Saturday, October 30, 2010

Day 20: My favorite breakup song

Huh, off-hand, I don't really know. I've never been one to listen to any song compulsively that I relate to real life. You know, I don't listen to angry music to vent my frustration at work, I don't listen to John Denver and really wish I was on a mountain momma, I don't listen to emo music to cut myself and be a wimp. I'm pretty much an any music any time person.

http://music.skinnywhitechick.com/track/neptune

Here is a really good breakup song that doesn't seem too breakupy at first listen.

Friday, October 29, 2010

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Day 18: An instrumental song I like

Oh my, another vastly open category of song... I could list anything by John Petrucci or Tommy Emmanuel, or Lawson Rollins. But here is something off the wall because I do that sort of thing.



I played this in high school. It's comedy for music geeks and people who like physical humor.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Day 17: The last song in your FLAC folder

Again, not near my computer (which really has very little music on it, surprisingly) so here's another cool song that I feel like linking cause I just thought of it.

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Day 16: The first song in my MP3 folder

The mp3 folder is slowly becoming a FLAC folder cause I'm stuck up like that, but since I don't have my normal computer with me, I'll just link you to this song.

http://www.chrisdaneowens.com/video/shine_flash.html

Monday, October 25, 2010

Day 15: A song I liked in high school

Out of the billion to choose from, I guess...



Yes.

Come to think of it, if you haven't seen this movie before, this video makes no sense whatsoever.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Day 13: A song I sing in the shower

Hmmm, a toughy... probably.

See, I get songs stuck in my head all the time, so any given shower can have any song to be sung... within, I guess.



So, this was today, for instance. Great shower song.

Friday, October 22, 2010

Day 12: A song that makes me want to have sex

This is a no-brainer.



And you know when I'm down to just my socks it's time for business that's why they call it "Business Socks."

Day 11: A song that reminds you of your mother



I was on a family road trip back when this album became popular. I drove a pretty good length, all while my mom belted along with Amy Lee. It was fun, and a rare moment when everyone in the car enjoyed the same music.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Day 10: A song that reminds you of your father

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vef03k5i8VI&ob=av2n

I just turned 24. Seems surreal, but that's not the point, I know. Still, brings about another little psychological connection that interlaces emotions and memories.

Sweet guitar part, too.

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Day 9: A song that reminds you of an ex

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sVnKcVOBz0c&ob=av2n

I sang that to my girlfriend in high school cause I was young and juvenile and unable to restrain my emotions. She didn't think there was a song in the world about a girl named "Angie" and I proved her wrong. I earned my first non-maternal boobie touch that way.

High five, mates.

High five, Rachel.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Day 8: One band who's popularity you will never understand



In a world of rising neo-conservatism, you'd think a song that appeals to rednecks by romanticizing alcoholism and promiscuity would eliminate any semblance of popularity, but nope.

Rain makes corn. Corn makes whiskey. Whiskey makes my baby feel a bit frisky. Rain, it's a good thing.

It's borderline date-rape. And retarded.
I don't drink much, but holy hell am I a light weight.

To be fair, I am borderline drunk right now, and I plan to have a big glass of water and a sandwich after posting this, but wow. I am dizzy.

Years of negative reinforcement about drinking has led me to believe that the moment you take a sip, the moment you become an alcoholic. Logically, I know this is incorrect. Emotionally, I still hang on, just a little bit.

So here I am, having finished a gin and cranberry juice (maybe two ounces of gin?) and I feel a mix of awful and awesome, and my head is swimming. I can't hold my liquor. I know. Rachel teases me about it, but... it's true.

I think the only reason I seem to have any sense of clarity left is because I'm so paranoid about alcoholism that I am consciously doing double-duty in the thought-department to double check what I say and how I say it. In fact, I sent an email to the pornhub webmasters a few minutes ago to remove a typo on their site. I loves me some good grammar, and I don't know if that's a bad thing. I just can't look away sometimes.

My face is hot, feels swollen, my stomach burns, my shins tingle, every time I turn, there is a delay in my vision. Weird.

But it isn't all about me. I mean, it's my blog, yeah, it's all about me in a roundabout way, but life is not all about me. The way I communicate to the world contains more "should"'s than is necessary, in my opinion. But how else does one communicate, other than sharing the random opinions he/she has and thinly disguising them as news.

I will admit, the above paragraph is where my drunken mind has wandered. I thought briefly about Amanda Knapp and her fatness, and excluded it-- oh wait, here it comes. (this is funny, right?)

Amanda Knapp had a crush on me in middle school and now she is incredibly fat.

That is all.

Good for her.

The fatty. My wife is so much sexier. I love her.

And surprisingly not in a jealous kind of way. I'm not sure why that would be surprising in any way, but I used the word because I thought it would either be funny enough or casually over-used enough to go unnoticed and make the corners of the readers mouth curl up.

My lips are... numb. I had to lick them to think of the word. Wow, this has got to be the drunkest I've been on my own. I should go into a chatroom so I won't be drinking alone.

Is this dangerous behavior? Drinking alone while I work on a computer and type up a blog post that maybe no one will see? I'll show Rachel, cause that's the natural course of things, but as far as drinking alone, will the payoff be worth the possibly self-destructive behavior? My stomach burns.

Jeez, am I getting drunker? I swear, that last paragraph was the hardest to type without incessant misspellings...

So, dear potential readership (I say "potential" as if I plan to not post this. Who am I kidding? I want to be a show-off in my drunkenness!), I must bid you adieu. (That was weird, in a brain pattern way. When I typed "adieu" I knew that the vowels were on my left hand (dvorak keyboard) but I couldn't remember which finger to use, so I tried them all and hit backspace a lot. So, my fine motor skills are shot, it seems, but the lower level processes work well enough, and all of the common typing patterns surface with ease. When I type a word that I am unfamiliar with, I have to think about it, and things like specific keys and fingers disappear... Alcohol is a fascinating drug.) I need to eat something and have some water before this gin kills my stomach lining.

Bye

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Day 7: One band you are ashamed to admit you like

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puffy_AmiYumi

You can youtube them, but... you might not want to.

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Day 6: Your favorite band

This is a toughy. I mean, AFI is the first to come to mind, though I've already covered them and they were my favorite band but not anymore. Favoritism waxes and wanes more often than the moon, so here is a band I loved until two of them bailed and the creativity suffered.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Day 5: Favorite female singer


Kay, I lied. Favorite (gender) singer is not that hard to identify. I just couldn't think of a male singer. On the female side, however, I cannot imagine a more favorite-esque woman bard than SJ Tucker.

Her website streams all of her stuff. Go there.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Day 3: A song that makes you dance


Neo-Disco band, the Scissor Sisters, make me want to dance like a drag queen.

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Day 2: A song that makes you cry


A little background on the character this song is themed for:

Solid Snake, the main character of most Metal Gear games, is an ex-Army badass who finds out that he is a clone of a near super-human man called Big Boss because he is just that. He's the biggest boss. So, Solid Snake, upon finding out that he is the inferior clone to this guy that he actually killed several years previously, goes on to save the world from a nuclear weapon.

Ten years later, at around 50 years old, he looks like he's 80 and feels much older.

Turns out that the scientists that participated in the cloning actually altered his DNA to make him rapidly age and die an early death to minimize a secondary cloning. He would die a miserable early death in the name of government secrecy.

So he saves the world again, and quits smoking.

This song embodies the crushing misery of living a life devoid of hope outside what you create for yourself.

Monday, October 11, 2010

Day 1: Favorite Song

I'm doing this song a day bullshit thing that is trendy right now, but not really because I'm trying to be trendy (when have I ever been trendy?) but because I really have to rack my brain for some of these.

Excessive adverbs aside, I plan to keep this up to the best of my ability. Here is day 1, my favorite song.


AFI changed my life, and I'm not shy to explain it. In 2001, shortly after their album, "The Art of Drowning" was released, I was on a bus to a music festival in Wyoming. Freshman year of high school. Good times.

Anyway, the most attractive girl in the tri-state area asked me if I knew this group, and I may have wet myself a little. Wet myself with copious amounts of charisma, I imagine. She let me listen to her CD, and I realized that there were musicians in the world that never made the top 40 charts.

Ever since then, I've been interested in things left out of the public eye, and it's led me to some great media, great philosophies, and great friends. Things that I may never have found if not for the sound of a thrashing guitar and nonsense lyrics blowing my mind at such a critical age.

This isn't the greatest song of all time, and if I think too long about it, it isn't even my favorite, but it's always the first to hit my mind when asked, "what's your favorite song?"

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

PS3 Shenanigans pt 3

This is it. Frankenstation MK. 3.




It runs quite well for about two hours. Since there is no cooling mechanism, it overheats eventually and shuts down. I have to wait for the oil to cool and it runs again, so at this point I just need a pump and radiator and I'll be in full working business.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

PS3 Shenanigans Pt2

Nope, this project has NOT died a slow and painful death. It has survived!


So, that's the motherboard.



And that's the old heatsink that was super-faulty.



And that's the super-big hole I cut to make room for the new--

super-better metal heatsink. Don't mind the little marks, that's just thermal grease that I cleaned off later.

I hit a pretty big snag here though. See, I drilled two holes in the heatsink to use some screws to connect the heatsink to the processor.

Then one of them sheared off. Inside the heatsink.

One screw held though, so I didn't give up hope. I set it up, put a fan on it, and turned it on for just a second to eject my brand new copy of Final Fantasy 13.

Voila! Success!

Right now I'm in the process of waiting for the local farm store to resupply it's stock of mineral oil (I bought them out last night) and then I'll post the exciting conclusion!

Monday, March 15, 2010

PS3 Shenanigans Pt. 1

So, the Playstation 3, bane of my time spent best elsewhere, and home theater champion, has crapped out on me, again. This is actually the third time THIS system has died on me (I got a replacement about six months ago when my first one died.).

Since Sony refuses to replace it for free, I am left with little choice but to fix it on me own. And I have done so twice now. The yellow light of death is a symptom of a cracked solder on the Cell processor. It's a microscopic crack due to either over heating, or uneven heating. To fix it, you heat up the processor to about 700 degrees F and it melts and reforms, then solidifies as it cools, allowing the proper connections to be made and maintained.

That is, unless your heatsink has two gouges in it from faulty manufacturing. Like mine.

The original heatsink will repeatedly cause this problem for me no matter how much thermal grease I put on there, and no matter how cool I keep the system. It's going to heat unevenly and cause differing rates of expansion along the surface. The constant uneven (oxymoron?) shrinkage and expansion will only serve to ruin my goodies.

Solution? New heatsink. Added awesomeness? Playstation 3 submerged in a bath of mineral oil.

Heck. Yes.

Check out this video for an idea of what I'm doing:


Except with a Playstation instead. I have most of the materials assembled: Fish tank, heatsink, fan, plan... Once I decide how to mount the generic PC heatsink to the proprietary Cell processor, and then buy five gallons of mineral oil, I'll get started for realzies.

Pics included.

I have a lot of thanks for Rachel, who has been absolutely fantastic in supporting this ridiculous endeavor. She drove me to Wichita twice now to get parts, and also gave me a pep talk when I felt like it wasn't going to work.

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Dvorak anyone?

Been trying to learn this Dvorak keyboard for a few days now. I'm probably up to twenty words per minute now, if I'm concentrating hard. It's killer, slowing myself down like this, but hopefully it'll pay off with a boosted typing speed eventually. Now i'm bored, having spent my time resisting the urge to look at the keys...

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Interesting Night

So I was sick of being on the computer. I needed to get up and do something, so I went to Walmart to grab some toilet paper and milk. As I was walking into the store, there was a gentleman standing outside, smoking a cigarette. I decided to give him a cool, casual nod of acknowledgment on my way in, but when I looked up to do so, he was looking down at a piece of paper in his hand, so I just went on my way.

After a few minutes of carefully price matching toilet paper brands (12 double rolls for $5.97 or 24 standard rolls for $6.07?) and then snatching up a half gallon of 2% ($1.87), I strolled gently up to the cash register and bribed the Walmart cashier into letting me steal everything I was carrying.

As I skipped merrily into the bitter freezing cold, the gentleman from before walked up to me and said, "Hey man, I need some help."

In my head I said, "Oh shit, I'm getting mugged. Just what I need." I steeled my balls, balled my fists of steel, and gave him a steely gaze then said, "Sup dude, whatchya need?"

He asked if I could give him a ride to Wichita. The person that drove him from Wichita to good old El Dorado left him there because he refused to give the driver a sexual favor.

I said, "Eh, why not? That's my car."

So we got in, and I drove him to Wichita. He called the guy who basically kidnapped him and said, "Hey man, Imma call the police on yo ass." Then he turned to me and said, "How do you hang up with this phone? That one? No, uh, that one, yeah, there we go."

I asked him where we were going and he said, "Oh, on Broadway, down by the Central Business District."

And I thought, "Oh shit, I'm getting mugged. That's just what I need."

We had a pleasant conversation and I dropped him off at a motel in Wichita. When we stopped, I looked around for his friends who would inevitably rob me and possibly shoot me. He asked me what I wanted in return for the ride. I said, huh? He said, "What do I owe you?" and I said, "Oh, I just wanted a blow job."

And he gave me the most amazing look in the world. It was like, I could see the words behind his eyes, saying, "That is just what I fuckin' need." I honestly couldn't keep a straight face after seeing that look in his eyes. I laughed, then said, "Ha, man, I'm just messing with you. I don't want anything."

So he shook my hand and we both bid each other safe journeys and I drove home. The end.

As best I can tell, this is what happened to him (We'll call him Tony): Tony was at a party with some friends in Wichita, probably drinking a little, and when it came time to head out, he got a ride from someone there that he didn't really know. The guy drove Tony to El Dorado and told him he had to give him a blow job if he wanted a ride back. Tony said, "hell no, I'll just get a ride from one of my friends. Let me borrow your phone." So he called his friend gave the phone back and got out of the car, then wrote down the license plate number. When Tony got into Walmart, he called his friend back on the payphone and got the caller ID number from the kidnapper. A few minutes later, I showed up and gave him a ride home. Tony told me he would report the incident to the police, but if he met the kidnapper before the police caught him, he would "knock him out."

An Interesting Night

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Coolest Dream

During my ritualistic eight-hour sleep cycle, I envisioned a series of images that played out in succession to form which came to me in the sense of a moving picture. I believe the archaic term is "movie-film".

In this Mental Film of sorts, I saw myself with BRUCE LEE, brought back by the power of SCIENCE. We traveled together to avoid slaughter by the GOOSE CORPORATION, who wanted BRUCE dead. Since Bruce and I did not want him DEAD, we decided to be totally BADASS and HIDE.

There was a CHICK in this vision as well, and she was BRUCE'S new girlfriend, cause I guess he was no longer interested in LINDA LEE CALDWELL. She's OLD now.

ANYWAY, after a few intense scenes of running from GOOSE AGENTS, we decided to CAMP OUT in a luxurious hotel to avoid being recognized. UNFORTUNATELY, BRUCE'S newfound LOVE was captured and KILLED off screen.

BRUCE taught me a cool JEET KUNE DO move, and explained that the BASICS of all martial arts are ALL YOU NEED, because you can BUILD from there and KICK ASS by being like WATER. (I still recall this attack post-consciousness that he demonstrated on me and can replicate it.)

At some point, we flew through a DESERT RAVINE on a BIPLANE. Then stole a FERRARI. Unfortunately, that EPIC CHASE SCENE was too much for my BRAIN to handle, and I promptly FORGOT it.

So then BRUCE and I infiltrated a WALMART, to buy some PUTTY STUFF to try and make a cast of his REANIMATED FACE for SOME REASON. I warned him not to buy any cause the GOOSE AGENTS might have POISONED it.

We left WALMART, and sat down to talk. BRUCE asked me, "What do you want to do with YOUR LIFE." I told him, "I want to be special forces. Like, military, or SWAT." To which he replied, "Special forces?" and I said, "Yeah, but my martial arts skills aren't up to par." And I was afraid to ASK HIM to TRAIN me. Then my ALARM CLOCK woke me up.

Man, Bruce Lee.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Groceries

I've declared the month Frugal February, or possibly Parsimoniuary: The month of frugality. To start it off right, I spent $188 on groceries just now which had better last until March, or so help me I'll just quit the whole eating thing. Groceries are for chumps, fool.

This month I want to really buckle down and save some money. I think I've gotten a little carried away with the extra cash I have on hand these days since I moved and paid off my car, and as a result have grossly over-indulged in eating out and going to the theater. I love going to the theater in Wichita, but it costs at least 12 bucks a visit, since I usually pay for Rachel, and that's the matinee cost, which is hard for me to get to since I sleep all day, so we end up paying 9 each.

And then we have to buy dinner afterwards or before or whatever, and that's anywhere from 6 to 30 dollars, depending on how fancy we want it.

And dare I go into my book buying sprees? I have somewhere around twenty new books laying around and not getting read, because I buy lots of--

Video games. My PS3 died again, and Sony wouldn't fix it for free (they wanted 180 dollars), so I fixed it on my own for $35. In the meantime, I totalled up how much I've invested just in video games. Over 2k. Just in PS3 games and accessories. I don't even want to think about how much I payed for the gamecube and PS2 and PC games sitting here on my shelf.

But I don't regret any of it. The games make a good hobby, and it's good socialization with a couple people I know in real life yet can't see regularly. I just need to cool it and pay off my credit card, then get a security fund and start really saving for the future and an abundance of artillery for the 2012 apocalypse. Cause when the Illuminati come knocking at my door, I want to be the guy with the bigger gun so I can blow his brains out, asking questions later, of course.

*sigh* I've had a hankering for a little debate mischief with a dude who posted the most ridiculously idiotic anti-gun-control diatribe on his facebook wall. However, after I psychoanalyzed his desire for destruction due to his parent's divorce and his ensuing struggle with uncontrollable circumstances and the following love for ensuring his dominance over all things smaller than him, then it just became too sad to try and bring up. Poor guy.

I quit my Lexapro about 3 weeks ago. Maybe 4 now. Same thing happened to me this time as last; I've been freaking out. Best way to explain it is, when I take the drug, whatever the reason (this last time to try and regulate my sleeping habits), my mind becomes conditioned to handling stimuli in a certain way. Impulses get redirected and though you can't really see it on the outside, my persona changes just a little on the inside.

So when the drug is gone, the stimuli hits me and I instinctively react in a certain way, have an emotional response, and then get the opportunity to interpret the stimuli more objectively. The trouble is, that objectivity is sometimes influenced by the hormones that were released because of the emotional response.

For example, I wrote a short piece on my other blog, a writing exercise where two characters resolve a conflict. I asked Rachel how it was and she said it "was a little first-drafty."

Now, I wouldn't call it my finest work, but I was happy with it. It wasn't a first draft, but it was a single-sitting piece. I went over it about three times in an hour and called it good.

The stimuli, her comment "first-drafty" hit me like a truck and really upset me. So I had this stress reaction, the hormones flowed and I got pissy. For a minute or two, I couldn't think of a positive thing to say about her and I thought about trashing her work as revenge. But then, that instinctual reaction waned and I could calm down and take a step outside of myself and say, "Look, she didn't mean anything harsh. She just said it could use some work. You like improving your writing, don't you? Yeah. Then calm down and talk to her about it."

Before I went on the drug, this wouldn't have been an issue. During my time on the drug, this wouldn't have been an issue. Three weeks after quitting it? Yeah, it's an issue. Everything is an issue. I've been a major rollercoaster of emotion lately, experiencing the whole range: Ecstacy, joy, contentment, boredom, anger, depression, sometimes all of them in a short period of time. It's been rough, but I think I'm moving up. Shopping tonight seemed to make me feel like I'm not doing so poorly after all.