I'm not dead yet

The first week back at school has had an adverse effect on my mental health. Constant stress over my English class finally came to a head when Brosamer kicked out all the waitlisted people. But I shot him a nice, buttery email, which should hopefully help me out, if he likes me at all. He fucking better.

Everything else is good though. Bardell is as hilarious as ever, O'Connell the same, even though he's pretty scary when he gets angry. Mosleh's Eastern-European, Brooklyn, Californian, Persian hybrid accent is bizarre and the class seems extremely simplistic. I just activated my music course, so I'll be working on that, along with the mountain of math homework O'Connell assigned. Ugh.

But enough about silly school. Let's talk about something else. Once the school year started, I began to reflect, in my spare time, while waiting for class, about my summer. I realized it was probably the most productive summer I've ever had, in terms of experiences, accomplishments, and just general happiness. So obviously, the only thing to do is list it out on my blog (It's more for recording purposes, the probability that I'll forget the nuances is quite high).

I recall kicking the shit out of my finals (except one) and just kicking it for a while. I also recall getting accepted to RYLA, which seemed so far off. So then I take the SATs and get a pretty dismal score and play and beat Ninja Gaiden 2 and Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, the former causing me to rage out several times. I also went to the midnight launch of the latter, which was pretty fun. I also marathoned MGS4, because it came out three days before RYLA. I actually pulled it off, good fucking times.

So then RYLA came along, and with it a maelstrom of emotions, revelations, and new motivations. This blog is a direct result of RYLA; that camp inspired me to write every day to whet my skills. Motivations shot up in every area: I wanted to write for papers, be active in Interact, what have you. It was a brilliant experience; I would kill to relive that week. The place changed me, not to a significantly frightening degree - not Dr. Jekyll and Joan Rivers, but it chilled me the fuck out, opened me up a bit, showed me that the world isn't always dark and miserable, although it most often is. Let's just say it eroded a bit of my cynicism.

I also enjoyed learning. I didn't just learn from the Trig class I took at the end of June till the end of July, but other things. More experiences, so to speak. I observed and made notes (not really, but you get what I mean), on the relationships of my friends, to make myself a more knowledgeable person. And maybe apply that practical know-how to maybe get myself one of those "relationship" thingies. Yeah, it didn't work, but that's ok. Live and let learn, right? It's probably a good thing, my attempts just made me grow closer to the two people involved - the consult and the target. And to be honest, that's more important than any successes. On second thought, maybe Trig was more important. ;)

The other RYLA functions, AIDS walk and the beach reunion, served as nice get togethers, pleasant and hilarious. Walking six something miles with awesome people, screeching Journey at the top of my lungs, and explaining point-by-point why 10,000 B.C. sucks to Justin never gets old.

As we come to mid-July, thus began the Great Reading Journey. I had nothing to do, my 360 was broken (still is), and I had nothing else to do, so I found comfort in books. It was alllllll good. You know what else was all good?

PANCAKES!!!

Outside Lands Music Festival (Even if I nearly dropped dead, was buried by a crowd, and barely recognized half the shit played)

A Journey to Bethel Island (Nothing like nearly drowning to make you appreciate life)

Watching The Dark Knight in the first 24 hours.

I'm not sure what else, someone please remind me of things I overlooked. I gotta remember this shit, you know?

Sarah Palin is a dumb cunt

Might as well get my main point across. McCain's choice of VP was an extraordinarily bad judgment call - instead of picking a well-rounded candidate with good credentials and a solid track list of achievements, he just goes straight for the renegade democrats, the Obama haters. And while he certainly scoops up those morons, he alienates everyone else in his party, the Republicans who actually want someone decent for the Vice Presidency.

Palin is simply Dick Cheney with a vagina turned down to a softer volume. She supports the NRA, anti-abortion, supports the teaching of Creationism, and basically sucks the long, metallic dick of the oil companies. I initially thought, being the Alaskan governor, that she'd be all for the creation of alternate fuels and cutting down greenhouse gas emissions, but she's not. In fact, she denies that global warming is man-made, despite the damn near avalanche of proof that says otherwise. On top of that, this woman is even more "inexperienced" than Barack Obama, only this time, the argument actually works. She's been an office a total of two years, never served a full term, and has absolutely PISS ZERO foreign policy experience. Good call, McCain!

All in all, Sarah Palin exemplifies everything that's wrong with this nation. Backwards, ignorant, reliant on what's essentially heroin. The least you could say about her is that she shakes things up - a woman VP running with an old senile fart against a young, idealistic black man and an old senile fart. The drama will be on this November. I didn't think McCain would be savvy enough to pull off this move, but I gotta give credit to the old dog. But hey, he still picked a shitty candidate, so what little props I give him are immediately repossessed.

PS. Blog reverts to a semi-weekly updated basis.

Rawr

It still makes me happy.

A Travelogue Part Deux

So, I spent the day in Berkeley yesterday, so the only thing to do about it, obviously, is to write another travelogue about it. And here we...go.

Austin picks me up, Bela's in the car. I bring along a box of chocolates and we head off to pick up Dolan. After doing so, we drive over to a liquor store to procure an item of sensitive nature. And from there, after comparing a certain flavor of gum to my feces, we headed to the BART station. After getting all the ticket bullshit sorted out, we get on the train, and play Six Degrees of Separation, which is a fucking hard game. I had a really good one, but Robert Rodriguez just had to make From Dusk till Dawn. This weird black lady makes fun of me for holding onto the box of chocolates, claiming that it will have already melted by the time it's opened. So we opened it and are greeted with gloop and liqueur. So after we promptly ravage it and trash it once we reach Berkeley, with Dolan spitting some of it back up, disgustingly. It looked like smeared shit all over the clean, white nutrition facts.

Anyway, we arrive in Berkeley and Bela decides we'll meet up with her sister later. We walk around Starbucks and some pizza place before we go into the campus. We take our own tour of campus, avoiding the heat by dodging into the shade. We go by a few impressive and imposing buildings (Biology building is fucking huge). I figure I better get used to the feeling of being a smaller cog in a greater machine, otherwise I'm going to hate college. But the walk was fun. After that, we hit up another Starbucks where I futilely try to use Bela's BlackBerry to check the score of the Giants/Patriots grudge match. (Pats lost, fuck yes). Anyhow, Bela's sister, Luba, meets up with us in Starbucks and starts talking about Cal, how, when you're at a public institution, there's a veil of anonymity between you and everyone else, how the admissions process works, the sometimes utter stupidity of students (For an essay exam, a student emailed her asking whether or not they needed a Scantron. For fuck's sake). It was pretty enlightening, much more informative than what that admissions officer said to us the summer previous.

She said my friends should act out my play too. As if anyone would want to be in that production. >_<

So shortly after that, we walk towards Telegraph, a huge busy street full of shops and restaurants and shit. We go to this store called "The T-Shirt Orgy," which has some really cool stuff, but I decide against buying something. Missed opportunity, because that shirt was off the hook. And so was this "Ace of Spades" shirt I saw on a rack. Oh well.

We walk down to a four-floor bookstore which shocks me. I browsed the basement and the second floor, found Choke by Chuck Palahniuk and Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh. After I bought Lolita, I swore on my life not buy another book. But I fucking caved and spent 18 bucks on both of them. I'm a weakling.

So at this point, we're all starving balls. We head to "Smart Alec's," a health food joint which is also a damn tasty place to eat. At this point, Lucas comes down, looking very angry. Apparently, he had wanted to go to SF, but we went to Berkeley instead and he had to go home at 9 to go to a party or some shit...I don't fucking know. I do know it was a blight on my meal, the best damn chicken sandwich I ever had that someone else paid for (fucking books!). Anyway, we finish eating and go outside, pondering what to do next that doesn't involve money. As we ponder, Lucas decides to peace out and says quickly "I'm going to Rasputin's." Despite his continuous protests, we clearly see he's pissed as shit. We go to find him in Rasputin's, but he isn't there, having fucked off to Amoeba, another indie music store. So we spend some time browsing the records and CDs, it's really cool. I wish I had a record player, that'd be like the most novel thing ever.

Austin gets a call from his dad, asking him to pick up a copy of "The Kids are Alright," a rockumentary featuring the Who. Amoeba doesn't have it, so we go back to Rasputin's. Turns out they don't have it either, so we just browse the store. Lucas decides to leave without telling anyone, and he's gone. How rude, right? But whatever. Bela picks up a poster and we head back out. The Game was actually signing shit in Rasputin's - I saw a frail Asian man with miscellaneous Game merchandise running excitedly home. I throw some change into a bum's cup, to which he happily replies "God bless you!"

Anyway, we decide to go home, but not after I piss out an aquarium's worth of urine in Starbucks, exacerbated by the fact that you have to fucking buy something before you can use it. Twats. So we go to our train, and begin to wait. And here's where shit gets real. Another bum, covered head to toe in a black shroud thing pushing a shopping cart full with what I assume is shit asks this guy for some cash, to which he politely rebukes her. She mumbles something and walks along, looking at mine and Bela's cellphones. She begins to loudly curse and swear, something about "Fuck you Whitey, five hundred dollars, phones, Fuck you to hell, go to hell, you son of a bitch, I'll stab you and make you bleed over the tracks, fucking whitey, fuck, shit, kill you." She was out of her goddamn mind, so we all just kept ignoring her, to which she responded by swearing louder. I didn't feel threatened or anything, I was just weirded out.

Then we got on BART and went home. Dolan pitched the idea of a screenplay to me, which I finished this morning. Should be interesting to see how that goes.

go away

i'm sleeping

Someone tell me I'm healthy

So I've given vague details as to my exercise and dietary regimen, and the declarations have been mixed, ranging from "That's pretty good" to "You're developing an eating disorder. So here's the skinny on what I do. Comment on it and judge whether or not I'm only my way to becoming the next Mr. Olympia or some emaciated monstrosity destined for a spot on Dr. Phil.

I usually fall asleep around 1:30, wake up around noon. 11 or so hours of sleep. I almost never have breakfast. After waking up, I usually eat lunch, which usually involves some kind of meat, chicken, beef, pork, what have you with (yeah) white rice. Although I try to limit the amount of rice I have - there's a lot of sugar in it.

After that, I usually take a walk, around half a mile, just to get the heart pumping. I'm too much of a weakling to go running. I mean, I can, but I get tired too damn easily and just end up walking anyway. So I walk to various places near my house, Borders, Barnes and Noble, what have you. If I go to a bookstore, I usually spend about an hour or two reading and stuff.

Then I walk back and get started with the exercises. Forty pushups, forty sit-ups, 100 crunches. Then I go outside and work on the home gym, 40 on every machine. I also do curls with a ten pound weight.

I walk every day, 5 days a week, but work out only three days a week, MWF. I work out everything on these days instead of the specially targeted regimen I had adopted earlier.

Dinner usually consists of moar meat and rice, with as little rice as possible. Vegetables are usually thrown in too, brocoli, sprouts, asparagus. Not raw, though.

A couple of glasses of milk spread throughout the week. Also, I usually snack on whatever fruits I can find. Oranges, bananas, whatever.

I also have a bad habit of drinking fruit juice instead of water. It's like 100% though, but that's still bad because you're better off eating the fruit than drinking its tasty blood.

I have been noticing results, not too drastic, but results nonetheless. It is making me quite happy, but then I crash back to earth after five minutes.

PS. I'm peeling, what the fuck?!

A puzzle

I can see clearly now, the rain is gone.

Horatio!

Anarchy.

They may take our lives, but they may never take our FREEDOM!

Eat this, you'll feel better.

Made it Ma, top of the world!

YOUUUUUUUU, crank dat soulja boy

OCTOPI

Bold and Brash. More like, belongs in the trash!

Sexy

The Man on the Silver Mountain!

Attack of the Show, attack.

Cash rules everything around me, CREAM, get the money. Dolla dolla bill y'all

Lolita

Evil men do what good mean dream of

Silent night, holy night.

The Firsts