50Fifty

2011-01-10T15:05:00.000-08:00

Here We Go Again

I'm not going to get into a big rant about it, but I wanted to say a couple things about the Arizona shooting. This unfortunate situation is not a soapbox for:

-Liberals to denounce crazy conservatives
-Gun-control supporters to reiterate desire for stricter gun laws
-Groups like the WBC to spout more hateful "it was God's will" crap
-Anyone to say universal health care would have stopped this preemptively

I am honestly sick and tired of all the blame that gets passed around every time a horrible tragedy like this takes place.

Guess what? Even if conservatives stopped their fear-mongering, guns were outlawed, and the U.S. had completely free and universal health care (including care for mental illness), there would still be tragic disasters where unbalanced individuals heartlessly murdered as many people as possible.

So everyone needs to get over blaming those they don't agree with for incidents like this. How about we look for some positive way to make our future a little bit safer? How about for right now, until we know more about the shooter, we focus on the innocent who lost their lives? That might be nice for a change.

2010-12-28T15:24:00.000-08:00

Placebo is the Medicine of the Masses

I just read a very interesting article on the placebo effect that you can read here if you want. It's not really anything new about placebos other than the fact that they seem to be working to greater effect lately.

But this got me thinking...there's a serious catch-22 with the placebo effect.

On one hand, a placebo that replaces an actual drug will alleviate any possibility of negative side-effects related to whichever drug was replaced. That's obviously a good thing. Plus it shows the power our minds and bodies have to alleviate symptoms without the use of powerful and potentially dangerous chemicals. Plus a placebo hardly costs anything considering that it will usually be made out of sugar and water (along with minor costs from faux-branding and coloring). This means positive results with less risks for less money. It's a win-win situation!

But on the other hand, a placebo doesn't work if the patient knows it is a placebo. Obviously. And a dead giveaway is the cost. If I go in to pick up an anti-depressant and I am handed a bill for $10 with no insurance, I am going to wonder if what I am taking is actually a helpful drug. To our consumer culture, expensive = quality (much like wine drinkers experience a perceived better taste when drinking more expensive wine regardless of actual quality). Solution? Jack up the price! Insurance will cover it! But wait, then we're charging people tons of money for sugar and water and the insurance carriers won't pay for that because it won't be medically necessary.

So we're at a standstill. A working placebo cannot be given in anything but a clinical trial because there is no way to distribute it without breaking the effect. Either the patient is told it is a placebo and it stops working, or the patient is lied to and somebody has to pay much more than sugar and water is actually worth.

And that's not taking into account the possible lawsuits from any patient who harms himself/herself or someone else while on a placebo, the possible lawsuits from patients who were lied to and found out (even if the placebo worked), the fact that the pharmacies would have to be in on it as well as the insurance carriers, and the fact that the Rx world is a big business and they would do everything in their power to stop placebos taking over their drugs.

It seems like the only solution would be to take those patients who responded positively to placebo and send them to therapy to try and convince them that their symptoms are almost all psychological and that they have the power to overcome said symptoms sans-drugs. But that would likely fail.

Basically we have a potentially powerful answer to all the drugs prescribed and all the side-effects those drugs result in and all the cost that people are stuck with because there is no other way to alleviate symptoms...but we can't use it.

2010-12-10T12:09:00.000-08:00

A Treadmill World

A Probably Unnecessary Analogy

So imagine, if you will, that the world is actually an infinite plane. This plane is completely unremarkable in that is has no definitive color or texture; it is simply an infinite surface that everything sits on. What we call sky would blend in completely with this plane, resulting in a "floating" sensation if no point of reference is available. In other words, picture the "lots of guns" scene from the first Matrix film where everything is white, no shadows, no horizon.

Now imagine that at a certain point in life you are given a setting partially designated by you, and partially designated by your life decisions up to that point.

Some people would end up with a cubicle, an ancient computer, and lots of motivational posters featuring kittens all dressed up like humans.

Others would be surrounded by gurneys, I.V. stands, hypodermic needles, and thousands of clipboards.

You get the idea.

Now here's where you need to use that wonderful imagination of yours because this might be confusing with just words. Everything that makes up who you are would be within a small radius and everything would move in relation to you.

For a visual, imagine that you are an apple (just go with me here), your connections to things like work are metal rods, and those things that partially define you (like the cubicle) are oranges. Now stick a whole bunch of metal rods into the apple at various angles and lengths. Now stick an orange onto the end of each rod. As you move the apple, each orange moves perfectly in sync with it.

Don't worry, this is going somewhere...I think.

So there you are, on this infinite plane surrounded by tangible pieces that make up your life. As you take a step forward, all your "stuff" moves with you. Whether you walk, run, jump, or spin around in circles your setting would remain constant. In fact, it wouldn't feel like you were moving at all. Sure, your legs might be making the motion you now associate with walking; but how would you know you were moving?

All that...that big, confusing analogy, is how I feel about middle-class working Americans.

And Now an Attempt to Connect Those Two Things!

Let's use a generic office-job and some guy named Joe as an example. Joe gets the lowest qualification, lowest paying job at Generic Office Inc. He has a certain set of skills that he enhances, all the while tacking on new skills to supplement his original ones. Soon, Joe is king of the bottom of the totem-pole workers! His skills far surpass everyone he works with and he begins to feel a real sense of accomplishment.

But what's this? Joe now feels like he is too good for the job he has and the pay he receives. So he uses his newly refined skills to land a new, better job. This new job is much like his old job, only it requires a higher level of competence and more refined skills. But as Joe takes a seat at his desk, his previously growing sense of accomplishment is ripped from him. He realizes that everyone he works with now knows more than him. They are better, faster, and smarter than him. So he does what anyone would do in that situation, he begins honing his skills again.

This would be followed by a growing sense of accomplishment, another similar, yet better job, and another loss of feeling special because he once more knows nothing compared to his co-workers.

In a sense nothing changes for Joe. He might be replacing some of his setting with newer, nicer pieces, but it's still the same setting. And it seems like Joe only has a few options:

1) To forever climb higher and higher in status/wealth/etc without feeling much in the way of accomplishment because it's not like there's an end to this game unless he reaches upper class status (and even that would be unlikely to satiate the desire of a person who lives for climbing higher in class/status).

2) To reach the pinnacle of his trade at some designated level and then choose to stay at that level because he would surely feel some meaningful accomplishment if everyone around him looked up to him. Or would this leave him feeling like he settled and didn't live up to his personal expectations?

3) To make a drastic change and head off in a new direction. To try and find a job that would allow for a real sense of accomplishment without pushing him to move up. But does that job exist?

So What?

I see so many people around me who are surrounded by "defining things." They walk around and go to parties and get married and make friends, but they have no direction (other than "up" for many). And the only reason I'm saying any of this is because it's happening to me. Well, sort of. I'm finding myself looking around to see where I can make another dollar instead of looking for opportunities to do something I love.

So I guess the real question is, "What is it that gives us the ultimate sense of accomplishment?" Hopefully the answer is not "more money" or we'll spend every waking breath chasing infinity. Maybe the answer is, "Doing something you love." To be honest, I'm not exactly sure.

But I do know that in our horizon-less world we need something to help us keep perspective, to give us a focal point, and to force us to leave some of those oranges behind allowing us to step out and define ourselves by something other than "stuff."

::
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P.S. I changed my site design. You might have noticed.

2010-11-30T16:04:00.000-08:00

TSA vs. The World

So everyone is getting their proverbial undergarments in an unfortunately uncomfortable position over the somewhat new ruling that every person flying into, out of, within, or over the U.S. must submit to either a backscatter (full body x-ray-like scan) or a "pat down" of the entire body (including genital region). Apparently this is completely unacceptable to most Americans.

People always want what they can't have. They want security and assurance that they will not be put in harm's way by choosing to fly on an airplane, yet they want such lax laws that sneaking a bomb onto a plane would hardly require any actual sneaking.

What would you prefer in the most extreme of examples, A) To allow a professional airport employee a clear view of your genitals (and "clear" is hardly the picture the backscatter gives) followed by catching a bomb-toting terrorist who was set to sit next to you on your flight, or B) To secure genital privacy followed by being blown up due to the bomb-toting terrorist not being caught? Is that really a tough question that needs a pros vs. cons list?

I get it...the system isn't perfect. In fact, the TSA is often playing catch-up (e.g. We only have to take our shoes off after a shoe-bomb is used); but that's hardly reason to scoff at a security upgrade like the one recently imposed.

If anything, the complaint should be that despite added security so much still gets through. I was on my way to film a wedding a while back and had a backpack brimming with film equipment. Cables, wires, batteries, chargers, and tons of electronics were practically spilling from every pocket. I was stopped, as I expected, and asked, "Sir, is there anything in this bag that could harm me." I actually laughed a little, which was apparently the wrong response. He repeated his question and I tried to put on a serious face and replied, "Um...no?" He opened my bag and took out a wheeled dolly. He spun one of the wheels in a circle and then called over to the x-ray technician, "It was just a wheel." A few minutes later as I was heading to my gate I couldn't help but wonder why nail clippers aren't allowed through when this TSA agent just sent me by without so much as a glance at my metal, telescoping mono-pod, or my jumble of wires/batteries/electronics.

In the end, this cry of "foul play" is so unnecessary as to be comical and sad at the same time. And as a parting thought, here is an actual quote from a TSA agent who was questioned about whether he/she liked the new regulations:

“Molester, pervert, disgusting, an embarrassment, creep. These are all words I have heard today at work describing me, said in my presence as I patted passengers down. These comments are painful and demoralizing, one day is bad enough, but I have to come back tomorrow, the next day and the day after that to keep hearing these comments. If something doesn’t change in the next two weeks I don’t know how much longer I can withstand this taunting. I go home and I cry. I am serving my country, I should not have to go home and cry after a day of honorably serving my country.”

P.S. If anyone still actually reads this thing, I'd love to hear your opinion. What do you think the uproar is actually about? My only guess is that people are body-conscious and do not want anyone seeing them undressed. Because...um...what else could this be about?

2009-11-14T23:38:00.000-08:00

Go and take a ride to a shop in Grant Park

I have three options at this point. 1) Apologize profusely (to who? I don't know) about not posting enough and follow said apology with pathetic reasons why; 2) Continue on like nothing happened and there was no extreme break in continuity; or 3) Acknowledge a break in time and then do a catch-up post.

I choose 3!

So I've spent the last week or so reading through just about every post I've ever made on this blog. For those who don't know, that's 8 years of intermittent posting. As I read through all the things I had written, some of it made me cringe (I am seriously not a particularly good poet), some of it made me laugh (and in response, I think, why can't I be funny any more?), and some of it nearly made me cry (as in, 'I have to stop reading this now or I will be tearing up in the middle of the office').

In the end, the overarching feeling that possessed me was one of satisfaction. As if I had preserved memories and moments in time that would have otherwise been unsavable (I see my penchant for making up words is still strong as ever). This realization (if you will) gave me a desire to keep writing here.

The odd thing is that I was able to trace my desires for this blog over time. I started out wanting, more than anything, to have a ton of people reading what I wrote. I imagined a roiling stock-exchange style atmosphere of witty banter being thrown back and forth through furious, almost unfollowable tangents.

The next stage was one of self-debasement and self-pity. I threw lack of care out like a lure and hoped that my sad, sad state would draw people in. This was basically the same as the first state, but without the blatant cry for attention.

After that came true lack of concern over reader population. If people read my blog, great, if not, great. But I was also stuck in a phrase where I was being narcissistic and felt the my words were good enough that whoever read them would realize that and that I didn't need to advertise.

Then goes more self pity, more blatant advertising, more not caring, more self pity, and finally actual not caring.

I could sense a freedom in writing for nobody but myself. But I found myself asking why I would write on the internet if I didn't care if anybody else read what I was writing. The only answer I could come up with is honesty. I know, that sounds strange. Let me explain. If I have a piece of paper in front of me and I want to tell a story, I can tell it however I like if I know that only I will be reading it. But if I am going to tell that story online, I know that someone who might know the story as well as I, and could call me on it if I lied. It's almost like an accountability group who will keep me at least semi-honest, most of the time.

And even when there is nobody else who knows the story, I know that I will re-read the story that I told the whole world (enter: narcissism), and I know I will genuinely feel bad if I lied.

So...in the long run, this blog is a personal journal punctuated with occasional pleas for feedback, infinite self-indulgence, occasional moments of clarity, countless moment of unclarity, and, overall, a reminder to myself of specific dreams and desires for any given time in my life.

p.s. I guess I actually chose plan 4: recognize my lack of posting, talk about previous posting, and hint at future posting. Go ambiguity!!!

2009-09-08T16:28:00.000-07:00

This I believe: I believe there is a God

Penn (from Penn and Teller) recently had a short segment on NPR where he explained his belief that there is no God. It is well written and makes one think, “Yeah, that sounds good!” But at the same time, he words things in such a way that it belittles belief in God without directly attacking it. Just as an exercise in fairness I am going to rebut some of the hidden arguments here.

”I believe that there is no God. I'm beyond atheism. Atheism is not believing in God. Not believing in God is easy -- you can't prove a negative, so there's no work to do. You can't prove that there isn't an elephant inside the trunk of my car. You sure? How about now? Maybe he was just hiding before. Check again. Did I mention that my personal heartfelt definition of the word "elephant" includes mystery, order, goodness, love and a spare tire?”

This all starts out accurate and straightforward.

”So, anyone with a love for truth outside of herself has to start with no belief in God and then look for evidence of God. She needs to search for some objective evidence of a supernatural power. All the people I write e-mails to often are still stuck at this searching stage. The atheism part is easy.”

Agreed.

”But, this "This I Believe" thing seems to demand something more personal, some leap of faith that helps one see life's big picture, some rules to live by. So, I'm saying, "This I believe: I believe there is no God."”

At this point I thought, “My gosh, someone who does not believe in God is actually taking the burden of proof upon himself! This is amazing!” But then things go a little downhill in my opinion.

”Having taken that step, it informs every moment of my life. I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough. It has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven. I won the huge genetic lottery and I get joy every day.”

If God (from here on out “God” will refer to the Christian God for lack of confusion) exists, we are not “begging” this being for more than our physical world. If God exists, and there is more than this physical world, God wants us to have more (e.g. Heaven). And saying, “I don’t need heaven” is perfectly fine…especially if one doesn’t believe in it. That’s like saying, “I don’t need unicorns in order to have a joyous life.” Of course Penn doesn’t need heaven to feel joy. He is ok with this world being all there is and therefore has learned to be happy with it. But if God exists, and so does heaven, then saying, “I don’t need heaven” is akin to saying, “I don’t need ultimate fulfillment.”

”Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around.”

This is a straightforward jab at those who believe in God. Let me restate Penn’s comment, “People who believe in God are ok treating people poorly because they know that God can forgive them later.” Anybody who believes in God and lives a selfish life because forgiveness can be given later has completely misunderstood the entire meaning of Christianity. Maybe he forgot that whole, “Do unto others” thing the Bible espouses.

”Believing there's no God stops me from being solipsistic. I can read ideas from all different people from all different cultures. Without God, we can agree on reality, and I can keep learning where I'm wrong. We can all keep adjusting, so we can really communicate. I don't travel in circles where people say, "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That's just a long-winded religious way to say, "shut up," or another two words that the FCC likes less. But all obscenity is less insulting than, "How I was brought up and my imaginary friend means more to me than anything you can ever say or do." So, believing there is no God lets me be proven wrong and that's always fun. It means I'm learning something.”

The solipsism remark here confuses me. If I believe in God, that means there is more than just my mind in existence. In fact, there has to be more than just my mind…the entirety of creation and others around us is an integral part of life. If I do not believe in God, reality is up for grabs. I would argue that reality is less easy to agree upon without belief in God. In fact, all non-Christian philosophy is proof of that. And my belief in God in no way stops me from reading different ideas from different cultures. I love reading ideas that radically differ from my own. I hunger for knowledge that is not contained within my cultural norms. Just because I don’t adopt 100% of another’s cultural viewpoint does not mean I have not gained or learned from said viewpoint.

But I wholeheartedly agree that people should never say "I have faith, I believe this in my heart and nothing you can say or do can shake my faith." That comment makes me think that Penn is writing this to a very specific subset of unintelligent Christians. My statement goes something like this, “If you can prove to me that my beliefs (beliefs that I do have evidence for) are wrong, I will drop my Christian faith this very instant.” And believing there is a God does not disallow me from being proven wrong. I am proven wrong all the time, and I cherish the learning experience.

”Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.”

I’m not going to go into it, but “the problem of pain” is a well documented debate about how awful things can exist in a God-created world. Arguments that say God’s existence makes the bad things that happen even worse are poor arguments in my opinion. And how does lack of God mean we can fix all the bad things that happen? If there is no God, that means many people are just evil and there is no way to change that (if we take the entirety of history into account). Lack of God seems to lead to lack of hope that somehow the world will all just suddenly get along.

”Believing there is no God gives me more room for belief in family, people, love, truth, beauty, sex, Jell-O and all the other things I can prove and that make this life the best life I will ever have.”

Belief in God does not fill up some sort of “belief bag” that only has so much room in it. In fact, belief in God, if God exists, allows one to have a fuller and more meaningful belief in everything from family to sex to Jell-O. Without God, love is just a chemical reaction. With God, love is a deep emotion given to us by a loving being that wants us to experience his perfect love and therefore allows us this great feeling. The same goes for all “good” things in life. Without God, “good things” feel more hallow because they are random and not given to us out of love.

You might be thinking, "Wait, Grant was unhappy that Penn stated his belief in no God and bundled negatives to belief in God in his statements; but then he stated his belief in God and bundled negatives to belief in no God. Isn't that hypocritical?" I don't really see it that way. If Penn had stated what he did and made actual arguments for his points (rather than just saying, "Believing in no God makes the world a better place...just because") I would have no qualms with what he said.

In the end, I think it's great for people to switch from, "I don't believe in God," to, "I believe that God does not exist." It makes for a more thoughtful approach to life. At least this gets people on the right track to have more meaningful discussions rather than hurling, "Just because!" back and forth at each other.

2009-08-10T23:35:00.001-07:00

I need a break from reality for a bit. Moving, changing jobs, starting a new company, preparing for a wedding, trying to save a ton of money, giving up friends, and cramming my brain full of info for licensing for a new job is finally taking a toll on me. I just want to get away from it all for a bit.

2009-06-25T11:04:00.000-07:00

Working with life insurance is strange...

...the conversation basically goes:
Life Insurance Company: Bet you're not gonna die!
Client: Bet you I will!

So I'm pretty much all moved in to my parent's house in San Jose and am going strong in my new job. It's a little bit strange going from starving waiter with dreams of finding a film production job to benefits consultant and insurance broker with dreams of finding a film production job.

Everything is a bit overwhelming right now as I'm trying to learn customer assistance, how to handle claim issues, how to make quotes, how to explain 401k, and get licensed in life/health/accident insurance...all at the same time.

But the truth is, I'm really enjoying where I'm at right now. I still want to thank all of you who gave me advice on this move. All of it was wonderfully helpful and made my decision that much easier. I also want to publicly thank Megan. I'm not sure I know of any significant others who would say, "Oh, we're getting married in a year and you want to move 450miles away from me? Ok!" I would be a mess if it were not for the support of my friends and family.

Other things that are happening: I'm learning Indian culture pretty quickly; I'm reuniting with some old high school friends; I'm eating better than I have in 8 years; and I'm still not used to having nights and weekends free (*shakes fist angrily at 4 years of working in the restaurant industry*).

I'll try to keep things updated here for anyone who checks the site. Also, if anyone is interested in how the wedding stuff is going, you can check out:
our wedding site

Hope all is well with everyone! Feel free to write or call any time so I can keep updated on you all.

2009-05-19T23:01:00.000-07:00

Can I just say...

...I love my friends. And that includes you. Yes, you. I made my last post as a sort of desperate hail-mary. Not that I am going to base major life-changing decisions on comments from a blog; but I was hoping to get insight from someone outside of my immediate situation. To those of you who responded: thank you.

I know I haven't always been the best of friends. Ed, I never make it to your shows (damn this mostly weekend restaurant job). Aro, I'm flaky when it comes to reading scripts/comics and giving advice. Aaron and Kirsten, I have now failed twice to make it to your place to hang out. But despite my downfalls, you all stick by me.

The more I think about it, the more I feel sure that friendship is much more than society/media tells us. Here's how I see real friendship:

Friends Are:

-There when you need them, as well as when you feel you don't; because let's face it, you always need them.

-Those who, despite weeks/months/years passing between visits, feel as if you hung out with them just the other day.

-Willing to tell you that you are being ridiculous/stupid/stubborn even when they know you will temporarily hate them for it. And in the long run, that's part of why you have them around.

-Lifesavers when your life needs saving.

-One of the best parts of life.

Now forgive me for this sappy post. I just wanted to say thank you to all my friends. I am forever grateful for all the love you have bestowed upon me. Hopefully I have made you feel special a couple times as well.

2009-05-14T23:14:00.000-07:00

Undecided/Indecisive

This site has taken many turns. It started out as a goofy way to link to funny pictures and complain about my loner-status. It then became a semi-regular window into my life (and all activities I deemed "news worthy"). After that, I went through a serious phase where my posts all had weight and gravitas (or so I liked to think). Now? Now I try and mix all the good parts from the past. Funny links mixed with life-updates and a sprinkling of serious topics makes for, [once more] in my opinion, a decent site that one might choose to visit now and then.

What I have stayed away from is using this site for angry name-calling (though it was incredibly tempting at times), serious self-help (I tried to keep my serious problems cloaked in obscurity so as not to be shouting, "Pity me!"), or taking myself too seriously (I never want to think that I am special because I write some words on the internet). But...there are always exceptions to the rules (though a recent episode of House had House saying, "No, there are not exceptions to every rule, that's why they call them rules" or something like that). I am now going to use this site as a way to express mildly angry name-calling (breaking rule #1), procure self-help (breaking rule #2), and take myself seriously (breaking rule #3). Well, at least for this particular post. Then it's probably back to posts about skid-marks and pictures of raccoons procreating.

The name-calling comes into play because I am angry at the economy. I know, it's kinda meta, but I'm angry that I put so much time into my chosen career of "filmmaker" and now that I'm ready to embark upon that adventure, there seems to be no way into said career. Why couldn't the depression have taken place while I was in school and not looking for a film job? Now that I'm ready to get that perfect job, people are being laid off left and right and those fateful words of my film school teachers ("Oh, getting a post-production job will be easy") haunt me.

The self-help and taking myself seriously are almost one in the same. I have a dilemma. I want to make films. That is, as far as I can tell, my calling. But at the same time I am going to be married in almost exactly one year. I told myself I would not get myself into said situation (marriage) unless I could take care of myself and my wife financially. I never wanted to be that guy who gets married and then ends up working three minimum-wage jobs just to make ends meet. With the economy as it is, I don't see myself getting "that awesome film job" any time soon. Since I do want to have the money to enable a not-super-stressful first year of marriage, I am now considering alternatives job-wise.

The situation is basically as follows: I have the possible ability to take a job that is secure, safe, and pretty good in way of making money. This job, however, is not at all what I saw myself doing at any point in my life.

So the dilemma is as follows: do I continue the search for that perfect film job that will, at very least, allow me to financially support my future family; or do I take a job that will definitely allow me security even though it is not something I particularly want to do? Is this one of those give-and-take kinda things that I have heard are so vital to a good married life? Or am I being pessimistic in thinking that I cannot get the job I desire (and possibly hindering my future in the film business due to taking even more time away from it)?

Right now I am seriously considering taking the secure job as a in-between thing until I can get a job I will come home from feeling fulfilled and happy. If you read this site, I would love for your input. I'm a bit lost in all of this and I'm hoping that I will suddenly see a sign that says, "Do THAT! No, seriously, do it. It's for the best!" But I know that is unlikely. Life is all about taking risks; and I'm trying to figure out which risk to take.

Anyway, just some thoughts that I hoped to get some input on.

2009-05-04T11:24:00.000-07:00

More Memories

I realize that my memories of my “younger years” (put in quotes because, let’s face it, being 26 doesn’t exactly entitle me to phrases like, ‘When I was young,’ or, ‘back in my day’) are possibly excruciatingly unpleasant to read for those who do not fall in one of two categories: 1) Those who are not me, or 2) Those who do not care what influenced me to become the person I am today. I, however, ignore the lack of interest since, in my opinion, reliving past experiences through prose-like writing can help one come to terms with the past and shine a light on who we are to become. So, in other words, I don’t care if you don’t care…I want to do this.

Wow…that was scarily cynical and full of self-loathing. Sorry!

I’m 18 years old and close to graduating from high school. I’ve gone through many fashion phases (everything from goth to nerd) and have settled on Express (or whatever ‘Express Men’ was before it took the name of the previously purely feminine store) sweaters, semi-baggy jeans, and tennis shoes. My hair is nice cropped in a comb-over style. Since I drive my sister home after school, and since she is much more popular than I, I often have to wait for her to show up. She’s off talking and flirting and having a good time while I lean against a wall awkwardly waiting and not talking to anyone. I must have seen one too many fashion advertisements and subconsciously accepted model-poses as common ways to present oneself. I would stand there with my shoulder bag, leaning against the wall, one foot raised and pressed against the wall. My eyes somewhat downcast. Calvin Kline models always stand like this, so it must be normal…right? One day my sister tells me that I looked like an Express model, standing there in my sweater with my foot on the wall and my ‘devil-may-care’ expression. I took this as a good thing at the time. Now, I walk by the mannequins in the Express storefront and cringe at the thought that I once thought looking like that was cool.

I’m 19 years old and, through some good fortune (read: my parents are way too nice) drove a 1980 convertible Mercedes 450SL. I sped everywhere. And by ‘everywhere’ I mean that every time I entered the car and drove, I sped. Due to the age of the car, the speedometer only went to 85mph. On many occasions I pushed the needle to the stopper at 85mph. I often drove somewhere between 85mph and 100mph. I never knew how fast I was going; but speed was a fix I needed. I was driving home one night at about 1am; there was no traffic, which allowed me to push my acceptable speed limit to the max. It was sprinkling; and California freeways do not get the most moisture…causing an extreme lack of traction. I closed in on my exit, a turn that hit about 70 degrees or more, and flew up towards the light. As I hit the pinnacle of the turn my car slid. I was, luckily, on the inside lane, and my skid took me to the very edge of the outside lane where a huge ditch laid waiting. Less than 2 seconds felt like 5 minutes as I cranked the wheel and let go of the brake in hopes that I was doing the right action to save myself from rolling over. I pulled out of the slide and ended up right at the line of the stoplight. As my breathing slowed and my heart returned to its natural pace, I vowed to never disregard the laws of the road to that extent again.

I’m 20 years old and my brother and I decide to go out dancing. If you have seen Dane Cook’s older acts (before he started sucking hardcore) you might have seen his bit about the difference in guys going out dancing versus girls going out dancing. He basically says that girls go out dancing ‘just to dance’ to no other intentions, whereas you never hear of a group of guys going out and saying, ‘F girls tonight, I just wanna dance!.’ Well, my brother and I actually want out just to dance. We hit a local 18-and-up club and went about our normal procedure: I got a sprite and my brother got a vodka-redbull. I would pour my sprite out and we would stand in a dark corner where he would pour his drink into my now empty plastic cup (non-alcoholic drinks were poured into plastic cups). This club, however, was very keen on plans like ours, and 20 minutes later we are still trying to trade drinks. The bouncers have numbers on their backs and we see, no kidding, bouncer #37 pass us by. They have, at least 37 bouncers watching for illicit activity. We finally trade drinks, I down it in 2 gulps, and we dance. Hours pass and despite “hot” girls dancing inches away, we have tons of fun just goofing off and not ‘playing the game.’ To this day I have a hard time explaining that I have been to dance clubs without the intent to hook up.

2009-05-01T00:06:00.000-07:00

Please Drink Responsibly!

2009-04-28T01:05:00.000-07:00

So I have this theory...

...and what better way to test a theory than to baselessly speculate about it on the internet. As was recently quoted (by a comedy TV show): "It's the internet. There's not place for truth on the internet."

Grant's [baseless] Theory of Age

When born, we (humans) are helpless beings, totally dependent on more competent humans to feed us, change us, make us happy, take care of us in case of sickness, etc, etc. Unlike other species (e.g. turtles), we cannot fend for ourselves; and without constant supervision, we (in our infant state) will surely perish.

As we age, we gain the ability to take care of ourselves. We reach an undetermined age (only undetermined because there is no way to ethically test it) where we could, if absolutely necessary, survive on our own. A 1-year-old on it's own will die. A 7-year-old on it's own might find a way to forge ahead and survive.

One day, however, we start to decline. Science today tells us that humans reach their pinnacle, their best if you will, at some point during the late 20's. As our brains deteriorate and our bodies decline, we find ourselves relying on the same assistance that we once needed as infants. Changing of diapers, feeding of nutrients, and help dressing/undressing are not uncommon for the elderly.

Our infant nature and our elderly state are often compared. We are born into diapers, and we die in them (with a brief interval free from safety-undergarments).

But I have another, possibly better, comparison for the human elderly state: the state of being drunk.

No, wait, hear me out. If you can, observe a group of elderly people. Take notes. Don't worry, they won't notice...they're old. Now observe a typical group of super-intoxicated younger people. Take notes. Don't worry, they won't notice...they're too drunk and self-involved (or on a sexual conquest) to notice.

Now make comparisons. Notice anything? You should. Here are some common quirks of drunkenness and their age-induced counterparts:

Forgetfulness: Drunk people forget their keys, where they parked their car, that they're married, and what they planned to order at the Taco Bell drive-through. Old people forget their keys, where they parked their car, that they've already taken their medication, or that they haven't eaten in 20+ hours.

Lack of Motor-Skills: Drunk people crash cars, trip over curbs (or even small cracks in the pavement), type poorly formed e-mails and text-messages, and attempt feeble punches aimed at larger (and obviously much more intimidating) bar-goers. Old people crash cars, trip over just about anything, call people the wrong name and retell stories told just minutes ago, and believe they can do tasks they could do when they were younger (e.g. carry the 30-pound bag of groceries to the car).

Confidence: Drunk people tell others of qualities/jobs/traits they do not possess, approach girls/guys so far out of their range it's laughable, and consider themselves God's gift to this earth. Old people mis-remember the past and boast of qualities/jobs/traits they never possessed, assure others they are capable of tasks they simply cannot do (e.g. drive), and due to point 1 (mis-remembering) still consider themselves to be part of the in-crowd or in the know.

Ignoring the Facts: Drunk people say they can still drive, boast of prowess (whether sexual, physical, or mental) they do not have, and proclaim loudly and often that they are not drunk. Old people say they can still drive, boast of prowess they either never had or no longer have, and proclaim loudly and often that they are not too old.

Point being, from what I can tell, being old is like being drunk without all the perks. The young person who is drunk has issues driving to the nearest Del Taco, forgets his order, crashes his car into the garage trying to park, passes out before he can "perform" for the girl he convinced to come home with him, and can't remember any of the night before; whereas the old person has issues driving to the nearest early-bird special, crashes his car into the telephone pole on the way home, can't perform for his wife of 40 years (time for a Viagra refill), and can't remember any of the night before. The difference is that the young person will sober up and not have to deal with all the previously mentioned symptoms. The old person lives perpetually in all the mentioned symptoms (with the exception being the amazingly-alert old person who still has memory and motor-skills).

The point in all of this? I can't wait to be old. It will be nice to forget to eat healthy, crash my car, and re-tell the same story 6 times in a row...and then have people say, "Oh, it's ok, he's old." At least then I'll have an excuse.

2009-04-23T16:20:00.000-07:00

2009-04-14T00:25:00.000-07:00

Memories

Once more inspired by Sarah Brown , I thought it was time for a random memory post. Hope you enjoy!

It’s Christmas morning. I am 9 years old and my brother and I share a room (the girls got their own rooms; apparently it’s better for the boys to share a room than the girls). We know Santa doesn’t exist; but that doesn’t curb our enthusiasm for the upcoming spectacle. It’s family tradition to head to the kitchen the morning of, and have a big glass of orange juice (coffee for the adults) before we head into the living room for present opening. 6am hits and I am wide awake. “Chad,” I whisper, “do you think the presents are there?” “Yeah,” he responds, hiding his excitement (for it’s a little kid thing to get so excited about presents…he’s too cool), “but we’re not supposed to look yet.” “Yeah,” I reply; and then I get up, sneak down the hall, and look down at the Christmas tree from the second-story balcony. In the early morning glow the tree is a beautiful silhouette and the presents glisten temptingly, hiding names on tags, hinting at untold glories ready to be unfurled upon anxious souls. No matter how good the gifts were, the waiting was always more fulfilling than anything that could come after.

I’m not particularly liked or disliked…but it’s junior year in high school and every glance and comment implies love or hate in my mind. I’m a theatre-nerd and a film-kid and my peers see me as “that guy.” Nobody loves me beyond all others, and only a few hate me (but that's a whole new story). Theatre is, oddly enough, a very respected extracurricular activity at my school, and I have a lead in the Senior-produced play. Our color-scheme is sepia, and my blonde hair doesn’t work well with said scheme. Rather than wigging up every night, I choose to use dye to solve the problem (even for my facial hair grown especially for said play). My goth-mentor (also in the play) buys some black hair dye and we sneak into the theatre after everyone has gone home. We go into the theatre restroom and I apply the dye to my hair, eyebrows, and facial hair. Since heat makes dye grab hold quicker I put a wig on over my plastic-bagged head. The wig is from a recent play, The Lark, and belonged to the lead girl (Joan of Arc) who had a boyish haircut. My friend and I spend a solid hour in the mostly dark and totally empty theatre acting out our favorite movie/film scenes on stage. The cleaners show up and stumble upon me, on stage, in a shaggy and choppy wig, pretending I am a Monty Python character who is ‘not dead yet.’ We laugh it off before washing out the dye and standing speechless looking at my now strikingly affected hair, eyebrows, and facial hair.

It’s Thanksgiving time and I am home with the family. I head out on Thanksgiving night with one of my all-time best friends. During high school we loved getting McFlurries from McDonalds. There’s something about that cheap ice cream and chopped up candy at 1am that blows all other desserts out of the water. During high school our favorite was always Butterfinger®. We hit up the local McD’s and through the crappy drive-through speaker requested two Butterfinger® McFlurries. We were promptly informed that the Butterfinger® variety of our favorite tasty treat is no longer an available option. Dejected and broken-hearted, we ordered plain vanilla McFlurries. I had a plan. We hit up an all-night grocery store and bought two Butterfinger® bars and headed back to my house. With a well–implemented meat-mallet and some ingenuity we had ourselves some genuinely delicious Butterfinger® McFlurries (take that McDonalds). The lesson learned: don't accept defeat...an all-night grocery might just have the answer to your dilemma.

2009-04-06T20:41:00.000-07:00

I've been getting e-mails from some dating website and thought it was just spam. I decided to unsubscribe from a list I never actually subscribed to when I was brought to a profile page for a fellow "greenmoose." Here's a grab from the page:

And some more:

Now I'm pretty sure nobody would go through these lengths for a joke that only I would see. I guess this Hitler-loving Brit accidentally put my e-mail address in as his own and I'm getting his notifications.

Whatever the case, I guess this proves that not everyone who chooses "greenmoose" as a screen name shares similarities.

2009-03-09T01:02:00.000-07:00

No, Really, Who Does Watch the Watchmen?
Or:
A Fanboy's Dilemma

Quick side-note (or pre-note, or whatever): Even if you don't give a damn about the Watchmen phenomenon, skip to the end of this post where I critique a strange Asian alcohol ad.

Megan and I went and saw Watchmen today on a brand new Imax screen in a beautiful building with an incredible sound system and super-comfy chairs. If you have a chance to see a film at the Garden Walk in Anaheim, do it. I want you to know that I've never been huge into comics or graphic novels, have never read anything else by Alan Moore, and have never even been big into comic-to-movie adaptations. A friend from work lent me the book to read after I told him how great the trailer looked. I was, at the time, totally unaware of the massive following and cult-like love of this work. I plowed through the book (yeah, I'm calling it a book. Without going into detail, the amount of work that went into this work of art rivals many novels written today) in 2 days and was, at that point, even more excited for the movie.

If you haven't read Watchmen, you would be doing yourself a favor to do so. Even if you're not into graphic novels and have never picked one up in your life. Looking passed the exceptional art, the amazing writing, and all the costumed heroes is a story of an alternate history that our country could easily have gone through with a few simple (and even feasible) changes (ok, fine, aside from Dr. Manhattan). Moore creates a world in which all moral and ethical lines are blurred, metaphysics and our understanding of time and creation are brought into question, and art and real life imitate each other in ways that are creepily relatable to our actual world today. Somewhere in the midst of stories-within-stories, real life issues (such as impotence), and love and fraternity fraught with peril and deception, I lost myself in a make believe world that I grew to love.

Don't worry, all this setup is going somewhere.

The film, in my opinion, did an incredible job at taking amazingly dense material and turning it into a film that captured almost every necessary aspect of the story as possible. This is a feat which would scare me senseless if I were the one put to the task. The film pulled no punches, respected the original work to a worship-like degree, and captured the spirit of what Moore wanted to say (once more, this is all in my opinion. Many would disagree with me).

As I tried to understand the disparity in opinions (RottenTomatoes currently has the film at a meager 65%), I came to a conclusion: the subjective opinion of the film is directly related to the viewer's expectations. Hold on, don't laugh and control-q this post yet. Hear me out. This movie is somewhat unique in the "expectation" theory I just began explaining. If I am going to see The Dark Knight I have certain expectations: Batman should be similar in most respects to the actual character; there should be some amazing action; there should be some sort of moral choice that tests Batman; and the world of Batman should stay at least somewhat canon (e.g. Batman shouldn't suddenly and unexplainably have the gift of non-technologically-aided flight). Most everyone knows what they are getting into before going to see a Batman movie. If all those points are met, then the argument of whether the film is "good" will come down to artistic merit, acting skill, music choice, editing, etc, etc. Since nobody (hopefully) goes in to a Batman movie with the expectation of a feel-good romantic comedy full of personal redemption and maybe a goofy character to lighten things up with fart jokes and physical comedy, nobody walks out with their base expectations shattered.

Watchmen is a whole different consideration. Many people (in fact, I would say at least half, if not more) are going to see this movie based on the trailer alone. The trailer is pretty amazing...and if I were basing my expectations for the movie on the trailer, I would go in expecting a kick-ass action film full of awesome superheroes and mass amounts of mindless violence. If that was your expectation heading in to the film, Watchmen would be a major disappointment. I'm not trying to belittle the average action-film movie-goer; but if Transformers or any of the Riddick films are your cup of tea, metaphysical discussions, major human flaws, and governmental dealings with rogue vigilantes might not fulfill that deep desire for blood and guts.

I've talked to every person who I know who has seen the film; and questions lead to one of two outcomes:

Me: So, what did you think of Watchmen?
P1: It was amazing, I was totally blown away.
Me: Have you read the book?
P1: Yeah, I loved it.

Or...

Me: So, what did you think of Watchmen?
P2: Um, it was ok. I was kinda disappointed.
Me: Have you read the book?
P2: No.

Seriously, without fail, those who loved the movie have read the book, and those who were less than impressed have not. But wait, my point is not that those who have not read the book can't like the film, or that they are not capable of liking the film, or even that their not having read it invalidates their opinion. This realization has brought me to an interesting, if not confusing, crossroads:

Is a piece of art that seemingly cannot be appropriately enjoyed by those who do not have some sort of previous knowledge of the art-piece good art?

For example, Donnie Darko is one of my favorite films. It was from the start. But the more I delved into the online information of the film, the more I stumbled across extra material put out there by the director. Fake books "written" by characters from the film. Puzzles to solve that explained some of the mysteries. In the end, I had this amazing understanding of the intricacies of the film that few had. Many claimed that the film was partially incoherent and therefore unenjoyable. I tried to explain what I had found; but the common response was, "If the movie itself doesn't tell me all I need to know, it failed in its message." And trust me, I see that point of view.

But with Watchmen I am sympathetic. There is simply so much to the original book that this attempt seems epic and amazing to me on every level. And I can't help but think that with even a cursory reading of the original material, the movie would be enjoyed that much more. At the same time, there is something to be said about making something accessible to everyone whether or not they have previously read the source material.

Last example, and then a conclusion (before a really fun/funny Asian ad): If I go to an art museum and look at a painting, I can have multiple experiences. For example, I look at a Lochener painting like this:

I can have two reactions. The first is the uninformed reaction of like or dislike (usually based on color, or topic, or the artist's talent). The other reaction is the educated reaction that puts aside those aesthetic considerations to admire the use of the golden ratio, the triangle, the pentagram, the symbolism of the placement of the angels and how focus is drawn to the Christ-child, etc. After that admiration, those other considerations (color, talent, etc) can be incorporated into the decision of whether or not the piece is a great work of art or not. Neither approach is better than the other; and neither approach is necessary to viewing the painting. But each method results in drastically differing outcomes of personal enjoyment of the piece.

So my conclusion, what I've been trying to get at, is that Watchmen is a complicated piece of art. Few would say that the pacing, acting, timing, or visual effects are sub-par. In fact, most would say that the film is really amazing on those levels (if not other levels). This makes me think that if a greater understanding of the piece was had, that the intellectual value of the film, paired with the more obvious merits, makes this film something pretty special. I'm not going to judge Dostoevsky's Brother's Karamazov based on how fun it was to read; and I think that Watchmen should be approached from a view more elevated (read: intellectual) than that of the average action film.

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On THAT note...I ended up at a Korean BBQ joint at 4am the other night. It's a long story. Ask me sometime. Anyway, the place-mats had an ad for some kind of fruit-flavored alcohol that I found absolutely hilarious. Here are the pictures in sequential form (sorry for the lack of quality, I'm lacking a scanner):
Man stalks sealion on beach. Notice his Bear Gryll's like tactic of blending in by imitating the stalked animal.

Oh no! The sealion has spotted him. The only choice is to hold his ground and imply ferociousness!

FIGHT!

Exhausted, the enemies lay in the sand, contemplating their next moves.

Next move? Take shots with the enemy! We all know that fights between males always end in hugs, alcohol, and slurred comments like, "Nothing personal, man...I love you, man!"

Seriously, we might find Japanese ads to be strange; but good lord do they have the upper-hand when it comes to something memorable. A man fights a sealion and ends up doing shots of some strange, fruity alcohol with it? Count me in!

2009-03-05T01:05:00.000-08:00

The Things We Call Normal

We all do it. There's no denying it. Men and women alike. We fall victim to primal urges and can't do anything about it. But there's no reason to be ashamed. It's natural...though some of us are more "out there" than others. So the next time someone asks you, "Do you do that, or am I just a freak?, you can respond, "Well, I might not do that, but trust me, I do things you would never consider."

Of course I am talking about idiosyncratic behavior. Wait, what did you think I was talking about? Oh...that...you're sick.

Anyway, I thought I would expose one of my behavioral "tics" (if you will excuse the loose definition of the term). I hate certain foods under certain conditions; but love those same foods under other conditions. Time for a bulleted list (I am particularly fond of bullets)! A prefix of "H" denotes hatred and a prefix of "L" denotes love:

Tomatoes
H: Whole tomatoes; large chunks of tomato; slices of tomato
L: Salsa with small chunks of tomato; ketchup; tomato sauce

Onions
H: Whole onions; slices of onion; chunks of onion (e.g. in salsa)
L: Onion rings; shallots cooked into cheese fondue; caramelized onions chopped finely

Peppers
H: Whole peppers; chunks of peppers
L: Appropriate dishes cooked with peppers that are then removed (leaving only the taste)

Mushrooms
H: Mushrooms in, well, just about any form
L: Non-mushroom-based broths with whole mushrooms that do not need to be eaten in order to consume the broth or items cooked in the broth

Blue cheese
H: Blue cheese dressing
L: Blue cheese in crumbled or whole form on just about anything

Cherries
H: Maraschino cherries; cherry-flavored candy; cherry-flavored drinks
L: Whole cherries (along the line of Bing cherries)

Pickles
H: Cucumbers; sliced pickles on any sort of sandwich, relish on anything
L: Pickle spears (whether sweet or sour)

Anyway, you get the idea. And analyzing it makes me realize something...I like the essence of items better than the item itself. This doesn't apply to everything. For example, I like bacon in it's whole, unadulterated, greasy, fatty form...but I wouldn't rather have essence of bacon in an omelet. So, since my theory of "essence over whole-form" doesn't apply across the board (by any means), there must be some other reason. My best guess is the item's texture.

Mouthfeel (a term often used with things like wine) is important to me. When I bite into a burger, the bun, sauce, and meat are all soft. The lettuce is a bit crunchy; but gives way rather easily and is rather tasteless (I could care less if lettuce is on a burger). But if you put a slice of tomato on my burger, there's the juicy, squishyness of the overripe or overcooked tomato competing with the other textures. Grilled onion is a super-crunchy and often taste-overloading addition. Pickles have a unique crunch and burst of salty-bitter flavor that isn't cohesive. I like food like burgers to be a united flavor and texture. The lettuce is a bit confusing; but I'd say it's more crisp than overwhelmingly crunchy; and it doesn't distract one from the burgery-goodness being enjoyed.

This textural take on why I like some foods some ways but not others seems so be applicable to all my weird likes/dislikes (other than, say, blue-cheese dressing; which I can't, for the life of me, explain). Tomatoes are either too gooey or too crunchy and watery; onions are either too crunchy, or too overpoweringly flavorful; peppers are the same as onions; mushrooms are too slick and mushy (not to mention the pungent flavor I can't ignore); cherries, in anything but natural form, taste acidic and medicine-like to me (Maraschino cherries taste like the fluoride-treatments I grew up hating); and pickles are too crunchy and have too much concentrated flavor.

I know, I know...I'm being picky. But at least I can eat most foods in some form. Sure, a raw tomato with the skin on is full of antioxidants due to the lycopenes; but better some tomato than no tomato...right?

In other words...I'm weird. I know that, and I accept that. My willingness to eat a huge chunk of onion if it's wrapped in fried batter is no weirder than your rule about not drinking any fluids while eating; having to face south to sleep soundly; or having to pump your hand up and down three times (exactly) while shaking hands. We all do strange things, and we all have our own (conscious or unconscious) reasons for doing so. But it's definitely fun every now and then to look at the things we do all the time and ask, "Um, why the heck do I do that?"

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Stop reading here if this was uninteresting. Otherwise, it just gets worse from here on out.

Bonus Blog!!1

Here are some extra idiosyncrasies particular to me:

-I do things in symmetrical fours (e.g. If I'm walking down a hall and there are ridges on the wooden paneling and I tap one of said ridges with my right hand, I will then tap three more of said ridges; or (more strange and incriminating) if I run my tongue against my molars on the right side of my mouth, I will then do so on the left side, then the right side, and then finally on the left side again). Some might call this OCD, I call it...um, well, OCD.

-When I have a set number of things to do, I will often lay out the list in my head in bulleted or numbered form (e.g. "Ok, so seven more things before I go to sleep...grab my chapstick *grabs chapstick*, turn off the light *turns off light*, get in bed *gets in bed*, drink some water so I don't wake up dehydrated *drinks some water*, put on chapstick after drinking water so as not to compromise chapstick application *puts on chapstick*, turn off light *turns off light*, go to sleep *lays down and attempts to sleep*.) I'm not kidding.

No, I don't think everyone has such defined (or particularly strange) habits; but I do think that if we examine our lives, we often find mostly unexplainable actions that are regular (if not essential). For all I know, my love of symmetry (especially things in fours) goes back to 2nd grade where my teacher taught me that odd numbers are more difficult to reduce using division. Or maybe I'm just strange. Either way, analyzing our personal habits is a great way to delve into psychology (or just delve into the uniqueness of the human brain).

Anyway...I have 7 more things to do before I go to sleep, and I only swished my mouthwash on three sides of my mouth (so I need to swish once more). Sleep well oh internets, and remember, bizarre habits are what differentiate us, so carry on with your actions that nobody else will ever fully understand.

2009-02-24T01:01:00.000-08:00

Weddings - Soul-Sucking Leeches or Fantasy-Realizations

First, a quick note: apparently I'm a totally abnormal fiance. The more shows I watch and books I read, the more I understand that men either don't care about wedding planning or have horribly bad ideas that their obsessive bride-to-be shoots down while belittling every aspect of their future husband. I, however, don't find this wedding planning stuff to be avoidance-inducing-poison. Plus, Megan and I have such similar tastes that our ideas almost always coincide. This, apparently, is not common. Case in point...a recent conversation at work:

Me: So we're going to a Crate & Barrel registry thing tomorrow.
Co-Worker 1: (Said sarcastically) Ugh...I'm sure that will be fun.
Co-Worker 2: Seriously.
Me: Um, well, I'm looking forward to it. It's all kinda fun.
Co-Worker 1: (Said to Co-Worker 2) Woah, who is this guy, it can't be Grant we're talking to.

Anyway, I've been warned time and again that planning a wedding will stress you out to the point where you simply want to crawl into a hole and hide 'til it's all over. And yeah, I can see that point of view. This past weekend I drove to and from Redlands to visit a venue (before having to work that night), to and from Pomona for a wedding expo, to and from Riverside to meet a photographer, and to and from Irvine to meet a videographer. An entire tank of gas and a lot of missed sleep later, I'm done. I never want to do that much wedding work in a 3-day period ever again.

The word "budget" is now my biggest enemy, and trying to find cost-effective solutions to one of the most expensive days I will ever participate in is maddening. There are literally hundreds of minute details that have to work perfectly together to make this upcoming day possible. The word "thousand" (as in $1,000) gets thrown around like it's no big deal. Suddenly eloping sounds like a wonderful option.

Megan and I don't get a lot of time together in the first place due to completely conflicting work schedules and a 45-minute drive between us. Now, instead of just getting to hang out every once in a while, we are spending almost all our limited and precious time together going over wedding details.

But...on the other hand, thinking of this day that is now 1 year and 3 months away, is completely joy-inducing. Putting together small pieces that will eventually equal a complete day is like doing a puzzle that I can't wait to see completed. Considering my future with Megan, the thing this day will officialize, makes me wish that it was happening tomorrow. Going through all the trials and difficulties of planning seems like a minuscule task when compared to the end result.

So in the end, weddings are both a worthy adversary, and a welcome friend. So far I wouldn't change anything. I know that no matter how hard things get, or how difficult things feel, in the end it will all be worth it. I simply can't wait to be Megan's husband.

2009-02-20T01:14:00.000-08:00

Just something I want to say...

I have recently had some really amazing conversations with people that delved into the area of religion. I love talking about religious ideas. Let me reiterate. I absolutely love getting into deep conversations about "religious" issues. My love, however, is not the stereotypical Bible-thumping, ideal-force-feeding that most people are used to.

And in all truthfulness I feel horrible that I have to make the distinction between amazing conversation/debate and personal-ideal-bashing.

Many, many Christians today are all about luring people into conversation about the sin-nature of humanity only to end up debasing, devaluing, and undermining another's opinions. I find such actions despicable (especially when one's intentions are to get another to such a point where such actions are an option).

There is a difference in attempting to get one into conversation so that both parties can be edified and attempting to get one into conversation with the sole desire to prove the other party wrong at any cost.

So, my point (since I meant for this to be a short and to the point post): I implore you to ignore all the ignorant and stupidly-stubborn Christians out there and to find the educated religious people out there. I will gladly engage in philosophic, religious, scientific conversation with anybody. Yeah, I have religious beliefs; but that does not mean, by any means, that I am willing to ignore reason/logic/truth.

The Christians that most people are aware of are those portrayed by news stations. The ones who show up to the funeral of a gay soldier and scream, "Your son is going to hell!" through a megaphone. That makes me indescribably sad since the true meaning behind what I believe is not (in any way, shape, or form) understood.

For example: If a car company makes a car that I think is unsafe, I have two ways of going about telling people my beliefs. 1) I can stand on a street corner and scream and shout. I can confront people and belittle them for their belief that said car is safe. I can be bold and upfront and (seemingly) crazy about this car's lack of safety. Or 2) I can study, do my research, and come up with indisputable facts. I can then talk to people and show them my findings. If those people have counter-examples, I can take them into account and see if they hold any truth and then inform said people about how they have been fed misinformation.

This is just like the religious debates that happen today. Whether the topic is homosexuality, abortion, gun-control, pornography, health-care, etc, there should be a debate (read: discussion) about the issue. Life is not black and white, and neither is the religious view of these issues (though many would like you to think that it is).

In other words, I apologize on behalf of all the crazies out there. SO many people give religious belief a bad name, and I want to correct that. I realize that this is a losing battle. And I realize that no matter how many people out there are reasonable in their debate methods, there will always be a thousand more willing to ignore reason and stupidly argue for unprovable truths. But...I am still willing to fight to inform people that not every religious person is so ignorant. My end goal? If all the incredibly smart, incredibly logical people out there are willing to have meaningful discussions with the (equally incredibly smart) religious people out there, the end result will be more knowledge and understanding than we had in the first place.

And if knowledge is the end goal, I am all for it.

2009-02-10T01:02:00.000-08:00

Recession-Proof Industries and Why We Love Them

Something that has been on my mind lately (and surely has been on many minds) is the recession we are currently facing. While contemplating how I am going to pay for this month's bills (as well as other unforeseen costs like the 4 brand new tires I bought today (as well as saving for enormous costs like, well, that wedding I'm going to be in not too far from now)) I began wondering about the so-called "recession-proof" industries. My basic question is, "why, despite a recession reminiscent of the Great Depression (though economic analysts are pointing out that we are in much better shape than the impossible times of 1929) are some industries booming?"

So I thought I'd look at some of these recession-proof industries to figure out why the American public is willing to fuel some businesses and not others. Here's a brief look at some of these industries:

Pet and Supply Stores
These businesses boom despite economic hardship, and the reason seems simple: Those who already have pets are going to continue to take care of them; and those who don't are still willing to buy a loving friend who will make them feel better despite hard times in all other areas.

Hollywood
I would have named this one "movies," but that is a bit too narrow. "Hollywood" incorporates theater-released films, DVDs, etc. Why does entertainment continue to flourish? People need an escape. A family might be struggling to pay the bills and feed hungry mouths; but the best way to forget that things are hard is to head to the theater and delve into a fantasy world of fun and imagination. The price might be high (I remember paying $5.00 for a film); but it is apparently worth it to get away from harsh reality.

Video Games
So person X is eating top-ramen and only driving to necessary locations due to gas prices, yet X is willing to buy a $60 video game. Why? The "Hollywood" example fits the bill. Escaping into an alternate reality is the best way to ignore how bad things are. Plus, $60 doesn't seem like so much when it affords one so many hours of entertainment. $10 buys one a movie ticket which gives 1-3 hours of escape; but a good video game offers 10-100 hours of escape. Economically, this is a great way to still get away from the current economic situation and still save some dough.

Porn
It is well documented how well the pornographic industries do no matter how the world's economics are panning out. This one is a no brainer...even in times where money is lacking, people are willing to pay just about anything to get off. Making porn doesn't cost much at all, and buying it allows a sexual release. Yeah, the porn industry is asking for a bail out; but trust me, they don't need it.

Drugs
Ok, so this isn't really an "industry" in the normal sense of the word, but there are many, many people who make their income from it. Just like movies, video games, and porn...drugs are an escape. And apparently people are willing to pay for something to get away from the truth.

I could go on and on; but the trend is already clear. People are willing to pay for just about anything to forget their troubles. It's almost as if a recession is good for these industries.

Oh, wait...there's one more group that a recession is good for. But this one is tricky. It's good for the rich. If I have a lot of money and a recession hits, I have a great opportunity...buying property, businesses, etc, is easy if you have the money because people need to offload extra houses, failing business, and the like. If you have the money to buy these commodities off of the less fortunate, and have the time to wait til the economy rises again, the money that can be made from re-selling these commodities at a high price is absurd.

I'm not sure if I even have a point here. I guess my point is that understanding human psychology is key to surviving such a crisis. That, or being rich in the first place. It's funny...despite understanding these trends, I am still seeing movies, buying video games, and never even considering getting rid of my dog...even though each of said actions hurts my chances of making it through this time in a decent state.

And even though humans are predictable, and capital can be made from them (through possibly conniving methods), I don't find this to be a bad thing. Anything that gives hope (even "false hope") and allows people to fight through hardship has some merit to it.

In other words...I'm glad that I have movies and games and pets to help me ignore thoughts of crawling into bed and sleeping through deep states of depression. Even though people make money off of our misery, there actually is a silver-lining to the cloud. We, as humans, have figured out a way to ignore crippling defeat. If resilience is brought about only by means of entertainment and ignoring of the hard truth, then I am all for the recession-proof industries.

2009-02-07T01:03:00.000-08:00

A Reason To Fight

There are many reasons to have faith. There are many reasons to believe in the improvable. There are many reasons to devote oneself to religion. And many of those reasons are ridiculous.

Blind faith is a way to reject the obviously true (e.g. "I don't care that science has shown the earth to be billions of years old, I have faith that evolution is false and the earth is less than 5,000 years old). Following a holy text to the ends of the earth, even when taken horribly out of context, is a way to justify atrocious actions. And all religious experiences are an easy catch-all (due to their improvability).

But even with all the ignorance and stupidity, there is reason to follow what modern man has termed religion.

There's an amazing song by the band Air called "Biological" which gives credence to one of the many reasons I am a Christian. The basic premise of the song is a man declaring his "love" for another. Following a purely physicalist worldview, the best (read: only) reason he can come up with for his attraction is this:

Biological
I don't know why I feel that way with you
Biological
I need your DNA

You can find the rest of the lyrics here (and I definitely recommend checking the band out if you don't already know of them).

So, a man loves a woman. He can't live without her. His very breath depends on her existence. Why? His DNA necessitates his attraction to her. Take Darwinism to the extreme and you have the meaning of this song. A male has a biological need to propagate his line. A female has a biological desire to have offspring. And in some cases, the DNA of the two fits in such a way that the firing of synapses and physiological responses form a stronger bond than is common. This is what we call "love."

But wait, (you might say) I love my girlfriend...and it's way more than electricity running through a warm body! Well, there is where I would agree with you. And there is where the common physicalist has little else to say.

If you deny the supernatural/metaphysical/spiritual, then you deny the existence of love. Let's take this a step further. If you deny the existence of a creative God, then love is merely a physiological response and is, in all respects, nothing special. For the purely scientific and purely scientific-method-provable types out there, love is a means to and end (i.e. propagation).

Let's take it even further. If you believe in spirituality (but not religion), love is some vague force that binds individuals together for some unknown reason. No, you "spiritual but not religious" people out there cannot say that it is 1) to make us happy, or 2) to give us a reason to exist, or even 3) simply because. Why? Well, 1) has firm roots in eudaimonism which feeds directly into Christianity (or Judaism or Islamic culture if you are being picky); 2) is incomprehensible because a reason for existence requires forethought and planning (something that the "let's tap into the spiritual but never admit to God" crew cannot accept). If there is a reason we are on this celestial orb, there had to be someone (or something) behind said reason; and 3) (the "brute fact" approach) is as lazy and undefendible [made-up word of the day] as the right-wing Christians who say, "It just is! Ok?!?".

I happen to follow the Christian worldview. This worldview is not the modern day understanding of Christianity. If that confuses you, ask me, I'll explain it in depth. I also happen to want to believe that love is more than some chemicals in my brain. Following Occam's Razor, the easiest solution to my desire to find love to be something substantial, Christianity fits the bill. If a omnibenevolent being created this earth (and us with it), it is not far fetched to believe that this being wants us humans to feel what it feels. Since this being is (or so argues Christianity) omnibenevolent, omnipotent, omniscient, and all other ultimate-good traits, it can choose to create if it so wishes (by the way, I'm using "it" so as not to offend the feminists, race advocates, etc). If this being creates, the creatures it creates will not be as perfect as it is (argument being [simplified]: a god could not create a perfectly analoguous god). Being all good, all loving (etc), this being would obviously want to create said creatures with the ability to communicate, love, desire, (fill in this blank with any good thing...the list is almost endless) just like it does.

Now here comes the specifically Christian part. Since God is triune (you know, the trinity), there is communion and love be†ween the triune godhead. If God (sorry, I switched from "being" to "God," trust me, it will all make sense...hopefully) is perfect in every way, the love and communion between the three parts of the trinity is perfect. Since we (God's creation) are created as inferior beings (out of logical necessity), the best we can hope for is to strive to gain as close an analog to God's traits as possible. If this is the case, our feelings of love, gratitude, hopefulness, etc (once more, the list goes on and on) are directly related to a perfect example that we can only hope to live up to.

This fits in directly with Aristotle's idea of perfection. He argued that the only reason we humans have any conception of perfection in the first place is due to God's perfection. For example: if humans never had eyes (as in, ocular senses never exited), we would never wonder what it would be like to see. In the same sense, the only reason we strive for perfection is because we have an innate sense of perfection (due to the God that created us). In other words, if there is no such thing as a perfect being, how could we even conceive of perfection?

Wow, um, that was a lot more than I intended to say. So what's the bottom line? When I tell Megan that I love her, I want to believe that my words are not simply references to biological (and thusly meaningless (at least in a grand perspective)) imperatives. I want my words to convey what I actually mean: that I reflect the perfection of the God that created me, that God's love, when I say, "I love you." If I give up my faith, my beliefs, my love loses all meaning.

And that is one of the myriad reasons I follow a religion.

2009-01-23T16:09:00.000-08:00

But of course...

Right on the tail of my last post I ran across an article examining a recent study by BYU that says playing video games (any kind, not just the violent kind) is bad for you. Here's a quote:

The impact of videogames on relationships is described as statistically "modest," but according to BYU Professor Laura Walker, the lead author on the report, "Everything we found associated with videogames came out negative." Women who play videogames "a lot" have lower self-esteem (presumably than women who don't play) while gamers who play daily smoke marijuana twice as much as "other players" and three times as much as people who don't play games at all.

Now take a second and think about that approach. Does something seem a little funny to you? A little...off?

I believe that those doing the study began with a bias against gaming and therefore (possibly subconsciously) skewed the results.

Isn't it possible that girls who have a low self-esteem tend to play more video games and not the other way around? Isn't it possible that people who smoke a lot of marijuana gravitate towards video games (something regarded as fun to many while high)? This team took two pieces of information and came up with a result; but they had to figure out which piece of information was the catalyst for the other.

For example: I notice that there are periods during the 24-hour cycle where the sun is not visible; and I also notice that there are periods during the cycle that it is significantly cooler than other times. I now have three choices for a conclusion. Either 1) The temperature often cools due to the lack of the sun, or 2) The sun is not visible due to the cold temperature, or 3) These two observations are not actually related and it is coincidence (or some other factor) that they happen at the same time.

Now you and I know that at night, when there is no sun, it is often cooler than when the sun is blazing. We would never think to say that a cold weather front moves in and forces the sun to slip below the horizon. But the BYU team found that there were girls who have low self-esteem, and that often times these girls played video games, and concluded that games lead to low self-esteem (not the other way around (which is totally feasible) or deciding that many, many other factors come into play).

This is simply a perfect example of how society at large views video games and those who play them.

::
::

p.s. What if those girls have a low self-esteem because they very much enjoy themselves when playing video games but people like the BYU team keep telling them they are rejects for doing so?

2009-01-23T01:05:00.000-08:00

A Valid Complaint

Yeah yeah, I already posted tonight...but I want to post again. You have a problem with that? Too bad anonymous imaginary friend I am arguing with, I defy your wishes!

Anyway, on to the topic at hand:

I play video games. Yeah, you heard me...I'm admitting to playing video games. There is some kind of strange mark of the reject applied to anyone in today's age who plays video games (at least those over the age of 15 or so) that I don't understand. We're fine with alcoholics (at least functioning alcoholics), street racers, weightlifting fiends, and a myriad of other bizarre (or harmful) activities; but the moment you say you play video games people get this look in their eye that says, "oh, you're one of those."

Well, video games not only relieve stress and supply entertainment; but they do so in a way that is (in all non-extreme cases) harmless.

Video game playing is, in my opinion, on par with the audiophile's hunt for perfect sound and the best albums or even the film student who can't get enough of new techniques and methods for making movies.

Enough of that...that wasn't even the point I was going to make. But I felt I should preface my point with that in case you began reading my rant about video games and tuned out due to a predisposed objection to gamers.

The point at hand: The Drive for Realism in Video Games and it's Impact on Games

There are two major trends in video games right now, those who want to make/play games as realistic and close to our non-gaming world as possible, and those who want the fantastical and out-of-this-worldness.

For a miniature case study, I will look at two games: Grand Theft Auto 4, and Saint's Row 2. Here we go!

GTA 4

GTA 4 cost around $100,000,000 to make (yes, you read that right, one-hundred-million). It is, without a doubt, one of the most realistic representations of a living breathing world in a video game ever created. As you walk around you will witness gunfights, street vendors, car accidents, and regular pedestrian life (and it will be happening whether you are there to witness it or not). The city is dirty and grey-brown and eroding like you would expect if you were walking the streets of NY city. Cars handle like their real-world counterparts and cops flank and call for backup like they would do if being attacked. Everything is as perfect as possible with today's technology.

But is that a good thing?

The colors (other than the sky and occasional park vista) are non-attention-grabbing and the physics system leaves one unable to partake in the supernatural feats usually associated with video games. The main character is an anti-hero who both demands pity and garners hatred. Many of the side-quests are as mundane as delivering pedestrians to their desired locations in a taxi (hopefully without killing them in the process with Evil Knievel style stunt-driving) or taking your friends out bowling or eating in order to keep their friendship.

The bottom line: The realism is amazing. From dust particles in the air to voice acting, everything is awe-inspiring to some extent. Yet something about the game reeks of everyday life in such a way that the game almost feels like a job. Whether it's "Oh, I need to take Michelle out on a date or she'll dump me," or the first 8 hours of the game that are steeped in tutorials (due to complexity), the amount of fun can easily be lost.

Saints Row 2

I'll admit, I ignored this game for months because it sounded so pedantic, so immature that I couldn't see it being any good. I rented it solely because the Blockbuster near my house sucks and never stocks the games desired by the masses. I fired it up, expecting nothing more than a few hours of mindless gunplay; but I was given much, much more.

The graphics are cartoony (compared to GTA 4), the voice acting isn't quite Hollywood worthy, the physics are a little bit wonky, and the goal of the game leads you to the absurd and back.

But is that a bad thing?

With bright colors, more character customization than GTA 4, an easy learning curve (which ramps up appropriately for those desiring controller-throwing hardness), and general insanity coursing through the game's veins, it doesn't take long to revert the player to a place where fun is once more the goal.

When Mario jumped 5-times his own height and swam underwater with no breathing apparatus people didn't jump on the forums and scream, "Wut?!? This game iz totaly stoopid! Mario couldnt do all that sh**!!!1" In the same way, the anti-hero of Saint's Row can spray fecal matter onto high-end housing to lower pricing, smoke a joint anywhere in public, partake in massive gun battles in old churches, and do most anything he or she wants with nearly no repercussions.

The bottom line: The realism is lacking (people don't fall off motorcycles when you hit them at 80mph in your car) which, in turn, lessens the amount of drama raised by the cut-scenes (and the overall story); but who cares? The game lets you revel in base tendencies or be a nearly perfect citizen (e.g. you only get points for killing gang members, and you get extra points for avoiding other cars). In other words, the game is actually fun.

The Actual Bottom Line

There is a place for realism and there is a place for fantasy. Case in point: a film called The Brown Bunny came out in 2003 at the Cannes Film Festival. This film was only 93 minutes long; but (from what I am told) the first 80 or so minutes are a man on a motorcycle traveling cross-country (with brief interruptions for flashbacks, etc) in order to meet the only woman who can satisfy his loneliness (read: the woman who will fellate him (yes, actually doing the act) at the end of the film). The film was realistic in that his travel time was supposedly close to accurate and the audience has to (or gets to) live every minute with him on the way to his destination. But is that great film making, or experimental crap?

Another (even better) example is a game called Desert Bus which simulates a drive from Tucson Arizona to Reno Nevada in a bus that tops out at 45mph. This trip takes about 8 hours and no pretty scenery is added for the players benefit. Also, the bus veers slightly to the right which means the player has no way of rigging the controls and stepping away for a break. Once the player makes it to Vegas, the bus turns around and starts heading back. There is no end. Penny Arcade even made a fundraiser out of the game (apparently the inanity of the game has drawn much attention as well as people determined to conquer the boredom.

The point of the last two examples? Realism isn't always a good thing. Do we, as consumers, want to come home from our extraordinarily real lives just to partake in faux realism (whether movies, TV, or games)? Probably not. So a game like GTA 4 has a serious mark against it. Then again, when a game offers character creation or naming of a character, why do most people make a digital duplicate of him or herself? If we can put ourselves in a hyper-realistic (yet simultaneously fake) environment, we can act in ways totally opposite to our morals, ethics, and values, but with no repercussions. So Saint's Row 2 has a mark against it (due to the lack of believability).

In my humble (read: non-programmer, non-gaming company executive, non-gaming investor) opinion, game makers need to make up their minds. Too much realism breeds boredom and repetition (yet offers possible escape from our normal realistic lives) and too much fantasy leads to goofiness and fluff. The answer to the problem? Stop walking the fine line. Make a crazily-realistic game and give up trying to make it realistic plus being funny, surreal, and touching. Those who want to escape into a very realistic alternate reality will play it and love it. Or, make a fantastical game that doesn't also try to be uber-dramatic, impactful, and semi-realistic. Those who don't want to deal with which camouflage to pick or whether leaving a dead guard on the ground will alert the other guards will flock to it.

In other words: pick a genre, make a kick-ass game, and give up trying to be everything at once (how many dramatic-romantic-comedic-documentaries have you seen?). Oh, and make it fun...please.

2009-01-22T21:19:00.000-08:00

Heh

So, a quick thought on blinds. I have always thought that, if I want privacy in my room (e.g. I'm getting dressed after a shower) I should turn the blinds facing down. You know, so the only way to see in your window would be by getting at an extreme angle below the window...and even then, all you would be able to see is the ceiling.

Tonight, I have realized a flaw in my theory.

I live in a condo complex that is 2 stories. I live on the first floor. From my backyard (or should I say "back strip of concrete and a little dirt") I can see the windows of some of my second story neighbors. Most of which, I noticed, have the blinds pointed in the position that I just described.

Maybe this is a bad idea when the downward position means I can (as just happened to me) see into your room, the wall the TV is on, and you're watching porn.

Just a thought. Maybe turn those things facing up if you're on the second story.

2009-01-06T01:12:00.000-08:00

Oh no!

I've been TAGGED!

I know that it's incredibly unlikely that you are reading this post and still have no idea what this whole "tagging" thing is about; but I'll recap anyway. The farthest back I can go is Aro who tagged a group including Megan; and then somehow Ed was tagged (Megan ignored the "tag other people" rule) who then tagged me. I must admit, I was secretly coveting all those tagged and was holding my breath hoping it would be my turn soon. Now that it's my turn, I'm worried that I have nothing to say. But here goes!

No...wait, I'm going to interject a mini-post I've been meaning to write before I write my 7 things. Sorry, you'll have to endure my ramblings if you want to read my oh-so-exciting "stuff about me."

New year's eve was a truly amazing event and I wanted to say a few words about it. Megan and I met a group of friends and went to Together as One which, if you don't know, is an organization who puts on massive events. This one was at the LA Coliseum which can fit about 115,000 people (including the field area). Add to that outside tents and the number jumps to something quite absurd. We all got in around 11:40pm, made our way to the very top row of seats, and looked out at a view indescribable by words.

Thousands of people rang in the new year with us and then proceeded to partake in Armin Van Buuren spinning everything from well known hits to remixes of Obama speeches. Hours passed with amazing lights, fantastic music, and great friends. It was, in a word, perfect. There was no better way to begin a year that I'm sure will be full of major (and wonderful) changes.
Anyway, on to the reason for this post...I've been tagged!

7 Strange or Weird Things About Me!
(Wow, it's much harder to think of things than I expected...)

1 - The first instrument I learned was the trumpet (I'm not counting the recorder. Hot Crossed Buns in a shrill squeal does not count in my opinion). Our group was designated to play the typical graduation song for the 8th graders and this seemed like a vastly important task to me. While cleaning the spit valve of my trumpet next to the sink (where my mom was washing dishes), I accidentally knocked my mouthpiece into the running garbage disposal. A horrible metal-on-metal clanking ensued and my mouthpiece was dinged and semi-mutilated. Lacking a replacement mouthpiece, and the graduation being only days away, I continued to practice diligently. As you might know, brass instruments take vibration of the lips against the mouthpiece. By the time we performed for graduation my lips were cut and bleeding due to metal protrusions caused by the garbage disposal. And so began dedication to any given craft, even to the point of personal pain.

2 - I have lied (possibly read: exaggerated) on every resume I have ever submitted. E.g. The boss of my first serving job thought I had worked at least 2 restaurants prior to applying to his restaurant.

3 - I didn't have my first full alcoholic beverage until the age of 20. By "full" I mean a drink all to myself...I had partaken in sips of wine before said age.

4 - I played the role of Bill Sykes in the musical Oliver when I was in Jr. High despite the fact that I cannot sing. The first night of the play I walked on stage for my big song (My Name) and froze. I went a full two stanzas into the song and all I could do was utter a couple of "err"s and "uhh"s. It was, at that point, the most embarrassing moment of my life.

5 - [Disclaimer: this one is kinda graphic, skip if you are easily offended] Before I was ever given the big sex talk, my friends and I (in elementary school, not sure what grade) had a huge argument about sex (which none of us knew anything about). The argument was between my best friend and I and the subject was whether typical sexual intercourse was in the "front hole" or the "back hole" (we didn't even know the terminology).

6 - A girl who I thought was a friend (I later realized the truth) in high school convinced all my other friends that I tried to commit suicide. I, to this day, do not know what made her think that was true (or if she had some other agenda).

7 - I once packed 6 people into my 2-seater convertible in order to get all of us to a location to shoot a scene for a student film that never saw the light of day.

Alright, there's a few tidbits for ya. I don't know anyone whose site I regularly visit who had not already been tagged, so I'll accept that I'm the end of the line. If you have a blog and have not done this, consider yourself tagged. It's fun to try and think of things that your close friends don't know of.

Hope everyone is having a great beginning to the new year!

2009-01-05T01:12:00.000-08:00

Ed posted this quote recently and it really struck a cord with me, so I'm going to share it with you in case you don't frequent both sites:

Why do I make room in my mind for such filth and nonsense? Do I hope that if feeling disguises itself as thought I shall feel less? Aren't all these notes the senseless writhings of a man who won't accept the fact that there is nothing we can do with suffering except to suffer it? Who still thinks there is some device (if only he could find it) which will make pain not to be pain. It doesn't really matter whether you grip the arms of the dentist's chair or let your hands lie in you lap. The drill drills on.
- C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed, p 33.

2009-01-04T02:34:00.000-08:00

So this is the new year...

I had this trend of making new year's resolutions and then checking up on how I did once January of the next year hit. The internet's death-grip on me has loosened over time and I have slipped into complacency in areas that once seemed indescribably important to me. My compatriot Aro recently posted his new year's resolutions much in the same vein of my past posts and inspired (read: guilted) me to resurrect ancient traditions.

New Year's Resolutions - 2009

1 - Find a new job (something in the film world)

2 - Find a new place to live (dependent on resolution #1)

3 - Make a positive major life change (something other than #1 or #2)

4 - Finish Brother's Karamozov and read at least 10 more chapters in Ulysses

5 - Go to the gym more

6 - Grow (whether personally or professionally) in both writing and art

Ok, so there we go. That seems ambitious enough for my taste. In other news, I'll tell ya'll about my new year's eve in a later post. It's late enough that I feel as if I'm indulging in my minor insomnia by writing in the first place, let alone writing about detailed events.

Happy new year to you all and I sincerely hope this is the best year of your life.

2008-12-15T01:17:00.000-08:00

The Atlantic was Born Today

There are times when I just want to spill all my feelings out in some public forum for all to see. In years past, this was only possibly through public acts. A person announcing for all to hear their views and beliefs. Today, these are the (often religious) crazies on street corners with cardboard signs and megaphones.

Today we have the blog.

It's strange how, not long ago, a person had to enter the public vicinity and, in a sense, yell their view if they had any hope of more than 10 people understanding how they felt. Today, all it takes is a user name and a password for one to admit to (potentially) thousands (or millions even) of something as mundane as a shopping list or something as important as philosophical beliefs.

I think that the thing that draws people in to this digital yelling-on-a-rooftop is either a) the possible fame that could come from it, or b) the supposed (yet incredibly unlikely) anonymity that comes with posting something online.

I post this blog with a full understanding that nobody might see it, and millions might see it. The internets be warned: I understand the wiles of posting online! And all this is leading up to what? A simple admittance: I love Megan.

I love her with all my heart; and I want anyone and everyone to know. So, if you are one of the few (or many?) who happen upon this site, you have now been subjected to the emotional ramblings of an everyday blogger who expects nothing (yet hopes for everything) from his happenstance readers.

And now? To bed. I'm tired. But I wanted, desperately, to expose my (in my opinion, obvious) feelings to the world. Consider this my shouting-from-the-rooftops without the dangers of falling off and breaking bones.

2008-12-05T01:02:00.000-08:00

Ivory Lines Lead...

I have a bunch of random thoughts floating around in my head and I feel like putting them down on...well, I was going to say "putting them down on paper," but that's hardly the case, now is it? More so like putting them into bunches of zeros and ones which will magically be reassembled in front of you through the internets (which I hear is like a bunch of tubes like those cool pneumatic devices in Home Depot, wizzing whatever I tap out to you in an easy to digest visual form!).

Despite being done with school, I have found myself to be increasingly busy; which has spurred me to design this post with your busy schedule in mind! I have devised a simple number scheme by which you might pick and choose only those parts of the post that interest you - so you can skip bits which you find irrelevant - in order to save you time and mental effort! And just so you know, each portion will (hopefully) be quite bite-sized; squeezing much thought into a (somewhat) thought-provoking tid-bit!

(Addendum: Good lord was I wrong! Get ready for some long-winded rambling!)

This post will go as follows:
(1) YouTube and Why We Love Violence
(2) Depersonalizing the Person
(3) Why the JWs Might Be On To Something
(4) Innocently Devious Vs. Deviously Innocent
and
(5) Movies

Let's begin!

(1) YouTube and Why We Love Violence

Some of the most popular videos on YouTube (and the internet video sites in general) are clips of people hurting themselves. And not just some guy tripping a small distance and getting a rug burn. Sites like Break.com are all about the most horrific things happening to people: broken bones, third-degree burns, possible paralyzation (<--made up word?), etc. I have seen my fair share of disturbingly painful videos and have always wondered why these clips are so popular. A while back I was at a Beck concert, standing in line for a beer, when I saw a person fall and crack their head on the unforgiving concrete. Unlike YouTube videos with comments like, "wut a dumass!!1," the first thing I felt was sick. A total stranger fell and wasn't moving. Whether he was dead, paralyzed, or totally fine didn't matter; what mattered was my immediate instinct to help him. A call to 911 and a some helpful medical professionals later and he was being led off to recuperate. This was totally unlike anything I had seen on the internet. So the question is: why didn't I laugh at this stranger's misfortune like the online witnesses or the countless viewers of the video? I've thought allot about it and here is my conclusion: catharsis mixed with schadenfreude. Why do we like being "scared to death" by horror films? Why do we like screaming our heads off on roller coasters? When we can be in a safe place, but feel like we're experiencing something awful (falling to our death on a 50-foot drop on a coaster/being chased by an axe-wielding maniac through the place-holder of an actor) we can face our fears in a controlled environment and come out safe and possibly less fearful of future personal incidents. It's not as obvious with pain; but I think that watching a person get their teeth mashed-in on an escalator both makes us thankful (happy even) that it's happening to someone else and releases the fear that it will happen to us.

Think of it this way: you see someone find a $100 bill on the ground. Chances are you then think, "darn, too bad it wasn't me," and part of your brain thinks that since it happened to someone else that it won't happen to you any time soon. In other words, if lightning strikes your friend while you're standing 10 feet away, you don't think that it will then happen to you any time soon; and chances are you think that the chances of it happening to you (since it just happened to your friend) are incredibly lessened. So watching pain happen to someone else is almost like taking a tincture insuring your safety.

(2) Depersonalizing the Person

I often wonder, since I'm a waiter, how some people treat others so awfully and still respect themselves. I have been treated like dirt (or even less than dirt) more times than I would like to remember. If you have never worked in the service industry, thank your lucky stars (or whatever you find lucky)...you have avoided a personal hell. If it were not for the decent pay, I would be out of this industry in a second. Show me another job where I could possibly make an easy $300 in 6 hours and I'll apply right now. So, what is it I'm referring to specifically?

I get that people from other cultures might not get our customs. I might not like a $10 tip on a $150 bill; but if the guests recently moved here from Argentina I understand to some extent. But what about the people who have lived here all their lives? What about the people who say to me, "Don't worry, I used to be a waiter, I'll take care of you," and then tip you 8% after near perfect service? What about the people who come in rearing for a fight and ready to tussle over how many discounts can be used at one table, or how the steak (all of which they just consumed) was not good quality and therefore a refund is in order and it's your (the waiter's) fault and is coming out of your tip? The people who put five one-dollar bills on the table at the beginning of the meal and every time something doesn't go perfect they take one away (but only when you are there to see it happen)?

My theory goes like this: our society has trained us to believe that we not only can, but should get everything desired. Even if that desire is unreasonable. Buying items off of the internet, over the phone, etc, has trained us to think that we aren't dealing with people so much as we are dealing with autonomous givers of all desires as long as a base amount of money is delivered. You wouldn't think to thank your computer for delivering your e-mail, that would be absurd. But the slippery slope begins. Next you stop thinking there is anyone to thank for deliver your physical mail (it's the mailman's job anyway, right?); plus you don't have to see the mailman, you can wait til the mail is there and then get it. Next you stop seeing the store-clerk as a person and more so a mediator between you and the cash-register (obviously...I mean, you don't tip the girl at Macy's for selling you a sweater). The problem arises when you reach industries like restaurant waiters.

I've talked to SO many people who think that high-end-restaurant servers make $10/12/15/per hour, plus tips. If this were the case, tipping 10% wouldn't be so bad; but what happened to putting some thought into our actions and checking up on etiquette? A mere 80 years ago (or less) the proper way to use a fork was a dire situation...now we just take a wild guess and call it a day. If I don't know how much to tip a valet, I freaking Google it and find out (or ask a friend, or find an etiquette guide, or ask the valet him/herself - trust me, they won't mind - or do any number of things to find out). We don't live this way with anything else...case in point: a person on the street runs up and washes your window while you're at a red light...do you assume they are doing it for free? No, you assume they want money and you go through the thought process of figuring out what they want (is $1 good enough? $5? $8 Do they deserve anything?). Your server makes minimum wage and lives off of tips. Two $150 checks a month will not sustain the average person. People have stopped seeing their servers as hard-working individuals, and more like robots who deliver food and desired accoutrements.

(3) Why the JWs Might Be On To Something

If you are confused, by JWs I mean Jehovah's Witnesses. You are most assuredly more aware of Mormons than you are JWs; but there are a mass amount of JWs around (they simply don't evangelize as aggressively). I will simply explain one of their main practices rather than assume you know or don't know about it. The JWs do not celebrate much of anything. Christmas, Easter, and even birthdays are not hallowed events to the stout JW. The JWs understand that almost every celebration on the Judeo-Christian calendar has a pagan origin. For example: Christmas (the celebration of Jesus Christ's birth) is not taken by hardly anyone as the actual date of Christ's birth. Whether it is the celebration of the winter solstice, Saturnalia, or Yule, the origins of celebrating on (or close to) December 25th is pagan. The early Christian church, in an attempt to rid society of such practices, placed "Christ's birth" on this day. The result? Instead of celebrating non-Christian gods, or non-Christian ideas, Christ became the center of the day and other meanings dwindled.

In other words, Christmas, the celebration of Jesus Christ's birth (arguably one of the most important Christian holidays (second only to Christ's death and resurrection)) is firmly planted in the middle of a pagan celebration. Whereas this is simply accepted by modern-day Christians, this is unacceptable to the JWs. Anything not explicitly "Christian" takes away from the faith.

So what do I mean by saying that they have gotten something right? Well, first off, in my opinion the JWs have taken it too far. They have understood that pagan holidays (in their original form) are meaningless in the Christian faith and have therefore "banned" them all. The upside to this is that the material and hallow aspects of certain holidays (e.g. Eartha Kitt's Santa Baby) are pushed aside. The downside is that any meaning is abandoned. Imagine if we applied this to everyday life: modern understanding of combustion (and the resultant creation of the combustion engine and all that comes with it) would be abandoned because the "pagan" Greeks believed in phlogiston (the negative-weighted element responsible for things like combustion and oxidation). I understand that my example comparing something non-physical (pagan holidays) with something physical (chemistry) is extreme; and you might disagree with such a comparison; but I am simply making my point exceedingly clear. A more appropriate example would be abandoning democracy (something that has worked relatively well for the U.S.) because Plato, the Greek philosopher, who was "pagan" according to modern identification, coined the term and crafted the base for our modern system.

So the end result? We can hardly abandon everything begun by those whose beliefs we disagree with; but at the same time, we should not give up on what we hold true simply because society tells us that it's ok. The good in the JWs beliefs is the realization that modern understanding (and devaluing (in a sense)) of the real meaning of a holiday is harmful. Rather than accept the giant bunny and chocolate eggs of Easter, remember the real reason and don't give up on celebrating the true meaning of what it is that you believe...whatever that may be.

(4) Innocently Devious Vs. Deviously Innocent

This topic is based solely on the observations of one person and my discussion of it will possibly alienate all 3 of you who check up on this blog. But ima do it anyway. I have often been told I look very young, very naive, and very innocent. This has been going on since high school. That - high school - is the earliest people should be considered innocent or not innocent in my opinion; if you are 10 years old and multiple people express their opinion that you are not innocent, there might be a problem. But I'm sure your police record confirms that and my assumption is unnecessary.

I work with a person, a woman, a slightly older woman (not old, but older than me by enough years to have more experience than I) who is pretty good with her psychology. Most everyone I work with has expressed, in one way or another, that I am trustworthy, innocent, and, well, childlike. So much so that during conversation explicitly sexual/vulgar, certain co-workers have yelled out, "Shhh, Grant can hear!" One conversation went as such:

Person 1: Man, Grant, you are really stressed!
Person 2: Seriously, you need to get laid.
Me: Heh.
Person 1: No, I don't think Grant is that kind of person
Person 2: What do you mean?
Person 1: Grant seems like the kind of person who needs to cuddle when he's stressed, not something overtly sexual.

The one exception, the woman I mentioned, was involved in a conversation with me and a few others about my age. It was a guessing game. The first person guessed I was 21. The second guessed I was 23. The third said I looked 22, but I was probably older; it was most likely the innocent face that made me look young. This woman, the psychology one, said, "Oh, he's not innocent. It's just an act. Trust me, he's nowhere as innocent as you might think."

The funny thing is that, at this point in the job, she could not possibly have known any of the intimate details of my life. She simply looked into my eyes and knew that my "innocence" was not actual, but physical (or "skin deep").

This raised the question in my mind: is it better to appear innocent and not be so, or appear not innocent (what we'll call corrupt) but actually be so? Yes, I do understand that there is a middle ground: the person who appears neither innocent nor corrupt and is neutral in the way of action (or some variation where neutrality is part of the equation). This person, however, is, at least in my mind, fictional. Pretend there is a scale of 1-10, 1 being totally innocent and 10 being totally corrupt. I would imagine that nearly nobody would be a 1 or a 10. The sweetest person on earth has probably had a daydream about dirty sex; and the most despicable serial killer has probably loved a kitten (or something similar, you get my point). This being the case, I'm examining the people who appear other than their actual personality.

First off, the person who seems corrupt but is not. The upside: proving people wrong can be incredibly gratifying, and people are more comfortable being themselves around someone who seems damaged. The downside: this person seems un-trustworthy and is treated as such (not getting as many job opportunities, missing out on romantic partners, etc).

Second off, the person who seems innocent but is not. The upside: people trust this person, jobs are more easily obtained, romantic partners are more easily obtained, and (if the "corruption" is significantly dominant) innocent people can be taken advantage of much easier. The downside: people think of this person as a goody-two-shoes and do not open up as much, he or she is seen as holier-than-thou and is somewhat despised for it, and any reveal of the "true self" is only accepted with shock, lack of belief, and disappointment.
So what's the end result? Neither are good...at least in most cases. I guess the best thing to be is totally open about your true nature so people treat you as you really are. If you are truly an innocent person, act that way, reap the rewards of it and deal with the downsides of it; if you are truly a corrupt person, act that way, reap the rewards of it and deal with the downsides of it.

(5) Movies

It's possible you read all that babble above (though unlikely), in which case, you need something light and refreshing. Like a lemon ice slushy on a hot summer's day. Hence the movie section!

Ok, so here we go with quick reviews of recently viewed films!

Wall-E
This was a seriously amazing addition to the all-CG film repertoire. As a film student, I am always impressed with films that rely wholly on the visual aspect. Yeah, dialogue is important; but if you can tell the story solely with visuals and sound effects, you have made a great film. The sound design in Wall-E is absolutely amazing. The few lines of dialogue move the film along; but one finds him/herself waiting impatiently for the next scene of purely "sound effect" driven action. It could have used a little less of the strong-handed, green-peace slaps across the face; but all in all a great film.
Australia
Baz Luhrmann is, in my opinion, one of the great directors of our time. He ignores convention and creates worlds unlike anything solely in our world or in the film world. He meshes modern rock with aristocrat-society/ballroom dance with modern romance/and urban insanity with archetypal romantic antiquity. So why shouldn't his attempt at a sweeping, romantic, Australian western work? Well, multiple reasons it seems. His love of quick cutting, seemingly unrelated inter-cutting, and modern music infusion leaves this film feeling disjointed...almost rushed. The entire beginning, almost 30 minutes of the film, are confusing at best. The story finally takes hold (and it truly is a good story); but Baz's desire to break the mold leaves the audience scratching their collective heads and hoping for some clarification. All in all, this is definitely a film worth watching; but here's to hoping that Baz sticks with what he does best in the future and leaves the wide-open-western for the less inventful.
James Bond: Quantum of Solace
This isn't a complaint - it's simply something I find amusing - but if you stood outside a theater showing this JB film and asked each person coming out what the title meant, 80% (if not more) would have no answer.

James Bond movies, to me, are films about a suave, debonair, woman's man who uses crazy gadgets, kills countless "baddies" in crazy ways, sleeps with every [attractive] woman encountered (somehow every woman involved with JB is smoking hot), and hardly breaks a sweat. This film breaks the mold. A blonde Bond goes rogue, uses no crazy high-tech gadgets, doesn't sleep with every woman available, and has a particularly hard time doing things that are no sweat to prior Bonds. In my opinion, this is incredibly refreshing and stimulates the Bond series. A same-old Bond doing the same-old thing is expected; but a Bond who breaks all stereotypes is just what the series needs. No, this isn't an Oscar-winning movie by any means; but an action flick that doesn't succumb to the expected is always welcome.
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Alright, that was much longer than expected; but I got everything out that I planned to. Hopefully you picked one (or more!) topics and read my typically confusing and possibly incoherent (yet precisely worded) rant/s and got your mind stirring on why I'm right or wrong. I love a vigorous discussion based solely on what you find wrong with my ideas. Hey, without disagreement we wouldn't have much innovation at all, now would we?

Goodnight to you and yours.

P.S. Kudos to anyone who knows where this blog's title comes from. And extra kudos to anyone who knows what it means...because I sure as hell don't.

2008-11-26T00:19:00.001-08:00

...

I have this feeling that if I lived in a place where rain was common I would be much more creative. Tonight is the first night of decent rain Brea has had in recent memory. As the sound of water drops hitting pavement, roofs, and metal drainage pipes began I almost immediately wanted to, almost needed to, do something creative. Or at least sit out under an overhang and just listen.

This feeling might be different (and I assume it would be to some extent) if it rained every other day. Maybe the rarity of the rain makes it something special that brings out the introspective nature in me.

I have friends who become quite depressed with even the smallest amount of grey skies and rainclouds. I can't help but feel somewhat exhilarated.

I'm heading home, to San Jose, tomorrow morning. Thanksgiving has shrunk from 20+ person gatherings with mountains of food and endless commotion, to an immediate family-sized reunion with enough quiet times to make me appreciate my family's ability to not have to fill all silence with meaningless babble.

Everything seems to be changing. From the closest of friends needing support I don't know how to give, to wanting (well, more so needing) a new job, to thoughts in my head I don't even know how to quantify (let alone begin).

I am truly thankful for all my friends. Even the ones who I rarely talk to and who probably think I don't care much about them. I am eternally thankful for so many things in my life that I become jaded. With so many things to be thankful for, each one loses a little bit of my attention until I simply think to myself, "Yeah, I'm thankful for my life." I know it seems cliche or some such negative word; but we should all really stop and think about those people and things around us that give us hope.

Here's to happiness in some form or another...

2008-10-29T23:05:00.000-07:00

The Downfall of the American Economic Society

Despite the heady title, I'm not about to go into an economic lesson/tirade about the good 'ol US of A. In fact, I somehow got through 19 years of schooling without ever taking a course in economics. How the hell did that happen?

It's funny how financially hard times brings out something different in everyone and every situation. I understand that I am hardly qualified to complain like some people out there; but that's not going to stop me from pointing out strange effects these times have had on me personally (Is 'personally' unnecessary in that sentence from a grammatical point of view?).

First off, my job has become, um, strange? Whereas we used to be full all the time and could hardly keep up with all the diners hungry for cheese, now we have too many servers and not enough diners. Two easy solutions might be to fire the lesser workers thereby boosting the workload of those deserving, or playing the seniority card and giving more work to those with the longest (and best) track-record with the company. Instead, the restaurant has become, well, like this:

Torture | Viral | SPIKE.com

And that is only a slight exaggeration. We, the servers, were all informed that those who took the initiative to partake in menial tasks not in our job description, followed all the corporate rules to a T (even though they haven't cared up until this point), and basically brown-nosed, would be the servers who got shifts. So an atmosphere of at least semi-happy compatible servers has turned into a power-struggle to see who can outdo who. Since when does my choice to perform a busser's task (of course secretly hoping I'm being watched, otherwise who would care?) at the detriment of my own duties equal being allowed to work?

Secondly, the issue of food has become interesting. I start out the month like normal: make a sandwich for certain meals, cook some burgers for others, eat out occasionally, and snack on whatever's around when hungry in between. Towards the middle of the month I cut out eating out and rely on food from the freezer and fridge plus the occasional snack. By the end of the month (with rent looming) I find myself having conversations with myself like this:

G1: "Let's see, what can I have for dinner?"
G2: "You have no money, so you can't eat out."
G1: "True, and I'm out of sandwich meat and microwave burritos."
G2: *Points at something in back of cabinet* "What's what?"
G1: "A can of refried beans that's been there for 2 years."
G2: "Wrong, it's dinner!"

Third, I start making strange cutbacks that probably aren't making that much of a difference. Case in point: I need to return this movie to the store; but I am running on fumes in my truck. In order to get to the store I will have to fill up my gas tank. So....screw it, I'll return it later when I have gas and hope that I don't get fined thereby negating the savings I just made. But of course, if I were to stop and think, I would realize that I have to buy gas whether or not I go to the store today, and I will have to return the movie whether or not I do it today (unless I really want to own a copy of Baby Geniuses on BlueRay for a mere $25). This probably goes back to my lack of economic teaching; but I somehow convince myself that delayed spending is saving me money!

4, I indubitably make one or more stupid financial decisions. E.g. After adding up rent and utilities, counting how much I have in the bank, counting how much I have in my wallet, coming to the conclusion that since I only work one more day in the month I need to walk with $130 in that next shift or I will not make rent, and realizing that I haven't made that much in a shift in a long time (therefore it will be a long shot to make rent this month), I will wake up the next morning with furrowed eyebrows as to why I spent the night spending money to drink with friends <---This is, most assuredly, the longest sentence in this post, or in any recent post for that matter; which makes me want to go scan the archives to see what the longest sentence I have ever written is.

Times like this make you wish you had been smart with your savings when things were looking up. But nooooo, I needed the duplicate DVD just because it was a special edition with one added feature, the fancy name-brand headache painkillers that are 6x the price of the generics, the new digital camera with twice the megapixels (even though I have never printed anything requiring the max number of magapixels my current camera has), and the fancy foreign bottled water (my Brita filter makes the water taste like carrots!).

Oh well. Hindsight is 20/20 while current vision is like reading the bottom line of an eye exam chart from 100 yard through blue-tinted glass covered in mud.

2008-10-28T16:39:00.000-07:00

Evolution of Understanding of Government

I have to admit that I have never been very involved (read: interested) in politics. I know, I know, if I were in some other country that did not allow at least a semblance of democracy (since that's about all we have in the U.S.) I would do anything to have a say. Call me jaded; but at least I'm aware of my condition.

The method by which I vote has gone through three stages, and I think I have finally ended up with something workable:

18 Years Old: The first stage was to go along with whatever my parents told me. I honestly put no thought into voting, registered republican, and voted along with my parents. When your biggest concern is whether your parents will let you stay out 'til 10pm on Saturday night, the next president isn't exactly on the "things I really care about list."

22 Years Old: The second stage was to do some reading, do some thinking, and end up with a totally nihilistic view of my role in voting. My thoughts were: if California will always be a democratic state, it doesn't matter what I vote. If I voted democrat, a democrat would win; if I voted republican, a democrat would win (etc, etc). Due to this 'understanding,' I voted, not really caring or thinking it mattered. Now, there is some truth to this, but it is misguided and it led to my current thought.

26 Years Old: The third stage is to actually care enough to not go with a mob mentality. My mind still can't wrap around the idea that only someone from one of two parties will win. Why the hell is that? Why do people not even consider the other parties? Go ahead, ask someone to name candidates from a party other than the democrats or republicans and they will likely draw a blank (unless it's someone like Ron Paul who would have to be a write-in). What is my solution then? Simply to vote for someone I agree with. Screw the main two candidates, they are both bad choices. Yeah, I know that voting for a third party means that my choice will not win and that my vote will not go towards helping "the lesser of two evils." I'm sick of that phrase. Why does it have to be the lesser of two evils? If more people stopped following the crowd and read into the issues and voted on something other than a big D or R, we actually might get some of the much harped on "change" this country so badly needs.

So what's the end result? I used to think voting for anyone other than D or R would result in a thrown away vote. Now I see that by voting for someone other than the main two, those candidates will look at the states they lost, ask why, and see (hopefully) a good-sized chunk of votes going to some underdog. This will (hopefully) cause them to rethink why they were not voted for and make some changes. It will also (hopefully) give some power to third parties and help the hopelessly insignificant candidates to gain some significance and actually make some change.

Anyway, I'm off my soap-box. I hate politics. I really do. But I guess trying to make something you hate better is better than hating it and doing nothing about it.

2008-10-02T15:14:00.000-07:00

Hey, you, stop giving a bad name to things that describe me!

This thought is nothing new, and I have surely talked about it before; but a movie (about to be released) has re-roused my passion for the topic. That movie is Religulous.

I want to explain, right off, that I am not in any way trying to belittle this film, start a boycott, or even say it is wrong in its message. In fact, I find the idea of the film to be a sobering one, especially for those who have faith in more than this mortal coil.

I recently watched an interview with Bill Maher, in which he explained that there are two basic kinds of religious people, 1) those who have hardcore faith, but know next to nothing about what they believe, and 2) those who know everything about what they believe, but exhibit weak faith (or blatantly admit that they're very possibly wrong). This is the common view that anyone who is smart enough will realize the stupidity of faith in the supernatural.

Something like %16 of people do not "have faith" (oh what a wonderfully vague phrase that is) according to the film, and Mr. Maher wants better representation of those people instead of religiosity being an assumed essential part of being in government, being moral, etc.

How can all the religious fanatics, the crazies, the violently zealous be the ones who control laws, set up appropriate behavior for family life, or quite literally get away with murder?

My basic problem is that (and I'll bring this close to home so as not to offend too many people) Christians are making Christianity stupid. No, I don't think that they are making it look stupid for having belief, or desiring a relationship with an invisible being, or anything of the sort. Christians are making Christianity stupid because they will jump headfirst into discussions, political positions, and alienating moral views because "that's what the Bible says." Most Christians have no ethical theory, theological training, hermeneutic understanding, etc, etc, etc.

Christians will jump on any bandwagon their pastor tells them to. They will vote for any presidential candidate who professes "Christian ideals." They will chastise those who go against biblical law, all the while committing secret sins of their own.

My point is that most people of faith are either too ignorant to show that their beliefs are not delusions of grandeur, or are too jaded to exhibit any sort of zeal for faith in something that, if true, is absolutely wonderful. Most people of faith hand people like Bill Maher a bat and say, "hit me."

What I wish (and I know this will never happen) is that people would do one of two things, either 1) actually take an interest in the thing that is supposed to be the most important part of their life, do some studying, and be ready to intelligently explain why they believe what they believe, or 2) simply admit that they are not well studied in the area, but that they have faith anyway, and therefore understand that they should not make sweeping generalizations or become fanatical about topics that they are totally ignorant in.

Don't think those are the only two options? Imagine a scientist who bases all his research on the theoretical hypothesis of string theory; but when you ask him why, he replies, "oh, I just believe it." Then imagine trying to argue that quantum theory is right and string theory is wrong, and this scientist (who has no basis or backing for his theory other than faith) becoming belligerently angry, saying you are wrong (though he can't say why), and accusing you of being ignorant.

Would you take that? No, of course not. Why? Because (despite string theory being a hypothesis) it's science, and saying, "just cuz" isn't good enough. Well the same thing goes for religion. If you are going to tell someone that they are wrong for what they believe, or that they must believe in a certain thing, you had better have some good reasons why you are right (and no, "um, because the Bible says so" is not a good enough answer.

I'm sick and tired of telling people I am a Christian and getting that look that says, "oh, heh, riiiight, let's change the subject before I offend your simple sensibilities." I almost feel like telling people, "I'm a Christian, but not one of the stupid ones."

On a final note, I'm not trying to take all faiths down a peg. I'm simply trying to point out that if you get angry by things like movies mocking your faith, take a look at yourself before accusing others. Also, no, not everyone falls into the categories of stupid with faith or smart without faith. I have, well, faith, that people will start putting a little more effort into their beliefs.

2008-09-26T21:43:00.000-07:00

So...much...happening...

Life has been crazy hectic lately; but not in a bad way. At the beginning of the month I hit NY with my family. Four days in Valley Stream and four days in the city. The prior half was filled with homemade food and grandmotherly guilt trips, and the latter half was filled with an increasingly strong desire to move to NY city.

In the city we saw three plays (though the last can hardly be described as merely a "play"). First was Xanadu. Basic premise: a rollerskating muse from Mt. Olympus intervenes in the life of a man (who is so effeminate that it's amazing the story says he's straight) who wants to open a roller-disco.

The second play was a Tony-award-winning play called August: Osage County. Basic premise: a family so dysfunctional that having having Michael Jackson as a daycare owning dad and Charles Manson as a brother would seem unremarkable in comparison. All in all, a show so depressing that despite the award-winning cast and well written story, I didn't care to even contemplate the play after it had ended.

The last "play" we saw was called Fuerza Bruta. Considering how difficult a time as I had trying to describe the Radiohead concert due to its amazing-ness, I am bound to fail at trying to describe this event. Imagine standing in a room with a couple hundred other people, fog machines blasting, giant fans, water cannons, a man on a treadmill crashing through foam-brick walls, and girls dancing in a water-filled Plexiglas cage that is being lowered over your head. That image, the one you have in your head right now, it's nothing compared to what I witnessed. If you ever, EVER have a chance to see this show, see it. I cannot explain how amazing it was. Ok, it was so good that at the end of the show, people were so hyped that they (including me) were willingly dancing in a downpour of water, not caring about the effects on electronics in pockets, or how it will affect getting home.

The rest of the trip was fantastic and wonderful and a bunch of other terms describing happiness that I don't feel like typing out right now.

::
::

Skipping a little bit of time, Megan surprised me with an early birthday present: Beck tickets. That's right, tickets to see Spoon, MGMT, and Beck at the Hollywood Bowl. The night consisted of free wine, a very tall man cracking his head open on the concrete in front of me, two great opening bands, more wine, and a machine-like Beck who pumped out around 30 songs in his set. Not only that, he had a 30-piece (or so) orchestra behind him so he could play songs from Sea Change. In other words, holy crap it was amazing. Every part of the concert was awesome.

Afterwards <---not a real word, is it? (and not a ton will be said about this) we hit Vanguard to dance the rest of the night away. All in all, a fantastic (if not early) birthday celebration.

And now? Well now there are dreams of cruise ships and new jobs and moving to new places and embarking in new enterprises. Life is fun and hectic and seriously draining all of my money...but I wouldn't trade it for all the world.

2008-09-25T23:17:00.000-07:00

Now People...

I had this fantastic philosophy teacher whose name I shall politely omit (not because I think he will stumble upon my blog -since the chances of that are less than the chances that Oprah will gain a conscience, donate all her personal belongings to charity and devote her life to feeding the poor- but because I respect the man too much to belittle him with a seemingly degrading blog post), since he has been such an inspiration to me that a humorous blog devoted to him seems mean-spirited.

Now don't get me wrong...I think naming a man and "making fun" of him is mean-spirited, however I am still doing it; but by not naming him I am merely pointing out a humorous part of my life without degrading an amazing person.

Anyway, back to the issue at hand...

I had a teacher who had, shall we say, a quirk. He would constantly interject the phrase "now people," or the word, "people," into his sentences. For example:

"Now people, don't get me wrong; but Kant didn't think this through..."

Or...

The only problem with this, people, is that existentialism ignored modern logic."

I'm not so sure you get my point. He said this phrase/word a LOT. As in a whole-friggin-lot.

I had taken a previous class with him and knew this quirk, so I decided, in one particular class, to take a tally of how many times he said it. I started out as a lone gunman, marking tallies between furious note-taking. Soon enough, my neighbors noticed something odd about my habits and asked what I was doing. When I informed them of my task, they gladly lended helping hands...pointing out "now people"s when I didn't notice.

The following picture is my tally sheet. I apologize for the poor quality:

It's not easy to see (click to enlarge), but he hit a max of 63 "now people"s on 3-28-05.

I considered making a nice laminated version of the tally sheet and giving it to him at the end of the semester; but I had this horrible vision of him feeling so much self-doubt about himself that he would fold into the fetal position in the middle of a class and never be able to teach again for fear that he would utter that god-forsaken phrase yet again. So I held on to it. And tonight I happened to stumble upon it and felt the insatiable need to share it with someone...even if that "someone" is the faceless internets that I stare into so many nights.

So enjoy, oh internets, and revel in the glory that is quirky teachers.

2008-09-25T14:20:00.000-07:00

Bizarre (Out of Context) Line from News Article of the Day!

"Zaidi was also banned from allowing or encouraging anyone under the age of 16 to beat themselves during the next 12 months."

Wha?

2008-09-16T23:17:00.000-07:00

"Wait, she's doing what?!?

I just got back from an amazing trip to NY and have some fun stuff to share; but it's late and I'm tired and you'll have to wait for that (if you can!).

In the meantime, I wanted to take a minute to brag about my little sister Ashley. She has put many years and countless hours into her dance and performance arts knowing full well that it might never pan out quite the way she hoped it would.

Well, it has started to pay off.

First off, keep an eye out for the commercial for the next season of Nip/Tuck. Ashley is one of the dancers playing the parts of Twiggy and some queen who I can't recall at the moment.

Second, and even more exciting, she just danced backup for Rihanna at the MTV Video Music Awards! Sorry for the horribly pixelated picture. It seems that even with all our advances in technology we still can't get a clean screen-capture of TV events (then again I'm complaining about something I'm relying on other people to do for me...how American!). She was chosen to be one of the few core dancers for Rihanna's performance and she got some great screen time. If you want to see the whole thing, Click Here.

On top of all of that, she recently modeled clothes at a celebrity function, tried out for a new Cirque Du Soleil show, and is being considered to be a model for a high-end jean company.

It's funny that it's my sister, because I usually get to tell stories that start off with, "Oh, I know this guy whose sister..." and now I get to say, "Hey, guess what my sister just did?" I'm incredibly proud of her and just thought I'd share.

Oh, and if you see her walking down the street, don't be shy, she only charges $10 for an autograph.

2008-09-03T10:59:00.000-07:00

"The only way I can describe it is 'transcendent.'"

Late last month Megan and I went to see Radiohead at the Hollywood Bowl. I had never seen them before so I was asking around to see which friends had seen them. You know, to get an idea of what I was in for. Without fail, every person who had seen them raved about how amazing they were. Now, I'm a pretty big fan of Radiohead, but I assumed that people were getting caught up in the hype of a band they adored. I never assumed I would experience what I did.

Without a doubt, Radiohead was the best live show I have ever seen. In fact, I don't even want to call it a "live show" since it was so much more. The strange thing is, I can't figure out why. I dissected each individual part of the night to see if I could understand better. Here's the closest I could come to a formula:

Amazing light show that must be seen to be understood (see picture at top)
+
As close to perfect of a performance from the group as possible
+
Almost every song I hoped to hear
+
Not too many completely annoying people around to ruin the experience
=
The perfect concert experience

But wait, that doesn't make sense. I've been to shows before that have all those elements and I still walked away from those shows thinking, "that was fun"...not, "that was the most amazing thing I have ever experienced."

It makes even less sense when you consider how many negatives surrounded the experience:

-We were sitting 3 rows from the very back of the Bowl (that's REALLY far away)
-I had had multiple alcoholic beverages (dulling the senses)
-The people in front of us spent the first part of the show talking quite loudly, as if they were at a party with friends and the music was just coming from the radio (though thanks to our seat-neighbors they were quieted)
-Megan had to work the next morning (at 8:30am) and the show was going late
-Etc, etc, etc

I look at the positives (which seem very generic), and I add in the negatives (which seem pretty annoying/distracting), and my first thought is that the end result should not be so great. So what is it that made that particular show so incredible?

It has to be soul.

Thom York (even from the back of the Bowl) exudes such passion for what he is doing that you can't help but be sucked in and entranced by every vocal utterance and musical sound. Watching him sing and play makes me think that if he was not making music, he would die. He puts so much of himself into every second of the show that it is no longer like watching a concert...it is more like watching a performance piece where the main character is bearing his every emotion for all to see.

I saw this show over a week ago and have stalled writing about it since then. I have a really hard time writing about something so meaningful when I know that my words will hardly convey how I feel or how the experience actually was. Imagine reading a blog about how amazing skydiving is. No matter how perfect the word choice is, you are not going to understand what skydiving is like...unless you do it.

The last two paragraphs are my biggest concern right now. First, I didn't want to write about this because I knew that my experience would never be fully conveyed in words. Second, I didn't want to start writing about the "oh-my-gosh-it-was-magical" aspect of the show because I knew it would start to sound pretentious. There seems to be no easy way of writing about a band like Radiohead. In one respect, they are just a band; in another, they are the mouthpiece for a generation that feels full of despair and hopelessness over the prospect of the future. They are some amazing conglomeration of the wholly physical and secular and wholly metaphysical and spiritual.

And in the end, I feel as if I should have kept all this to myself...like that kid you see cupping something in his hands and peeking at whatever it is he has while he smiles a smile that reads: I am the luckiest person in the world. At the same time, if I don't at least attempt to share experiences like this one, I will end up conveying that my life is uninteresting dross not worth your time. But just like I feel that my friend's stories and experiences are enlightening and life-enhancing, so I hope mine are.

2008-08-28T15:18:00.000-07:00

This is...really sad

If you haven't seen this commercial, you should really see it. No, I take that back, you really shouldn't. It's got to be the most awful attempt at advertising I have seen in a long time. Pay close attention to the "friends" having a "awesome time" watching the lucky owner of the Guitar Idol!:

2008-08-15T01:00:00.000-07:00

Does this thing still work?

So...after a little influence from the girlfriend I decided to start writing on this site again. It's been a while, and I'm not sure how much resolve I have; but hopefully I can start writing again for the 2 of you who still occasionally check the now 7 year old 50Fifty.

A ton has happened since I last wrote, but it seems futile to try and catch up. So why not just start from now and look to the future?

A couple days ago Megan and I went to see the Pageant of the Masters. If you've never seen this event, you really should. It's basically human "reenactments" of famous paintings and sculptures lit so perfectly that they seem to be 2-D (or made of metal/wood/plaster/etc). It's a truly amazing feat.

We showed up early to see the art exhibits being shown in the area outside the arena. It was interesting to compare the prices of the art I enjoyed versus the prices of the art I found pretentious and/or severely lacking in one way or another. Every time I saw a red dot next to a piece I would check the price:

-Hotel-worthy painting of the sea: $3900
-Twisted piece of metal: $5000
-Incredibly ugly characteratures of presidential candidates: $2500

Most of the art I was drawn to and amazed by was not only unsold, but oftentimes priced much more reasonably.

I found myself relieved that I did not attempt to make a living based on art I made. I would simply be devastated if something I put my heart and soul into never sold and never garnered any interest. Then again...my desired career is artistic; and it is very possible that something I put my all into will be mocked and put down. A car salesman can base his or her success on sales; but he or she will never go home crying because somebody put down a creation of his or hers. Art is a strange field where one's success is directly related to a totally subjective opinion.

Imagine if you were a waiter and you walked up to a table and this conversation ensued:

Waiter: Hi, welcome to ________, I'll be your server tonight.
Guest 1: Hmmm, honey, what do you think?.
Guest 2: I dunno, he's kinda pale...and skinny.
Guest 1: Yeah, and his hair is totally not in style.
Waiter: But, but I'm a great server! Seriously!
Guest 2: Oh, well, um...we're just looking.
Guest 1: Yeah, we're not too into this, sorry.

This is the kind of dejection that artists feel all the time. People walk up, look at their hard work, subjectively judge it, and very possibly reject it like it's not even worth their time.

I'm tempted to get into a big discussion of aesthetics (the subject of my last class in grad school); but I don't have the drive or the ability to make it intriguing enough to make you want to read it. So I'll leave this at one thought: how do you make aesthetic judgments?

I'd love to hear a few opinions. If you feel so inclined, leave as long a comment as you like explaining how you view beauty and the human inclination towards the "beautiful." I have my own opinions, but I'd love to hear yours. Another way of phrasing the question: when you look at something and say, "Wow, that is beautiful!" are you saying that as an objective judgments (i.e. everyone should see the beauty in this) or are you saying it subjectively (i.e. I find this beautiful, but hey, that's just my opinion); and either way, what are the criteria for something to be beautiful?

(Side question: why do we find the things we find beautiful, beautiful?)

Anyway, here's to writing in my blog again. Cheers.

2008-07-03T14:35:00.000-07:00

You have got to be kidding me...

2008-05-24T23:57:00.001-07:00

At the Risk of Sounding Overemotional...
(Wait...have I used that title before?
Maybe I should call it:
At the Risk of Sounding Senile...)

A lot is changing. I'll be finishing grad school in July and will officially be a master of philosophy...which means a whole lot of nothing to most of the world. I'll be many years behind the technological advances of the field I want to pursue. I'll be moving to a new place and crossing my fingers that I will be making enough money to take care of myself. I will be over 2 years into a fantastic relationship. I will be living the life of a "grown-up" even though that title is probably something I should have been living up to for quite a while now.

Things are changing and things are scary and I'm not sure I even know what "things" are.

But here's to the future. Nothing is the same as it was (which is probably a good thing); nothing will be as I imagine (which could be a good thing); and I'm just along for the ride. Life is interesting for a twenty-something with no real plan for the rest of his life.

2008-05-07T15:19:00.000-07:00

Why My Girlfriend is Awesome

*While playing GTA 4 as Megan sits by and watches*

Grant: So, what should we do now?

Megan: Ooh! Let's go kill some hookers!

Grant: I didn't mean in the game.

Megan: ...Neither did I.

2008-04-13T03:53:00.001-07:00

2008-04-08T21:00:00.000-07:00

I'm such a slacker when it comes to writing on this site. At one point a few years ago I promised to update every day. That became an impossible task and I fell into the rut of updating every few weeks. Then every few months. Now? It's like winning the lottery to find a new post...only replacing the absurd amounts of money with some rather mundane words that are rather unimportant.

So here ya go. A post. Just for you. Because you're special.

And a picture:

2008-02-15T12:06:00.000-08:00

"You cannot hate other people without hating your self."
-Author: anonymous

Alternate Title: The Really Really Really Long Post

So I have a lot of totally un-researched, unproven, scientifically-supportless theories about how things work. Whether it be my theory:
1) that men are taught to be constantly sexual to the highest degree (by movies, magazines, music, and bad parenting, etc), so whether they are or are not, they act that way to be accepted socially (since a male who does not act like a sexual predator is deemed inept/gay/irregular); and women are taught to not be base enough to give in to the animal urge for sex (by latent Victorian standards, "studies" on how often women desire sex, "studies" saying women do not think of sex in the same way men do, etc), so whether or not they are overly sexual, they pretend to not care about it. This then results in men who are not overly sexual acting like they are and women who are at least moderately sexual acting like they are not and the two of them clashing when, in reality, they are much more like each other than they realize...

or 2) that many who claim to be oppressed end up (accidentally or intentionally) oppressing others...i.e. atheists who say "don't push your views of God on me" but fight to have their view be the only view taught in science/history classes thereby pushing their view of there being no God on every child in the educational system; or any group (be it women, blacks, illegal immigrants, etc) who at one time in the past (or even now, in the present) were/are put down upon, only to be angry that the equality effort on their behalf did not put them above those who oppressed them (thereby desiring oppression of others even though their anger is spawned from oppression in the first place). I.E. Feminists who are (rightly so) angry that women could not vote in the past and were treated as maids who reared the children; but then in an attempt to gain 'equality' demand jobs doing things like firefighting even when unqualified thereby causing the system to lower standards (and possibly put people in danger). Addendum to the last paragraph: I am NOT saying that women can't do jobs like front-line military service or fighting fires. I know that the upper 25th percentile of women have no problem meeting the same standards as men. I'm using this as an example that is sometimes true.

You'll have to forgive me, I'm a horrible hypocrite. I get easily angered when someone with no background in philosophy attempts to make a philosophical argument and completely ignores the entire field/dialog on the topic they are discussing in order to push their ignorant views; however, I'm more than willing to enter a field I have little background in (i.e. psychology) to tell everyone that I am right.

So...my point is that I am not formally educated in the field that would properly discuss this topic, yet, if one uses common sense, the point I am going to make is at lease valid and worth discussing. So I hope you'll read on and not dismiss this as ignorant.

::
::

The funny thing is that my entire point is very, very simple. Yet,I don't think too many people have put much credence in the idea. Here it goes:

The things that people hate in others are often things they hate in themselves,

Yeah, I know I need to qualify that statement.

Differentiation between different scenarios where I see this:

1. The Capacity Argument
We all have certain capacities to do certain things. Whether or not these capacities are ever realized, they are there. Easy example, I have the capacity to learn Spanish almost fluently. Will I ever? Who knows, but I have the capacity to. Capacities can be good, bad, or neutral. The capacity to learn Spanish is neutral. The capacity to become more compassionate and become the head of a non-profit organization would be viewed by many as good. The capacity to become an addict would usually be seen as bad.

You've heard people say, "I have an addictive personality, I need to be careful." This kind of person sees the possibility of becoming addicted to anything from caffeine to painkillers to video games. You've also heard people say, "That guy who [takes pain killers every day/drinks a ton of coffee/etc] is SO pathetic. He has no self-control." This often comes across as angry, adamant, and incredibly condescending. I would wager that those two comments are often said by the same person. The addictive personality person hates those addicted to something because he is restricted (at least personally) from doing them. Whether or not he wants to drink absurd amounts of coffee, he desires on some level to do the things he knows he can't. It's a red button and we all love pushing red buttons.

This is tricky, because the person is usually the opposite of the thing they hate:

The girl who works out 3 hours a day and has 5% body fat who hates obese people (because she sacrifices so much to not be like them). The guy working a minimum-wage job who hates rich people who blow their money on golden toilets (because he would love to live extravagantly but can't even afford toilet paper). The girl who hates religious people and rants about how stupid anyone following a religion is (because she, deep down, sees something in religion that seems right). And the list goes on.

2. The Actualized Argument
The next set of people are living the thing they hate. A prime example is the stand-up comedian. What do comedians make the most jokes about? Themselves. The fat ones make fat jokes. The gay ones make gay jokes. The ugly ones make ugly jokes. And so on and so on. People always have qualms with themselves. And seriously, how many times have you heard the question: "If there was one thing about yourself you could change, what would it be?" The easiest way to deal with disappointment is to mock it. This is the group of people who have some flaw (whether public or private) and relentlessly mock it when they see it in other people.

3. The Jealousy Argument
This is the type of person who shows extreme disdain for some trait/action/etc in others; but they secretly wish they could be like that person. For example, a person might hate people who live minute-to-minute (the kind who would up and move to another country at a whim) because "that kind of person is irresponsible." Yet the one hating wishes they could be that lacking in responsibility. But they have made a decision to accomplish something that does not allow for such spontaneity. Most people see something in others that they sometimes wish they could have, but for one reason or another disdain that quality.

Now trust me, I understand that this is not a universal evaluation. I might genuinely hate people who kill others and feel no remorse; but that does not mean I necessarily wish I could do the same or even have the propensity to do the same. I mean this in general. Also, there is the problem of the over-use of the word "hate"...so much so that the word hardly means anything anymore. Yeah, I hate eggplant, but that does not mean I want to be one. I'm speaking of "hate" on a deeper level.

Anyway, there's yet another unproven (and likely unprovable) assumption I have about humanity. Take it as you will.

2008-01-18T00:01:00.000-08:00

Movie Reviews, A Plea for Old Work, and New Art!

Alright boys and girls, Grant's Homage to Sarah Brown's Cringe is still taking place so send stuff in! If you have no idea what the hell I'm talking about, see the post below.

But in the meantime, here are some movie reviews of recent films I've seen so you can base all your movie rentals on my opinion. Since my opinion is so important.

Sweeny Todd
Do you like Tim Burton? Johnny Depp? Helena Bonham Carter? Morbid, dark, violent musicals? Then this film is for you! Seriously, even if you aren't really into musicals, this movie is genius. Sure it's a "remake," but it hits every important detail from amazing visuals to an intriguing plot to cutting lyrics to visceral killings.

Zodiac
I didn't know much about the Zodiac killer and definitely didn't know any sort of work on him was still being done up until a few years ago. This film was an interesting semi-history lesson packaged with some great crime/thriller motifs. It's from the director of Se7en so how bad can it be? Good acting and a decent film all around.

Eastern Promises
Fantastically acted film about the Russian mob in London. Didn't know the Russian mob worked in London? Well now you know. So see the film to get the down-low on prostitution, prison tattoos, and how one should protect him/herself if ever caught in a naked fight to the death.
The Borne Ultimatum
If you liked the first couple films, this one is a must. It was a great film that keeps you wondering what kind of crazy action scene will take place next. And if you're into film making details, the extras show how they got away with some pretty incredible stunts. A couple ethical dilemmas aside, there's not much depth, but a fun film nonetheless.

Hmm...I seem to be out of films. But I'm sure I'll remember something later. As for now, I should be asleep due to a final tomorrow. Until next time.

P.S. Thanks to Christina's friend John and a little graphic novel called Transmetropolitan (loosely based on a Hunter S. Thompson type character (therefore right up my alley)) I have begun drawing again. Here's the first serious thing I've drawn in a very long time:

2008-01-16T00:32:00.000-08:00

A New Project for a New Year

I have referenced her a couple of times in my blog, and I have been reading her site for 7 years now (thought it has gone through many changes). Her name is Sarah Brown and she has been an inspiration to me more times than I can count. I have based multiple writings on ideas that she has had, and I have tried to always give her credit (and I apologize if I ever failed to do so).

Sarah started this amazing things called Cringe. It started in New York and is, at its base, an open mic for relaying the best of old poems, journal entries, songs, and writings in general. And by "best" I mean "most horribly awkward and therefore funny." It has garnered much deserved attention and even takes place in England now. Next time I hit NY I'm bringing an old journal in hopes of shaking Sarah's hand and reading for everyone's pleasure.

In the meantime, since I cannot partake in the actual thing, I have decided to start a mini faux version on Cringe on my site. I'm not trying to make it big or get famous from this (as Sarah has done with her book coming out soon). This is more so for me and my close friends. But if you're new to this site and stumble upon this, please contribute.

So what I'm asking is that you e-mail me poems, letters you never sent, journal entries, songs, and anything you can find that you want to share. The point is to smile at our youthful indiscretion and now-comedic views that we once held so dearly.

So here are a few ground rules:

-You can ask to remain anonymous, or for your name to accompany your work. I will always respect your privacy.
-Please do not edit your work. You can take out names if you're worried about them reading it, but the more truthful to the original the better.
-There is to be no actual mockery of anyone's work. Laughter is the point, but not laughter at another's expense. Though this can be funny, these can still be painful/serious memories.
-Drawings/etc can be included.
-Things posted on the net are acceptable, but actual handwritten work can be more fun since chances are nobody has heard this before.
-A bit of setup is always appreciated. Year you wrote it and surrounding circumstances and the like.
-The older the better.
-Try to not "justify" the writing. Set it up and let it speak for itself.

And now, to show how serious I am about doing this, I will start with the first 50FIFTY Homage to Sarah Brown's Cringe:

I was 18 and it was 2001 and I was "dating" a girl for the first time. I put 'dating' in quotes because it was still up in the air at this time. I had, in a sense, stolen this girl from her boyfriend and was insanely caught up in my internal struggle to win her affections since she was obviously my one true love. Or so my 18-year-old heart thought.

We "broke up," and I put that in quotes because, how can you break up with someone if you're not dating in the first place?

I was so distraught that I wrote countless horrible poems in a little spiral-bound notebook. They became progressively more emo until it climaxed in a suicide-note style poem.

Two things to keep in mind: 1) I was listening to a lot of Eminem at this point in time, and 2) My dad found this and had a little "talk" with me.

Goodbye

How do I start this? Not with "hello"
For I know that's too happy to show
How I feel, how bout "hi", no no no
That's not real, doesn't go
What's the deal? I'll just screw it
And start with, "I feel like shit"
That'll hit 'em, stick with 'em and kick 'em
Out of their comfort zones
Cuz Grant wouldn't use that tone
And we know that he's not prone
To swear or to get real mad,
Grant is just never sad, then:
"This will make you real mad
But chance after chance I've had
To try and make myself glad.
And why does it never work?
I cry and I go berserk
I know that I've been a jerk
But I've tried to look at the perks
Of living and I can see none
I'm giving up, battle's done
I fought it off but it won."
I think I'll write my goodbyes.
This ink they'll read as they cry
Hearts sink, they ask, "Why'd he die?"
And now I will tell you bye.
"To my parents I loved you much
You cared which was proved by such
Warm actions, looks, even your touch
But this world was just too much.
To my friends, you guys are the best
I'd rest my life in your hands," ha, that's
Messed since I'm already dead,
My head leaking blood on my bed.
"And to all those who know me
Who weren't as close to me
This letter's supposed to be
A clearing of mysteries.
I hate all you wanna-be-crowd following pansies
I hope this let's you all see
That life isn't all dandy
But strife and much suffering,
A knife, I'm the offering
And now I don't feel a thing."
Somehow I know this is all
I need to write so I fight
The urge to just write and write
Cuz writing this is almost fun
But now that my letter's done
I pick up the deadly gun
Load the bullets one by one
I put the gun to my head
My hand shakes, heavy like lead
The sand makes its way on down
Time is up, my finger's round
The trigger as I pull it now

::
::

I ended it with a fake bullet hole surrounded by a red-pen-ink-bloodsplatter.

Wow was I pretentious.

Your turn!

2007-12-22T21:36:00.000-08:00

Needless to Say...

...I have a sick masochistic fascination with needles.

2007-12-05T13:06:00.000-08:00

Damn You Candy Companies!!

So Hershey's recently put out a new product - it's a baggie of breath-mints. The problem is that it looks like baggies used to carry cocaine.

There has been some outrage over this product due to it's similarity to drug packaging and news sites are showing pictures comparing the two. I guess this is problematic because a child who is used to having breath mints in a little blue baggie might stumble upon a baggie of llello, eat it, and suffer harm or die.

As some have already pointed out, there is a bigger issue here: where the hell is this situation going to take place? What child lives in a environment where they could find a little blue baggie of blow? People don't usually misplace large bags of drugs, so any parent who is worried that after a all-night binger their kid will consume the rest of their drugs probably has more to worry about than Hershey's packaging.

2007-11-30T11:13:00.000-08:00

I Know I Don't Post Anything with any Content Anymore...

...but I was perusing Sarah Brown's site and ran across this video by a band named Menomena and couldn't help but share it with anyone who still occasionally visits this site:

2007-11-27T02:08:00.000-08:00

Skateboards: The Unknown Danger

I was skating to the 7-11 that is all of 1 block from my condo tonight. Mind you, I have been using a longboard for years now. I'm no Tony Hawk, but I can usually get to my destination on said longboard without too much of a problem.

But not tonight.

Somehow, my peddling got a bit too excited and my body gained too much momentum and I found myself moving faster than the board beneath my feet. As you might have by now assumed, this means that I surpassed the 45 degree [estimate] point and my board stayed at the pace I was previously moving (better read as: my board was moving at X speed and my body was moving at Y speed, where Y= very fast and X= not very fast).

Needless to say...I hit the pavement, did a stuntman roll, and lost some (read: a lot) of my epidermal layer.

Now I'm bandaged up like the Invisible Man when he's wanting to be seen by others.

Case in point:

Remind me to never join the X-Games.

P.S. I know it says "PANTIES" on the computer screen behind my aching hand, but I promise I was just reading a webcomic that has some strange links to other (more bizarre) webcomics. The first person who tries to be witty and makes a joke about my web-surfing destinations gets a slap in the face.

2007-11-12T14:23:00.000-08:00

Does anyone else find this strange?

2007-11-07T22:07:00.000-08:00

Marketing For Dummies

I was browsing the internet, as I am often to be found doing, and I ran across an ad for durian. If you don't know, durian fruit is this massively popular fruit in India (and possibly some other countries) that tastes, to almost anyone who did not grow up eating it, like rotten garbage with some extra rotten thrown on top. The smell is so foul that hotels have big "no durian fruit" signs and they often have special charcoal filtering systems in case someone sneaks one into the hotel and eats it. They are said to have mystical qualities and people go crazy for them. There have been murders over durian fruit sales.

So you can imagine my surprise at seeing an ad for this fruit that was aimed at Americans. As I checked out the ad, here is what I saw:
Take a look at all the claims this ad makes and then stop and think. Notice something a little bit odd? In one category we have mood elevator and cause of feeling younger. Sort of like an anti-depressant that makes you happier. Next we have energizer, to which we will add helps you lose weight since diet pills also usually give you energy. Next we have sexual stimulant. Next we have relaxant. Next we have...um...helps you make lots of money?

I have such a hard time thinking that people would buy this, but I guess they do.

How can one item make you happier and peppier AND help you with sexual problems AND help you fall asleep? My only guess is that it pumps you full of a speed-like substance which makes you happier which allows greater sexual performance which tires you out and makes you sleep well. And then it gets you lots of money. Or something?

Plus, we have to remember that this is a fruit. A natural, organic item. One that has not been scientifically engineered to perform a multitude of opposing functions in the human body.

The only way to achieve all those results with modern science is a drug cocktail kinda like this:
-Seroquel for happiness
-Sibutramine for pep and weight loss
-Yohimbine for aphrodisiacal qualities
-Nembutal for sleep

I don't even know where I'm going with this. I could end with the sad state of marketing ethics in our country, or how people forget to use their brains when something is promised to make them rich, or how lacking in true marketing skill most internet salesmen are...but instead I'll leave the moral up to you.

I will say one thing, however...if you ever get your hands on a durian, stay the heck away from me.

2007-10-17T01:10:00.000-07:00

Club/Bar Stereotypes - Part Deux

I did my first post about club stereotypes 4 years ago, and it's about time for a new one. There are just so many odd people at clubs that they simply need to be written about. Serious movie script fodder in my opinion.

The "Lesbians"
These are the girls who show up in slutty outfits and are not lesbian in the least, but they know guys and they know that dancing together will get them the attention they crave so much. A simple kiss on the lips and every guy in the club will be all over them for the rest of the night.

The Bros
This is the group of guys (always at least 3) who show up in baggy jeans, baggy t-shirts (often with fraternity Greek plastered on them), baseball caps, and really bad tattoos (usually barbwire and more fraternity Greek). They slam beers, talk about "bitches", and brag about all the "game" they have even though they never get any girl's attention.

The Out-Of-Place Guy
This guy always comes alone and looks so out of place you can't help but stare. His outfit will vary depending on the club. The basic formula is:
Given:
X=Any given club
Y=Very specific style
G=out-of-place-guy
Y*=the opposite
Then:
E(x)(g)[X(Y)^G->G(Y*)]
In layman's terms: For all clubs and all out-of-place guys, if a club with a specific style, and out-of-place guy, then out-of-place guy will wear the exact opposite of whatever that specific style is. (Sorry, logic class ruined me). IE: If we're at a Mexican cantina-style club with jeans and t-shirts as the style, this guy will be wearing a dress shirt, dress pants, a tie or suspenders, and oftentimes one extra feature such as a toupee, a pocket-protector, or a bolo tie.

The Bitches
This is the group of girls who dress up nice and go out to the club to "have a good time," but "have a good time" to them means eyeing guys across the room, maybe even getting some free drinks, and then snubbing them with "yeah right" looks and going back to their safe little group of girls.

The REALLY Drunk Girl
First you see her with some guy you assume is her boyfriend, and she's grinding up against him so much you hope she's taking birth-control. All of 10 minutes later you see her with some other guy doing the same routine. Not 10 minutes later, yet another guy. She eventually comes up to you and attempts to "seduce" you with her stumbling, yelling of "WOOOOO" at an ear-piercing pitch, and breath smelling of vomit.

The Sad Guy
This is the guy sitting in a dark corner by himself with such a look of depression that you want to give him a hug. He is usually lured to the club by friends trying to make him happy after a breakup/death in the family/etc, but his friends ditch him for a group of hot girls leaving him to sit there feeling even more pitiful.

The Cougar
This is the older lady (her age can be figured out by taking the median age of the club-goers and adding at least 20) who usually comes alone and is dressed way too young for her age (and usually too young for her body as well). Her one goal is to get a young, inexperienced guy who is too drunk to realize that she is old enough to be his mom.

All in all, if you like people-watching, head to a club/bar and take notes. Unless of course you are one of the stereotypes...in which case, go on and do your thing and I'll be there to smirk at you.

2007-10-04T01:59:00.000-07:00

Anyone feeling generous?

If everyone pitches in a few dollars, you guys can get me a subscription to make full-length slideshows at Animoto for my birthday!

Woo!

2007-10-02T19:06:00.000-07:00

Mid Twenties...Here I Come

Wow, I just wrote this huge self-pitying weblog about how hard it is to do anything on ones birthday and how birthdays used to mean so much more when we were kids. Phew. Glad I caught that one before it was published.

In other news, it's my birthday in roughly 5 days! Weeeeeee!

If anyone wants to try and do dinner or something some time around the 7th (probably after) I'd be up for it. Mass amounts of tests and papers prohibit much celebrating, but I can take a night off, right?

2007-09-28T16:26:00.001-07:00

Kiefer Sutherland is a Pirate...

...and that would explain everything.

2007-09-21T14:07:00.000-07:00

Technology's Hostile Takeover

Remember in The Brave Little Toaster how all of The Master's technological properties loved him and couldn't wait for him to come back so they could bask in the glow of, um, his ownership of them? Wait...was this movie about slavery? Anyway, not my point. So there were good electronics and bad electronics (all the evil, modern devices) and it was an entire world of sentient electronic devices (aside from the heated blanket who could, unexplainably, move the blanket parts of himself even though they weren't mechanical) who had dreams and hopes and desires.

It has come to my attention that the world of sentient electronics around me is more of the evil kind then the 'I can't wait til Grant gets home!' kind. Why? Everything mechanical/electronic around me is breaking.

About six months back my laptop stopped working. I had to send it in which delayed my school work and caused much inconvenience.

A few months back both of my external hard drives stopped working. For no reason. And they have all my movie-stuff on them.

My cell phone's qwerty keyboard is failing one key at a time. Every time I try to write "you know" it ends up as "you kow."

My truck, which I thought just needed an oil chance, actually needed over $700 of repairs for a new water pump, timing belt, set of spark plugs, etc.

My laptop died on me again, and right at a time when I desperately needed the notes from it to study for a huge test. I subsequently nearly failed said test. Thanks computer.

And those are just the bigs ones. I didn't mention my desk lamp's bulb blowing, my laptop charger only working part of the time, my cell phone's battery only charging about halfway, my video camera's battery only charging about 1/8th of the way, my halogen lamp killing bulbs only weeks old, and inexplicable internet failure only when I actually desperately need it like when I'm trying to sign up for classes.
Just letting everyone know that if you own good electronics, and they come looking for you and end up at my condo, my electronics will probably start singing a badly synthesized 80's-style song to them about being cutting edge...and then try to kill them.

2007-09-10T16:08:00.001-07:00

You Can Stand Under My Umbrella

With the MTV Movie Awards now over (no, I didn't watch it, I was busy working 30 hours a week and calling it part time), I thought I might do a little bragging. Rihanna, a newish pop singer who is actually surprisingly good won best single and best video (the highest award at said event).

The cool part is that my sister Ashley helped out with the video.

Due to time constraints in video shoots, they needed a body/dance double for an effect where Rihanna is dancing while waves of liquid splash across her while she stays dry. So my sister was Rihanna's double who did the dance dressed in a black bodysuit while people threw buckets of water on her.

It's pretty cool to know that my sister was deemed a good enough dancer to 'appear' in a video that is taking the pop-world by storm (oh wow, that was not meant to be a water pun).

Here's a screen capture of the effect:

And here's the video in case you're interested:

2007-08-31T02:46:00.000-07:00

When It Rains, It Poors

I was in Fullerton, walking through the bar-hopping hot-spot as Reggae, House, Latino, and Top-40 pumped from the respective dive-bars. I shook hands with a former employee and discussed how life was. His Boston accent, brute manner, and Italian style hadn't changed. I noticed a woman sitting on a bench by herself. She wore a rasta-style hat, beatnik sunglasses, and a crazy amalgamation of army issue clothing. She held a huge tub of ice cream in her hands. I walked up and asked what kind of ice cream she was eating. She paused for nearly 15 seconds, looked at the label, slowly cocked her head up at me and slurred "I dunno...but it's good!" I smiled and wondered if I should offer her some cash. Before I could get any further in thought she looked up at me again and mumbled, "Hey...do you have any acid connections?" I furrowed my brow and asked her to repeat the question. "Can you get any acid?" I laughed a little until I realized she was serious. "No...sorry," I said, and walked away.
::
::
"That fag!" This was said with such animosity that the four of us in the cheese prep area actually stopped what we were doing and looked at him. He was talking about a table that totally screwed him on tip even after saying everything was great. We don't really know each other, so nobody is sure if he is homophobic, insecure, or just using a common term that some people are offended by. "You shouldn't use that word," one of the girls nearby said. A huge conversation started about what is appropriate usage of "controversial" terms. Nobody would listen to my philosophical take on intention and how one can use a derogatory term if it is often aimed at their own race/sex/sexuality/etc. Instead it broke down into an emotional tirade about how she has lots of homosexual family members and how we need to be sensitive to what people find offensive. I was very tempted to start using derogatory terms about Puerto Ricans and then explain that I'm 25% Puerto Rican. That would probably cause more of a stir than I want to deal with at a new job.
::
::
A drug dealer listens in on a conversation about youthful mistakes in the area of thievery. "I hated my job," his buddy says, "so I stole hundreds of dollars worth of tires for my friends." The drug dealer responds with, "Yeah, well that doesn't justify it. That's horrible." I laugh as he texts some friend with when he'll be by to sell them some yay.
::
::
"Well, I don't know...is that acceptable?" I'm listening in to a conversation from my hiding spot at a corner desk. Nobody pays attention to me. "We're talking about the context of marriage here, right?" This is coming from the badly dressed (ok, so they're all badly dressed) guy eating a Cup O' Noodles. "Yeah," comes the response, "oral sex is still wrong." The guy with the shaved head speaks up, "Totally, the point of sex is procreation, and oral sex is aimed purely at the physical." The first guy pitches in, "Unless, maybe...maybe if you don't finish during the act. If you use it as part of the procreation thing but you don't finish with it you aren't using it for purely physical reasons." Seriously. I can't believe I'm hearing this.
::
::
Oh yeah, Miss Teen South Carolina is ridiculously dense, renegade citizens are using YouTube to destroy bad cops, Splenda is poisoning people with Sucralose, Jaguan Kim is converting people to an incoherent physicalist view of the mind/body problem, and Bob Barker is failing miserably at controlling the pet population.

Sigh...the world is a complicated place.

2007-08-28T04:50:00.000-07:00

A total eclipse of the suuuuun, er...mooooon!

So you might have heard of the 'double moon' rumor, or the 'mars will be as big as the moon' rumor, or the 'Grant is actually a ninja' rumor, but they're all false. Except maybe the third one. People have been going off about Mars coming so close to the moon that it will be just as large and this only happens once every couple thousands years or so. As far as I can tell with extensive (read: 2 minutes worth) research (read: Google), Mars might be close, but that's not what is in the nights sky tonight. Or so the internets tell me. And the internet is always right. Always.

NASA is saying that what you might have seen is just a total lunar eclipse...which is still pretty dang cool. If we were Mayans a couple thousand years ago we might be sacrificing women and children so the moon gods bring the light back to us. I like to follow tradition, so if you don't hear from me for a few years, I'm hiding out in South America under the alias 'Queso.'

Anyway, here's a horribly unsteady shot of the very beautiful lunar eclipse. I apologize for my tripod-less shot and hopefully you got to see it for yourself.

In other news...a person's head is not a suitable substitute for a tripod. Trust me.

2007-08-17T02:03:00.000-07:00

Oh my gosh. I just found this picture in my media folder. I think it's thanks to Christina that I have it. Seriously...how did people at Chapman not think I was doing drugs?

2007-08-06T14:45:00.000-07:00

Quote of the Day

You see, wire telegraph is a kind of a very, very long cat. You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. Do you understand this? And radio operates exactly the same way: you send signals here, they receive them there. The only difference is that there is no cat.

- Albert Einstein

2007-08-03T12:33:00.000-07:00

For those of you who didn't know, I didn't exactly like my old job. A laundry list of complaints including, but not exhausted by, such issues as:

-not enough glasses for the restaurant
-not enough silverware for the restaurant
-not enough napkins for the restaurant
-constant shortage of common foods
-ridiculous tips from uncultured (or obstinate) customers
-passive aggressive punishment if one even thinks about a) vacation time, b) time off for medical procedures, c) leaving the restaurant, d) breaking any one of a myriad of unspoken rules one is simply expected to know

So I took the only course of action I could think of to remedy this: quit and join a corporate giant. Huzzah!

I'm now at an upscale fondue place (*leaving out name due to stories of people being fired from corporate jobs as a result of blogging about said jobs) and I'm, to use some 90's slang, stoked.

So...if you're in Brea and have a few hundred dollars to blow between you and your friends, forget rent and utilities, eat some fondue at my restaurant!

Oh, and there are possible job horror stories to come (as a replacement for any blog topic of any real substance). Enjoy!

p.s. Did some layout changes to get my archives back. Looks like I lost all my comments again unless I can figure out a way to get them back. We'll see.

2007-07-18T13:11:00.000-07:00

Simon...Theodore...Alvin...Grant

It's been almost 48 hours since I had my third molars sliced-n'-diced out of my mouth. I've taken 10 Hydrocodone over the last 48 hours. Everything is nice and dream-like...except for my mouth. It feels like I was punched in the jaw repeatedly. The first day I thought, "Oh, I don't look so bad! In fact, you can hardly tell I had anything done!" But now, well...just look and see for yourself:

Note:
Eyes - Glazed over from pain-killer-induced state of lesser pain.
Cheeks - Strangely deformed into what I assume I would look like if I were fat.
Cheekbones - Somewhat nonexistent.
Smile - Lacking...well, that's just because I can't really smile without it hurting.

And just to put some icing on the cake, I considered the possibility that only I would notice a big difference until I ran into my friend Carly at Blockbuster. I mentioned my cheeks and she said, "Oh, I thought you were chewing on something really big." Then she followed that up with a text that said, "You don't look THAT fat." Heh...sigh.

2007-07-12T22:19:00.000-07:00

Losing Some Wisdom

I went to an oral surgeon today for a consultation. After a panorama x-ray I was placed in a small room where I was told to watch an informative video which looked like it was made in the early 80's. I learned the technical phrase 'soft tissue impaction' before the doctor showed me a $75 picture of my teeth. Apparently I don't have upper wisdom teeth, which is nice. I set up a time to go in and get knocked out. I'll wake up an hour or so later with a sore jaw and lack of ability to eat anything harder than yogurt. And I'll be paying someone over $1,000 for this. Probably the only cool thing about it all is the creepy picture I got of my x-ray. I considered asking if I could keep it, but I don't think they would have let me. So...if anyone sees me during the week of July 23rd, please don't punch me in the jaw.

2007-06-22T00:16:00.000-07:00

The Internet Scares Me Sometimes...

That's a screenshot I found while googling "Grant Paige."

Apparently the internet knows I'm a Chuck Palahniuk fan and thinks that me being a fan will get others to be fans as well.

Let's have some more fun with google, shall we? We shall!

Top Search Results for: "Grant is..."

-Grant Is Florida's Only Candidate to Replace Billy Donovan ...
That I am! If anyone can do Billy Donovan's job better than Billy Donovan, it's me.

-Grant is in mess of beans - USATODAY.com
I'm assuming that a 'mess of beans' is a bad thing. I'm not sure I understand British insults (which I assume this to be), but still...harsh.

-Grant is in his prime in Two Weeks
Nice! I guess in two weeks I'll be better than I ever was! Then again, does that mean in two weeks and one day I'll be going downhill?

Top Search Results for: "I want Grant..."

-I want Grant to have the best education possible and I want him to get the best possible value for his education.
How kind. I want that too. Good thing I'm going to Talbot!

-I want Grant to review the last seven years as far as the Coffmans are concerned
That sounds like a lot of work...and I don't even know who the Coffmans are! They had better appreciate this!

-I want Grant, I want his partner and I want my money back. And once I've got all three, I'm going to get me a replacement for the heart I lost
Hmm...how to interpret this. Either they want their heart back from the transplant I got a year or so ago, or I and my partner broke their heart? And wait, in either case, how did I end up with their money? And where did that money go? Oh, it probably went towards my PS3.

Top Search Results for: "Grant is my..."

-In conclusion, these are the reasons why my Uncle Grant is my favorite relative
I am an uncle, but the kid doesn't even really know me. Sorry to the kid's other relatives! I didn't mean to steal the spot of 'his favorite.'

-grant is my idol he’s from bramton he’s even cooler. also one of the best skaters crazy with nollie sh*t
That first sentence doesn't make much sense, but they're right...I can nollie like nobody's business!

-Grant is my hero. I think what he's accomplished in his career at Duke and with the Pistons is amazing
I'll be signing my Piston's rookie card for all my friends at our next get-together. Only $5.

Ok, wow, that was pointless and not nearly as funny as I planned. But now I can't erase it. I just can't. Please forgive me.

2007-05-21T14:14:00.000-07:00

And no one seems to know just where the party is
But that’s okay cuz we’re all sorted out for E’s and Wizz

1 to 2 to 3 to 4 to 5 to 6 to 2 to 1.

Sunday
G: Wait, what did we just do?
M: I have no idea.

Saturday
*24 Hours Earlier*

G and M perused the room and did a final mental checklist to make sure nothing was left behind. Sleeping bags, pillows, ice chest, light-up bunny ears, juice drinks, and tickets, all in tow. It’s 3pm in Brea and they are about to set out on what has, up until now, been perceived as a somewhat normal event.

39.6 miles later (after getting lost avoiding accident-caused traffic) G and M arrive in LA and head in to meet B and A. They grab a quick bite to eat and pack up the truck: tent, changes of clothes, fruit, granola bars, LED lights, ID’s, and lots of cash. At 6pm it’s time to head out.

A quick stop at 7-11 to get the last of the necessities: party ice.

The girls waited patiently while B and G assured chilled drinks for the group.

31.5 miles later, G, M, B, and A are getting close. The info line wasn’t exactly clear as to where they were supposed to go. The tickets cryptically stated it was at “Secret Street” in LA. “Secret Street” was known to the in-crowd as Raver Ranch. Miles after all cell reception was lost, a left-hand turn onto an unmarked dirt road and a one-mile drive (on a road long ago abandoned by any beautification efforts) was all they had in the way of directions. Getting excited, they were peering ahead with confusion as a closed and locked gate blocked their way. Raver Ranch was not open.

On the confused ride back down the ragged road, they saw M2 sitting in the middle of the road in his beast of a car. Stories were exchanged, confusion was shared, and u-turns were made. A large and somewhat scary man pulled up on his golf cart and told them they were on private land. After they found out he was a security guard for Raver Ranch, he informed them that the event was moved to San Diego. Not exactly close to Sylmar.

G, M, B, A, and M2 drove miles back to civilization in order to get cell-reception in order to call the info-line. Hopes were dashed, tickets were being handed out at another location.

Confusing directions make it seem like they will never find the place. A possibly wittily chosen route had them turning on E Street.

81.1 miles later, they arrived at Rancho Eduardo’s cantina. Salsa, tengo, and merenge poured out of the mostly empty building. The crowd was not inside, it was snaking around the building. The crowd was not Spanish musica and cervesa lovers, it was 14 year old children to 30-something adults in bright colors, with stuffed animals, handing out candy, and waiting impatiently.

Mushrooms were offered and concealed drug-deals made while hundreds of kids slowly inched forward. Cops roamed around yelling that everyone needed to stay in a single-file line. About an hour later, G, M, B, A, and M2 finally made it to the front. A lone girl sits in a booth looking pissed off at the world and handing out directions. Wristbands were received and directions to the event were given. One set of directions per car.

44.5 miles later, they exit the freeway and start driving down a very long, very dark road into the middle of desert and farmland. Had the group had a topo of where they were going, they would have seen this:

It is 12am and a rush of anxiety fills them. A left here, a right here, another left or two and they turn on a dirt road heading into a very dark night. A lone man emerges out of the dust while waving a flashlight. He asks for their directions as proof of who they were and says, “Hurry, follow that car.”

Red taillights peek out of the billowing dust a couple hundred yards ahead as G steps on the gas and starts driving into nothingness. Miles pass as they converse about where they are. Best guess: a dried out lakebed. Dust flies and the night is smotheringly black. There is no depth perception to be had and the taillights ahead are harder and harder to follow. Miles pass and it feels more and more like an alien landscape. Finally, feint blue lights pulse somewhere up ahead. They accidentally pull up to a group of trailers, thinking it is the event.

M: Hey, is this the rave?
X: Um, no, this is a music video shoot.
M: Oh.

G, M, B, A, and M2 finally pull up to tons of parked cars in the middle of a dried out lakebed and they smile since they finally found it. They jump out of the truck and get ready as people wonder through the parked cars with flashlights.

X: *in the distance* X, K, mushrooms! X, K, mushrooms!
G: Are they yelling out drugs they are selling?
B: Um, yeah, I think so.

Three pods of DJ equipment pump out happy hardcore, trance, and house respectively while people dance, lie on the ground, make out, stare at the lights, and wonder off into the desert to find some privacy. The group dances in the middle of the desert surrounded by uniformed insanity. Fire poi, light shows, and menthol-filled painter’s masks all around, there is nothing else in the world but this. People hold up white t-shirts with giant sharpied X’s on them while people ask for some light from those around them so the drug exchange can take place easier.

Then off in the distance flashing blue, red, and white lights fade in and out through the dust. But these aren’t some lost ravers, they are cop lights. Frantic 13-year-olds, wide-eyed with fear, scramble to their cars. The lights and music die as suddenly as they began. Cops roll through the crowd as people scream “F’n COPS!” and “DON’T LEAVE, STRENGTH IN NUMBERS!”

A mere 2 hours after G, M, B, A, M2, and a host of other friends arrived, it is over. Quick plans are made and they all hop in their cars and head off into the impossibly dark desert night. It’s B’s birthday and they aren’t ready to give up yet.

94.5 miles later, they arrive at Avalon for the next best thing, After Hours. It is 4am and this party, a legal one, goes till 9am. The bar shelves are stocked with water and Red Bull, the only legal drinks left. Cowboy hats are lost, light shows are given, and the party goes on. G plays bongos in the open-air top floor while people who were at the desert rave show up. Looks like this is the last refuge of the restless and broken-hearted.

G and B are at the bar, getting a water, when a random patron orders a beer. Confusion passes between G and B until they realize that it’s legal alcohol hours again, it’s after 6am.

Exhaustion flows through the group as they decide to head out. A short walk to the car reveals a thick coat of dust covering the truck. People are driving to work and the city is waking up.

8.2 miles later and G, M, B, A, and M2 are at B and A’s place. M2 pets the cats, grabs a juice, and takes off. A few sleepless hours pass and G and M decide to head back home. It’s time to call it, well, not a night, it’s time to call it quits.

39.6 miles later G and M are almost home.

G: Wait, what did we just do?
M: I have no idea.

So 339 miles and 24 hours later, G and M find themselves at their starting point. They have come full circle on what is surely the most strange and possibly most memorable outing they have ever taken.

P.S.

2007-05-07T10:50:00.000-07:00

V-Tech vs. Vindictive, Vociferous Vehements
(This is a bit dated, but still appropriate in my opinion)

“The problem with today’s youth and their violent outbursts is [____*]”

*Violent video games
*Violent movies
*Violent music
*Violent society

Please. Passing off blame on any one source as a hope for retributive justice is a sad attempt to justify actions that are obviously far beyond the reaches of pop-psychology, Dr. Phil, and angry bystanders.

Man is a fallen creature…and if you can prove me wrong that man is fallen and depraved I would love to hear it.

People have, within them, tendencies that will take shape in some form or another. Some sue any and every establishment they can. Some destroy lives for monetary gain. Some use people to no end and destroy them emotionally for the rest of their lives.

And some bring guns to school.

There’s this theory called the Cumulative Case. You know how hardcore Christians think that if they can prove the unreliability of one thing, like carbon-14 dating, that they can disprove evolution?

Once more….please.

Look at ancient society. They didn’t have movies, video games, underground rap, or any of the new “blameworthy” causes of the destructive nature of man. Instead they had the Coliseum, Circus Maximus, witch hunts, killing of the un-subservient slave, and any number of means to enact their horrible inclinations to take down human life at any chance they got.

Case 1: You can likely find a common thread of video games, etc, among every single school shooting. But think about it. Most of them are young males. You will be hard pressed to find ANY young male who has not been bombarded with these every-day (though modern day) parts of our society. How can one possibly say it is one of these factors?

Case 2: Compare this to the epidemic of obesity. Sure, you can blame it on the ease of fast food, latchkey kids who don’t have adult supervision, lack of exercise due to growing entertainment that involves no physical activity. Does that mean these factors are to blame? No. Sure they contribute, but there are SO many factors that play into it.

The Cumulative Case theory says that you have you take all available factors into account and then apply them to the current situation to make a case. Family, influence from friends, a screwed up psyche, or a myriad of other possibilities. Put them all together and you have a case.

I’m sick and tired of blame being put on anyone and everyone but those who deserve the blame.

Jeffrey Dahmer, one of the scariest cases of a psychopath in our recent history, has some of the most eloquent monologues about how he considers his actions:

"Something stronger than my conscious will made it happen. I think some higher power got good and fed-up with my activity and decided to put an end to it. I don't really think there were any coincidences. The way it ended and whether the close calls were warning to me or what, I don't know. If they were, I sure didn't heed them… If I hadn't been caught or lost my job, I'd still be doing it, I'm quite sure of that. I went on doing it and doing it and doing it, in spite of my anxiety and the lack of lasting satisfaction… How arrogant and stupid of me to think that I could do something like this and just go about my life normally as if nothing ever happened. They say you reap what you sow, well, it's true, you do, eventually … I've always wondered, from the time that I committed that first horrid mistake, sin, with Hicks, whether this was sort of predestined and there was no way I could have changed it. I wonder just how much predestination controls a person's life and just how much control they have over themselves."

Oh yeah...definitely the fault of video games.

Irrational as his actions were, they were rational to him at the time. How can people not understand that man is a fallen creature that acts upon selfish, irrational, and extremely motivated means?

If the V-Tech Killer had not shot himself…if he had gone to jail…if he had gone to death row…the whole case would be extraordinarily different. If he had come to “justice,” there would be little debate taking place.

People are screwed up. That’s all there is to it.

Are the extortionists, identity thieves, tax-evaders, and heart-breakers any different? Hardly.

The more we blame everyone else for our own mistakes, the more morality, ethics, and consciousness lose ground where they should be flourishing. There is right and there is wrong, otherwise this tragedy would not have struck such a chord with the American public.

It’s time to stop accepting faux-causes and taking away blame where it belongs.

2007-05-03T11:30:00.000-07:00

Thou Shalt...

2007-03-21T21:36:00.000-07:00

Top Ten Phrases Uttered By Me or About Me that I Hope to God Never Literally Come to Fruition:

1. That's really hitting below the belt.
2. He's only got one leg left to stand on.
3. He's half the man he used to be.
4. I'll keep my eyes peeled.
5. He has some skeletons in the closet.
6. I'm in a pickle here.
7. Oh it went in one ear and out the other.
8. He's talking out his ass.
9. I know I'm beating a dead horse here.
10. You scared the crap outta me!

2007-03-12T01:48:00.000-07:00

Brandon wakes up with a pounding headache and a sore jaw and tired legs spasming uncontrollably and an accurate sweat-outline of his body soaked into his sheet like a police chalk outline of a homicide victim.

"Noorahhghghg" is all he can utter in a guttural, raspy voice.

He thinks through his last couple nights.

Friday was a teener of coke (cut with way too much laxative), a 6-pack of beer, 2 packs of cigarettes (parliaments in case public use of said coke was necessary), 2 Soma, and sleep. Well, "sleep" is more appropriate since it was more like 30 minutes of sleep followed by 30 minutes of anger over waking up. Rinse and repeat.

Saturday was a couple beers, some ok MDMA (cut with too much speed), 2 Redbull Vodkas (Grey Goose, of course...Gordon's would only have added to the hangover), 8 bottles of water, some good music at an ok club with a self-absorbed DJ, numbers from 3 girls (who will never be called, of course), two more pack of cigarettes, a bump of coke to kill the high at 4am, 2 Xany bars to induce sleep (well, "sleep", since it was just like the night before), and a couple of horrible dreams involving demon-salmon growing legs and taking revenge on all mankind due to the destruction of the fresh water salmon population.

"The argument that farmed salmon is the same as fresh-water salmon is using equivocation in a sad attempt to convince the green peace people to allow fresh-water salmon to be eradicated...and all in a vicious and greedy attempt to make more money."

Brandon pauses, grimaces, and then wonders why he is arguing for naturalists everywhere even when nobody is around. It's thoughts like that that kept him from sleep. Pointless thoughts. Well, maybe not pointless, but pointless at 5am.

A thumping sound and human voices rise him from bed. He walks over and puts his ear to the wall and hears the oh-so-common sound of his next door neighbor having sex. He laughs quietly as he remembers the lady who sold him the condo fervently reminding him that he would hear no "street noise". Apparently street noise is a big no no if you want to sell your condo fast. Funny that she didn't mention the paper thin walls providing not only little warmth on the cold, desert nights, but a voyeur's dream when it comes to neighborly activity.

With a little bit of shame (but not too much as to make him change his actions), he keeps his ear to the wall to listen to the moans and grunts coming from next door.

He tries to remember the last time he had sex. It was a one-night stand with a girl who's name he can't remember and who's face is a vague blur. Long black hair, almost black eyes, and a figure reminiscent of the 20's corseting craze.

"Funny how you end up where you are" he tells himself as he calls his dealer and plans on not sleeping for the third night in a row.

2007-03-07T23:43:00.000-08:00

2007-03-07T23:42:00.000-08:00

2007-03-07T11:43:00.000-08:00

2007-02-28T09:44:00.000-08:00

The Way I See It #666

I'm beginning to hate Time magazine but it is, at very least, good fodder for my recent trend of angry blogging. Megan sent me a link to a Time article about one man's qualms with Starbucks. Since I'm an ex-barista, I thought I'd give it a read and see how much truth could be squeezed from his writing. Sadly, he takes the oh-so-common non-understanding outsider position of the loveably hate-worthy green coffee giant.

So I'll respond.

He starts by saying that Schultz (the owner) was recently lamenting over lack of coffee-smell emanating throughout the store due to flavor-lock bags. He then says the romance is gone because of non hand-ground beans and other issues I'll get to later.

Then he says (to mash all his problems up together): "If I may be so bold, Howard, smelling the coffee isn't the problem — it's getting to it." It takes too long to get coffee because the lines are too long, there always seems to be one less employee working then necessary to handle the rush, but that is hardly the local manager's fault because more employees couldn't fit because of all the cd's and books and "crap" they are trying to sell.

He then says it's not the automatic machines fault because French and Italian cafes use them, and it's impossible to get a seat because of the WiFi Squatters.

Then the argument is that even McDonald's, in recent Consumer Reports, has better rated coffee. And it is too complex to order a drink and there are too many complicated ways of ordering and now they serve breakfast sandwiches as well as other snacks instead of just coffee and it's not that they need more ambiance but...

...more machines, more sales terminals, and when it comes to coffee, "just grind some" he says.

Did that seem disjointed?

It was.

The author of this article doesn’t stick to one topic long enough to actually make a point. He just takes as many stabs at the establishment as possible hoping that one of them strikes a chord with a reader and that reader will say “Oh! Yeah! I agree with that point!”

Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt and say that his key point is that Starbucks used to be a great place to go in and grab a “killer cup of coffee” and now it is a poorly run corporate monster that has lost its ability to function smoothly and get coffee to its customer quickly.

Onto some quick answers to this authors qualms:

First off, it is unclear whether the beginning problems (not grinding beans, etc) are issues that Schultz has with the company, or the author has with the company.

Next, if the lines are too long, go somewhere else. Who is forcing you to go to Starbucks in the first place? And that tired quip everyone keeps making about being able to stand on one corner and see two Starbucks? Why don’t you walk to that other Starbucks? Why do you think there are so many? To alleviate long lines. The DMV has lines a thousand times longer than any Starbucks, but you have to go to the DMV. So go ahead and bitch about the DMV, but not only do you not need coffee, but you don’t need Starbucks coffee, and you don’t need that Starbucks’ coffee. So get over the lines.

And the other “crap” they sell? Who cares? Do you get angry when you enter a Target because “Ohmigosh they carry toiletries and DVDs? Make up your mind!” Has anyone griped about Phillip Morris for dipping their greedy fingers into Kraft and a hundred other non-tobacco companies in case cigarette sales go down? No. It’s called smart business. And though it was likely just a mock problem, the “crap” isn’t blocking any more employees from working since all that “crap” is in the lobby, not behind the counter. So if you don’t want anything but coffee to be sold, good luck finding a place that sells only coffee.

Then he mysteriously brings up the automated machines again (which makes me think that the original quote is from Schultz?) and leaves it at that.

As for not being able to get a table because of WiFi squatters? Not only are they not getting a work space for the price of a latte (you have to pay to use the WiFi that Starbucks offers), but do you write articles about how horrible it is that you can’t get a seat at the local famous actor hotspot restaurant? No. In fact, you might never get a seat in that restaurant, but that’s just how it works. Plus, first the author complains that almost a third of the times he shows up to Starbucks he doesn’t even have the 15 minutes to wait for his coffee, but then he turns around and complains that he can’t get a table. Well, which is it? Do you want to rush in, grab your coffee and leave, or grab a coffee and lounge around the shop?

As for McDonalds having better coffee according to Consumer Reports? I won’t even go into the fact that most of the public doesn’t even have a palette that can distinguish between merlot and cabernet, let alone dark roast versus light roast. This random fact has two possible outcomes: one, either it’s right (McDonald’s coffee is better), or two, it’s wrong (Starbucks has better coffee). If the prior is true, then why do people still go to Starbucks and pay 5 times the price? And if you chock it up to trickery and good advertising, then Starbucks is doing something right by getting people to buy worse coffee for more money. Starbucks hasn’t changed their coffee except for one major way: now they use flavor-lock bags. So the author, who seems to have loved the old Starbucks coffee, either has such a poor palette that he should just go to McDonalds, or he likes the taste of stale coffee better than fresh coffee since Starbucks coffee is the same beans and the same process as before, just more fresh due to a revolutionary air-lock system.

As for the complicatedness of ordering? The 10,000+ possible combinations? Just because one company (Microsoft) offers few products (very arguable) and does well, does not mean that every company should follow suit. If Starbucks limited its menu, people would complain that there is not enough personalization. Take In N’ Out and people’s lack of being content over the simple menu. Now it’s fries animal style and a three by three with no bun and a mixed milkshake. People want more choices. This is not something you can complain about. Is it too hard to order? Awww. I’m sorry. But if you go to Philly and order a cheesesteak from a roadside eatery and you order wrong they send you to the back of the line. You have to order exactly right or you don’t get food. At least Starbucks tries to help you with all the choices they allow you to make.

How are breakfast sandwiches a problem? I must admit it is very strange, but it’s not a problem. I used to work at a tiny, family owned coffee shop that probably made less than $800 a day and guess what, we made sandwiches. If people want something, a smart businessperson will offer it to the people.

So the answer? The author says more machines, more sales-persons, and to grind some coffee. I won’t even get into the details of the machines that actually do grind coffee as you order it and the only difference being that it is not done by hand (which, if anything causes more disparity and worse coffee). But more machines and more workers is not a solution.

Let’s work the author’s one attempt at a thread through this whole thing (how long it takes to get coffee) through his complaints.

If he is complaining that all the cd’s and breakfast sandwiches and choices are slowing down the people in front of him and making it take too long (which I’m guessing is his point, since certain points like the WiFi Squatters have nothing to do with how long it takes to get coffee) then point taken. But more machines and more sales-people means a bigger store, more rent, more cost for the extra employees, more cost for the extra managers and assistant managers needed, more cost for the machines and the service of said machines, and what does that all equal? A need to sell more “crap” to make up for all that cost which will slow the lines down even more

If the line is too long and you are that horribly disturbed by this establishment, then go somewhere else. There are obviously (judging by the massive lines you hate so much) more than enough people who are willing to wait in 15 minute lines, trudge through the cd’s and crap, wait for the person in front of them to order a breakfast sandwich, have a mental breakdown due to too many choices, and pay too much for coffee worse than McDonald’s.

2007-02-07T11:08:00.000-08:00

but I know that won’t happen since the people here aren’t exactly the kind you’d walk up to and ask for directions. Or the time. Or even a piece of gum. I’m talking to C and I’m getting the vibe, though not from her, that I’m acting too excited about our talking. The truth is that she’s a nice person and I’m having a great time talking and this is fun and this really has nothing to do with flirtation. This isn’t an after the after-after hours kind of thing where it’s no longer about even upholding the facade of interest but about sloppy, drunken sex and deep morning regret.

I’m standing in the middle of the room, probably looking lost, when R comes up to me and says something. But either he is talking too softly or the ambient noise in the room is too loud. Maybe it’s both. He speaks and it comes out as nothing.

______ or ________

That’s all I hear. Or.

Mute voice falling on deaf ears.

_______ or whiskey?

How do I answer a question (or what I assume is a question reflecting on the inflection at the end of his sentence) that I don’t know all the options of? I shrug and say something to make him go away.

Whiskey

I suddenly wonder if he was simply having a hard time making up his mind about what sort of liquor to imbibe or if he was offering to buy me a drink. If that latter, I wish I had not said whiskey.

My head jolts up during the crack of a cue against a ball. C smiles at me while M and A talk, drink their beers, talk louder. I blink a few times since my contacts are now dry. In true, slightly drunken form, I toss out a comment to nobody and everybody.

I can’t get a Deathcab song out of my head
Oh my gosh! Me too!
So much so, that I just had a dream with the song playing in the background
Yeah?
It was a dream about sausage -the food- not the...

I trail off realizing that differentiating between the edible substance and the euphemistic symbol will only untruthfully dig me into a ditch I don’t want to explain my way out of.

The dream wasn’t even really about sausage. I dreamed I was driving home with her, that Deathcab song playing from somewhere like we were in a music video. Nothing specific happened, there was no flash of light, no long thought out conclusion, I just knew. It was over. Something about the way we were talking. Then in true dream-style I skipped to after I dropped her off and I was walking down an alleyway (to get home?) and there was something about sausages and cigarettes but I can’t remember what and that’s not even what the dream was about and then the crack of a pool ball woke me up.

Billy Jean came on over the crappy speakers and I did a few Michael Jackson-esque moves to make my friends laugh while secretly watching a guy do a bump of China White out of the filter end of a Parliament. I considered moonwalking. Changed my mind. I can’t moonwalk. Then I notice people getting tense. I think it’s the music.

Why is Michael Jackson making people tense?

I have an overwhelming desire to change the song. I want to hear that Deathcab song even though it won’t leave my head and playing it again will likely make things worse. I can see the jukebox across the room and all I need to do it put in two quarters and I can override the autoplay feature.

But there’s a problem.

A man who I immediately assume is the devil incarnate is getting into a fight with four other men. He’s wearing a blood-red shirt, a black tie, and a black suit. His shoes are impeccably shiny. I shake my head at the cliche. The devil should have a better sense of fashion.

He is so fast and so good at fighting that it’s not like watching those kung-fu films where you can hardly follow the guy’s fist or feet, but exactly the opposite. Everything moves slower. He uppercuts a guy into the air, then seems to walk, nonchalantly, to the next guy, who has yet to even catch up visually to the devil-man. He jumps into the air and crushes him with the heel of his foot. He then walks back over and before the guy he uppercutted even hits the ground, he kicks him, mid-chest, which pushes the guy across the room and into the other two guys he is fighting.

All of this is happening in front of the jukebox.

All I want is to change the damned song.

Then I woke up.

2007-02-01T14:14:00.000-08:00

Aqua Teen Hunger Force...Assemble!

I was given a suggestion to talk about THIS ARTICLE rather than the current heated debate about morality and ethics. Well, I guess it still has to do with both, but it sure is a whole lot funnier.

Here's a joke for you:

How many people does it take to recognize a supposed bomb is just a bunch of light bulbs?

Give up?

The police, Counter Terrorism, The Joint Terrorism Task Force, and Homeland Security (as well as fire departments and bomb squads).

Turner Broadcasting recently began an advertising campaign which included light-bright-like signs of Err from ATHF flipping everyone the bird. These were placed in at least 5 major cities on walls, bridges, signs, etc. Multiple weeks after they were hanging there, someone in Boston called one in as a bomb. All hell broke loose and $75,000 later (including costs to blow up at least one of the signs in order to suppress the "actual explosion") they realize it's an advertising campaign.

The problem is that they keep calling it a hoax, and that the attorney general made a bunch of comments about how the act was meant to cause fear and intimidation and the devices (which they keep calling packages?) were meant to look like bombs.

I'll let you decide if this looks like a bomb:

The strangest part is that they (the news) keeps calling this a "hoax." A hoax is something intended to deceive or defraud. If the original intent of the signs was advertisement, which it obviously was, than this was not a hoax meant to cause fear.

I don't know about you, but I have never been drawn in to use a product because they intentionally made me fear for my life (and I mean really fear, not roller-coaster fear).

Basically, the city went a little bit overboard, caused more panic than would have been caused if they had handled it differently (or done a tiny bit of research before jumping in head first) and tried to make everyone think they had no choice.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm glad the city responded so swiftly to what was seen as a potential bomb threat, but what's next? Someone is going to call in a phone booth as a potential bomb because someone has etched "F___ America" onto the glass?

I never thought I'd say this, but if the older generation were either more in tune with the younger, or would listen more to the younger, Boston probably could have saved $75,000 which, you know, might have been useful to use towards schools and such.

2007-01-26T12:27:00.000-08:00

Yep, They're Coercive

The more I hear of supposedly reputable sources such as Time magazine which, despite claiming to be unbiased (as all news sources impotently claim), blatantly (though with the pretense of being sneaky) throwing their agenda around in a way which convinces the average American that their view is the only sensible one, the more I want to a) bash my head in against a wall, b) stand on a roof with a megaphone shouting "Why don't you try reading, doing your own research, and making an actual informed decision?!?", and/or c) become a hermit who sits alone all day writing about the absurdities of our race.

Seeing as how I've already got a head start on "c", I'll just stay on that track.

Time magazine recently put out an article about 8% of rams being homosexual. They explain that scientists never doubted homosexuality's existence in the animal kingdom, show that the difference between heterosexuality and homosexuality is a mere biological variation of the brain, and show that "curing" homosexuality is an absurd notion that needs to be dismissed.

You might be wondering why I have a problem with this article. It seems harmless, right? It's just talking about gay sheep, right? Wrong.

This article reads, at first, like a simple interesting finding about a small percentage of sheep being gay. Then it moves to talking about evil scientists who are butchering sheep to see if they can create drugs or procedures that ensure heterosexuality. Then it goes on to insist that homosexuality is a mere biological difference. Then it takes a twist, oh my! If these scientists find out more about homosexuality (and, as the author assumes, prove that it's nothing that the gay person can fight) then we will spend less time "nourishing Old Testament anachronisms about sex." It concludes with a heroic stance of a gay man who touts hope for gays all over the world to actually be accepted and not rejected by their very parents, rouses the troops by showing homosexuality persisting even through the likes of Hitler and the evil Nazi regime (as well as Will and Grace, we can't forget that), and ends with a smug don't worry, we can't be stopped.

The start of the article is fine. Go ahead. Talk about sheep being gay. Gay animals are an anomaly in the animal kingdom and heck, it's interesting to study. It takes a Greenpeace, PETA-esque twist and you think the article is going to be about how bad it is that sheep are being killed to understand the "gay-gene." Even that is more than acceptable.

Then it takes a twist that is too thinly veiled by a man who, in his own article, explains that he is gay and, therefore, shows his hand.

HOMOSEXUALITY IS JUST GENETICS!!! Hmm. Ok. This is a conclusion that an article assumes after one group found that homosexual sheep have differentiations in their brains when compared to heterosexual sheep. Never mind the difference in sheep and humans. That disparity can be overlooked. The more amusing aspect is that the genetics argument is still being used. So what? Who cares if homosexuality is genetically caused, psychologically caused, pathological caused, or caused by eating too many tomatoes before the age of 4...that has no bearing on the ethical and moral issue of homosexuality.

If we one day accept that homosexuality is morally and ethically acceptable on the basis that one is genetically predisposed to it, then we have allowed a slippery slope that accepts murderers, rapists, obesity, alcoholism, pederasty, incest, torture, etc, etc, etc. All of the atrocities just mentioned can easily be linked to genes. Does that make them ok? Can a man who rapes and murders toddlers sit on the stand and say, "I'm sorry, I couldn't help it, I'm genetically wired that way"? No. The American people would laugh and then inject the lethal drugs themselves if they could. The issue at hand is not whether one has impulses towards something; it is whether it is right or wrong, harmful or helpful. Give up on the genes.

Even more infuriating is the line about anachronistic quips about sex from the Bible. First of all, the main Biblical argument used against homosexuality is from I Peter which, if you don't know, is in the New Testament. Go ahead, call every instance of the Bible condemning homosexuality an anachronism, it doesn't halt the case that homosexuality goes against a eudaimonistic God-centered life. Also, the only reason the Old Testament's view of sex is being called an anachronism is because people don't want to believe it. If one day our culture "evolved" to a position where murder was acceptable, someone would look back at the original laws of the US and say, "Whatever, those were just outdated views unenlightened by the modern information we have."

There are universals whether you want to believe that or not. You are under them whether you want to be, or do not want to be. Changing rules, laws, universals, because you don't like them, will lead to an anarchistic society of total destruction and inhumane living (until, of course, we destroy ourselves completely).

The end of the article finally gives way to what the author wants us to know: gays are not going away you damned right-wingers, so get used to it.

I'm sorry, but citing that homosexuals have survived Hitler is just a tad bit demeaning to the Jews who are actual survivors of Hitler. That would be like saying, "Despite Circus Maximus, homosexuality prevailed!" No, idiot, Circus Maximus is where Christians were killed for their beliefs. Homosexuality still being around after all this time is touted as a victory even though one could just as easily say, "Homosexuality, like murder, is still around after all this time." The author has given no reasons, no explanations, no proof that anything good has ever come from homosexuality and therefore his conclusion is hasty and immature.

If you want to write an article about homosexuality, how it will always prevail, how it is just genetic, and how hopefully one day everyone will accept homosexuals, then write that article...but don't hide it in a "science" story about sheep.

p.s. Let's not forget the photoshopped picture of the two rams looking lovingly into each other's eyes. Just another tactic. If they had shown this:

would you even have cared?

2007-01-12T22:29:00.000-08:00

The Arbitrariness of New Years and Other Seemingly Made Up Words

Before we begin, it seems that nobody likes my new Caption Contest idea. If you don't know what I'm talking about, check out the post below. Then follow the instructions. I've only had one submission so far, which hardly equates to a rousing competition full of intrigue and ninjas and stuff. Come on people.

Now...every year I recount my last years resolutions and see how I stacked up. It seems that last year I was a wee bit over exuberant in my predictions. That or I can pretend that my resolutions were actually for TWO years (giving me till the end of 2007). I don't like embracing my own failures, so I'll go with the latter option. Here's the list:

Grant's 2006 Resolutions

-go skydiving
--This is actually going to happen THIS year on Chad's 30th birthday. I'll make like Nostradamus and pretend I was foretelling my future one year in advance.

-read the 15 books of my collection that I have yet to read
--Yeah. Wow. I think I got through one. No, wait...I got through three, but one of which was actually an anthology of three books making it more like five. Oh man that's still a massive failure.

-get in better shape
--I totally did this. Then I gave it up. Now I'm doing it again. I never said "get in better shape and STAY that way" to I technically win this round. Take THAT past Grant!

-record a demo CD with Parachutes
--HAHAHAHAHAHA! Oh my.

-get straight A's in my masters program
--Once more to technicalities. If we go by any normal grading scale I got a 97%, a 93%, and a 93%. Straight A's baby! If we go by the Talbot Grading Scale of Death...I got an A and two B+'s.

-have no more than one dilation you know where
--Of all the ones to succeed in, this one is the one I'm happiest about succeeding in.

-edit at least one semi-major project
--I did indeed edit a pretty major project. Not that any of you will get to see it. I like mystery.

-write more in my journal and on this site
--Journal: failed. On this site: somewhat successful. Woot!

-eat tomatoes without cringing
--Ooh! I've totally done this one! Not large chunks of tomato, but in small doses I can totally handle them now!

-get over the past
--This one was about a personal issue that I never expounded on but can tell you that I succeeded tremendously.

-not spend a single coin
--This one was SO close to failure. I spent a whole load of coins to make rent, but not till the 2nd of January. So for that year, I win!

As for my list of new resolutions, I need to think that through a little more unless I want to make myself feel like an utter failure again. Which I don't. I mean, you can make me feel that way if you like. Or you can just call me gay or something since a good portion of you enjoy doing so. Either way I want to refrain from self-deprecation.

Hope you all had a fantastic new years. I know I did. Here's to the best year yet.

2007-01-06T05:38:00.000-08:00

Family Fun For Everyone!!!

Alright boys n' girls (all those in both or neither category are automatically excluded), a fun new game has been implemented into the 50Fifty experience for your enjoyment! Maybe even for your non-enjoyment or to your detriment, but I'm doing it anyway!

Your mission, should you choose to accept it (and you'd better) is to create a caption for the picture I provide you. All you have to do is e-mail me your response and I will read them all, choose the best, and provide the winner with some sort of prize! It could be a slice of Spam, or a brand new car! (though it will likely be the prior taking into account my newly acquired state of "flat broke")

Ready! Go!

When you come up with your oh-so-witty caption, e-mail it to:

greenmoose@gmail.com

I'll post the winner as soon as I get enough responses. Get to it! This could make you famous! Or infamous! Who knows?!?

2006-12-30T14:16:00.000-08:00

Infidelity and I

1:00am

*My phone rings. The number is restricted. I don't answer. I go to bed.*

2:30am

*My phone rings. It's another restricted number. I figure someone really needs to get a hold of me so I pick up the phone.*

me: Hello?

x: Who is this?

me: Um.........Grant.

x: Iskeishathere?

me: What?

x: IsKEISHAthere?

me: I can't understand the name you're saying.

x: KEISHA. Is KEISHA there.

me: I think you have the wrong number.

x: NO I don't.

me: Um.....

x: Is Keisha with you?

me: Nobody named Keisha is here?

x: Do you wanna f****** start something?

me: No!

x: Good.

(long pause)

x: Are you sleeping with my wife?

me: (somewhat exasperated) No!

x: Is she there?

me: No. I don't even know who you are?

x: YES you do.

me: You have me confused with someone. My name is GRANT.

x: I know! Are you with her?

me: Look, guy, I don't even know who you are.

*click*

2:45am

*My phone rings. It's a restricted number. Getting the feeling that this guy is going to keep calling me I pick up to try and convince him he has a wrong number.*

me: Yeah?

x: Who is this?

me: I already told you. My name is GRANT.

*click*

So yeah. Some guy thinks I'm sleeping with his wife, Keisha. I'm just trying to figure out how he got my number, how he decided that I was the guy having an affair with his wife, and why he wouldn't rethink his strategy after being told he had a wrong number.

And just so you know, no, I'm not sleeping with some guy's wife. You know, in case you thought that was something I'd do. Sleep with some guy's wife. And then write about it on my blog.

He hasn't called back so I'm assuming he realized that the sleepy sounding guy on the other end of the phone was not the guy he was after.

Sometimes I wonder why my life is so strange.

2006-11-29T01:40:00.000-08:00

I'm not naming any names, but...

...it's not like I have to.

Once upon a time I put a lot of my heart and soul into a band. The angels sang and the heavens opened up and shone a beam of light down, the peasants rejoiced, and it was good.

Then it wasn't good.

Whether it was philosophical intimidation, stealing of the spotlight, or something much more mundane (and even more unexplainable), I was kicked from the band. Dodging lies and insults hurled in my direction, I found myself on the hurting end of what felt like a breakup where the last line spoken was, "It's not us, it's you."

Curiosity, though it did kill the cat, got the better of me recently. I decided to do some snooping to see how life is treating the band. Part of me wanted them to be doing well since one of my very good friends joined just as I was booted (so anything bad I could say about them would not be aimed at him in the least), but let's be honest, that was a very small part of me.

After looking around I had to laugh. Hard.

Here's a recap of what has happened since I left (as far as I can tell):

-The new bassist (who the band "leader" was already courting before my dismissal) is gone, thereby leaving the band a three-piece despite the intricacy of the songs requiring at least four.

-No new songs have been uploaded, which is funny since when I was in the band there was a new song up at least once a month.

-No dates to play any venues have been posted, which is funny since the only shows they boast of now (House of Blues, Hard Rock Cafe, etc) are from when I was in the band. "Oh poor me" blogs about being taken advantage of by the venues (as in not getting paid, which, if you know anything about small bands, is a given) is the only excuse.

-Fake news articles tout the band's amazing EP (an EP which, oddly enough, doesn't show off the real band since the songs are all (aside from crappy live recordings) the band "leader", by himself, in his room, recording into his computer with no accompaniment by the other band members) and attempt to garner publicity through deception.

-The biggest supporters of the band are still the fake MySpace friends that were created in attempt to start some sort of buzz about the band. Somehow ecstatic praise coming from "the girlfriend" or "the mom" doesn't seem to be quite as exciting.

-Their logo is still stolen from a sticker found in downtown Fullerton.

-The only seemingly new development is pictures from a photo shoot, which is exceedingly amusing considering that the fake news article espouses fake ideals about "the craft" being more important than "all these fake bands" who are all about "image." I'm not sure what the point of those comments are when the pictures are iconic, moody black and whites with costume sunglasses.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not, by any means, saying that *I* made the band, or that *I* was the only good thing in the band, or anything about *me*. What I'm saying is that it's always nice to look back at a situation in which you were horribly mistreated only to find that nothing good has come of it since you were no longer a part of it.

Sure, call me insensitive; call me anything you like, but it pretty much made my day.

-Freefalling

2006-11-20T13:58:00.000-08:00

A Media Review...So You Don't Have To Think For Yourself!

I was on my way to work the other day and, as per usual, was listening to music. All my cd’s were in my room, Indi 103.1 in Brea sounds like a blocked porn channel on TV, KROQ was either blasting Guitar Center commercials with the loudest and most annoying announcer ever or playing that horrible Crazy Bitch song for the 5th time that hour, and my only option was some mixed rock, we-play-everything station. A song came on that at first caught my attention due to its abnormal beginning and kept my attention because it was like watching a train wreck. That song was Gwen Stefani’s new club hit Wind It Up. I thought we could go through the song and analyze Gwen’s musical genius.

A few points of clarification:

1- “lay-od-lay” type words are yodeling.
2- Despite having heard the song myself, I read “goatherd” as “go-therd” and thought “what the heck is a go-therd?” It’s goat-herd. Apparently it’s not hyphenated.
3- “uh, uh, uh” should be read as orgasmic exhalations.
4- Italicized words are the song lyrics.

High on the hills with the lonely goatherd, lay-od-lay-od-lay-he-hoo
Yodell back with the girl and goatherd, lay-od-lay-od-low

So we start with either a politically correct version of the shepherd (since most shepherds were men, but, come on, this is 2006, women can be shepherds dammit!), or possibly with a throwback to The Sound of Music with an all-singing, all-dancing extravaganza on a green hill with goats watching on.

Wind it up
Wind it up, uh, uh, uh, uh
Yodellay, yodallay, yodal-low

Hmm…now things get interesting. We are whip-lashed from goat herding and green hills to the phrase “wind it up” being repeated. Let’s see where this goes, shall we?

(Yeah)

Yeah.

This is the key that makes us wind up
When the beat comes on, the girls all line up
And the boys all look, but no, they can't touch
But the girls want to know why the boys like us so much

“This” is the key is referring to something, but what? Yodeling? Why not switch the first two lines, talk about the beat and then say that it’s the key, then we know that the beat is the key. If that is, indeed, what Gwen is talking about. But I’m not sure. Also, “but” is used in most sentences to show why a previous statement is wrong or misguided or in need of review. So the boys want to look but they can’t touch (one assumes because the girls won’t let them), BUT the girls want to know why the boys like them. This is getting confusing.

They like the way we dance, they like the way we work
They like the way that L.A.M.B. is going across my shirt
They like the way my pants, it compliments my shape (She's crazy, right?)
They like the way we react everytime we dance

Ok, ok, so now we know why the boys like them: 1- They dance well, 2- They work, 3- They wear Gwen Stefani’s overpriced brand of clothing (yeah, I’m sure that’s why the boys are staring at the girl’s chests), 4- They like the way their pants fit (also, they must like proper grammar: “the way my pants, it compliments my shape”, ugh), 5- They like the way they react.

Everytime the bass bangs, realize it calls your name
Let the beat wind you up, and don't stop till your time is up
Get in line now

Alright, so now we know what is winding them up for sure…it’s the beat. Ooooh! A tie in to the second stanza!

Wind it up, uh, uh, uh, uh
Wind it up, uh, uh, uh, uh
Yodellay, yodallay, yodal-low

Now back to the yodeling? Ok.

You've got to let the beat get under your skin
You've got to open up, and let it all in
But see, once it gets in, the poppin' begins
And then you find out, why all the boys stare

I’m attempting to ignore the atrocious rhyme scheme here (a,a,a,b) that doesn’t connect with any other stanza in order to understand the words. Alright, so now we know why the boys stare (which I guess is different then why they like the girls?), it’s the poppin’.

They're trying to bite our style
Trying to study our approach
They like the way we do it, so original
I guess that they are slow, so they should leave the room
This beat is for the clubs, and cars that go

Who’s trying to bite their style? Either the boys (they’re cross-dressing?) or the suddenly, “huh?”-inspiring introduction of the “other girls.” Who’s studying their approach? The boys? I thought the girls weren’t letting the boys anywhere near them, and if so, then why are the girls approaching the boys? Who likes the way they do what? What’s original? Who is slow and why should they leave? Is she making fun of retarded people? Ohhhh, I guess it all makes sense now; this beat is for clubs and non-broken cars.

Everytime the bass bangs, realize it calls your name
Let the beat wind you up, and don't stop till your time is up
Get in line now

Yeah, yeah…repetition.

Uh, uh, uh, wind it up, uh, uh, uh, uh
(Ya'll ready)

I’m ready!

Wind it up, uh, uh, uh, uh
Wind it up, uh, uh, uh, uh
Yodellay, yodallay, yodal-low

Oh, that’s what I was getting ready for?

Uh huh, it's your moment
Uh huh, come on girl, you know you own it
Uh huh, you know your key is still tick-tockin'
Hell yeah, and you know they're watchin'

How does a key keep “tick-tockin’” exactly?

Get it girl, get it, get it girl
Get it girl, get it, get it girl
To the font, to the side,
To the back, but don't let him ride

So now she’s taking a line from a thousand other rap songs and teaching girls how to tease guys all the while making sure they simply enter the club, dance close to the guys, never let them touch them, and then leave all alone.

Keep goin' girl, it's your night
Don't let him steal your light
I know he thinks you're fine and stuff
But does he know how to wind you up?
(Come on)

How would the guy steal her light? Is he getting on stage and dancing in front of her? Is he wearing something skankier than her (ooh, this could go back to where the guys were trying to bite the girl’s style), what? Also, I’m so glad she says “I know he thinks you’re fine and stuff” because with all the blinding clarity in this song we needed an ambiguous word like “stuff” thrown in to clear things up.

Wind it up, uh, uh, uh, uh
Wind it up, uh, uh, uh, uh
Yodellay, yodallay, yodal-low, hey!

Wow. What a beacon of enlightenment. What a gleaming example of rhyme scheme, assonance and alliteration, and proper grasp of the English language. What a glorious piece of artwork.

If you’d like to see the video for this wonderful song (maybe it will shine some light upon this piece of garbage) I’ve posted it below for your enjoyment or to your chagrin.

EDIT: I just watched the video for the first time and the only thing it clarifies is that The Sound of Music is indeed the inspiration for some of this (somehow). Other than that, your guess is as good as mine.

2006-10-20T11:40:00.000-07:00

October: The Month that Stole My Money

It has been a month and a half since any sort of substantive post so here I go with the catch-up game again. If you would like a reference guide to where we are headed on this strange and unconnected trip, please refer to the previous post. A word of warning, some items which will be discussed might not be referred to in said reference post. My apologies.

Grant's 24th Birthday Extravaganza

So I turned, as the title says, 24. The night before the big day I worked, late. Megan stopped by and we hit the Yardhouse where I got pizza and a free dessert because by that time it was actually past midnight. My boss was the first person to call and wish me a happy birthday even though he just kept me over 6 hours for completely unecessary reasons.

The next day was a dual-party at Griffin Park in LA for Chrissy and her friend (though it was neither of their actual birthdays), so I got to bask in the glory of birthday-ness while watching pinatas get bashed, crafts get made, eggs get broken in the egg toss, and some creepy game called "long donkey" get played.

After the party Megan and I had dinner, got another free dessert, changed in my truck, and hit the amazing club Giant. The people were fun, the music was awesome, and a bartender named Merk gave us free water and shots. Go Merk!

Eight days later in post-birthday celebration (also post-graduation celebration) a group of us hit Disneyland to go to the infamous Club 33. We hit some rides (many of which have changed since I have been there), ate amazing food at the only place in Disneyland that serves alcohol, and 12 hours later we were done. Sadly there was no free dessert.

Three days later in even more post-birthday celebration a group of us went to Knott's Scary Farm. I haven't been to Knotts in about 10 years (or more) and I have never been to their Halloween festivities, so this was great. Megan bought some light-up rabbit ears so every maze we went into someone would follow her around rasping, "bunny bunny BUNNY BUNNY!" So one rollar-coaster, a couple mazes, a few bottles of water, and contemplating the hour long line for funnel cake later, we were done.

All in all, an amazing (and amazingly long) birthday.

50Fifty Turns 5

That's mean 5 years, 493 posts (not counting this one), which equals 1 post every 3.7 days, or 1 post every 88.8 hours, or every 5,328 minutes, or every 319,680 seconds. If you have read them all, I applaud you.

Fifty50 Gets Rejected

I think my other site of freeflowing artistic expression is completely dead. With a sense of deja vu I will say: "In accordance with Fifty50 -- Ok, I give up. My page sucks and I know it. I am just going to have to live vicariously through Aaron, Ed, and Christina's sites. That will have to do. But I WILL get MY stuff on THEIR pages. That is my promise. So, you want my stuff (yeah right), go there. Goodbye cruel website world. (I sometimes feel that I give in too easily). This page will stay up as a rememberance of Grant's failure."

Video Games: Great Diversions or Destroyer of Souls

Actually, I don't really feel like talking about this right now, I'll get to it later.

Bottle Openers and Why They Should Work

Why did I tell you guys I would talk about this? The whole story was that I got this cool bottle opener which looked like a moose's head and I had it on my keychain and after like 5 bottles were opened with it the bottom jaw of the moose broke off. Now it looks like a retarded moose. Why would you sell a bottle opener that is purely for ornamental use?!? Why!?!

News Flash: Waiters (and maybe Walters) Sell Their Souls

How much does a waiter have to sell to make $1?

Let's take an average tip rate of 15% (which is supposed to be typical of average service, unless you work at Gaucho, then 8% from, um, certain nationalities, seems like a generous offer). Ok, so:

To make 1 dollar with a 15% tip rate: .15 x X = .999

Answer: $6.66

Now I could go into all sorts of tirades about "all the hell a waiter has to go through to make a buck," or "how waiters have to sell their souls just to make a dollar," or anything along those lines, but it wouldn't have the same effect as you getting a waiting job yourself. So if you haven't done so, do it, you'll feel differently about your waiters from then on.

Poll Results

For the Super Powers Poll, here are the results:
(There is some confusion because someone tried to rescind a vote and make it count for another, so these results might be skewed)

Ability to talk at super speed: 1
Super-fast fingernail growing: 0
Ability to bleed on command: 0
A removable head: 2
Flight for 2 second increments: 5

Wow, looks like people would choose the ability to fly over just about anything, even if only for 2 measly seconds. Also, I guess depending on how fast you could fly, that would leave you x number of feet in the air and then suddenly plummeting towards the pavement. I still say a removable head has better perks.

Conclusion

Alright, you are sorta caught up now. Seriously, I have no money and no time now. October stole all my time due to said events and all my money and now I have to scramble to not fail all my classes at Talbot. Oh Talbot, how I sometimes loathe thee.

p.s.

For Aro, I changed the text size by 1.5 to make things easier to read. Any better? Now it really does look like “waiters.”

For everyone else, I removed the poll. I think I was seriously phoning it in by the end there so you’ll have to do with no more pointless polls from me.

Farewell friends, till...um...probably another month and a half.

::salutes::

2006-10-08T23:15:00.000-07:00

Lonely as a Garden in the Cloud State

Topics of impending update:

-Grant's 24th birthday extravaganza
-50Fifty turns 5
-Fifty50 gets rejected
-Video Games: Great Diversion or Destroyer of Souls
-Bottle Openers and Why They Should Work
-News Flash: Waiters Sell Their Souls
-Poll Results

2006-09-21T09:48:00.000-07:00

Don't go see The Black Dahlia!

I have nothing more to say about this abomination.

There...I said it.

2006-09-13T19:36:00.000-07:00

Little Miss Inspirational?

Megan and I just went and saw Little Miss Sunshine and despite Megan's extreme hatred of films that make you feel uncomfortable (and therefore dislike of the film in general), I loved it. Seriously, go see it. I doubt it will go down as one of my all-time favorites, but it is better than most any film that has come out recently.

The best part of the adventure was when Megan and I walked up to the ticket window to get our tickets. Here's a transcript of the event:

me: Hi, two for Little Miss Sunshine please.
girl: That will be eighteen dollars.
::Grant gets out money to pay::
girl: Can I see an ID please?
::Grant furrows his brow::
girl: You have to be 18 to see the film, it is rated R.
::Megan laughs out loud and Grant smiles at how funny she is until they both notice that she's not laughing and is dead serious::
Grant: Here you go.

That's right ladies and gentlemen; I was accused of being 17 today. This world gets stranger every time I turn around.

2006-08-29T16:26:00.000-07:00

Catching up With

First order of business, the last poll. You remember, the one you didn't like? The one about symbolic logic. Yeah. That one. I only got three votes. The questions was basically "not not a and b therefore:", and the answer would then be "not a and not b." Two people were way off, Megan guessed right (high-five!), and since the only person I know who went to Cal Poly is Kevin, and he is even better at symbolic logic than I, and I accidentally erased his answer, I'll assume he got it right too. Good work team!

Second order of business, I am now back in school and will be essentially ignoring you (the collective you) till about the 12th-ish of December. If you catch me during a break, or when I'm having a nervous breakdown from all the studying you very well might get me to go out and have a crazy night of shenanigans.

Third order of business, Fifty50 has some new stuff up but is slowly dying without your help! Go there! Post random crap! Do it now!

Fourth order of business, I'll be posting tons of pictures from the last days of summer very soon. You may look at them and be jealous of all the fun that was had.

Fifth order of business, go see Kindred Fall at the Roxy tomorrow (Wednesday) night at like 6:30. Or call me to ask about the time. I'll totally buy you a shot of Patron. Or maybe Cazadores. Or maybe just Sauza because that other stuff is expensive.

Sixth order of business, I have class in an hour or so, I'm going now. But first I will leave you with this:

I sincerely hope this needs no explanation.

EDIT: Here are the pictures!

2006-08-21T22:36:00.000-07:00

Reunions, BM, Farewells, Bowling, and Goths

But not necessarily in that order.

No, wait...I lied...it will be in that order.

So my 5 year reunion came up a couple weeks ago. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to make it but a quick flight, a short drive, and I was there. I met up with my all-time best friends Jordan and Kevin and we headed over. A quick registration and we found ourselves on our old campus, in our old gym, and listening to music with lyrics such as "Let's get hyphy, stupid drunk and hyphy." Ah Bay Area rap slang. I looked around the gym and realized something:

...it was really, really empty.

A class of 250 kids and 17 showed up. Three of which were implemental in creating the event, and three of which were my friends and I. We made the best of it, ate some sandwiches, drank some punch, watched a video montage, and took off early.

The next stop? The famed Blue Monkey. Oh, you haven't heard of it? That's because you're not cool. Kevin, Jordan and I hit the BM. One Red Headed Slut, one Liquid Cocaine, one Grey Goose and redbull, and one lemon-drop shooter later and we were dancing amidst the crowds of drunken dancers. Many slightly ill-aimed photos were taken:

The next night I headed over to a farewell party for my friend Aaron. He was my goth mentor in high school, accompanied me on an awesome trip to Oregon, skipped class to eat pie from Marie Calanders, and many other memorable activities including dying our hair for a play at 2am in the supposedly locked high school theatre. The party was amazing and there were at least 5 times the number of people than at the reunion. There were farewell speeches, lots of alcohol, hookah, and some good friends:

That's me, Aaron, and John from high school. Later I ended up playing one of those cool wooden box instruments while being accompanied by a girl on guitar:

The next week was a bowling party to say goodbye to the summer. Chad, Tara, Megan, Deirdre, Kyle, and I headed over to Lynbrook Lanes. During the wait for the lane we played some video games:

There was also a Dance Dance Revolution off between Megan and I, but I won't be posting those pictures. We played three games, didn't score as high as the time I got the 198, and headed home. The rest of the night consisted of stealing chairs from the local Jr. High, taking walks and finding a fox, listening to music, and a goodnight hug to end the night:

Last night I was trying to find something to do and found a goth club that has a Sunday night gathering. I slathered on some eyeliner and headed to the club. I was surrounded by guys in more makeup than any girl I know, more trench coats than the Matrix trilogy wrapped into one, a girl in a air-filter mask, boots heavy enough to withstand the blast from a land-mine, and some of the craziest dancing I've ever been involved in. I only have one picture from preparing for the night:

All in all it's been quite the eventful summer to say the least. I start class in two days and then my free time as I know it is officially dead. Sad. I look forward to another semester, but I really look forward to another summer full of fun.

And now the quote of the week from Futurama:

::Fry eats an unknown substance::

"This is GOOD! It's like sex! Only I'M having it!"

2006-08-03T12:12:00.000-07:00

What Can Happen in 5 years?

I'm about to find out.

5 year high school reunion...here I come.

`

2006-07-20T21:41:00.000-07:00

Thursday of the Fifteenth Week of Ordinary Time

I completely forgot to post results from the last Poll of the Week (or PW as the cool kids call it...the cool kids who aren't from the midwest or the south who know those initials as the infamous Piggily Wiggily), so here they are:

Which of These is Not True (results)

1- First alcoholic drink was at age 19 (0 votes)
--I guess everyone either thinks I was a lush at an early age, or was a relatively late bloomer. Either way, this is true.

2- I was almost named miles (2 votes)
--Though you might like to think that my parents would not bestow such a name upon me, it's true...I was almost Miles Paige.

3- I couldn't whistle or snap until about age 18 (3 votes)
--Thanks to the three of you who thought that I would have been more talented by that age to have acquired such skills, but this is true. Luckily I can now whistle, and have even been given the nickname "snappy" due to excessive snapping at times.

4- I used to have a comb-over (2 votes)
--Thanks for the vote of confidence folks, but it's true, I used to sport that atrocious hairstyle with a part on one side and a slight pompadour thing on the other but not so much in the greaser style. Oh man was I stylin.

5- I got straight A's until college (3 votes)
--The three of you either voted for this due to 1) Having heard me tell you before, 2) Thinking that I surely got straight A's even IN college, or 3) Thinking that I'm not too bright and surely got a few B's or maybe D-'s before college. The third grouping would be correct. Math, one of the banes of my existence, thwarted my straight A's in 7th grade. Oh the atrocity!

::
::

And now for something (not) completely different...

Would You Rather Have ________ (results):

1- Three arms (1 vote)
--Upside: Just think of how much you could juggle!
--Downside: Two arms is already hard enough when sleeping, where the heck would the third one go?

2- Three eyes (1 vote)
--Upside: You could probably pass yourself off as some kind of Oracle
--Downside: If you have bad eyes think of the corrective lens cost!

3- Three legs (0 votes)
--Looks like nobody considered the possibility of winning a three legged race every frickin time.

4- Three brains (3 votes)
--Upside: You could pay attention in class AND play Tetris at the same time!
--Downside: Enormous cranium...and probably not too many dates.

5- Three nipples (3 votes)
--Upside: Come on! It's three nipples! Need I say more?
--Downside: Sans a third pectoral muscle, where the heck would it go?

::
::

So what have we learned here? That Grant isn't a super genius and that nipples and brains are better than arms, legs, and eyes.

Now you know, and knowing's half the battle.

2006-07-14T14:25:00.000-07:00

Le avventure di Megan e di Grant

Oh honorable reader, oh dearest friend, oh seeker of knowledge and truth...sit down and be smitten with a tale so glorious, so horrible, so uproarious as to instantly go down in the history of histories, the annals of 50Fifty.

Grant, after a hard day at work (which lasted only 1.5 hours) called Megan who had an even harder day...at a spa having a massage and lounging in a jacuzzi. The plans for tonight? To hit the not-so-infamous Shark Club to dance the night away. After getting decked out in fashionable club-wear they drove to the blue neon signs and the large bouncer guarded doors.

Walking up to the door two guys in wife-beaters are staring at us. I dismiss this as I say "Ladies first" and let Megan go ahead of me. The bouncer says, "That was nice of you," which, at the time, meant nothing more than that which it would usually mean.

Inside I notice a sign...this is not the same club I was at the last time I was here. Tonight it's called Friction. There is different music, a different crowd, and even different decor in some places. We hit the bar, get some drinks, and head to the outside area to mingle and sip from our plastic cups.

Once outside Megan says to me, "At first I totally thought you were taking me to a gay club because of those guys standing outside in their wife-beaters." I laughed and took a sip of my drink. Then I looked around and noticed a few things: 1) There were only about 5 girls in the group of 50 or so people, and they were all, shall we say, overweight. 2) The guys were all dressed either very fashionably (more so than usual club attire) or very revealing. 3) I was getting checked out...a lot...and not by the 5 fat girls.

Megan suddenly looks shocked and says, "This is a GAY club!"

Hmm...things now make sense. The name Friction, the lack of girls, the getting checked out...yup, definitely accidentally showed up on a night when the club was having it's gay night.

As if we needed any more confirmation, as we were dancing on the main floor three guys in white boxer-briefs get up on stage and start dancing while people put dollar bills in their underwear. Then, as if straight from Cirque, a guy is swinging on a big metal hoop in the air above everyone dancing.

Megan couldn't keep it together and was laughing hard enough to need to cover her mouth while I attempted to dance in a direction where I wouldn't see any gyrating men (thereby forcing Megan to have them directly in her line of sight). I had a few stalkers who I guess thought that my dancing with Megan was me playing hard to get. I guess they thought me kissing her was more of the same.

Ok ok...I have to concede...I can sympathize with girls who say they don't like going to clubs because of how persistent and annoying guys can be.

All in all though a very interesting evening. I'm sure Megan won't simply take my club suggestions at face value anymore though. I guess a little bit of internet research would have cleared things up.

2006-07-13T16:24:00.000-07:00

Worth $36?

I'm not sure.

2006-07-12T00:05:00.000-07:00

New stuff over at Fifty50!!!

2006-07-05T16:27:00.000-07:00

An updated life for updated times

This has already been a full summer, and it's only the beginning of July. Here's a short recap of 'things that have happened' for all those I neglect to talk to often enough:

1- Thanks to everyone who partook in the ground-breaking 50Fifty Poll of the Week (which was more like poll of the month). Here are the results for the "Should Grant Get This Tattoo" Poll:

4- Yes.
8- No.
2- He couldn't even take the pain.
4- You're kidding, right?

Now since people can vote more than once, it's possible that somebody just really abhorred the idea of a tattoo on me and voted that. Sadly, I don't base my life on internet polls (wait, maybe not sadly), so you'll all have to wait and see if I actually do it or not. Oh the anticipation!

Now vote on the next poll!

2- After I aced my summer school theology course I went to see Flight of the Conchords with Megan. We hit LA, went to Canters, stood in line for around 4 hours, and got to see the funniest comedy act anywhere in the world. Here is the only photographic proof I have of the event:

No cameras were allowed inside so we took one outside. There are a few more of our feet and the Canters sign, but I'll save you the trouble of scrolling past them.

3- I went to La Quinta with my family. Yes, it was over 110 most days. Yes, I almost died. Here is some photographic evidence of my family's trip (there are hundreds more):

Yeah, were soon all drinking margaritas. The trip also included heat, more heat, golfing, spa stuff, heat, Chad's birthday, a belated father's day, more heat, Chad's dog dying, more heat, an aerial tram, and too much food.

4- After I got back I spent some much needed time away from the heat and with Megan. Part of which was at Christina's second half of her birthday party (since I missed the first half)! Here is some photographic evidence of that crazy little shindig:

Yeah, we're playing Shots N' Ladders. I totally had to take a shot of Peppermint Schnaps (thanks Aro) and we christened Christina's soon to be abandoned apartment with lots of spilled champagne.

5- The 4th was spent at a backyard pool party in Redlands con Megan y la familia de Megan. There was lots of margaritas, lots of swimming (and getting attacked by small children), good food, some distant fireworks, and a very strange venturing into a Sav-On Drugs. Sadly there is no photographic evidence that any of this occured.

6- Now it's the 5th and we're having a belated bowl-o-thon at Lynbrook Lanes for Chad's now belated birthday. There will surely be karaoke, alcohol, bad bowling, good bowling, and pictures. You'll be sure to see them.

And now? Now I will take a short nap. I'm exhausted. Don't worry, you're all caught up on my life now. You can take a deep breath. I'll keep you informed if any other life-altering activities take place.

2006-07-02T21:50:00.000-07:00

Oh the wonders of the internet...

Today I got a "request" from Facebook which looked like this:

You have a request from Megan Ball to add her as your girlfriend. [confirm] [reject]

Apparently the internet allows us push-button relationship status now?

::
::

Oh, by the way, I pushed accept.

2006-06-24T23:41:00.000-07:00

I'm off to 112 degree weather for 5 days...

I'll be back soon and I'll be the same ol' Grant...only much redder.

Amuse yourselves with this while I'm away: