Quick update to prove that I'm still alive or at least a zombie or something.

My hands...they're completely covered in cake. I scrub and scrub, but it won't. Come. Off. I feel like a modern Lady Macbeth, screaming at this damn spot cake that just won't leave. My keyboard is currently glaring at me as I leave tiny pieces of confectionary droppings everywhere, but it's not like I'm going to let a mess get in the way of my internet fix. When I need a hit, I need a hit.


The weather is incredible right now, and does not feel like February whatsoever. It's warmish and sunny outside, and I should really be enjoying it; instead, what am I doing? Sitting inside in a sweatshirt, covered with a blanket. I have a problem, I'm realizing. And by a problem, I mean a whole slew that should probably be addressed at some point, and sooner would be much more beneficial than later.


I'm taking a quick break from the cake that has dominated the last few days of my life, and I guess I should take advantage of this opportunity to do something like homework or exposing myself to the sunlight for the first time in four months. Nah.


I'll just keep listening to Born This Way with the blinds closed and scrub my hands until they're raw and no evidence of cake is left.

This post really serves no purpose.

It's 10:30 AM and I've already been up for nearly three hours. During this time, I've accomplished absolutely nothing, despite the many things I have to do this weekend. In fact, the only things I've done are listen to Lady Gaga's new single Born This Way over 50 times and eat French toast.


In case some of you don't know, I'm kind of amazing in the kitchen. And no, that's not a euphemism or double entendre or whatever else your sick and disgusting minds have come up with. I do a lot of cooking, but most of my time is spent baking, and I've been enlisted to make a few batches of cake pops this weekend for Valentine's Day. What are cake pops, you ask?


Welcome to the best dessert in the world.


Any type of cake and frosting, coated in chocolate, on a stick. It sounds morbidly obese, but even with the addition of chocolate, they're a lot better for you than eating a whole slice of cake. As long as you only eat one, of course. After all, they're only two to three bite desserts that make you feel like an astronaut while you're eating them. I didn't come up with the idea, but I make them for nearly every holiday, birthday, or major event. And by major event, I mean weekends and sometimes Wednesdays.


So, at some point today, I'll need to take a trip over to the hell that is Winco--a discount warehouse-type store with a horrid name--and brave the crowds of soccer moms, screaming children, and screaming soccer moms. It's the cheapest place in town to get things like flour in bulk, so I set aside my personal fears and reservations about places like it and make the long journey only when it's absolutely necessary.


For now, though, I'm just procrastinating and listening to ~Born This Way~ in my pajamas. I was talking to a friend of mine and found the perfect description for the new season of American Idol. And I quote(myself):

"American Idol is like the straight-A beauty queen that got in an accident because it was texting behind the wheel and now has serious brain damage."

-Drew Meier, February 11 2011

I know this is completely irrelevant to everything else I've written in this post thus far, but seriously, sometimes I just look in the mirror and think, "Dear God, where did this gift come from? From what fertile soil did your genius spring forth?" while stroking the face of my reflection. My uncanny ability to deliver mediocre, nay, ridiculously nonsensical one-liners is truly a gift from God, Shiva, Allah, Vishnu, Chairman Mao, or whatever other deity/communist Chinese dictator you worship/are oppressed by.

You have to know where I've been to understand where I'm forcibly taking you, part 1.

January 21st was the last day I remember being in the real world. I've been struggling, fighting even, to get back since then; I think I might have finally done it. Either that, or someone with more free time than me is playing a very elaborate prank. Normally I enjoy pranks, as I've mentioned in previous posts, but this one could just be a dick move.

You see, I was inspired. I had an idea. I should know by now that the inner mechanics of my mind are dangerous; starting that post was the worst thing I could have ever done. Or maybe the best. Who's to say?

Oh, right. Me. I'm the one writing here.

Back to the adventure I've been on. You see, I started this post; it was about toothbrushes or whatever, I don't really remember. I live my life by the philosophy that if I can't remember something, it probably wasn't that important to begin with, so I don't feel bad for forgetting things like which way pants go on(party in the front, zipper in the back) or if my bank account has any money left in it(the bank just doesn't understand that it's not overdrawing if my purchase is something I absolutely need, like a Chocolate Moose Pillow Pet or blood diamonds).

So here I am, writing about oral hygiene--that's what she said--when everything goes black and I suddenly smell grapefruit. My first reaction was, oh great, I'm having another stroke; I guess that all-salt diet isn't working out. But what could have been seconds, hours, or days later(keeping track of time isn't my forte; that would be sniffing out truffles), I find myself laying in the sand of a beautiful beach, with grapefruit trees as far as the eye can see. "Why grapefruit?," I ask myself; it isn't until much later that I get my answer. I sit up, and while looking out over the water, decide that I should probably get moving.

I can't draw sand. Also, I'm Jack from Lost.

Because I watched every episode of Lost, I realized that venturing into the thick jungle of citrus trees probably wasn't the best idea; if there had been some kind of smoke monster living there, it wouldn't leave the forest for at least the first four or five seasons, which meant I was safe near the water. So, in order to save myself from the main cause of fictional smoke-related death that has nothing to do with cigarettes, I walked along the beach for a while.

Smoke monster or rip in the time-space-grapefruit tree continuum? You decide.

Since I forgot to mention that it was daytime during all of this, I'm telling you now. It was daytime. I'm not going to lay on the imagery here unless it's absolutely necessary, this isn't a J.R.R. Tolkien novel. Deal with it.

As the warm sun began to set, I realized I had no clue what the weather would be like in this place after nightfall. I'd need to find shelter, and soon. Looking at the long stretch of beach on either side of me, I failed to see anything but sprawling dunes of sand. There weren't even any seagulls shitting on everything and annoying me or crabs scurrying across the sand; this place was completely devoid of life. I then wondered, holy shit, was I sent to this place for my complete and total lack of life back home? Is this some kind of punishment for perfecting the art of not moving? Maybe I was to spend the rest of my days alone on this beach, devoid of the things that helped sustain my life on a daily basis.

Out of fear, or perhaps courage, I decided to venture into the jungle. If there's some kind of smoke monster, maybe I can pull a John Locke and stare that thing down like a motherfucker; never mind the fact that it later inhabited his dead body. Don't pay attention to that aspect of the show. Oh, spoiler alert I guess. The show is over, and if you haven't watched it yet, then that's not my fault.

There wasn't really much of note in the first part of the trees; rotting grapefruits, and eventually oranges and lemons, dotted the ground around me as I trudged forward. Why citrus? I didn't understand. I don't even like grapefruit. Oranges are okay, though I love lemons. What if I'm in a coma? Is this my dream? What is wrong with my subconscious that all it can think about is citrus? I had so many questions, and no answers.

The farther I walked, the more I began to question my choice of going into the jungle. Nothing was changing, and I had gone in pretty deep--that's what he said--and there was no way I could find my way back to the beach now. Tired, I sat against a huge tree with grapefruits the size of...I don't know...a baby or something, and began to rest my eyes. It had been a long and confusing day, with the biggest question now shifting from "Where the hell am I, and how did I get here," to "What the fuck is up with all these grapefruits?" I started to doze off, hoping that a grapefruit might fall off the tree and kill me in my sleep, when I heard a huge booming sound. Boom. Boom. Boom. With each boom, the ground shook harder, notifying me that whatever was making that sound was getting closer and closer.

The first boom was so loud and terrifying that I had to consciously stop myself from losing control of every orifice on my body, a harder feat than any of you might expect. The impact of the boom was powerful enough to shake my bones, and I jumped to my feet like a monkey ninja and further adhered to that description as I managed to claw my way up the tree I had been leaning against only moments before. Somehow, despite never having the ability to climb anything in my life before, I managed to scramble to the safety of a low-hanging branch. In my hurry, I had forgotten that standing on a low ladder rung terrifies me, and I was now literally sitting in a tree. My fear of heights being compounded with my fear of the boom monster, for lack of a better name, sent me into a sniffling and crying fit. Clinging to my branch, I began to whimper, which then scared me even more because I realized making noise would probably draw the creature closer, and I basically fell into a huge spiral of fear and involuntary urination.

All the while, the booming grew closer, and the shaking had grown to the point that I was clinging to my branch like a rhesus monkey to a fake mother; the soft one, not the wire one. If you don't get that reference, let me Google that for you. As I held on for both dear life and comfort, the source of the boom revealed itself.

Holy shit.

Reunited and it feels okay. I mean, soooo gooood.

I am a huge disappointment. Why? It's been over a week since I last updated, and it was a lame post about my even lamer school schedule. Where did I go so, so wrong?

I don't know what happened, there's truly no explanation; but every day, I've woken up and searched for inspiration, purposefully seeking out potentially hazardous scenarios to inject myself into just for a couple of laughs and a sub par blog entry. I feel like a whore. A very unsuccessful, unfunny whore.

Finally, I realized, posting something is better than nothing. I'm not some kind of absentee writer that phones in a post every now and then when I feel like. Or at least, I don't want to be. It's not what I intended for this endeavor. Thankfully, as I was doing complete and total mundane tasks not too long ago, a very handsome light bulb went off above my head, and a post idea was thrust to the forefront of my mind like some kind of pelvic convulsion.

Could it really be? Inspiration for a post? Yes, indeed, it was. I felt like ET discovering Reese's Pieces, slowly and methodically repeating the word 'idea' over and over to myself, rolling it around on my tongue like some kind of foreign but tasty intruder(I...dea? Ideeeeaaaa...i...deee...aaaa!). And no, this post is not the aforementioned inspiration, this is only a prelude, precursor, foreword, introduction...whatever. Pick a word. I don't care which one you like best.

Don't get your hopes up about it being the entry-to-end-all-entries. It would be safe to compare me to the Tin Man, rusty and frozen while time continues to move forward without me, only to later be greased up by a foreign girl and some guy with no brain. I have yet to decide who or what represent my saviors in this analogy, so for now we'll just call them "Dorothy" and "Scarecrow." The names came to me in a dream, induced by getting hit in the head by a windowpane in the middle of a tornado. Or maybe that was a movie.

I just realized all my paragraphs get progressively larger in this post. I mean, not anymore, since this one kind of ruined that trend, but up until now, it's an accurate observation.

So, in conclusion, I'll be working on my new post today and probably publish it tomorrow. I have some drawings to do and my tendency to nitpick every little aspect of them until they're perfect usually extends the time it takes to finish from what most would consider normal to ridiculous.

Functioning normally. Kind of. Not really.

Spring semester started today. This means numerous things: I have to wake up at a normal time two days a week, I'm responsible for actual work, and I'm a handful of units closer to never attending school again. After months and months of having nothing productive to do, it's a nice change from what became the norm for me, waking up at noon and hissing at the sight of a productive activity. 

Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely(I can never tell), I currently feel as if I have no body. I'm just a floating brain/head/consciousness, typing with my invisible and nonexistent hands through sheer force of will. Is this what waking up at 7:30 does to a person? Or is it just me? When you're not in school and you have no job, these questions aren't present in your life; your biggest worry is whether or not you have enough Lucky Charms to last the rest of the week.

But never fear, I'm in no real danger of work overload this term. Thanks to the forces of the universe conspiring against me, I managed to miss my registration date by a whopping three weeks, meaning I could only obtain seven units this semester. That's right, seven. Three classes. Music 101 and 102, knocking out my Arts & Humanities requirements, and Introduction to Yoga. I feel like complaining whatsoever about my class schedule this semester is worthy of getting my ass kicked, a punishment I might find myself partaking in if it were to happen. While I'm not sure if I can literally kick my own ass, as it's not something I've ever attempted to do, I'm positive I could provide some assistance to my righteous assailants in causing myself some form of bodily harm.

I attend class from 9:30-12:30  and then 7:30-9:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so it's not as if I'm on campus somewhere north of 10 hours a day, multiple days a week, like many students are. But hey, I'm also not dumb enough to major in something that requires that many obtuse classes. The joke's on you, science and math majors! While you're making your cushy six-figure salary, I'll be enjoying an ample yearly sum of $55,000-$100,000 a year as an accountant. If that's what I choose to do, anyway. Have I mentioned that I have no idea what the hell I'm going to do once I graduate? Because I don't.

Accounting is one option I'm considering pretty seriously. It involves math, a subject I've grown to loathe, but most of it is practical math, something that I somehow manage to excel at. If you stick me in a Statistics or Calculus class, it would be no different than dropping me in the middle of rural China and asking me to communicate and survive. It makes no sense in my mind. But if you apply math to things like money and economics, it clicks. There's no rhyme or reason to this numerical madness, but like many things in my life, you have to be at least a tiny bit insane to understand my special form of cognition. 

My first music class, Music Appreciation, consists of two papers, two tests, and note taking. The papers have to be five pages long, which will take me a grand total of 45 minutes each to speed through(all the while earning an A, I can guarantee), and the tests are open note. My second class is titled Intro to World Music, and is almost identical to the first, with the exceptions being our papers have to be 2-3 pages long, we have 6-10 in-class/take-home quizzes, all of which are open note, and a final that is also open note. Somehow, if all classes could follow this structure, I think a whole lot more people would be interested in obtaining a college education. Unfortunately for me, music classes lend nothing of great value to my major or potential career options, aside from assisting in the destruction of my General Education requirements.

And so, this will be my life until the last week of April. I haven't attended my yoga class yet, but something tells me it's not going to be academically challenging in any way. In a perfect world, yoga would consist of little more than the Child pose, and the teacher would just let me sleep the whole time. Though I suppose that might be asking a little too much.

Left 4 Disappointment 2

I've been playing a lot of Left 4 Dead 2 lately. A lot. Purchasing this game in no way helped calm my preexisting addiction to all things zombie; since its arrival, my dependency on the living dead has only grown stronger. Like some kind of super villain or something.

I finally got around to installing my drawing program on my netbook, hence this drawing and my fucking awesome new banner.

I was playing earlier today(no surprise, to be honest), and my parents were conveniently not home. See, since my netbook can barely handle Minesweeper, I'm unable to play games on here; this means I'm using my parent's desktop to play L4D2. If you're not familiar with my gripes over the desktop, either because your memory is horrible and you should be ashamed or because you haven't been reading my blog very long(which is also horrible and worthy of shame), then let me rehash this topic.

It's roughly three, three and a half years old. It hardly has anything installed, something like 80% of its original memory is still intact. The processor is somewhat above average, I can't remember exactly what it is, but I know it's around 2.6ghz or so. There is no reason for this computer to run slowly. The reality of this situation? It behaves like we've had it for 10+ years. So you might see where my frustrations lie when I try to play my wonderfully modern zombie game.

The game runs, you see; the desktop meets at least the minimum requirements to play it. I checked before I bought it. The problem is that, for some inexplicable reason, the computer decided it would be fun one day to give us the middle finger and run as slowly as it damn well pleases.

So as I was saying before I got sidetracked, I was playing by myself with the volume turned up relatively high because, if you're not familiar with zombie games, it's fun to scare the shit out of yourself when a screaming zombie comes running around a corner and then you begin to wildly fire your gun in any direction. I transition from shrieks of terror to maniacal laughter on a very consistent basis, and I'm sure any person within earshot of my cackles is under the assumption that my family is housing some kind of disturbed mental patient.

Up until this point, I've somehow managed to avoid my parents discovering the sheer brutality within the game, such as when you start throwing your chainsaw around and blood and zombie limbs fly everywhere; I kind of screwed up today in that regard. My parents walked in the house to the sound of the dying screams of zombies, which sent my mother into a state of sheer panic. Before I have a chance to react, they're both standing in the doorway, mouths agape at the on-screen carnage, with my mom asking an eerily calm tone when I decided to become evil.


Now, I've never considered myself to be evil, and in my mind, ridding the world of flesh-craved zombies is anything but evil; I'm pretty sure the Boy Scouts of America give a badge for zombie extermination. And if they don't, they should, because it's nothing short of an exemplary public service. My parents will be happy one day when the world is thrust into a zombie apocalypse and the extensive time I spent sitting behind a screen, hacking at would-be zombies, is what saves our lives. 


I think behind his shock, my dad thought the game looked fun. He kind of stood there and watched me play for a little bit, asking questions about what gun I was using or what the bile jars do(makes one zombie the target of the others, just in case you were wondering), sometimes cringing when my axe(Uh, spellcheck is telling me that 'axe' is not a word. What the hell.) managed to behead the occasional unlucky zombie. Maybe I can convince him to play.


My mom, on the other hand, will continue to wonder where she went wrong with me; a question that started around the time I bit my sister in the stomach. My question to her is, since when is wanting to kill zombies a bad thing? I would understand if the game was called Puppies and Kitties: Total Destruction and consisted of murdering innocent baby animals. That's pretty sadistic. But zombies? Really? Maybe she's infected, and as a zombie, is against the slaughter of her kind.


I'll be keeping my eye on her.

Scrambled eggs.

I woke up at 7:30 this morning to my mother telling me that someone was kind enough to egg my car. How obnoxious. In my mind, the only people that egg cars are 12-year-olds with some kind of inferiority complex, whether that stems from bullying or being unloved by their goldfish. Regardless of the situation, it's still kind of a dick move.

Fortunately for me, whoever did it obviously isn't very smart, because egging someone's car when it's misty, rainy, and foggy outside won't really do a whole lot besides force me to actually wash my car. Typically, egging a car is something you want to do when it's hot and sunny outside, because the egg bakes into the paint and you literally cannot get it out. By the time I got out there to wash it off, most of it had been washed away and only a small patch remained. Ha, morons.

I never really partook in the destruction or defacement of other people's property. Sure, I TP'd a couple houses, but I don't really consider that to be a major offense. I've always thought it would be fun to fork someone's lawn though, because if someone did that to me, I would think it was hilarious; doing it to someone else can only bring more hilarity. I can picture the face(s) of my would-be victim(s), awaking to find their front yard full of...forks. 

Another thing that always seemed fun was filling the yard with dish soap, and then when it rained or the sprinklers turned on, the foam and bubbles would be everywhere. I don't even understand how anyone could be bothered by this, it's almost like snow; have a bubble fight, build a BubbleMan, bitch about shoveling the sidewalk! I might even do this to my own house. Well, probably not, I doubt my parents would be okay with just letting it go away on its own, and I don't want to be the guy outside cleaning up bubbles. I'll look like a schizophrenic.

By the way, person who egged my car, if you're reading this, I hope you feel bad. Not about making me wash my car, because as I alluded to earlier, I needed to do it sooner or later; no, that is not the issue. The problem I have with your ovum affront on my 14-year-old Acura CL with an already shitty paint job is that I got woken up at seven-fucking-thirty. I went to sleep at 2:30. This is not cool. Do you know what it's like to be standing in the middle of your street before 8 AM with a bucket and sponge, washing your car in penguin pants, a t-shirt, and slippers? No, you will never know that kind of humiliation.

I think the worst part of it was, I planned on having eggs for breakfast this morning. Instead, I had oatmeal. I hope you feel guilty.

Things that don't exist anymore, and I have no idea where they went.

You know when something is there, and then you forget about it, and one day it just disappears? And it might even still exist, but because you haven't paid any attention to it in forever, in your mind it's not around anymore and you ignore the fact that your egocentric logic makes absolutely no sense? That's basically how I live my life. I guess the title of this post is misleading, but it sounds better than "Things I forgot about for a really long time and kind of think they might not be around anymore, or they still are and nobody cares about them." Maybe it doesn't, I kind of like that one better. That's the new title, okay?

Netscape

Somewhere in the jumble of Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Chrome, and the rest of the browsers out there, Netscape ceased to exist. I don't think that many people used it to begin with anyway, especially with a fugs icon consisting of the 1980s color scheme of teal, black, and white. Plus, I'm pretty sure the 'N' is Times New Roman, and that's as basic as it gets.

Emo kids

This one is kind of hard to prove, because I'm most likely totally wrong. Maybe because I grew out of the age group and I don't notice it anymore, but I'm pretty sure hipsters absorbed emo kids in an attempt to make themselves stronger. Kind of like Strong Guy, but with a mustache and superior music taste. Because nothing says anti-establishment like buying clothes at Hot Topic, right guys?

Wonder Balls

Do you wonder, wonder what's in a Wonder Ball? Let me tell you: chalk candy and I think a sticker or temporary tattoo or something. It wasn't really that great. But when you're a kid, there could be anything in a Wonder Ball, including things that couldn't possibly fit inside one. These things might still be around somewhere, and I think Turkmenistan just got their first shipment last week. The upside? They're lucky enough to have that first Wonder Ball experience, from the crappy chocolate to Disney character-covered box. The downside? I think the last one rolled off the line in 1998, so it'll be a test to see how well chocolate stays preserved inside cardboard and foil.

Nicolas Cage's dignity

It's scary to think that this guy was once a somewhat well-respected actor. Don't get me wrong, I don't particularly dislike him, and some of his movies are entertaining enough to sit through at least halfway; but it would be somewhat ridiculous, and quite a stretch, to say that any of his latest roles have been worthy of accolade. The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Astro Boy, G-Force, Knowing, Ghost Rider, The Wicker Man...the list truly does go on. His slow descent into what is seemingly madness is reflected best in the insanity that has become his hair, ranging between unwashed and unkempt, the butthead, and the most unflattering of them all, something that makes Rihanna's forehead look small. And that's no easy task.

Eiffel 65

Just kidding, nobody misses them. Also, I just realized the second-to-last sentence in the Nicolas Cage section ended in rhyme. I never cease to amaze myself.

Poor Queen Latifah.

That is all.

Food that shouldn't be considered food.

Everybody has foods they dislike, and I tend to like things that a lot of people don't, and dislike things that a lot of people enjoy. I'm weird. However, in some(most, all, whatever) of these cases, I like to think that most people would agree with me. Here's some insight into my taste.

Watermelon

I generally consider all melon to be wretchedly awful, but watermelon is the worst offender of the bunch. It's grainy, watery, and tastes like everything that's ever been wrong with fruit. Everyone seems to love it, and I'll never understand why. Groupthink, most likely. You're all sheep.

Cilantro

This shit is disgusting. It's like dirt and soap combined with a plant, rolled in feces and prejudice. I am completely alienated from Tex-Mex cuisine because everything is full of cilantro. There are certain dishes that allow me to ignore the taste and enjoy everything else, such as guacamole, but those exceptions are few and far in between.

Celery

Eating celery feels like someone wrapped hair in a disgusting, crunchy exterior. When it's cooked and mushy, it's fine, but raw celery is probably my least favorite food in the world. I've been told, "Oh, just eat it with peanut butter! It's delicious!" Guess what? Tried it. I require roughly two jars of peanut butter for one stalk of celery, which defeats the purpose of eating celery; because it's, you know, healthy. 

Marmite

I've had the pleasure of eating this satanic concoction twice in my life, most recently at my friend's dad's house on New Years Day. Imagine, if you can, eating the thick, brown child of salt and yeast; it is possibly the only thing in the world that can make toast disgusting. We as a society are worse off because of the existence of marmite. If the U.S. terror alert levels were affected by the presence of food, this stuff would drive us into red alert on a regular basis. The UK should be investigated for using biological weaponry against the world population solely for inventing this crap.

Balut

No, this "No Image Available" thing is not a mistake, I didn't post a dead link in this entry. I'm sparing you from seeing what balut looks like. In case you've never heard of it, balut is a boiled, fertilized, only slightly underdeveloped duck or chicken egg that is eaten directly out of the shell. It's incredibly popular in Southeast Asia, and apparently considered to be an aphrodisiac. If someone tried to get me to eat a dead, whole baby duck, the last thing I would be doing is trying to get in their pants. I'd most likely be vomiting as I ran out of the room.

My original intent was to have drawings for this post, but it didn't happen. I still need to download Macromedia Flash on my netbook, so we'll be without illustrations for a while. Enjoy the pretty pictures from Google for now, everybody!

Apparently, I'm in high demand.

I'm freaking BUSY. Every single day lately is crammed full of fun and awesome things, and I've barely been home. I definitely haven't had a chance to sit down, write, draw, make a new banner...things like that. I feel like my blog is my yard, and the grass is getting overgrown and the plants are starting to wilt. And it's being overrun by lemmings.


I have ideas. Post ideas. They're circling around in my head, just waiting for a free hour or two when I can do that thing where you put words together in a cohesive and coherent structure, though cohesive and coherent might be a lot to ask for. I haven't abandoned you, readers. I still love you. I have free time now, but I have gotten maybe 10 hours of sleep over the last three days and today, I've been up since 7:30. It's my own fault, I'm not pointing fingers at anyone, but I'm also my own worst enemy. Let's face it, nobody's shoving sugar and caffeine down my throat, and there isn't some invisible person forcing me to stay up until 4 AM when I should be going to bed roughly five hours earlier than that, since my classes actually start in the morning this semester. 


Stupid decision on my part, once again; no morning classes. I tell myself that every semester, because I just can't do it. It's impossible for me to absorb any knowledge before noon, which is exactly why I stopped speed-reading encyclopedias at 8:30 every morning. It did me no good.


So I'll do my best to be back on a regular schedule soon. School is returning to Grim Reaper everyone's social lives away, so maybe people will forget I exist and I can go back to being forever alone and dedicating every waking hour, minus my classes, to the internet. It will be glorious.


Soon.

I'm a moron! Happy New Year!

Right now, I'm straddling my bathtub with one foot in water hot enough to cook a lobster. Why am I doing that? Because last night, I attempted to jump, and in doing so, landed extremely painfully on my right ankle. It's now swollen to about the size of a swollen ankle, so I'm trying the old "scald your foot with boiling water and a little bit of Epsom salt" trick. So far, all it's done is make me worry that layers of skin are just going to slide right off my foot.


Tonight is New Years Eve, my least favorite holiday. I don't understand why people celebrate the year ending, it seems like it should be more along the lines of a funeral, since December is kind of the annual sputter-and-die month for our calendar. But tonight I'm going with two of my best friends to Sacramento in an attempt to party it up and get my mind off the fact that a grapefruit is chillin' out, maxin', relaxin' all cool on my synnovial hinge. 


They say champagne dulls the pain everywhere but your head. Or maybe I say that. Either way, hopefully the light and bubbly concoction will redistribute the pain elsewhere, and I can maybe kind of stand and toast when the ball drops and Snooki plummets to her inevitable death.


Did you know that Snooki is going to be inside the ball when it drops tonight? Now you do. And I'm sure you're wondering, how low has our country sunk that a drunken, orange Chilean is worthy of invading one of the most iconic symbols in American culture, the Times Square New Years Eve Ball Thingy? The answer is very, very low.


So, Happy New Year, everyone! Take this opportunity to get drunk and potentially forget 2010 altogether. My resolution for the new year? Become the most famous person ever that's ever lived in the history of everything. I can do it. Maybe. Probably not. There's always 2012! At least until the Mayans get sick of our bullshit and kill us all.

My bite is worse than my roar.

When I was a kid, I wasn't allowed to watch that much TV, which was a good thing; it forced me to actually go outside and play, something I loved to do. Nowadays, I sit in my room with my curtains drawn, swaddled in blankets and a hoodie regardless of the weather. Not nearly as healthy as my childhood activities.


My family was also in a much different situation: we only had one television in the house, much simpler than our current three. So if I wanted to watch something, not only did I need to have "TV time" left for the day, but the TV itself needed to be free. Being the youngest member of the family, I was at the bottom of the food chain, so to speak; if my sister wanted to watch something, she had the power to take over the living room by force. We never really fought when we were younger, and we're as close as a brother and sister can be to this day, but I choose to believe that she enjoyed tormenting me as a child. The major weapon that was employed against me was tickling, but she sometimes branched out into the classic physically-move-me-to-another-room-and-lock-me-in-there-despite-my-constant-blood-curdling-screams-and-begging-for-mercy technique. I tried to fight back as best I could, but it's hard to defend yourself when you're five and a 13-year-old's tickling is bringing your bladder closer and closer to emergency release.


So my tiny, single-digit-year-old self wasn't strong enough to outright overpower her. Maybe this is how I became more of an introverted, planning-type person; my attacks needed to be covert and unexpected. After what was probably a couple days, but what felt like years, I had created some semblance of a plan in my underdeveloped mind. What I was specifically going to do, I wasn't sure; but I knew I needed to strike when she wasn't expecting it. One day, the opportunity presented itself. 


She was lying on the couch on her back, and since it was the 90s, she was wearing some form of a belly shirt; this was exacerbated by the fact that her arms were behind her head, pulling it up a little bit farther. I was off in a corner playing with my dinosaurs, silently watching, waiting for her attention to shift from how annoying my guttural growls and roars were to the new Boyz II Men video playing on MTV. I thought to myself how ironic it was that she was the one watching TV this time around, unaware of my imminent attack. Except MTV was way more boring than The Busy World of Richard Scarry, so her multiple affronts on me were worse than my simple plot for revenge. I was more than justified.


Noticing her revealed stomach, the plan that had been floating around in my mind suddenly became grounded; I knew what I had to do. With a devious smile on my face and a charging shout that would put Braveheart to shame, I ran forward and bit down on her stomach with such vigor that my attack was more effective than I ever thought it would be; almost immediately upon contact, the skin of her stomach broke open, creating a sizable wound that I was sure my dinosaurs would be proud of. Her screams of pain brought me back to reality and out of my state of euphoria, followed by a quick flurry of arms hitting me in retaliation. Minutes later, she was on the way to the hospital with my dad while my mom spent a gratuitous chunk of time explaining to me that it was not okay to bite people on the stomach, something that I did not understand or agree with, followed by cries of wondering where she had gone wrong with me.


I don't really know when or how I decided it would be fun to start biting people, but this is my best guess as to when it began. After having broken the skin of my sister's stomach and subjecting her to a very painful tetanus shot, I got the taste for blood and began to seek out any opportunity to strike again. More than convinced my razor sharp fangs were more than a match for my sister' brute strength, I spent hours stalking her, pretending I was a velociraptor hunting down my wounded prey. I pounced only when I was sure her guard was down and I had a chance to rip a generous portion of flesh from my unsuspecting victim. Much to her benefit, the same opportunity never presented itself and a short decade later, I realized that biting people was not a socially accepted behavior and decided to grow out of my "LOL I'M SO RANDOM AND WEIRD" phase, something that I have come to loathe and pretend never existed. 


But it was all worth it. After my mom was done lecturing me about how I can't bite people and that, for the thousandth time, I'm not a dinosaur, the living room was empty; the television was mine. My sister has forgotten the lesson I taught her that day, or maybe she never understood why I thought it was a good idea to bite her stomach and send her to the hospital, but I knew. You don't get between me and something I want. And five year old me wanted to watch Sesame Street.

When it rains, it pours. Except when it's only a light drizzle or just a regular amount of rain. Or all three. Long title, long title, long title, ramble ramble ramble.

The weather in California has been capital-C-razy the last couple weeks. Living in Northern/Central California, I've managed to avoid the Noah's Ark-style flooding that people silly enough to live in Los Angeles have been experiencing. Unfortunately, our weather up here has been going through what I assume are mood swings, threatening to either dampen or enhance my plans on any given day, at any given time.


In what could have been no longer than a 15 minute period, I went through nearly every type of weather you could possibly experience in the Central Valley: blindingly sunny, rain strong enough to break through my windshield, and something that I choose to refer to as "death wind," because as a child, I had an ever-present and irrational fear of tornadoes. The slightest bit of wind would send me into life-threatening anxiety attacks, and since I've always had the tendency to be a little over dramatic, I somehow found it appropriate to refer to even the tiniest breeze as the "death wind." 


I was a troubled child.


As I drove around town today, the rapidly-changing elements thought it would be fun to frustrate me as much as possible by forcing me to constantly adapt to my surroundings, over and over.


Heavy rain. Windshield wipers on high. 


Rain stops, sun comes out. Windshield wipers and headlights off. 


Light rain, sun still shining directly into my face, obscuring my vision and pissing me off. Windshield wipers on low. 


Wind picks up, blowing leaves and sticks and shit all over, causing them to stick to the mud covering the bottom eight inches of my car like some kind of six-year-old's horrid art project. Hope I don't hydroplane on the slick and muddy roads. 


Rain goes away, sun gets covered by clouds. Windshield wipers off, headlights on.


Rain starts pouring down so hard that I start to think all the sugar I ingest has finally caught up to me, I've gotten diabetes, suffered from glaucoma, and am now going blind because I can't even see five feet in front of my car. Windshield wipers on high, desperately trying to keep up with the bastard rain, high beams on because maybe they'll stop another car from crashing into me.


Sunny skies, rain gone. Everything turned off.


Couple this ridiculousness with the fact that people can barely drive properly when there aren't any adverse weather conditions hampering their ability to pay attention to what's going on around them, and you had a very frustrated driver(me) with the power to angrily run over a random pedestrian in a vain attempt to release frustration and tension. It wasn't exactly the best day to be on the road.


Had I not made plans to meet a friend for coffee, I wouldn't have needed to go anywhere today. But when I get $50 worth of Starbucks gift cards for Christmas, I use those suckers like they're going out of style. And while increasing my blood pressure to an unhealthy level probably isn't worth braving the roads for overpriced coffee, it forced me to actually take a shower today, which is the ninth day in a row I've managed to bathe myself, truly a personal best in recent history.

Super Smash Bros Brawl, Pt.4: PTSD, Cold War tensions, and well-adjusted females. Also, the finale.

Part four! It only took me a week to write, which is a new record for procrastination on a post. But it's cool, you guys are faithful, and I know you haven't been running around on me with other bloggers.

Snake
Ex military guy that seems to have forgotten he's back home. Runs a pretty tight ship at home and is determined to teach his son how to shoot any type of firearm by the time he's ten. Far too macho to deal with what might be a serious case of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, he's building a potentially unsafe obstacle course in his back yard to hang onto that "first boot camp experience" feeling.





Sonic
White guy that's gotten pretty deep into the urban hip-hop scene. His rhymes aren't exactly what some might call "funky fresh," though his sweet kicks and bangin' ride make up for what he lacks in musicality. He doesn't understand that acting urban doesn't automatically make you a member of the rap community, and open mic night at the local pizza joint isn't helping his delusions of grandeur. When asked where he is every Friday, Sonic does his best to convince people that he's playing a gig somewhere. If only they knew that he shares the stage with drunk middle aged women and a karaoke machine.




Toon Link
The really cool little brother that all of his older sibling's friends actually like having around. He gets that it's not cool to run and tell his parents everything, and is mature enough for his age to be entertaining. Brags at school about how he hangs out with high school kids, and has all of his fellow 7th graders in awe. He'll probably end up going to college parties with his brother once he's in high school, and his overinflated ego will get really annoying to all of his peers. Good for you, Toon Link, you go to parties. No1curr.




Wario
The guy that lives in your apartment next to you, and does not understand the concept of privacy. Or hygiene. He's constantly coming over, asking to borrow stuff, and never return everything; the last time he bathed, shaved, or even washed his hands has probably been weeks, leading into months. In a way, you're actually okay with him keeping the stuff you let him borrow, because chances are anything he returned would test positive for a whole slew of diseases and alien bacteria. Also, you wish the walls between your bedrooms were thicker. Gross.




Wolf
A Russian immigrant in the 1960s. Everybody is freaking terrified of him, because apparently Communism is just as contagious as the common cold and attacks much more swiftly. Everybody in the neighborhood is convinced that he's either a spy trying to steal Betty Smith's tuna fish casserole recipe, or some kind of Scorched Earth suicide bomber just waiting for the right time to blow up the neighborhood and turn it into Moscow's Pennsylvanian sister city. He's kicking himself for moving to America at the height of the Cold War, and he can't return to Russia because who knows if the ghost of Stalin is just waiting to fuck with him?




Yoshi
Immature man-child. Doesn't understand the concept of growing up and functioning on your own. Yoshi's at least in his mid-30s, lives at home, and has never had a real job of any sort. His bedroom hasn't changed since he was 12 years old, and his days consist of playing World of Warcraft, working on his "martial arts," and moderating his Battlestar Galactica forum. Ingests nothing but the pizza pockets and Rockstars his mom provides for him multiple times a day.


Zelda
The "hot" gamer chick that every lonely male gamer she's ever played with has asked to be his girlfriend. In reality, she's not what most people would consider hot, but any female that isn't grotesquely hideous is considered a goddess within the video gaming world. Plays male characters a lot because she's tired of getting hit on, and actually has a normal life outside of loving video games. She doesn't let anybody know about her nerdy hobbies, though; she has a reputation to uphold, after all.




All four parts are finally completed. I must be a moron of some sort, because I somehow ended up with 34 characters, when I initially counted 35. I never said I was good at math, by the way, so don't start pointing fingers at me and agreeing that I'm a moron. It's cool when I insult myself, not when you do it. Especially when you have good reason to.


So if you guys liked this series, I might do it with other video games I've played too. They'd probably be shorter, since most games don't have 34, or 35, or 40...or however many characters. That might actually be better for my attention span.

Television has consumed my life.

Wow, I totally didn't mean to go this long without updating. I had written two new posts, both of which were AWESOME, I must have accidentally deleted them because posts don't get up and walk away on their own. In fact, posts can't walk at all.


The last few days, I've done basically two things: sleep and lay around. While laying around, I managed to write the aforementioned posts, but mostly I just watched reruns of House Hunters and ate whatever Christmas desserts weren't massacred by me on Saturday. It's been awesome, and today was no disappointment; I ordered Left 4 Dead 2  and the first two God of War games for 28 bucks. None of it was mine, thanks to the Amazon gift cards I got this year. Score. My sister and her fiance also just got Netflix, so I spent about 90% of my day sprawled out on their couch looking for any horrible-yet-awesome movies I could manage to waste some time on.


I watched G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra, and to be totally honest, I cannot tell you a single thing about it except Marlon Wayans was one of the main characters, and he is not Jamie Foxx. I'm sure you can see how I got them mixed up, considering they look nothing alike.


Right now, I'm watching reruns of American Dad on some random website that has ads reminding me of all the single women conveniently located in my town and how I can get a medical marijuana card. Personally, I'm not down with the ganja, but whatever floats your boat.


Tomorrow, my goal is to somehow recreate the Lost Posts that I was so proud of. And maybe stop watching so much TV. I probably won't accomplish either, because I still have a few desserts stashed away somewhere, and "coming down from a sugar high" is higher on my list than "finding a less sedentary pastime" and "attract new readers, don't scare them away."


But it's the thought that counts, and my thoughts are my gifts to you. It's probably not a gift you wanted, but you're stuck with it. Kind of like chlamydia.

Ho ho ho!

I'm in between insanity at the moment, and while I have a few minutes to do so, I figured now would be a good time to wish everybody a merry Christmas. I'm typing on my new netbook, which means I no longer have to share the world's slowest computer with my parents, and can write and update whenever I want! Be excited, because I know I am.


I hope everyone's day is filled with awesome stuff you couldn't afford to buy yourselves, food, and probably a decent amount of alcohol to cope with such close familial proximity. Have a great day, great evening, and I'll be back tomorrow with something awesome that will probably make you fall madly in love with me.

Merry Christmas!

Feast for your eyes.

I'm going to be busy the next couple days, and I might not be able to update every day like I've been doing until after Saturday. So, in an attempt to keep things entertaining around here, I took the suggestion of one of my best friends to post the video she made for me last year. Do your best to ignore my grotesque appearance. If you stab out your eyes Oedipus-style, don't say I didn't warn you.

So happy together.

Sometimes, you find things that are super cool. And then you find other things that are super cool. Then, every once in a while, you get the idea that these two super cool things should be one super cool thing. If you're me, however, then you get these ideas constantly. Here's some stuff that I think should be considered package deals.

Cake and cake

Cake is awesome on its own. Moist and delicious with creamy frosting, there's almost nothing better on this earth. The only way to improve cake? More cake. "More cake" should be our national motto; everybody would be happier, and think of all the problems we could fix. The answer to war? More cake! The answer to hunger? More cake! The answer to eliminating dangerous drug cartels? More cake! The answer to unwed, teenage mothers? More cake! And condoms! Hurray!

Sleep and exercise

Since "more cake" probably isn't the answer to obesity, this is the perfect solution. If scientists or nutritionists or personal trainers or something can find some way to get our bodies to exercise while we're asleep, BAM, problem solved. I understand there might be difficulties in making this dream a reality, and I'm willing to wait for science to catch up to the inner mechanics of my mind. I'll learn to be patient, I really will. Seriously, Stephen Hawking, call me up. I'm sure this is probably outside your typical realm of interest, but maybe we can work on something together. I'm an idea guy.

Microwaves and television

Sometimes, when I'm microwaving something, I think, "You know, I hate waiting, but I don't want to walk away and have the microwave beep before I can stop it when there's one second left. I wish there was some way to entertain myself rather than pace back and forth in the kitchen, looking at food because I'm bored, then remembering that I'm waiting for food to finish cooking." One day, it dawned on me; we need a TV installed in the microwave. Then I would never have to stop staring at a screen. My life would be complete.

Zombies and dinosaurs

Two of my favorite things. There needs to be a movie or TV show or book or something about these two subjects. Think of all the zombie movies that would have been improved with the inclusion of dinosaurs: 28 Days Later, Day of the Dead, Zombieland, the list goes on. Just imagine, Mark Zuckerberg and Abigail Breslin fight off a horde of zombies, only to turn around and see a velociraptor staring them down. Lord help them if they come across zombie dinosaurs. Facebook would never be the same.

Leap somewhere else, Lords.

I love Christmas music, I really do. It sets the mood this time of year, and reminds us that it's time to see a bunch of people you may not like that much and you'll be fighting with almost all of them for at least a month straight. Having said that, by the end of the holiday season, even the best Christmas songs get a little grating; it's sweet of Mariah Carey to express how much she only wants me for Christmas, but after hearing her say it 200 times, my limit has been reached. To make matters worse, there are some that probably never should have been written, changed, or performed in the first place, yet the sheer volume at which they're played should be reserved only for torturing people convicted of war crimes.

Superions - Fruitcake

The fruit cake joke has worn out its welcome. Yes, I get it, fruitcake is disgusting. It's hard as a rock and shouldn't be considered dessert. Whatever. I don't care anymore. Stop shoving this tired farce down my throat(Am I the only person that thinks that sounds suggestive?). Superions, there's a reason why this video has less than 10,000 views on YouTube; everyone else is just as tired of the shtick as I am. NO MORE FRUITCAKE SONGS.

Eraserheads - Fruitcake

Okay, the Eraserheads didn't get the memo. At least in the Superions' song, the song focuses entirely on the contents of fruitcake, which is annoying, but appropriate. This song talks about stars and miracles falling down from heaven, something called "fruitcake heights," and "mothers giggling in sheer delight" at the taste of fruitcake. Also, there's apparently fruitcake in everyone. I don't get it.

Lou Monte - Dominick The Donkey

This song makes no sense to me. I admit, it's kind of catchy, and I find myself hee-hawing throughout the day after hearing it; but I have some fundamental issues with the lyrics. The reindeer can't climb the hills of Italy, so Santa Claus needs a donkey? Um, I'm pretty sure the reindeer can fly. I wasn't aware climbing was a necessary skill under these conditions. Second, the donkey dances when people speak in Italian. That must get tiring for a donkey that lives in Italy. Try again, Lou Monte. I'm not buying it.

Jackson 5 - Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

In reality, I only have a serious issue with one part of this song, but it bothers me enough that it makes the list. Head to around 1:45 to hear a completely unnecessary addition to the original song. For the longest time, I thought it was just nonsensical scatting, and it drove me crazy. Finally, having looked up the lyrics, I now have a better understanding of what actually peeves me when I hear the song. Really? Rooty-toot-toot and rump-a-tum-tum? Both were necessary? Also, I would love to see what "tootling" is, because I'm pretty sure that's not a word.

Any performance ever - 12 Days of Christmas

According to Wikipedia, this song was written in 1780, which is obvious because if anybody gave me these gifts now, I'd ask why they hate me and if they have the gift receipt. First of all, I hate birds, and twenty-three of them are given as gifts in this song. 23. That is a lot of birds. On top of that, you get 12 drummers, 11 pipers, 10 lords-a-leaping, 9 ladies dancing, and 8 maids-a-milking. That's fifty people. Who's paying their salary? I'm not. Don't give me people as a gift, I don't fancy myself a slave owner. The only decent gifts are the five gold rings, and I'd probably have to sell them to afford all the other crap. I don't like gifts that end up resulting in chores, thank you.