Want list

Denver Broncos Jersey: > $80

New fitted hat: $20 - $25

Cell phone cover: $5

New PSP faceplate: $25

Guitar setup: $50

Bass strings: $20

Zip up hoodie: $20 - $60

I r poorz.

Music: Resistance - Muse
Current mood: Pumped
Food for thought: "If in doubt... go work out. Guarenteed to make you feel better or your money back."

Explosion of Music

Woke up at 9:30 today, seemed much later than it actually was. Drove the car to East Syracuse to my dealer to get the A/C knob working so that 1, 2, and 3 actually work. Spent a few hours in the customer lounge, flipping through Sports Illustrated and getting a real kick at Cosmo. It's unbelievable the garbage they write and how they advertise their products. No one's looking at your jeans sorry, they're looking at the chick without a shirt.

Anyways... I'm having a bit of a musical explosion right now. After chatting with the guitarist of my band yesterday, we're both convinced the best route to be taking at home, while we're away from one another, to play around with riffs and grooves that feel and sound good. As a bassist, grooving is most of the story.

Piano, I'm convinced, will have to involve me studying music theory, and familiarizing myself with different keys. Experimenting with left hand chords and just soloing right hand melodies.

Guitar, I've discovered the bar chord. And I have no idea what to do with it. I'm mainly just playing around with suspended and 7th and 9th chords. They sound just like their normal chords, but different.

Half an hour ago, I made a stop on YouTube to visit Ronald Jenkee's page. The man is a stunning genius on the keyboard. I actually laid down money and bought his first CD, which is proudly sitting in my car, waiting to blow the bass out of my speakers. Ronald's latest blog expressed his concern over the release of his next CD, which he is now pushing back until December or 2010. He also recommended a fellow musician by the name of David Choi. Guy's got an awesome voice, and a quirky and funny creative mind.

Also, I'm pretty excited for the Coldplay CD they're allowing us to download on their site Friday. 

So on this Wednesday, right before my four day marathon at work, I'm going to stretch out a bit, do some running, play some music, make some phone wallpaper, and play some games. Highly doubtful I'll get to all of these.

Music: David Choi - Valentines
Current mood: Creative
Food for thought: "Stop trying to learn insane music techniques. Some of the best music out there are extremely and theoretically simply. Focus on what sounds good and above all, enjoy it."

Billy Mays says to wake the fuck up

Bahaha.

Billy Mays will be the next internet Chuck Norris.

Anyways... in the last two days I've been extremely busy. With homework, news articles, labs, health center visits, jam sessions, girlfriend, RO. Haven't gotten more than 8 hours of sleep total. I'm not complaining, I really am getting a lot of stuff done.

In spirit of the article I have to write by 7 PM today, I'm blogging. Oh, it snowed yesterday, is snowing today, and will snow for next couple of days. April you say? This is Buffalo. Snow days are a possibility everyday from September 30th to May 30th.

No joke.

Yesterday, after setting up my appointment for today, I went to the study lounge to hang out before I supposed meet up with my friend to play Street Fighter. Ended up reading, and then just napping. Was woken up by this girl banging away on the piano we have in there. Slightly annoying... until I started listening to what she was playing. It must have been like a musical score or something. Real catchy, nothing famous. I loved it.

Note to self: learn piano, play awesome music

Currently 11:20 AM, been up since 8:30 for a doctor's appointment to check out my blisters. Turns out it might be an allergic reaction to my wool gloves during my counter protest in March. Need to go back tomorrow for ointment cream and anti-inch pills.

Lab in a couple of hours, blog now, article after, play with chemicals, finish article, NAP. Then spend time with Roxanne until the sun comes up.

God, I miss her ._.

End blog.

Music: Audioslave - Revelations
Current mood: Extremely productive
Food for thought: "When all else fails, funk up that bass line and play something until someone likes it"

Good night's sleep

After two nights of staying up until sunrise, I went to sleep EARLY last night. Slept through the night, and actually beat my alarm.

Got an email for another article for the magazine I'm writing for. 4000 characters about a pretty vague topic, I'll get started on it tonight. Along with going over my chemistry homework for review.

Instead of going to my 9 AM biology class, I went over to the athletic building and stood in line for, brace yourself... Bill Nye tickets. Bill Nye, THE science guy is coming to Buffalo to speak on the 22nd, and I have tickets.

On the way back, I grabbed a copy of Visions, for who I write for. They didn't email me last week for an article, meaning they didn't need me for that week. So I skimmed it, went to the sports section that I usually wrote and found the article was structured the same as my previous articles. Meaning the author was looking back at previous copies of the magazine to get inspiration.

Then I flipped to the end, where they usually have time killing puzzles like word searches, and sudoku. Normally, I'm terrible at sudoku. Tried them in 11th grade, chemistry class. Lost interest, never finished anything above a 2 star.

I sat down with my breakfast and just... never did so much before. Killed a couple hours, went to history class at noon, went into the cafe after and finished it.

It was then I realized, I like puzzles. I can solve Rubik's cubes in under a minute, now can do sudoku and frequently play tetris and Lumines on my PSP on the bus (and in class...).


Music: Jognny Frizz - Stadium Wave Platinum Mix
Current mood: Accomplished and awake.
Food for thought: "The average human sees 25,000 sunrises, take some time to appreciate a few of them."

Ugh.

It's currently 2:01 PM. I woke up almost an hour ago after staying up talking to Roxanne until 6 in the morning. She needed it, she has enough crap in her life. It's the absolute least I can do for after all she's done for me.

The problem lays in the after effects.

I'm a heavy sleeper she tells me all the time. I slept through my alarm, slept through text messages, slept through my sister calling me. Woke up at 12:30 PM.

Realized I had missed my 9 am biology class and noon world history class.

And then I realized the chemistry homework I had stopped doing last night to call Roxanne, was still unfinished. If you read the first blog, you'd know that my chem homework is online.

Grades closed at 12:01 PM.

I slammed my fists into the desk, no one was in the room. As if I wasn't on the verge of failing all of my classes right now, I missed two classes and bombed a homework assignment.

This is where I talked to Bruce, and like I have been for the past few days, spilled my guts out to the poor guy.

Fuck society. Fuck the asshole who thought it would be a good idea to make it mandatory for kids to go to college in order to get a decently paying job. I'm tired of jumping through hoops set on fire for people. I have to play their game, in order to do what I want. Frankly, I'm tired.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e50YBu14j3U&feature=channel_page

Watch and nod in agreement.

All I want to do is play my bass. God I love that thing.
I want to learn to play my keyboard, I want to learn to play my guitar. I want to learn to play Tim's drums. I want to play music, I love it so much. Maybe it's time I start studying it.

All I want to do is play football. Or any other sport. Roxanne tells me she's a kid at heart, well so am I. She's the throwing sand and blowing bubbles type, I'm the run around forever type. I'm so glad I signed up for my football league. It's such a refreshing break at the end of the week. Being part of a team again, running around, catching a ball being thrown at you at God knows what speed. Lining up in the turf with the sun beating down on your neck, looking the man across from you dead in the eye, and seeing who was better, even for just a single play.

All I want to do is spend time with Roxanne.
This doesn't need much explaining. I love her so much. It's to the point right now where I can't even express it in words.

I've decided on drugs and my life. For no reason at all, I started reading about the Red Hot Chili Peppers band members today. For obvious reasons, I look up to Flea and his musical talent. Spent a good chunk of time reading about his personal life, battles with drugs. Stuff I had already known.

And then I started reading about the guitarist, John Frusciante. At the age of 18, he earned himself the lead guitarist role in the band. After learning Flea was "stoned out of his mind" every show, he set his mind on being a junkie. John later did heroin and cocaine, sobered up, started eating some greens and did yoga. He doesn't regret the drugs, and credits them to helping him "find himself".

Something I have yet to do.

But I certainly do not need drugs to do that. It is without a doubt that drugs and drug users are stigmatized by society unfairly, in the same way I was stereotyped growing up. That does not entitle me to become one of them, either. Granted I'm a smart guy, and would never abuse drugs, I do not need them.

I'm going to do yoga just for the hell of it, not because I need to clean up my act.

I could keep going on, but I've ranted enough. I always let myself do this...

Music: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Blood Sugar Sex Magik (the whole album)
Current mood: ...Need to be productive
Food for thought: "Do what you love, anything else is just fooling yourself."

Off day

lol today.

Ended up sleeping through my alarm clock and missing breakfast. Went to the food court to get some coffee and food right before class, spilled coffee all over the floor trying to put the lid on. Then sat down to eat and read, had my phone slide out of my pocket. Someone found it and brought it to the library for me to pick up, thankfully.

Think I'm just going to not move from my desk all day.

Our band finished our first song last night. We're working on structuring the lyrics now and practicing our terrible voices while looking for a real singer.

In a music no-man's-land right now, just listening to random songs off my Windows Media Player. Nothing really catchy.

Music: Guns n' Roses - Sweet Child of Mine
Current mood: Neutral
Food for thought: "Never follow the main stream."

Updateroni

Haven't updated blog in awhile. Mmm... failed recent biology test after waiting last second to study. In the process of establishing a work habit, involving doing a lot of work when I don't want to do it. The thought of choosing my major has crossed my mind recently. Currently in the pre-healthy department of advising, thinking about settling on an exercise science major, with my ideal job being a medical trainer for an athetlelic team.

Football started last Friday. Missed four snaps, caught two balls. Enjoyable game, sore the next morning. Quarterback checked up on me after, told me not worry about mistakes. I appreciated that.

Joined my guitarist in playing in his band. Really committed, can see us going places quickly. Drummer just started playing recently, exceptionally good. Making me the old veteran, playing bass for 9 years. After practice, we have a tendency to stay up until 5 in the morning talking. Convinced to start a journal and carry it with me everywhere, writing important thoughts within it.

Signed a year lease on a house with 5 other guys a month ago. Moving in during June. School should be loaning me a considerable amount of money. House is actually much cheaper than dorms, but I'll be loaning the same amount. Math boils down to 830 dollars a month, minus 300 for rent, possible 50 for cable and internet divided 6 ways, 2 to 300 for car payments, and the rest going towards food. Will be saving money because I won't be enrolled in a meal plan, or using the school health insurance.

Nothing else to dicuss... rant has gone on long enough.

Music: Jimi Hendrix - All Along the Watchtower
Current mood: Ready for work
Food for thought: "Maximize your resources, but minimize your weaknesses."

♥

Go time.

I haven't been on here in awhile. I'll try to keep this brief, probably not.

Life is great. Probably have two or three majors things that have happened that are worth mentioning in blog form.

Current news on my mind: Just signed a 12 month lease on an apartment near campus. I'll be moving out of my dormitories in May, and into the 7 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom house in June. I am super duper (for lack of a better word) excited.

More later. Homework and reading now.

Music: Explosions in the Sky - Your Hand in Mine
Current mood: Anxious
Food for thought: "I think, therefore I am. But... who am I?"

Thirty days.

I can't really rant too much about my day because well, I did absolutely nothing today.

But while I was grabbing my coffee in the Union today, I walked past a group of people with FREE HUGS signs.

Honestly, I couldn't believe it. That youtube video I had watched so long ago, well it was happening right here, in the college I'm attending. To the point that when one of the girls said "Free hug?" I laughed. I really hope she didn't think I was laughing at her, I really couldn't believe she was asking me. And I would have come back and asked for a hug, but today... I just didn't want to be touched.

I realized how many different things I'm interested in. A quick wiki introduced me to a martial art called "Aikido". This one is interesting. While other arts aim to attack and inflict damage, Aikido is more of the "disarming" of an opponent. Think self-defense classes with 40 year old women trying to disarm a knifeman meets grappling. As wiki puts it:

"Aikido is performed by blending with the motion of the attacker and redirecting the force of the attack rather than opposing it head-on."

So say someone punches you straight on, you would push the arm away as it came at you, expelling much less energy than he used to throw it at you. Now times that by a hundred and apply to every another person can try to harm you. Kicks, punches, grabs, knives, close-range firearms, etc. Perfect for the not-so-defenseless women and perfect for me, who'd prefer not to smash your face in. Much like my choice to join wrestling in high school and my dislike in boxing and other striking sports.

Also on my list of interests today, cars. More specifically, fast cars.
I watched 2 Fast 2 Furious and Toyko Drift for the first time today. This is after I've start playing Need For Speed: Most Wanted again. And while I nearly died at the terrible acting in 2 Fast I found a new love for muscle cars, or as they called it "American Muscle". And then Toyko drift introduced me to a much better storyline, acting, and drifting.

Personally, I've always had a thing against import tuners. As Clint Eastwood put it: "Don't put a damn spoiler or anything on it [the Gran Torino] like the rest of those zipperheads . It looks fine the way it is." To me, those punks that like to have flames and spoilers and all sorts of shits to make their car look "sick", they're doing the opposite. Denzel Washington said something in American Gangster that I really agree with. "The loudest one in the room, is usually the weakest one." He proceeded to go about his gangster business in nothing more than a simple business suit, and met his demise only after he accepted an extragent coat from his girlfriend.

The same applies to cars. In my Most Wanted game, I'm currently driving a Lamborgini Gallardo, all the best parts, maxed out stats and everything. I could have easily given it slick wheels, a flashy paint job, and decals all over so you can't even see the paint. But no, I gave it a bold yellow coat, simple black rims, black window tint, black spoiler (it looked naked without it).
The end result? A simple color scheme that absolutely fit the car. I'll post a picture of it later.

One of my close friends who live in Georgia is currently picking up cars as a hobby. As much as I hate to admit it, he probably knows more about cars than I do. I definitely spent a good portion of today imagining going down there, buying a car, tuning the shit of it, winning a few races and living life.

But then I remembered I'm a student.

I think I've written enough. Even with an hour nap at 9, I'm exhausted. I'm too specific in these blogs. And I haven't even written close to as much as I want to... whatever.

Also, here's to the three new friends I made on DC++ who are probably all reading this and talking to me at the same time.

And to Roxanne, who doesn't deserve the shit I give her on certain nights. Happy anniversary babe.

And to the growing number of people who care in this world, you're proving me wrong every single day.

Song: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Teenager in Love (cover)
Mood: Content.
Food for Thought: "Being a gemini is all about going where ever the wind takes you."

Blog premier?

Uh... I'm completely new to this blogging thing. So many confusing features and no time to figure it out. But basically, I now have a public domain to speak my mind to the few people out there who care to read. I can tell you future blogs may contain explicit language, may cover grim and depressing topics, may go against mainstream society, may utterly confuse the hell out of you, may make bold statements, may contain spelling and grammatical errors, may help me discover myself, may help you learn about me, and may help you discover yourself.

But it will definitely have sarcasm, humor, satire and lots of bold and italicize words at random sizes and colors.

"Let's get started..."

Today was Monday, February seventeenth in the year two thousand and nine. Today was quite possibly the most stressful day I've had this semester.

Though I saw it coming a week ago, my natural procrastinator secret identity refused to let me study seriously until last night, at around 7PM. At the same time I had chemistry homework due today at noon. Not the typical flip-your-book-open-to-obscure-page-that-you'll-never-look-back-at-again-until-the-final and do problems 1 to 185. I'd give anything to do that old school pen and paper homework.

No, not the University of Buffalo. They have taken the liberty of creating 14 or so problems from the week's lecture and putting in a nice online homework program called 'Mastering Chemistry'.

They should instead call it 'Mastering the Art of Cheating with all your Friends'.
Here's how the program works: It typically gives you 6 or 8 exercises along side these pop-up windows that give you 'hints'. Now these hints are extremely useful, and really break down the problem into bite sized pieces for typical retarded college students such as myself. These problems may have as few as 2 or 3 hints to as much as 5 or 6. But you have typically 2 to 5 of those exercises, each with so many hints.

But that's the manageable part of the homework.

They then throw at you 4 or 5 exercises that test your knowledge of the chapter from the exercises you had just completed. These do not have hints, and most students that try to do them have no chance in getting it right. Because these exercises are the mother of all exercises and are designed to make you look back at the exercises you've just completed, realize that this exercise is nothing like you've ever seen, and then scream in frustration when you realize you had the right answer but doesn't accept the answer as you have inputted it.

Case in point, online chemistry homework is the worst thing ever invented.

I woke up this morning, like I do every other Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. At 8 o'clock on the dot, fall asleep for 10 minutes when the snooze wakes me up, fall asleep for another 10 when my phone alarm wakes me up and stumble out of bed disorientated and start walking on my right foot which now has a strange pain fresh out of the bed.

I had been "studying" for days for my cellular biology exam today, which consists of 36 or so of the most goddamn specific questions about the smallest bits of information. By studying, I was reading all six chapters that the test would cover, all 288 pages of it.

Needless to say, I gave up on that Sunday night and began looking over the slides the Star Wars geek of a professor decided to put up on Blackboard a day after the lecture took place.

The test started out pretty good. I am pretty sure I got the first two problems right. The rest of the test, is completely iffy. I'm sorry I don't know how to recognize the nuclear envelope of a prokaryotic cell by just looking at the protein bi-layer, professor. I'll remember next time.

After that hell fest, I went down the Student Union, grabbed the same grilled southwest chicken sandwich I've been grabbing for the last week, a large coffee and a fruit that I bring home to put in my dorm's fridge.

This was after I went to the university electronics store to pick up the same JVC marshmallow headphones I had bought the last four times I needed headphones. These were 5 dollars cheaper than I had previously purchased, and came in white. Which matches my silver PSP much better than the cotton candy blue I had previously.

Anyways, enjoying the extra mushiness of the headphones, I finished up the chemistry homework, got my 85 and went back to my dorm to write my article for the Student Association.

The Visions is a student operated magazine that distributes around campus I think twice a month. I had done an interview with the Women's Tennis Team on Saturday and was now suppose to write a 4,200 character article about them.

8 hours later, I had 3,200 characters. But a very well written and flowing article. I submitted that to my editor, hoping she would find something I could add on for me to do tomorrow.

And thus ends my very stressful Monday.

Music: The Calling - Our Lives
Currently: Tired
Food for Thought: "I've come to realize... it's not that people have more free time, it's you keep yourself occupied in yours in much more productive ways."




PS. I didn't include you in this blog because I'm not sure how you'd feel about it. But know that I love you more than anything, and hope you feel better soon.