Doom, you might say.

Well, here we are again. Six months have passed and I suppose it is time to beget a little prose. While I have no rant prepared, the tyranny of the boredom (which awaits me upon conclusion here) should be enough to propagate some form of quasi-coherent ramblings. As there is no path of war set before me to give direction, I guess I can begin with the formalities.

Since so much time has gone by, I will simply throw out some random occurrences that come to me. There is something intrinsically lackluster about being my own mind's medium.
* The 19th street dynasty has fallen. Some may liken me to Nostradamus, others may rebuke my claim. It is amusing to note that, like so many other dynasties, we were left only with debt.
* The walk from Seattle to Carnation is long. Wear good shoes and, if possible, use a car instead.
* St. Louis is somewhere that I would never willingly call my home. The amount of things I enjoyed there that could not be enjoyed at an equal or greater level somewhere else was set firmly to zero. That being said, it was an unprecedented amount of fun.
* Jury duty did little more than bolster my belief that the justice system is something to be feared. To be fair, it also taught me how to get to Kent and reminded me why I don't ever drive near cities at 8 AM or 4 PM.
* I have been the unfortunate victim of a deteriorating gaming console. Microsoft's customer service is somewhat efficient, nonchalant, and expeditious. Their repair department, however, appears to lack capability. November is a painfully inconvenient month to lose substantial gaming capacity and "pleased" would be an antonym for my disposition.
* Some people are truly surprising. I wish that this statement was of a purely positive nature. While I realize that this has been the case since the first poor bastard received a rock tied to a stick in the back of the head as opposed to a fist (or perhaps just the rock or stick by themselves), I feel that it still bears repeating today.

I suppose that's all that has trespassed out of the webs of my nigh-unreachable memory for now. Other than those points of interest, things have been good. I am curious to see what the next month and a half play out like.

It would be elating if some people took this last section to heart. In life, it is of dire importance to ask the question "Why?" I will profess that I am fine with whatever personal beliefs a person may have, despite my own ideas; whatever your mind accepts as the truth (or the plausible) is your own matter. This is not to say (and this is the important part), however, that you are free to chalk it up as "belief" and move on. You should be able to answer why you believe something, be you humanist, feminist, Christian, Democrat, misogynist, horse whisperer, etc... To not do so does a great disservice to intelligent people from all creeds, political parties, and so forth who are actually trying to do some good for like-minded individuals, if not everyone else. It should be known that anyone who comes to discuss this with me and suggests that I am in some way attacking religion will not enjoy my riposte.

Now that the wind has left my sails (and we all know that I'm far too lazy to row), I will leave you with a final thought.
* To everyone who is worried that the (Revelations) apocalypse will be coming soon: It isn't. The Antichrist actually unites us beforehand and, judging by our current state of affairs, we have a lot of maturing to do as a species before this is possible.

Fooling Oneself.

Yes, I am well aware that this makes twice in one month (and since I just realized the time, by month I mean 30 day span)... my abilities for orienting myself in time based off of celestial cycles has not been diminished by my time at school. Quite the contrary, I have developed a fairly acute sense for that sort of thing. I have merely come across... or I suppose "have been bludgeoned to wits end with" would be a more accurate phrase... a certain, let us say "cause", that many seem to have taken interest in that has placed me firmly in the middle of a war path. Considering the fact that I am not prone to many acts of extra-curricular (the curriculum in this sense would be "the minimal effort required to sustain my own life") effort, I will skip all of the standard discussion about how things have been and what is going on. In its stead, I will jump to the very dead-flesh of it, if you will.

Many associates, friends, acquaintances, annoyances, and other people that are somehow involved in the social nebula that has snatched me up within its lecherous clutches have found something that they deem to be a worthy cause and have joined various groups and posted various bulletins on various social-networking sites about it. To those of you who fall into any aforementioned or related-but-not-mentioned groups, this is not a direct attack on you, merely an assault on the idea presented by the cause. Though if it comes down to verbal fisticuffs regarding this, so be it. The cause that I am speaking of here is, of course, the single-day "boycott" of the purchase of gasoline. If I remember correctly, that single day would be May 15th. For those of you who somehow do not know of this activist motion, let me illuminate it for you: On May 15th, those of us who are in the position to do so (meaning those of us who own anything fueled by gasoline or those of us who would buy it for any other reason [yes, I have read about that combination of materials and am fully aware of the interest that it holds]) are to not buy gasoline. This, in turn, will supposedly cost the oil companies of the "Middle East and Canada" (yes, Canada) something in the realm of 2+ Billion U.S dollars. It has been mentioned in some forms of this proposal that a similar thing had been done in 1997 to some wonderful effect (though I have honestly done zero research into that specific portion of this movement, I am dubious as to its truthfulness to say the least). Basically, this is a proposition to not get gas on May 15th so that the oil companies will lower the current gas prices. Now that this is out of the way, I am going to start a new paragraph to enter my rant because I feel that I need a clean section of the page so as to not lose any of the information to such a long paragraph.

Where to start? Alright, well I will start by calling out this movement: This is not going to do anything. Now let me say that I am not against lowering the gas prices, or sticking it to "the man", or even just getting swept up in a motion for no other reason than to say that you support it. However, I am opposed to the idea that any action like this is going to have an effect. Let us assume, for a moment, that everyone in the nation actually does find out about this fated day and doesn't buy gasoline on the 15th of May. At first glance, it would seem that this means the oil companies are losing all that money because no one is buying gas... Unfortunately, this is not the case. Sure, the oil companies will not be getting that 2 billion dollars on May 15th (assuming that everyone was going to buy a tank-full of gas on May 15th and decided not to)... however, that does not mean that the gas isn't going to be bought. Just because you don't buy gas on the 15th doesn't mean you get a free tank of gas and the oil companies are left without the money. What it does mean is that on May 16th, everyone that didn't buy gas on the 15th AND everyone who was going to normally buy gas on the 16th is going to what? Buy Gas. If literally everyone were going to buy gas on the 15th, then the 2 billion dollars will just be moved to the 16th. If, let's say, 1 billion dollars were going to be spent on the 15th and 1 billion on the 16th... then everyone who didn't buy gas on the 15th is still going to need to get gas and will buy it on the 16th... meaning 0 dollars on the 15th and 2 billion on the 16th (For those of you not following the math, that means that 1 billion dollars was still the average for the 2 day span.. meaning 0 dollars were lost by the oil companies). Do you all see where I'm going with this? Not buying gas for one day does not mean anything other than there will be more people in gas lines the following day... It's like smearing the grease around a pot instead of removing it. Unfortunately, that's the sum of things.

All of this is without even mentioning the fact that we don't all buy A: full tanks of gas B: at the same time. Even if we do all buy full tanks of gas, we do not use that much every day. It isn't like everyone would be taking their bone-dry SUVs to the pumps on the 15th anyway. So people not buying gas on the 15th (if it did create some worm-hole that actually took money away from the oil companies) would not take 2 billion dollars away from the "bad guys", it would take a fraction of that (1/14th if we fill up an average of once every 2 weeks [generous, I would say]). And again, it's not actually taking the money away, because everyone that didn't fill up on the 15th will just fill up on the 16th (you still need the gas you were going to get) the same amount they were going to get the day before, but with the addition of whatever they spent on the 15th still driving around.

Okay, let's say that we are actually looking at how to take money from the oil companies instead of just moving the money around from day to day. Everyone would have to not use gas on the 15th in addition (obviously) to not getting any. This would mean a drop in the amount of gas that would be purchased on that day only (the next day, people will resume the purchasing of gas, the cycle will just be pushed back one day). Now hold your horses, this does not mean that the 2 billion dollars have been taken away, it is merely the amount of gas that would have been used that day... and as I stated before, we don't all use full tanks of gas every day. Really, if everyone doesn't use gas on the 15th, the people who needed to fill up on the 15th will fill up on the 16th and the people who needed to fill up on the 16th will fill up on the 17th (because no gas was used, so the purchasing cycle was pushed back for however long gas was not used [1 day])... So if we assume that everyone fills up an entire tank of gas every 2 weeks, we're looking at a drop of somewhere around 150 million (if my math is correct). This is obviously a much more impressive number than 0, but it is really a drop in the hat when it comes to the oil companies. Unfortunately, it would seem that the entire idea is doomed to this sort of fate (I suppose this would be a good time to point out that this plan requires everyone to not use gas on this day anyway, which is impossible in of itself).

Now the truly devoted hipp... activists among you might ask, "Well, how do we actually take those 2 billion dollars from the oil companies (damn you Canada!)?" The way to do that is a hard one. It is a task that most Americans will simply not partake in (isn't it funny that most people aren't even willing to not buy gas on one day? Let alone actually not use as much gas). What you would have to do to steal those 2 billion crisp, clean dollars is actually not use an entire tank of gas that you would normally have purchased. And it's not just you that needs to not use that tank of gas... everyone in the U.S would have to not use 1 tank of gas that they would otherwise have used. This would actually lead to a 2 billion dollar drop in the profits of the oil companies. This would mean walking to class/work/wherever, not running your generator, clipping your grass with hand-shears, etc... Obviously, this is even less likely to happen than not using gasoline for one day.

As much as I hate to say it, no matter what happens, we are not going to shatter the oil companies and bend them to our will... we are not even going to dent that ironclad, regardless of how far up our river it has pushed (war reference... don't worry about it). So as altruistic as this cause seems, it is unfortunately fruitless and I have had about enough of hearing about it. For those of you who had planned on partaking... or are still going to participate in, I appreciate your desire to do something progressive... this is just what I have come to the conclusion of. Anyway, this will end the early-morning rant for me. Enjoy yourselves.

Sans the short of it.

Well, I suppose it's been long enough since this decrepit pit of ramblings, musings, and general malcontents has gone without attention, so I may as well pretend to keep an interest in it. This is, naturally, where I would discuss what I have been doing with my life recently. Considering the fact that it's been nearly (if not more than) a year since my last posting, that is a grim and daunting task. One that I am actually loathe to undertaking, so I will pass for the time being. Should this disappoint you, I'm sure you can find more suitable drains for your time than reading this in any case. Suffice it to say that life has been proceeding apace and things are more or less the same as they always are. I have switched to a Computer Science major (focusing in software design and engineering) from my previous Psychology major for more than a few reasons, not the least of which included a desire for some sort of challenge. While it may surprise many, if not all of you that personally know me, I do desire some challenge in life, but primarily only that of the mental variety (though if you desire to challenge me to staying up or eating treats, I will be more than happy to accommodate you). The rest of the last year I will sacrifice to mystery and laziness so that I may move on to possibly less interesting things that I have apparently deemed worthy of verbalization.

As for the meat of this "web log," I am undecided as to what to discuss with my silent-yet-loyal readers. I have received a peculiar number of suggestions from seemingly random people of late, including topics ranging from the mundane (my distaste for dogs compared to a certain fondness of cats), to the philosophical (my particular views regarding the afterlife [and I assure you, particular is an apt descriptor]), to the downright bizarre (what I believe life would be like if humans hadn't knee-joints). I suppose, before I start down whichever path I choose, I should let you know that this post is likely to be devoid of humor which some may have come to expect. Aside from my aspirations to be a bitter old man, I don't believe there is a specific reason for this, but if you are here for anything other than a morbid fascination... god help you.
*As a side note: I fully appreciate those of you who are like my own personal spell checkers. If there is one thing that I assuredly enjoy, it is finding that I have made a fool of myself in public. However, if you see fit to correct my grammar, specifically in the capitalization of "God" versus "god"... your correction will likely go unheeded, no matter the girth of your metaphorical red pen. I do not specifically care that a specific cult was unoriginal enough to come up with common noun to refer to their deity of choice, but if they want to squeeze the extra key-stroke from me, they'd damn well better figure out a name first.

I had just decided on heading down the path of philosophy with this post, but I feel that my points will be much less articulate without hand and arm gestures, exasperated sighs, and dramatic eye positioning... So I have decided to choose something a little more watered down than the meaning of life (if you don't know this already, then you've already missed your opportunity to anyway and my explanation would be useless). I have chosen to speak on the concept of objective moral truths. For those of you who don't know, an objective moral truth in this case is something that is always going to be right or wrong. Now, the first thing to notice here is that I have named two different sides of morality. This might seem obvious at first, but it actually suggests quite a bit. For example, it shows that I am assuming there are such things as right and wrong or good and evil and that our actions can be quantified as such. It also shows that we will be dealing with morals, consequently suggesting that morals exist and that it isn't an idea simply conjured by society. In any case, at face value, it may be that some people can confidently assert that there are such things are objective moral truths. For example, if I were to find a random person off of the street and ask them if killing someone was wrong, chances are better than average (depending on location and the person asked, of course) that they will condemn the action. The same could be done with things such as stealing and so forth. However, it is my opinion that, if we look more closely at these things, we will find that the answers are not so simple.

In case some of you don't want to wait until I describe the situation, we will be using killing in our example here, but the same general idea works for any specific sin or otherwise "wrong/evil/bad/taboo/whatever" act. Now, onto the example: Let us say, for example, that we come home to a man holding a gun to our family. Now I know there are a lot of sticklers out there, so let me try to be as clear as possible with the situation and if there are still holes... then screw you anyway, this is my story and I am far too lazy to account for every additional variable, but suffice it to say that eventually we could conclude on a situation that fits my need. Also, I realize that this is a very specific example, but if we can come to just one situation where something "wrong" is considered at least partially "right," then we have disproved the existance of an objective moral truth. Anyway, this man with the gun is far too large for you to beat in any sort of armed combat (except for guns, but those are for sissies) and he has the only gun in the house or surrounding areas. You have the jump on the man though and you would be able to get in one fatal blow before he killed you (meaning you could kill him, but if you tried to simply subdue him, he would presumably kill or incapacitate you). Your family is also unarmed and they are all in a row for ease of slaughter. Now, you are faced with the choice of killing the attacker or condoning the killing of your family (let's say a family of 5). Let me explain this just so I don't have anyone crying foul at this point in the story: if you choose not to kill this man, you have given the go ahead for 4 deaths. You were the only person in any position to stop 4 deaths and you opted not to and, while you are not the one actually pulling the trigger, you are the one who did not stop the situation from happening. So, we can assume from here that to kill the attacker in order to prevent the 4 family deaths would be an acceptable thing to do (if you feel that letting the attacker kill your family, resulting in 3 more deaths than there would be if you killed him, is a better situation, then you and I disagree on a fundamental issue regarding responsibility and the worth of life).

Now, the smarter amongst you might interject here and suggest that we amend the moral truth at which we are looking. This amendment might take the shape of something like: it is always "right" to kill a person in defense of yourself or your loved ones provided that it will result in fewer deaths total and there is truly no other way to avoid the situation, but it is otherwise unacceptable to kill anyone. This would seem to make sense at face value. Essentially what we are saying is that it is okay to kill in order to minimize the loss of life or that it is okay to kill in order to protect our loved ones if necessary, but only then. However, if we take the previous attacker-situation a step further, we should see that there can be a catch then as well. Let us say that you walk in on the same situation and opt to kill the attacker under the concept that this is the "right" thing to do. Now, let us say that your family is all part of some sort of plot that will lead to the deaths of millions of people (which you, of course, had no idea of). The "attacker" is actually a FBI agent who was required to kill your family before they initiated the devastation by a way unknown to him (it could be as specific as the fact that one of the family members has an internally triggered switch that will send a message to whoever and so forth). So now, our previously amended moral truth is obsolete.

We are now faced with the problem that we will not be able to judge whether or not the action is right or wrong until we have all the facts, which is generally impossible. Considering that there is such an ambiguity as to the right or wrongness of a certain situation, I feel that it is safe to say there is no such thing as objective moral truths as we have defined and understood them. If you disagree, please let me know and we will see if we can come to some sort of philosophical conclusion.

In any case, I think this post has gone on quite long enough and I am going to end it now. If you have read this entire thing, I feel pity for you and hope that you find more interesting things to occupy yourself with in the future, both near and distant. However, I will likely add another post sometime relatively soon (it wouldn't really be the end of a post that I follow with several months + of inactivity unless I said that), so we'll see if it's a little more interesting then.

It's best not to wake the sleeping giant.

Ah yes, war, what a wonderful device of human-kind. In any case, hello again everyone. It has been a while, but I suppose I may as well pretend to keep this festering carcass gyrating in some macabre polymonthly ritual. It has been so long, I'm not rightly sure where to start. It is troubling, but I believe I will begin with a note of seriousness... admittedly, an emotion not typically visited of late in this blog. Perhaps, I shall first address the issue of hypocrisy. It is something that I hear most people experience in their life time, so it may be a noble effort to shed some instruction for those of you who may deem it wise to avoid such pitfalls later in life. Let me say (and duly, let it be noted), that there are rightly two (and possibly more) sides to this dangerous coin. To the first side, you would do well to avoid doing the very thing that you complain about. If you piss and moan for months about how this person does "this and this", and then turn around and actually become the culprit of that same "this" and treacherous "that", then you have stumbled into the unfortunate trap of hypocrisy. You have become the very thing that you have pissed and moaned about and are now no better than they whom you abhor. Moreover, it would seem that most individuals who partake in this form of hypocrisy do not realize what they have become. It is a most unfortunate state. Now, let me address the second side of this coin. This is the hypocrisy of action. If you do something (that is to say, that you take part of some sort of action [or indeed, take no part when one should be taken]), then you should rightfully expect to have such a thing done back to you. This is a variant of the golden rule (To do unto others as you would have done unto you), for those of you who may be unfamiliar. Let it be known that, especially when in the presence of those who are vengeful, or those who would consider themselves wronged and would consequently take action, that if you mess with fire... it is quite likely that fire will mess with you. Too often is the case, though, that those who mess with fire are not prepared to meet the consequences. However, I digress... Allow me to place this situation into more mundane thoughts so that every reader may more accurately follow my explanations. If you feel that it is a wise idea to omit someone from something you may be privy to... perhaps information, or your future actions, or information about your future actions, then you too should be prepared to be left out of such valuable information. This concludes the second side of this unfortunate coin. Let me finish the seriousness with an end note: If you feel that this applies to you, then it is quite likely that it does. I have not addressed this missive to any person(s) in particular, but if you feel that you may have taken part in any sort of hypocrisy, then this is certainly directed at you. I feel that it is important that I do my part to rid the world of such an evil. I may, at some later time, make clear the rules of justice to help define the moral code of our society and its workings. An eye for an eye makes all things equal... If you take an eye, expect to have your eye taken. After that, both parties are on the same plane once more. Taking another eye will result in your deformation yet again.

Ah, now that we can put all seriousness aside, I can rightly speak of my life as of now. The Spring quarter is almost over, which is mostly for the best because my classes have been long, boring, and uneducational. I have Japanese at 9 AM, which is far too early for any subject, even one that I thoroughly enjoy. It is instructed by a bearded white-guy who I had the unfortunate privilege of seeing nude after my daily swimming last year. It is definitely strange learning Japanese from a white person... it doesn't seem very genuine and I somehow fell that I am missing something from the instruction. However, he is the department chair, so I'm sure that he has some merit to his name. Following Japanese at 11, I have English 102. This class follows the decline in interesting instruction of my day... We are learning basic English skills and applying them in ways that will never need to be visited again in our life time. Neither of these things are of much importance to me. The teacher is a woman from Egypt who teaches very much like an elementary school teacher... this only serves to hasten my desire to run out of the classroom, screaming into the night (unfortunately... it's always day-time when I make it outside). However, we always do group assignments which has served to both allow me to meet some cool people and not do as much work as I would normally be required to do. I cannot complain about either of those components. Directly after English, I trudge my way to Biology 101. This class is, by far, the most boring of my day. The teacher is a mix between Martha Stewart (appearance) and Ben Stein (personality). By the end of this class, I have heard so many ridiculous analogies and sleep-inducing speech that I would much rather force a fork into my retina than wait around for one more biological tid-bit. That sums up the entirety of my classes for this quarter.

As for housing, I have moved out of the Barto dormitories for a multitude of reasons and am now living in a housing complex off-campus called Timothy Park. It is not a bad situation at all. I moved in with two girls that I knew previously, had my own room and bathroom, and got another car out of the deal. We're not allowed to have pets here unless we pay a ridiculous fee, but that's okay with me for the most part. Other than that, the rent isn't too bad and utilities generally don't run too high, so it's a pretty good situation. And the weather in Ellensburg has been wonderful of late: Low-high 90's for most of this week. I've definitely utilized the temperatures to get outside for the first time in the better part of a year.

In any case, I have been writing this blog in a sick contest with my own hunger. I have not eaten yet and it has been somewhat of a test of will for me to keep at it for even this long. I may revisit with another post in the near future, but as with every time I propose such a thing, it is not the case. Enjoy yourselves everyone, pancakes and eggs await.

The Breakfast of Cham... Fatasses

What's that you might ask? Why, Taco Bell, pop tarts, and some M&M's for good measure. I hope this clears up for everyone that even though I am a vegetarian, I am not A: a healthy person or B: going to live longer than anyone (save those of you who may get struck by a bus, meteor, ninja, spike-covered-baby falling from the fourth floor of an 8-story conference building, etc...). That being said, I definitely had a good breakfast yesterday.

Anyway, I figure that since it's been a month and a half with a rather lengthy holiday break since my last post, I'd hop on this one... Kind of like watching like watching a spider try to free itself from water, isn't it? Alright, well academically this year, I am partaking in a surprisingly interesting Asian Invasion, if you will. I've got Japanese at 10 AM every day, then Asian Studies at 1 and Politics of Japan at 2-3:30 (both of the latter classes are only on M/W/F). Basically I've got nothing to do on Tuesdays/Thursdays after Japanese except play video games, eat, and take wonderful, wonderful naps... but that's pretty alright with me. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, however, kind of suck. I spend the time from 1 PM - 3:30 PM with two nerdy white guy profs. who like Asian girls. The prof. for Politics of Japan doesn't even speak Japanese and has only visited the country like 4 times, so I can't help but feel that he doesn't really know anything other than the specific course material that we cover. Alas, that's what I get for trying to study another culture in Ellensburg. Alright, moving on.

For those of you fortunate enough to have picked up an XBOX 360, I strongly recommend picking up Dead or Alive 4 along with it. It's a fighting game, but it is a solid fighting game. It doesn't take very long to get "good" at, but it takes forever to be great. Shameless plug aside, the 360 is still doing quite well (it is slightly lacking in the amount of available games at the moment... but that will change, much like one would expect the life-status of someone who messed with Jack Bauer* to) and I'm glad that I picked it up.
*If you don't get this, grab the nearest cable-enabled Television and throw it out the window (or at your neighbor), because you certainly aren't using it the way it should be used.

And for those of you who do not know, I am attempting to move out of my current place (The Barto Dorms) into a house off campus. In order to do this, not only do I have to pay a fine of like $1,000 just to get out (not to mention the deposite and such for the other place), but I have to deal with administrators who act like me moving out is akin to slapping their mothers and spitting in their mouths. Almost every person I've gone in to talk to has grilled me about why I'm moving out, where I'm moving, what wasn't good enough about the on-campus living, what I plan to do with all the slave children in the closet, what specific date I'll be moving out, etc... It's really pretty ridiculous, but I'll be so glad to be out of this place when the time comes.

Finally, anyone who wants to either play some pick-up hockey or just throw some skates on (ice only, roller skating sucks in comparison and you know it) and goof off should let me know. I'm dying to get back on the ice and would rather go with some other people. Regardless of what side of the pass you're on, we can work something out I'm sure. Alright, well that's enough of a post for now, I'll post more if someone reminds me tomorrow or in a few days or something. If not... we'll see. Later.

This post was made possible by Holiday Spirit

Heh, I don't know how true that is, but I would certainly like to start off by wishing you all a happy holidays. Not too happy though... I hate coming back from a break and hearing how much more awesome people's breaks were than mine. So f' that. Secondly, I hope that everyone had a decent Thanksgiving break? Mine was pretty good other than the near fist-fight with my brother. Okay, now that we've got the holiday cheer out of the way, let's get down to the business that is: my life.
School is alright. About as good as finals week could get at the moment I suppose. Really though, I'm just glad that this quarter is coming to an end. It isn't that I didn't love the entirely boring classes that I had to partake in this quarter (who am I kidding? I don't even know what happened in any of the classes I'm enrolled in), it's just that I'm ready for Japanese to pick up again. Additionally, I will be participating in band again come next quarter... At some point during this quarter, I was struck with the thought that I would like to keep my musical talents from completely vanishing, so I set the wheels in motion. I creepily found the IM of a girl who plays bassoon here and talked to her about it (she truthfully did all the work: Thanks Amanda). Before long, I was walking out of the music building after a really embarassing performance (The Bassoon professor actually made me play when he gave me the bassoon. For anyone who doesn't know... if you haven't played, or even looked at an instrument for about a year and a half... you'll be a skosh rusty perhaps), but with a really nice Fox Bassoon in hand. Alright, that's about all I have to say about school, but I would like to add one last "f' this place" before I move on.
What else besides this seemingly awesome academic life have I even managed to have time for you ask? Well, I'm not sure exactly how to put this... but, well, I've managed to obtain A GODDAMNED XBOX 360. I may make a second post about this freaking epic adventure alone so that those of you that don't give a shit (which I believe, if my roster is correct, would be everyone but myself when I lovingly read my own posts) can just skip it. Other than that, I have gone to two cocktail parties (Which for those of you who don't know, A: *slap* and B: They're formal parties [jacket and tie in this case] where everyone gets together and is as pretentious as possible) which completely rocked. I've also gone to a Christmas Movie Marathon (14+ hours of christmas movies coupled with baking cookies and crazy stuff like that). Other than that, all that comes to mind is a lot of random hanging out with people. I've made a lot of new friends and maybe an enemy or two over the time-span. It's been pretty fun, I'm not going to lie.
Oh, right, my car also broke down. I can now personally say how badass it is when your car simply stops going and you're taking someone home over the pass... And that's way badass. We took it to the shop, but the people at said "shop" are such sketchy individuals, I wouldn't be surprised if they already stripped it for parts and even stole my f'ing sleeping bag. Yeah, that's how seedy these guys were. They called me up at 7AM (which... happens to be before I get up normally) to let me know that I would probably need to get a whole new transmition before they could even figure out what's wrong with the car... My car blue-books at $1,200 or so and a new trans. could run up to $1,300... That before they figure out what actually caused my car to stop? Ahh mechanics. So yeah, who the f' knows what's going on there. I've been car-less for about a month or so and it sucks big time. I hate asking people for rides almost as much as I hate people who drink Gatorade on TV... and that's quite a bit.
Alright, that's about it for this post I believe. I'm going to post a second one with my beloved XBOX 360 story and maybe some continuation of my content-lacking rambling. Good luck with your silly lives everyone.

Alright, time for a post I guess.

Okay, well school has finally kind of settled down and I guess I should keep up with my monthly-ish posting habbits, even if I have nothing to talk about. Oh! Dangit Pizza Hut... I used to love you until you started this whole "Pizza for a quarter" thing. It isn't that I don't like the idea of getting more food for just a quarter... but it's the ads. Who are they kidding? The ads start by saying that they're giving everyone a quarter... but then they decide to give everyone a pizza for a quarter. Now, at first glance those two things may seem related... but they're not. The only thing that they've got in relation at all is the fact that the word "quarter" is used in both of them. In plan A: I am receiving a quarter for nothing. In plan B: I am giving you a quarter for a pizza. The difference is most upsetting... Pizza Hut, you're right up there with Gatorade now... stupid sloppy athletes.
I guess next talk about my classes:
First I've got Music 102: Introduction to Music (As in, the history of music). The prof. is a pretty funny guy, I'd guess in his mid-late 20's named Curtis Peacock. He looks kind of like he was taken out of the 80's and even says things like "Hip" "Cool Cat" and "Grandaddy of them all", etc... just kind of a weird vocabulary. All around, the class is kind of boring. I know what tone, rhythm, and melody mean, and I know who Mozart and Bach were. Basically that's a nap-class.
Second, Anthropology 110: Introduction to Biological Anthropology. This class is probably one of the more dry classes I've ever taken. We go in, take notes, maybe watch a short documentary every now and again... that's about it. That isn't to say that it isn't interesting, because it is... it's just a little plain. The prof. is nice though, she seems like a really personable lady. We'll see how the class shapes up, I think it could go either way at this point.
Third... my most interesting class and prof. Philosophy 352: Introduction to Western Thought. This class is basically just an entire class devoted to discussing the Greek Philosophers, so it's pretty sweet. The reading material is really thick, but it's still interesting. Maybe that's just because I'm such a nerd? Who knows... But then there's the instructor... Dr. Burkholder. Goodness, this man is crazy. His back is entirely straight, but his front is curved out like a bow... so he's got a very half-moon look going on. When he walks around, it is very pidgeon-like and he shakes his head to match. It is the most interesting thing I've ever seen, but he's pretty funny anyway. He's very blunt, but tries to make it seem nice... basically a "I may be mistaking, but I do believe we've already covered that moments ago... unless you weren't paying attention?" It's great.
Alright, well I've not been paying much attention to this (It's taken like 1.5 hours to write this much), so I'm sure it's all scattered. Suffice it to say that I've got class every day at 10, 11, and 12 and then I'm done. It's a fantastic schedule.
My dorm is actually working out pretty well. When I first moved in, I thought it would be a really weird set up, but you get used to it pretty quickly. It's really nice having my office to myself so that I can do all the work/computer socializing that I need to do without interacting with anyone in the real world :) Barto (my hall) is also like, right in the middle of school, so it's not too long to get to any one place. The diners are a little further away than they were when I lived in North Campus, but that's okay.
Also, I'm picking up the bassoon again... I just figured that it would be kind of dumb to have spent so much time in High School playing it just to drop it later, so I'm planning on joining concert band here. We'll see how that goes... so far it's taking me a little bit of work to get back into the groove of things. That's about it on the school-front so far.

Oh man, last week was the worst week I think I've ever had. It started out with my cat, Laguna, dying... then one of my bosses died unexpectedly from liver-failure at a pretty young age. Then a bunch of other stuff on the same not-so-good scale happened including my car breaking down when I was trying to make it home for the weekend. [on a side note... the tow-truck driver was one of the creepiest guys I have ever met... he was 2 years shy of 40 and talked about how he loved hanging out with a group of college girls from Monroe... ugh, what a weirdo]. Oh well, this week has been significantly better, so I guess I'll just count my lucky stars and move on.

Alright, well I think that's about all I've got at the moment, I may post again tomorrow or over the weekend (I just lied to you, I'm not posting again for another month and we all know it... but it's a nice thought I guess). Talk to you guys later.