It is Time for Thoughts

My life is pretty rough right now. Rough in that "nothing going for me and I can't figure out a way to get things going" kind of way. I have so much free time it hurts. I spend my time on an under-the-table job that I can't use as a stepping stone to "real" jobs that is given to me out of pity. Life is too comfortable right now, and I'm not as concerned to move out onto my own as I should be. Articles online say this isn't uncommon. Post high school people are slower to leave the house, slower to marry, slower in all aspects. Afraid to take the risks their parents were taking without a second thought. The economy is slowly recovering but it's still so strained. Every one of my problems I'm facing have articles upon articles saying it's not completely my fault, but that doesn't make me feel better. Education has been systematically worked and reworked in order to help girls succeed, and there's now a vast disparity in later education for boys. There are lobbyist groups pushing the female agenda regarding education and succeeding greatly. Boys, on the other hand, have nothing fighting for them. That's not my fault, but my failure to finish college just means I feed into the statistic. It's not my fault the odds are stacked against me, but that doesn't excuse failure. I don't want consolation for my struggles, I just want to succeed. My friends are having a huge discussion about how women are being objectified and how the feminist movement is super important, but I can't help feel that feminism needed to end 20 years ago and get replaced with "humanism". Why am I not allowed to have feelings? Why is it so strange for me as a man to be sad? Confused? In need of help? I'm surrounded by such wonderful positive influences. Good parents, loving girlfriend with a family that supports me, but why isn't this translating to success? Why am I so comfortable with complacency?

I don't even know what to say anymore. Even when I'm reaching into the grab bag of problems I have for inspiration, the words just won't come out. Is this fear of failure? Is this failure to launch? I wish I could just autopilot these two years. First steps are so hard make. Again my mind turns silent. My thoughts truly do not wish to be written. Mind to mouth has always been a great struggle for me. When I was younger I would always silently question why the main protagonist in video games tended to be silent. Today I realize an answer on that for myself. Talking is hard.

I long for the days of my idiotic youth. What I lack in intelligence, I could easily compensate with wisdom. I wish I could have a meeting with myself at different points in time and just tell myself, warn myself, of the path I took. What would have happened if I played a little bit less, studied a little bit more. Ate smarter, worked out more often. Chase the friends worth keeping and ignore the girls that walked away with clumps of my heart in their fist, desperate to leave their mark on my life. They left quite the gashes, but it was never exterior. I would tell myself to take caution of people I thought were friends. It turns out high school and college friendships are as stable as sand. I would tell myself to stop giving up so much, fight the good fight more often, love the ones worth loving.

Silence once more. I will struggle with you this one final time. I know what I love, what I love doing, what I love having. It's reassuring to know these things but sometimes so paralyzing to know that they can be lost, taken away, pushed away. My support is finite but replenishable. It's tough being me. The life is all laid out for me to live, it's just the shackles of my mind that hold me back. I'm too quick to dismiss. Too ready to relinquish my fate to the odds.

And, without being able to finish, silence rears its ugly existence. This will be all for today.

Current Project 7/24/12

Currently I've been building a new computer and making sure everything works with it. I'm actually pretty proud with the outcome of it seeing as how I got the project started by convincing a friend that I could build a better mac than they could buy. I know that I could, so I was pretty confident.
Here's the layout of the mac they were going to buy:

                         Mac Pro

• Intel Xeon 3.2Ghz quad-core
• 6GB DDR3
• 1TB 7200-rpm
• ATI Radeon HD 5770 1GB GDDR5
• other nominal barebones specs (disc drive/mouse/keyboard)
• PRICE: $2499

I guess my first opinion is that the Radeon GPU is bordering the age of 3 years now. A pretty good quote to use in regards to this is "last year's flagship is this year's mid-range". Currently, Radeon is almost to the 7X generation now, meaning apple is behind by an entire generation of upgrades. The processor is nice I suppose, it's made for servers and doesn't come cheap. It's not even in production anymore. Aged and not up to date again.

So how did I fare against the price from Mac? I did some research and built this:

• Intel i7 2600k 3.4Ghz quad-core
• 16GB DDR3
• 3TB 7200-rpm & 240GB SSD
• Nvidia GTX 560 Ti 2GB GDDR5
• Blu Ray drive
• other nominal barebones specs (motherboard/computer case/power supply/etc)
• PRICE: $1900

At first I worried about whether I downgraded the processor as i7 is more for home and gaming use, and the intent for this computer is video editing and rendering, but then I remembered that Mac will be using the 3 year old version of the processor and once again, the age of it reduces it's quality. The fun part of making computers is over, and now I have to work the Mac OS in there. Luckily my research delved into a "hackintosh" community where there are Mac enthusiasts who also feel the same as I do about Mac...at least in the hardware department. Installing OSX should be a breeze thanks to them. Anyways, that's the status of my current project! I'll go take and upload pictures in a minute.

Wow 2 years since my last post!

I haven't realized that I've been busy for two years, or that I forgot to update my blog. So much has happened in two years. Wow, I don't even know where to start. I guess from the beginning. Expect updates to actually happen now. I need to go find pictures for the stories I have to share, so for now it's another "sorry for the wait" post. Two years, where did it go?

Update 11/15/2010

It's quickly starting to not become 2010, isn't it? Today I finally found the charger to my long lost friend the Archos media player. Granted mine is an old model, but once Archos worked together with  Google's android OS the media player suddenly became the answer to every entertainment need.

Onto other more important things, it's going to be my girlfriend and I's halfversary in a few days, and I'll be joining her and her family for Thanksgiving. My family however will be voyaging onwards to our family further up north without me. Come next opportunity to visit them I am beyond obligated to go, because it's been roughly two years since I've last seen them, and they're not getting any younger.

Today doesn't really mark my roughly a year long search to find a job. Times aren't exactly tough, and I have my safety nets that I'm resting on, but I'd like to give them a rest and stand on my own two feet. The consistent problem I have come across is that everyone wants experience and refuses new and inexperienced. My problem is that throughout high school and most of college I have focused mostly on school. Any work experience I have I either shouldn't use because I made choices that makes them unusable as references or lost most information people ask such as the manager's name and the store's number...how am I supposed to remember that from 3 years ago?

Soon my father will take me to a temp agency where I'll hopefully start getting some work experience. The only reason I wait for my father on this is that it's something he and I have always done. That is that whenever there is something new and unfamiliar with real world interaction (getting my license, going to court for being stupid on the road, visiting colleges) he has always insisted that he comes with me and show me some of the ropes. I appreciate his willingness to help and coincidentally I have come to rely on him for things like this. I only hope that he lives long enough until it's my turn to be the fountain of knowledge for my children the same way he has shed light on so many things this world expects me to know without any pregame coaching that my father has provided most of my life.

I'm starting in a new college come next semester and this is the first decision I have made without asking for my parents' opinions. This is the fourth college I have attended in my two years of college. The first college was on a military reserves base that was originally Air Force but then due to military downsizing they were forced to lean on the Navy that then shared half the base for their active duty soldiers. The reason this college closed down is because the Navy moved out and got replaced by the National Guard, whom "did not associate themselves with any college or institutions". That's their official way of saying all colleges and non military organizations that were using the typically vacant Navy buildings were forced to leave and find another home. With that I transferred to my first true college experience up north in my state. I stayed with them for a semester and during spring break I received an email from the school saying they were closing in two weeks due to a major benefactor pulling out their funding which was keeping the school afloat. I then went to a more stable public college but as it turned out I just received no joy from this college. It's as if all my faith in the academia had been ripped out from under my feet. I lost interest in college, but I knew that if I wanted anything to succeed in my life I would need a degree and more determination than I have ever had in my life. Along this metamorphosis of my life stance I came across my wonderful and beautiful girlfriend. She has singlehandedly rekindled my interest in college, and I am now taking classes at the same college as her, more determined than ever to succeed. Currently I'm looking at apartments but my empty pockets tell me I'm not ready to start off on my own yet. I need a job. But now there is a pressing matter. My house is 20 minutes to an hour away from this urban college due to varying traffic.

My predicament is this: Do I ask even more from my parents and pay for an apartment as well as college while I look for a job that has proven to be very fruitless meaning more money out of their pocket? Keep in mind my family lives paycheck to paycheck and they pay for my college because they believe in me even when I didn't believe in myself. Our state has a reimbursement program for college students with good grades, which I technically am legible for, but because of my nomadic and hectic college life thus far bureaucracy  has me in a corner and incapable of using that much needed financial slack. Jobs are dry for nobodies like me around where I live, however the college is always looking for workers that will accept below minimum wage. I have a lot to think about, and most of this will solve itself along the way. But I can't help but keep a watchful eye and make sure that all my ends are met. My life is a ball of tangled wire and I keep on getting lemons, what the fuck am I supposed to Macgyver out of this?

I'm failing this daily update thing...

 First we will start with last weeks Panther game! WE WON. That set us at 5-2. Sadly yesterday's game was an away game and further sadness is that we lost.

Even though we won this game in the pictures, there was a lot of stress and conflict between the lines and the non line players. It wasn't a very sturdy game that went into double time and only won because the opposing team couldn't manage their field goal while we did manage one.

 Then another day some friends and I went out and played ultimate frisbee for a handful of hours and then some of us went for Mellow Mushroom Pizza, which is delicious. Absolutely delicious. We were lucky because they close around 10pm and we got there at 9:30. Afterwards we all loitered outside and did stupid things and just chewed the fat before we all went to a friend's house.

 You know what's awesome about camera shy friends? The great feeling of success after finally getting a clear shot of them. Take that!

 Once I woke up and came home, I found a truck donning some truck nuts in front of my house and that was pretty gross. Turns out it was the toilet man's car, which explains why there were toilets in the front yard. Needless to say I am a pretty classy guy, with my toilets on the outside.

a few days after that I went out exploring with my beautiful girlfriend and window shopped around places. Sadly she won't be with me on Halloween because football>me qq (just kidding, honey!) 

then there were dorky overprice tshirts that were pretty cool, but not $30 cool...

 We walked outside the shop and noticed this graffiti on the side of another shop. She was actually the one to suggest I take a picture of this one. Nice suggestion!

 fast forward a few more days (filled with fantastic girlfriend time that can't be put into pictures) and I find myself at a free Mute Math concert!

 This is at the Kennesaw State University, who provided the free concert for everyone regardless of school affiliation, meaning I got to just waltz on over.

They were very good. Sadly about halfway through you could tell the lead singer was starting to lose his voice.

 For some reason all my friends ignored me and rushed to the front and center of the area. Luckily one other straggler joined me and a good number of others after a while as well.

 It went on into the night. The singer was staying strong although he wasn't able to sing as loudly as he normally could. By now he made a shout out for his pregnant wife. What a sweatheart. I'd do that for my love if I had a popular band during a concert.

 The light show was simple but very enjoyable. The moment the sun started to come down the lights really kicked in. A good number of my shots got messed up because of the bright lights.

However the low intensity multi-color lights looked fantastic in the dark. I really wish I had a good enough camera and was close enough to take a photo of the drummer during their finale song, "Reset". He poured an entire water bottle onto his snare drum and it looked fantastic even from my distance! If I had anything better than a cell phone camera I'd have attempted to take that shot.

Musical tranquility: What I find calms me down.

The Form and Fate of Lakes

Whenever I get in a rough mood, I try to listen to music if the situation allows for it. Music has always been very powerful when it comes to my mental state. Certain songs can soothe the frustration I hold during the day or psych me up before I play a competitive sport. Today I want to share a band I found recently that calms my nerves when I listen to them. They are called Form and Fate, and have their debut album The Form and Fate of Lakes. They are from San Francisco, California and have been compared to the likes of Explosions in the Sky and Mogwai. I consider them a great "chill out" band.

Download mp3
It Will Come To Us

Notso Daily Pictures 10/15/10

 Well I'm finally updating again! A week back there was a pride parade for the national "coming out" day. I wish I took better pictures, especially with the numerous dress wearing men walking in the parade!

 Vibrant and colorful was the theme here (hence the original meaning of the word "gay") Sadly where we were standing there was a guy with a sound system saying that God doesn't hate them, he just hates their sin, and that what they're doing is making them cursed to burn in hell, blah blah, sodomy, blah repent, blah. I'm a Christian myself, but telling people they'll burn in hell just doesn't send a good message for the faith.

 Of course more than half the parade was sponsored vehicles or floats, and luckily all the vehicles had blasting sound systems that drowned out the Debbie down-in-hell.

 And then there's a rational religious man. Sadly every church that joined in the parade was insulted viciously by the guy. There's only one way of Christianity and that is to hate those that don't fit the cookie cutter morals apparently.

 Angels of peace I'm wildly assuming unless they named themselves something completely unguessable. I was confused with their getup to be honest. The sheet doubled as their cloth and their wings.

 After the parade was done we went to go meet some of my girlfriend's friends. We were the straight couple swimming in the greater portion of our city's gay population. I felt outmatched  due to the fact that the girls had the most acute boob radar. By the time we started heading home they saw 3 naked girls that I missed and I got the unenjoyable find of a very portly hairy man shirtless with nipple tassles!

We came home, had a home cooked meal, laughed with my family and played around for a little bit. This is my futile attempt trying to take a picture of my girlfriend. My camera can't take pictures fast enough, so she messed up a good 10+ attempts before I was even able to get this!

Left 4 Dead 2: The Sacrifice

Do you see that hunter? That was actually the tank. I was so confused...

 When I first played this DLC, after having to wait a day after their advertised release, I was surprised at just how glitchy this game was. Infected skins got mixed up (like that hunter punching people and sending them flying while screaming like a tank)

 Francis was our only bot, and he looked like this most of the time...I was embarrassed for the guy. I couldn't live with myself if I ran around looking like that.

 I thought it was because we were lagging, but all of us had full green bars. Clearly it was something messing up with the DLC...

Daily Pictures: Monday 10/04

I didn't get a picture for today, however I watched some of the most ridiculous movies ever in my life. Howling 4 Night Shadow (Thank you, Beth)  is the most stupid movie ever. Horrible acting, unrealistic personalities (asian guy that ONLY wears tight tank tops that cover only to his nipples?) The costumers and script writers behind the werewolf should be shot. Werewolves are nothing like they perceived. Seriously how is it fucked up that he leaves rotting meat in his dresser? Everyone does that nowadays.

Next and definitely least is Gingerdead Man 2, that movie SUCKED. It's nothing but gore and hideous jokes related to each murder. Someone literally gets buttraped with a curling iron. Two other characters die while having sex. To make it worse is the over sized cookie stabs the woman in the back until he stabs the man right in the stomach. Then as the subtitle would suggest the cookie gets crucified at the end! What the fuck did I just watch?





I rate these movies a collective -10/5 and shall write to the filming companies that I want my life I wasted watching their crap back. Luckily good company and everyone sharing the same disgust made the evening fun.

Daily Pictures: Sunday 10/03

 I've been busy lately, and for Sunday I really only got one picture. I banana pic'd this person! Banana pic'ing is easy. Grab a banana, stick it next to an unsuspecting person's head, and take a picture. Since I was lazy and forgot to take pictures, I looked around and found pictures of the Olympic gold medalists for volleyball Todd Rogers and Phil Dahlhauser!

Daily Pictures: Saturday 10/02

 What a fun turn out! Best part is our team won 37-10! I go to the home games with my girlfriend's mother and we get will call tickets for free (My girlfriend is one of those white shirt khaki pants people working with the team). Will call doesn't exactly land us very enjoyable seats, but the place doesn't check your ticket but twice (once to get in and once to get in your seat section) which means once you pass that second check it's free roam in the seating.

 We found a nice and front row center set of seats so we got to watch the whole game pretty nicely! There were some amazing passes being done out there by our team! It almost felt like they were playing a high school team.

The funniest parts were that our team was blue shirt white pants while their team was white shirts blue pants. That got confusing, especially when our cheerleaders were chanting the team colors...the same colors the other team was wearing! Later in the game I also noticed that their quarterback, number 7, shared the same number as another player on the D-line. Two 7's in one team!?
It was fun. I wish I had gotten to see my little worker bee a lot more (especially since this week I didn't get to see her at all) but I guess that's for another time.

Daily Pictures: Friday 10/01

 Today marks the last day I'm cooped up in my house from Strep. Tomorrow I get to go to a football game and enjoy life again! I took a picture of my dogs and realized that when you turn the flash on their eyes do some crazy stuff, so I took a few until they both got devil eyes!

This is my derelict back yard with old things that eventually need to get thrown away. Tomorrow will definitely be a more interesting day in pictures. FOOOOTBAAALL