticus, a middle-aged lawyer. Jem and Scout befriend a boy named Dill who visits Maycomb to stay with his aunt for the summer." Sounds riveting. "The three children are terrified of, and fascinated by, their neighbor, the reclusive "Boo" Radley. The adults of Maycomb are hesitant to talk about Boo and, for many years, few have seen him." Hey, wait a minute, we could be getting somewhere here. Maybe a scary ghost story, or some mystery about the house? "The children feed each other's imagination with rumors about his appearance and reasons for remaining hidden, and they fantasize about how to get him out of his house. Following two summers of friendship with Dill, Scout and Jem find that someone is leaving them small gifts in a tree outside the Radley place. Several times, the mysterious Boo makes gestures of affection to the children, but, to their disappointment, never appears in person." Yup yup! I'm feelin' a juicy suspense scene where the kids break into the house to try to learn some secrets about this guy named Boo. He's even got a ghost name! BoooOOoOooooOooo Raaaaaadleeeeey.

"Atticus is appointed by the court to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who has been accused of raping a young white woman, Mayella Ewell. Although many of Maycomb's citizens disapprove, Atticus agrees to defend Tom to the best of his ability. Other children taunt Jem and Scout for Atticus' actions, calling him a "nigger-lover". Scout is tempted to stand up for her father's honor by fighting, even though he has told her not to. For his part, Atticus faces a group of men intent on lynching Tom. This danger is averted when Scout, Jem, and Dill shame the mob into dispersing by forcing them to view the situation from Atticus' and Tom's points of view." Oh, wait... what? There wasn't even a transition between these. Did they forget about the creepy guy named Boo? He's way more interesting than the judicial system! I don't know, maybe it's just me who thinks that...

Man, I just can't seem to find one steady plot for this book! I know there has to be one. My literature teacher always told me that you have to have a plot to make a good story, among other things like character development. Surely this "great American classic" has some sort of awesome plot. I must just be missing it.

Hark! What light through yonder window breaks! Finally, after hours of searching, I've found a wonderful explanation of the plot. You see, it is about Boo Radley! He's actually a pirate, who needs the assistance of the children to kill a giant robotic mockingbird. And there are pirates, and bears, and other such literary devices! I really can't stay to explain it to you, because I'm so jubilant about getting to read this book that I think I'm going to go and start it right now! Here's the full explanation of the book for you guys. As a matter of fact, if you don't feel like reading it, I bet this is in-depth enough that you can just watch it and not have to worry about reading it at all.