this must be it.

welcome to the new year.

Yes, this is somewhat late, as it is now the sixth day of January, but hey, who reads this anyway? (Although, every time I look at it, the view count continues to shock me.) Because it is the new year, as well as the new decade, I suppose I’ll give in to my human follies and compose a list of resolutions that I know I ultimately will not follow. As far as reaching my goal goes, at least I won’t be disappointed in myself for either giving up or forgetting at whatever point in time, like the rest of the human race inevitably will. Though I find such things to be trite and generally useless, here is the list anyway.

1. I would like to force myself to become more social, giving up my precious time alone to spend with mediocre people I don’t truly care for. But perhaps I will cease to spend lunches and Friday nights alone (which, oddly enough, is considered sad and/or strange).
2. Ending sentences in prepositions is one of the few grammar mistakes I knowingly make in both writing and speech, thus I feel compelled to correct the mistake. This is the one resolution I believe I may actually act upon.
3. Like most other Americans, I feel I should be exercising more. This absolutely won’t occur, as I probably will not even begin to engage in this “resolution” but… C’est la vie. Maybe if I purchase more yoga and Pilates related items I may find the motivation.

Yes. I only have three. Might as well keep it short if I realize ahead of time that I will probably not be carrying  them out. It’s a good deal.

In other news, I’ve come to acquire quite a few books lately. My dad gave me I Am Spock by Leonard Nimoy (clearly) for Christmas, and I’ve nearly finished that. Yesterday I read Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton; short and very dejecting read. I would highly suggest you read it if you enjoy disappointment and frustration. After I’ve finished Spock, I intend on reading a Star Trek book (also given to me by my father) based off of the newest Star Trek film, followed by Fahrenheit 451, and then Jane Eyre by Jane Austen, respectively. All the while, I am planning on squeezing in An Introduction to Existentialism by Robert Olson. Unfortunately I was unable to find L’Existentialisme est un Humanisme (Existentialism is a Humanism) by Jean-Jacques Satre, but this should be fairly similar I imagine. I just love introductions to philosophies, don’t you? Also, I purchased Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, but I don’t intend on reading that until June in which case I’ll have a fair chunk of time to complete it without any school work interference. So thrilled.

I wish you all a fantastic winter, and hope the decade ahead of you is filled with good fortune and prosperity. Live long and prosper.

PS- I took a day trip with Vincent on Monday to downtown Chicago, where we looked at Millenium Park (only for a short while, due to the below freezing temperature) and checked out the Art Institute of Chicago (the modern wing was fantastic). Expect photos in the near future.

rosencrantz and guildenstern are dead.

ROS (at edge of stage): It must have been thunder…

By the end of the next speech, the band is faintly audible.

GUIL: A man breaking his journey between one place and another at a third place of no name, character, population, or significance, sees a unicorn cross his path and disappear. That in itself is startling, but there are precedents for mystical encounters of various kinds, or to be less extreme, a choice of persuasions to put it down to fancy; until—”My god,” says a second man, “I must be dreaming, I thought I saw a unicorn.” At which point, a dimension is added that makes the experience as alarming as it will ever be. A third witness, you understand, adds no further dimension but only spreads it thinner, and a fourth thinner still, and the more witnesses there are the thinner it gets and the more reasonable it becomes until it is as thin as reality, the name we give to the common experience…. “Look, look!” recites the crowd. “A horse with an arrow in its forehead! It must have been mistaken for a deer.”

ROS (eagerly): I knew all along it was a band.

GUIL (tiredly): He knew all along it was a band.

ROS: Here they come!

GUIL (at the last moment before they enter—wistfully): I’m sorry it wasn’t a unicorn. It would have been nice to have unicorns.

paranormal activity.

So, I saw the Paranormal Activity movie that is supposed to be the scariest movie of the year. Reviews said things like, “Have fun trying to sleep at night now,” and “OMG I RAN OUT OF THE THEATER CRYYYYINGGG!!!!!” etc. Unfortunately, such things really hyped it up, especially for me. I was pretty excited to go see it this evening. Needless to say, it was a disappointment.

There definitely were some intense parts that put one on the edge of one’s seat, (or in my case, forced me to suffocate the hand and arm of my movie mate, Vincent) but truly… The first half of the film consisted of mostly nothingness. Kind of like going up an incline of a roller coaster, anticipating a thrill and finding that said incline is actually half a mile up. I mean, half a mile of an 85 degree incline completely annihilates the fear and excitement of the abrupt drop. However, PA did pick up, especially towards the end.

Alas, I went out for a shake with Vince after the movie and actually forgot what we had done previously. Movies that don’t make me think about them afterward do not rank high in my book, personally. The best part of the film was seeing everyone rush out of the theater when it ended, hearing people discussing the “true” story behind it, as if it were really true, and then witnessing a girl’s mom ask her daughter if she was okay, upon which the girl replied with, “Does it LOOK like I’m alright, mom?!”

So silly. Enjoy your weekend, kids. x

i’m pretty stable, pretty sane, but…

It’s only just past 5:00pm here and the street lamp is already illuminated. I am experiencing short-term sleep deprivation and seemingly long-term seizures of sunlight withdrawal. Hamlet isn’t helping. The poor man is so dejected, it’s remarkably influential on the mind’s eye, its atmosphere. He has a right, when all the uses of the world seem to be weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable. We could be content, though. Certainly.

My knowledge of social cues is depleting with the solar energy I so adamantly run on. This quality is a defect. Sweet ruins teeth, artificially generated power makes me sick. This cannot be embraced when there are bills to pay and weather reports to be watched. Time, however, is not an obstacle—only societal obligations. There is a grand amount of wasted chronological movement when people are not your game. It is against the rules, though, which only makes seclusion more of a goal.

Hamlet states that doomsday is near when the world becomes honest. We are fueled by lies. Out of fear, we will not change. Change would breed impracticalities. The end will never begin.

i plead guilty.

At times I find that I’m in a writing mood, yet I have nothing to write about. Tonight happens to be one of those.

My life isn’t particularly interesting—in fact I rarely, if ever, have anything worth sharing with other people, so a personal blog in my case is a fairly pointless investment, isn’t it? I don’t know a whole lot about the world. There is an infinite amount of information that can be acquired and I know only a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of it. How minuscule we are in relation to the world and history and time and space. I figure, though, that the existence of myself is something I’m actually well aware of and I am substantially familiar with my views, so because of my writing mood, that is what I will compose of this evening.

Today I took a sort of test that determined which of the two major political parties I belong to. The results? Republican. Moderately expressed, I suppose. Personally, though, I don’t want to be put into any civil group, as my views are subject to alteration, and because I feel that once one is labeled as such, one subconsciously strives to be as such. I want to remain as politically unbiased as I possibly can.

I believe many aspects of the American government (or rather, governments in general) are undesirable but I also believe that changing them would either be incredibly difficult or simply impossible. Idealistically speaking, governments would not be as corrupt or absolutely fucked up as the majority (if not all) of them are. Realistically speaking, governing a large body of persons is an impressively strenuous, complicated business that requires some grandiose goals and an absolutely ridiculous amount of money, which explains why America’s debt is so severely astronomical and why corruption and idiocy spread like cancer.

I do realize what the purposes of governments are, why it is entirely necessary to have one… But being the negative idealist I am, I constantly recognize my cognitive processes in respect to the government as being hypothetical and even somewhat pathetic, in that I am so unjustly pessimistic and utterly ignorant. This is why I end this here and move on. I’ll educate myself more in such matters before I get bashed for trying to develop my ideas now.

“Any American who is prepared to run for president should automatically, by definition, be disqualified from ever doing so.” -Gore Vidal

i can disappear.

Hello my very limited amount of blog-readers. Today is Monday. I’ve decided to, again in light of #musicmonday on Twitter, compose a concise blog regarding the fabulous band Motion City Soundtrack, who have recently released a new single entitled “Disappear.” Overall, I’m impressed with it. I hope it is in decent reflection of their new album, which will be in stores and on iTunes tomorrow—excitement. (NOTE: I did not mention Limewire or any other form of illegal music-acquiring software, as I purchase all of my music with money. As in, I obey the law.)

[Update as of 10/20/09: I was mistaken in thinking Motion City's album was released today. They were merely referring to the single, which is below. It comes as a great disappointment to relay this information to you and I apologize for any misguided excitement I may have caused. I still remain unaware of the official release date of their upcoming album.]

and we won’t let you in.

Hi, hello. I guess it’s been a bit since I posted a blog of a series of photos I’ve taken. To be quite honest, I hate to admit that my camera has not been very active in my hands as of late, as I’ve become somewhat busy what with school and all. But I got the chance the other day to take some pictures of my friend Vincent, who is mentioned in the blog below. So now you get to put a face to a name. How wonderful! Sorry they resemble senior portraits… My most despised form of “photography” if you could even call it that in quotes.

Andddd,here are a few randoms from Labor Day at my aunt and uncle’s home. They have such cute children.

Hope that was remotely enjoyable. I feel I’m becoming sort of rusty, so I’ll take any photo opportunities I can get these days. I’m craving them. Perhaps if I were to purchase a new lens I’d suddenly become more motivated…. But who truly wants to spend $500 on inspiration?

Goodbye. x

they saw the light.

So, pretty much Ghost Lab is badassary at its finest. Watched it on the Discovery Channel, accompanied by @veence thanks to  the internets and AOL Instant Messenger. Upon viewing the new television series, which actually premiered this evening at 9:00pm, I can officially state that ghosts are effin’ REAL, man! I’ve had a sort of ongoing debate within my little brain in respect to whether or not ghosts truly exist. I feel they do; there’s quite a bit of proof that there have often occurred some paranormal happenings. Despite my never actually having witnessed a ghost visually, I have experienced a couple of odd and unexplainable situations that, at the time, left me somewhat perturbed and/or shocked (as in freaked the fuck out).

If I were to—hypothetically speaking!—drop out of school to visit “haunted” sites around the country… Well, let’s just say that I wouldn’t put it past myself. (wink) I have been waiting quite some time to actually behold a ghost, after all.

As of now, @veence and I intend on going to see Paranormal Activity, which, if you take a look at the trailer you’ll note, looks completely terrifying and utterly “intense, hXc, and rapetastic” (adjectives courtesy of Vince). Hopefully such an event will take place this Saturday, in which we would drive to la ville de Chicago, and proceed to shit our pants.

Also, on an unrelated and somewhat disgusting note, I was shaving my legs the other day in the shower and I, being the imbecilic spaz I am, somehow managed to slice off a good portion of my fingernail and some skin with it (clearly with the razor). Needless to say, the minute, yet substantially gross and awkward injury nearly made me, in a very literal sense, pass out. This is neither a hyperbole nor a request for pity. I just figured you should be aware of said information.

Below is a photograph I took in downtown Fredericksburg, Virginia. If one looks closely, one may make out a lighter, ring-like area in the bottom right corner. Ghost? Possibly.

elitist snob.

In the center of a nation constituted of downcast eyes, twitching thumbs and an obsessive communications disorder, one can only construct walls of zeros and ones, and put micro organism-annihilating products to use. You are simply slaves to your pathetic mortality and depleted youth. If the lie becomes “fact” where does that leave the truth?  Thus the truth must become antiquated, resulting in an ethical and dishonest dilemma. Therefore I’ve extrapolated that I am going to continue doing exactly what you are too afraid to do. My dome will be filled with platinum by the end of this. Yours will be filled with lead.

I do not like you, you do not like me.
We will decide to disagree.
You are the wolf and I am the lamb,
But frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.

you’re so sensitive. i am, i am a machine.

the jaundiced rider.

So. I have this shirt that Kelsea gave me I think for Christmas that on it had a piece of artwork done by Alex Pardee entitled the Jaundiced Rider. It looks like this:

I only recently noticed that on the inside of the tee, written in upside down cursive and a verrry light yellow paint is a message from the artist describing (I’m assuming) what inspired the piece on the shirt. After a good while of attempting to figure it out, this is what I got.

For some unknown reason I contracted Jaundice when I was 24. My body filled up with bile and my eyes turned yellow like that kid in A Christmas Story. Instead of caring how I contracted it, I convinced myself that it was given to me while I was sleeping as a gift from the Jaundiced Rider, a swift and graceful God of the Night.

I found that to be so interesting. I now want to purchase ALL of the Alex Pardee t-shirts just to try and decipher the meaning of the piece.

It’s cloudy out today. I am so thrilled. Also! I saw Inglourious Basterds last night. I guess the critics weren’t impressed, but I left the theater smiling.