Tuesday: I May Be Right

As an apology for yesterday’s post I’ll try to keep this one as short as possible.  The other reason… after my preaching yesterday I really have nothing to write about.  So I will take the day to school you on good music. (Which is, incidentally, why I manipulated a song title into today’s title).

I’ll come right out and say that I think a lot of the stuff out today is trash.  I can’t stand Lil Wayne or however you say his damn name.  He sounds like a pig about to be slaughtered, and that is one of the few things autotune can’t heal.  Lady Gaga’s music by itself is okay, but the psycho / oddball / \ meat-woman image doesn’t really work for me.  And I’m sorry, with the exception of Eminem and B.o.B rap / hip-hop is just not for me.

But then again there is the good that balances out the bad.  Rock, real-rock or alternative, is still the same as it always was.  Green Day is my favorite band, somehow managing to sound borderline-intelligent while still blasting eardrums out at the same time.  Coldplay is their polar-opposite, and with their clever riffs and Chris Martin’s falsetto they make a perfect combination.  I’ve been told several times that I shouldn’t like Linkin Park, without being given an actual reason, and I contend that (unlike the people in the last paragraph), their music is actually good.  On the electronic side Owl City is excellent (think Fireflies), and my uncle who makes club music never manages to disappoint.

Then there are the ones from the 70s and 80s that are still hanging around.  Bon Jovi is still excellent even if they’re a little past their time.  Bruce Springsteen is the realest voice of rock left.  U2 has a different sound than any band I’ve ever heard, unique and enigmatic without having to use the millions of electronic stimuli that most modernists need to make themselves sound bearable.  And then there’s Billy Joel, who is there whenever I can’t fins something to listen to.  He’s the only artist that never ceases to grow on me, like when I have my iPod on shuffle and hear an awesome song I’ve never heard before.  Nine times out of ten it’s Billy Joel.   So for the song today here is one of Joel’s greatest hits.  My favorite has to be Only the Good Die Young, but I’m putting this one up because musically it’s amazing that someone could do an entire song without and background music whatsoever.  Besides… it’s an awesome song!

SONG YOU SHOULD REALLY BE LISTENING TO:

 

And now I will get my geek on and give you a song you have never heard unless you’ve played a certain Valve game called Portal.  I’m sorry… but this is the better than Fireflies.

OTHER SONG YOU SHOULD REALLY BE LISTENING TO:

 

I know, that’s enough.  If I put any more someone may kill me tomorrow simply to stop the pointless babble clogging this website.  This geek bids you adieu!

Monday: God Bless the USA

An Indian friend of mine once said that she never understood the whole “overzealous pride for your nation thing,” and I replied that you had to be a born and bred American to understand it.  Even that is a bit of a stretch for me, because I only feel it about three days a year.  Independence Day, Veterans Day, and Memorial Day.  Those are the days when people fly the flag high and the national anthem becomes slightly more bearable than usual.  And everyone who isn’t of that somewhat-special heritage stares quizzically around and shakes their head.  We live in our own corner of the world, isolated from a mass majority of other countries by a pair of oceans, and we tend to do things our own way.  Watching soccer is a waste of an afternoon.  Narcissism is not a rare condition, it’s a necessary period of growth (which many never escape).  And yes, we’re better than every other person in the world simply because we live between sea and shining sea.

I’ve also been told by many different people and mediums that the rest of the world, 1)  Is jealous of, or,  2)  Hates America for no reason besides the fact that we apparently have more freedom than the rest of the world.  The way they would tell it is that the rest of the world is a bunch of fascist (said by left-wingers) or communist (said by right-wingers) monsters that are foaming at the chance to destroy everything we stand for.  Well, I don’t need to tell you this… but 99% of that is complete bullshit.  Nations (apparently more common in the Middle East) hate us, that’s true, but that’s because to them we’re a bunch of arrogant imperialists that seem to enjoy intruding on their countries and stay there for years on end.  We make our own problems, and fail to take responsibility for them.  In the 70s, when the Soviets occupied Afghanistan, we paid militants in money and in arms to take them out.  Those militants later became Al-Qaeda.  And I will bet you that four-fifths of Americans don’t know that.  (That’s also the four-fifths that believe Barack Obama is secretly a Muslim on no account but that of his middle name).  Yeah.  We have a serious superiority complex.  But now let’s leave the bashing and turn to the part that we focus completely on and the rest of the world ignores.

The question is: why are Americans interpreted as arrogant by the rest of the world?  Well we are.  But, while wrong, that arrogance is not completely unfounded.  I could run onto Pennsylvania Avenue and start yelling about how the government is made up of self-serving, lazy, somewhat-rabid pigs and the worst thing that can happen is a misdemeanor for disturbing the peace.  I can write what I want on this blog and there will be no repercussions.  I can make a song where every other word is an f-bomb and post it on YouTube or hand it out on my street corner.  We are a melting pot, simply due to the fact that anyone coming in peace is welcome inside this country.  Most if not all major technology companies either began or were based on US soil.  We created the Internet, or at least the first three seconds of it.  We get our news not because our journalists are more incredible than the rest of the world’s, but because they can go wherever and ask whatever they want.  And we can sleep securely, knowing that we have the world’s largest and most incredible military in the background to protect us.  That is the stone-cold truth, and if you don’t like it I will tell you in my most arrogant-American demeanor to go shove it where the light doesn’t go.  That is what makes this a great country, and one worth fighting for.

Also, there is one last thing I forgot to mention.  I left out an “overzealous pride” day simply because it deserves its own paragraph, and frankly it is as far from overzealous as possible.  This is the final thing that makes this an amazing nation.  That on a day when the greatest national tragedy ever to befall the USA ever occurred, every year it is not mourned but celebrated as a day of national unity and respect for the fallen.  If you truly want to understand what is so great about this nation, travel to New York City on September Eleventh.

Several songs to listen to this Memorial Day:

 

 

Next September Eleventh, listen to the whole album.  Bruce Springsteen.  The Rising.  You will not get through it without crying.

I could put a thousand of these songs on today, but I’ll leave just this one, simply because it’s the one that always manages to make me cry and smile at the same time. Until tomorrow, God Bless the USA.

Sunday: Now Movies…

Alright, as today was also pretty boring (other than me getting my second ever paycheck), and because I am still laughing at the future link at the bottom of this page and can’t think of anything else… I’ll put together a list of movies you should watch sometime in the near future.

#1 – The Social Network:  Now, I’m completely serious when I say this… BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING ELSE TODAY, and I mean even something as simple as grabbing a bag of chips, GO AND FIND THIS MOVIE!  I don’t care where you get it, I don’t care if it costs you a hundred dollars, it is completely worth it.  Not only does it manage to make two (not one, but TWO) lawsuits actually interesting, it gives you the (almost) true story how the greatest social movement (or something like that) of our time was created.

#2 – State of Play:  This is relatively easy to find on either Netflix or movie channels, or even if you want to pay the five bucks to rent it from your local rundown movie rental store.  Russell Crowe is amazing in everything he does. (A Beautiful Mind, Gladiator, et cetera, et cetera.).  I’m serious, he’s a god among men.  And then combine that with Helen Mirren, the BEST older lady actress in existence (sorry Betty White), you have an entertaining thriller about a DC journalist, a politician, a sex scandal, and more twists than a cinnamon stick… yeah.  Don’t listen to me.  Just watch it yourself.

#3 – Inception: Wait… hold on a second.  I haven’t seen this one yet.  But don’t go by me… just watch it.

#4 – National Treasure:  This is one of the greatest treasure movies ever.  And yes, I typed that with a straight face.  Maybe the only one better is Raiders of the Lost Ark… and hey every twenty years you can have another good one come along right?  But not only is it entertaining, it is also funny as hell with an unusually mellow Nicolas Cage, a hilarious sidekick in Justin Bartha (think Hangover), and a really hot (yet surprisingly good) historian in Diane Kruger.  Also, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, and Sean Bean (a la Lord of the Rings)… just go buy it!  It’s 2004, shouldn’t cost you more than five bucks.  Even cheaper if you find someone lifeless enough to bootleg it.

And there is my terrifically terrible list of movies you should watch sometime in the near future.  And really, don’t blame me.  It’s the equivalent of a summer Sunday… there is nothing else to write about!

HOT LINK: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2066367_2066584_2066602,00.html

This is just to funny to leave on the unvisited wasteland that is the Time website (as shown by the millions of comments).

SONG YOU SHOULD REALLY BE LISTENING TO:

They also say you never forget a first love… well this song made me love music.  And this being Memorial Day weekend, it does have some special significance.  Listen to it and think about ten years back… it will dawn on you.  ¡Feliz domingo!

Saturday: Sleep

I’m stocking up on sleep for summer, which probably sounds weird to everyone reading this but I will explain.  During the school-year weekends is usually when I get the most sleep for the year; I rarely get more than eight hours of sleep on any summer night.  So what’s so bad about that?  Well from June 15th to August 31st I become an insomniac and, 6 out of 7 days, can’t fall asleep at anytime earlier than two in the morning.  I dread it every year and it is as annoying as hell, which is one of the many things why, despite popular opinion, summer is NOT the best season.

Reason 1: I become a zombie from the hours of 10 at night to 8 in the morning (see above).

Reason 2: I’m lucky if I see three friends in the entire expanse of the two-and-a-half months, and then when school starts again everyone I liked the year before is on the other side of the building.

Reason 3: There tends to be almost nothing to do during summer, especially in late-July and August when it’s either too hot or humid to play basketball… so I become even more addicted to video games than before.

Reason 4: I always think, going into summer, that I’m going to get more writing done then than during the school year.  Truthfully… I finish NOTHING during summer.  In my three years of writing I’ve finished 11 short stories.  2 of the were done during summer.

Reason 5: There is nothing on my mind during summer whatsoever, so I tend to dig into various vices a little more than usual.

Reason 6: Lastly… IT’S TOO DAMN HOT!

Yeah.  I’m pathetic.  Yeah.  I know school’s out and that makes summer awesome in itself.  Yeah.  I know- SHUT UP!  Summer is not all it’s cracked up to be!  おちおち眠れない.

Friday: How to Watch #4 Without Ever Seeing 1, 2, or 3

As today was a school-less Friday it would normally be devoid of anything memorable to write about.  However… instead of being my usual lifeless self I went to go see a movie with a couple (actually supposed to be quite a few) friends.  And yeah, I saw Pirates of the Caribbean 4 without ever watching 1, 2, or 3.  And after it was over I realized… yeah… I REALLY should go see 1, 2, and 3.

On Stranger Tides was a lot funnier than I expected, and I expected it to be pretty funny.  I haven’t seen Johnny Depp in enough movies to realize how good of an actor he is, and anyone who can perfect a role that original must be one of the best.  I also never realized how good Penelope Cruz was… the though tends to go the way of, when an actress is that beautiful, they’re probably not the greatest.  I’m sorry, but that simply seems to be the trend *cough*Megan Fox*cough*.  She’s actually just as good as Depp, and both of them have great chemistry.  Other than that Geoffrey Rush is great, as always, and the guy who played Blackbeard was perfect in every way.  Still, the movie lives up to its name with a couple of really weird sequences… as well as the rather corny part with the missionary and the mermaid (but I’ll let you see that for yourself).  All in all, it’s a great movie (in 3D too).  Go see it.

Short post tonight, but before I go I’ll leave you with a song.  I am, or was until about a few months ago, a hater of all things associated with rap.  Since then I am STILL a hater of all things rap, except for one thing that’s grown on me.  This is probably the deepest rap I’ve ever heard (not that many).

SONG YOU SHOULD REALLY BE LISTENING TO:

Eminem can be good when every other word isn’t a curse.  Everyone else is still crap and will always be crap.  And one of those reasons is outlined in the song.  I’ve run out of bilingual goodbyes without referring to Icelandic or something equally primeval-sounding… so ánægð martraðir!

Thursday: And Let the Weekend Begin!

So, because the school district overanticipated the willingness of their teachers to take six more days we ended up the winners and got a couple four-day weekends when we usually have three.  So tomorrow, for no real reason, I get to sleep until noon.

So Thursday, on a whole, was just as uneventful as Wednesday.  And I know you all probably hate reading about boring day after boring day (that is, if anyone reads this at all, which I seriously doubt), so let me tell you about a few books you should probably read sometime in the near future.

IT – Stephen King: This is no doubt the best book I’ve ever read.  The characters are impeccable.  The story is excellent, thrilling, and suspenseful, and even though it is a little lengthy (1138 pages to be exact), you NEED to read it right now!

Angels & Demons – Dan Brown: Many people mistakenly think of this as the sequel to the Da Vinci Code.  Get it right… the Da Vinci Code IS the sequel.  This is the original (and undoubtedly best) Robert Langdon adventure.  It’s ridiculously entertaining, and even though some of the physics are sketchy (think airplane jump), it’s a great read.

Watchers – Dean Koontz: This is another great thriller, especially if you like dogs.  I can’t give much away but let me just say there’s a super-intelligent golden retriever whose being chased by an equally intelligent creature that somewhat resembles a puma and has all the power of an elephant.  I obviously can’t do it justice, so you should just go get it anyway.

Pulse / Instinct – Jeremy Robinson: I have not read Instinct, though I plan to soon, but Pulse was probably one of the more pulse-pounding books I’ve ever read.  It mixes in nonstop action (those of you who know what Delta Force is, think that), with tropical islands, killing suspense, and a pinch of Greek Mythology to make an amazing book.

Well now that I’ve guided your literary life it’s time for me to go and work on my own.  One last word of advice though… stay away from Dickens (unless you prefer to read so many words crammed onto a single page that you can’t uncross your eyes for a week).  He was paid by the word so he made his books as wordy as possible to get the maximum payback.  That is #1, REALLY fake, and #2, really boring to read.  Hasta la vista, y 祝你愉快的噩夢.

Wednesday: Midweek Lull

Well today was an early dismissal which is always good, even when the tradeoff is a two-hour standardized testing session.  Come on Pennsylvania, stop cutting everything and laying off teachers… instead cut the funding for standardized tests.  They’re useless and a waste of time, and one of the myriad of reasons we Americans are so illiterate compared to the rest of the developed world?  Do you know why India has so many honor students?  BECAUSE THEY TEACH THEM!

Alright.  Rant over.  You can read safely now.  Wednesday came and went without much of a buffet, Wednesdays are rarely ever that bad.  It’s the midweek lull, school settles into a boring monotony and there’s nothing to do at home as you see the weekend on the calendar, closer than Monday but still a long way from Friday.  Wednesdays tend to make people a little lifeless and free-wheeling, and they tend to make mistakes for often.  Yeah, I know I sound like your horoscope, but I can’t help it.  Maybe today’s song will help explain it a little better.

Summer really crept up on us this year didn’t it?  Everyone’s telling me there’s only ten days left of school and I’m looking around like the sun just grew and eyeball.  And it feels weird, but I almost don’t want to leave this year.  Yeah, there’ve been some problems (most of which you’ll never know), but for some reason I have this feeling that half of the people I've met this year, most of the people I really like, will be all gone when I get back in September.  It’s weird, but in a school of 3600, it’s not hard to imagine.

Well I’m done for today.  Just time left to leave you with the song I found five minutes ago trawling YouTube.  Judging by the video, it’s pretty old.  But I think for good music time has no meaning.  Am I right?  (And the piano riff is one of the best I’ve ever heard)

SONG YOU SHOULD REALLY BE LISTENING TO:

Because In the End nothing matters.  Nothing ever seems to matter…

Tuesday: Blinding Heights

‘I’ve seen angels fall from blinding heights.’  I love that line.  It’s a perfect line, gives an image of a fall from grace to devastation.  Really, it’s from the song I posted a few days ago: ‘You Know My Name’, but this line deserved special mention.

Well Tuesday passed, and Tuesday is ALWAYS the worst day of the week… especially between May and September when there is no new NCIS episode to take away the pain.  I’m telling you, that song Friday should really be called Tuesday, because then it would have a right to cause misery to all those who listen.

Alright, now that I’m done my pointless preaching on song lines and days of the week, I need to say something.  I’m starting a new book (yeah, the old one didn’t last long), a psychological thriller that involves a teenager that goes rather insane.  My only request: please, nobody think I’m crazy.  I know a perfectly good guy, who for a class assignment, wrote a great psych short story and they had him checked by the psychologist.  People, realize the fact that while there are some crazies out there, there are those with the ability to spin a good story that involves the finer aspects of psychology.

Now, after I got that off my chest, I have one last thing left before I retire for the night… 90s video games are awesome.  Especially if they are called Half-Life.  Now goodnight, and listen to this:

SONG YOU REALLY SHOULD BE LISTENING TO:

It’s kind of a techno-meets-pop-meets-rock kind of thing, and combined with the ridiculously cute video it makes for one great song.  спокойной ночи

Monday: Solemnity

Today was Monday, which started as an ordinary Monday (besides the spectacle of me carrying a paper bag masquerading as a piñata through C-Wing), and having my Spanish teacher say “I like it.”  That was elation in itself.  But the day changed rather quickly with the arrival of our guest speaker. He is the great-uncle of my math teacher, and the youngest survivor of the Holocaust.  I can say no more than his speech was amazing, his message was poignant, solemn, and lasting, and it was an honor to simply shake his hand.  I may have mentioned how I was drafted to write an article about this man?  Well that was both the easiest and hardest article I’ve ever written.  Maybe eventually I’ll post it, but for now just follow the link: http://nathantaffel.com/.

After that the day went by extremely quickly.  We busted open a piñata (not mine) in Spanish and dove for the ensuing rain of Starburst and Skittles.  In Chorus we were told we were the most musically talented Chorus class our teacher had ever had, yet the behavior left something to be desired.  And in English we watched some of ‘Of Mice and Men’.

I guess it’s a little odd that on a day I should have had so much to write about I ended up with so little.  Maybe I spurned all of those demons for tonight with that article.  But what I do know is that they’ll be back tomorrow, so expect to hear more about the most boring life on Earth.

Oh, and one last thing…

SONG YOU REALLY SHOULD BE LISTENING TO:

The song is called ‘You Know My Name’, and is the theme for Casino Royale.  Enjoy.  Bon Voyage dans el Noir.

Sunday: A Musical End to a Musical Weekend

Friday was the Spring Concert (where I was extremely tempted to start singing Friday but exercised an immense amount of self-control), and that was just getting started.  We Are the World, Hallelujah (yeah, from Shrek), and then the Choir sang Lean on Me… that was a fun night for the musically obsessed.

Saturday, as mentioned, was the Brad Schoener Music Marathon (in case you live under a rock and don’t know Brad Schoener was a music teacher in Upper Darby who died of cancer a few years ago.  He was so dedicated to music and his students that there are more events every year celebrating him than Santa Claus).  Anyway, Mel did her solo, my sister preformed, and the Sousa Band rocked with the awesome guy with the awesome hair.  False Judgment Day was also a musical day.

And now Sunday, which started off with me getting my first paycheck (wahoo!) and learning that a church has about fifty different thermostats and about as many circuit breakers, ended the weekend with a nice touch.  After work there was this thing (also at the church, except it was the school) called Cowpie Bingo… completely disgusting yet apparently fascinating to some people.  But I didn’t even stay to see the cow.  Instead I just watched my other best friend (and originally the sole reader of my other blogs) Hope preform a pair of amazing songs while one of her friends tried to run me out of town (long story).  I’m serious, I would buy these songs if I had to… they’re that good.  This is the kind of weekend that makes me wish I kept playing piano… but that’s also a story for another time.  A pretty boring one too.

The last notice for Sunday night… I’ve finally found a movie I liked more than the book (and this was by a landslide, no question about it).  In layman’s terms, James Bond books suck.  I’ve only read one and it was so bad I didn’t even think about the next.  By comparison, the 2006 adaptation of Casino Royale was so much better than the book that I can’t even call it an adaptation.  As far as I’m concerned that book never existed.  Bond was meant for the big screen.

So, without a song or link to keep you interested, I guess this is goodnight.  Sayonara.

Saturday: Judgment Day

Well the world didn’t end today, so I guess we have to wait another six months until the next crazy cleric comes out screeching about the rapture and the apocalypse.  Personally, if anything, I’m betting on 2012.  The Mayans were always more accurate than the Christians weren’t they?  (Plus, didn’t the Christians kill them off?)  Although I think it’s more likely that they ended their calendar in 2012 because they knew they wouldn’t last that long, there’s always the chance that a bunch of South Americans who killed people who lost a basketball game could be right about the end of the world.

I realize I just sounded condescending toward the Mayans, but in truth I respect the hell out of that civilization.  They did things in the early years of AD more acutely than we can now, for instance building those giant pyramids and temples without so much as a single gear.  They were also great mathematicians, hence their amazing calendar.  But still… it’s just a calendar.  The fact that it lasts thousands of years doesn’t change that.  Does the world end on December 31st every year?  No, a ball drops in Times Square and people make promises to themselves that most are too weak to keep.  The Mayans ended their calendar on December 21st, 2012.  And I’ll see you all in 2013.

Now the Music Marathon was today, and even though I only stayed for a couple of hours I enjoyed every second of it.  The elementary jazz bands were excellent and the soloists were terrific.  The Sousa Band was hilariously fun, and there was even a guy who had hair like Albus Dumbledore.  If I could grow my hair like that I would in an instant.  And then there was Mel, and those two awesome solos.  You’re an amazing singer Mel, even though I know you’ll probably never read this.

Then I came home and spent more time trying to print the psuedo-Shakespeare, actually Da Vinci project than actually complete it.  And I’m telling you, Da Vinci is amazing.  If I ever get a time machine and get to use it once… forget seeing Jesus.  I can do that when I’m dead.  I’m going to meet Da Vinci.

So now tomorrow I have to work for a little while and then go to something known as cow-pie (translation: cow shit) bingo to see another equally musically talented friend perform.  This weekend just gets better and better.

Now I’m an avid reader of Time, both in print and on the Internet, and even though the world didn’t end and we all didn’t go away in shining carriages or whatever was supposed to happen, I still found this pretty interesting.

HOT LINK: http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/05/15/judgment-day-no-way-what%E2%80%99s-behind-the-may-21-2011-end-of-the-world-rumors/

Enjoy hearing about the crazy man who said the world was ending in 1994, and then said it would end again today.  Au revoir.  Happy Nightmares!

Friday: Music and Madness

Compared to yesterday today was crawling with craziness.  First we circle in math and I learn, out of the blue, that when a holocaust survivor comes to speak to us on Monday I’m going to be writing an article about it.  Then in Spanish I remember that I have to build a piñata this weekend out of a grocery bag and tissue paper… even though that actually sounds kind of fun.  Then I get my early dismissal halfway through Chorus, but that’s not what you think…

I then go straight to DHMS to help with the Seminar Brain Olympiad.  There I’m gluing up contraptions and retying rubber bands, replacing axels and reattaching wheels.  That was tiring in itself.  Then comes the cleanup, which was thankfully pretty sparse.  All in all it was a good day and I would have been satisfied relaxing for the rest of the night… but no.

Three hours later I’m sweating from every body part I can think of and a few I don’t want to, standing on a stage in a tuxedo with a t-shirt underneath.  And for anyone who’s never been in that situation, it felt like hell had risen a day early.  Still, the concert itself made all of that okay… in fact it was pretty good in itself.  Especially Lean on Me, with the clapping… that was great.  And when Ms. Benglian stared down someone in the audience.

And then tomorrow I have to finish the psuedo-Shakespeare project as well as make the aforementioned piñata… but I’ll leave you with one last thing… (some profanity there, but I don’t think many people care.)

HOT LINK:

Epic Rap Battles of History… pure epicness.  Adios.

Thursday: Chance of Thunderstorms

I guess I should be thrilled that this thing has 32 hits in the week since I put it up, which was probably more than my old blogs ever had combined, but I’ll be honest I just wanted more.  Yeah.  Idiot.  I know.  Moving on.  But what I mean by that is send people this link.  Even if you hate it that doesn’t mean they won’t like it.  Or maybe they’ll hate it even more, go ranting to their friends, and in an hour I’ve got a hundred more hits.

Today was pretty boring until about three thirty when the sky broke open and dumped what sounded like the contents of the Atlantic onto my house.  It brought back memories of last summer when what was probably a cross between a hurricane and a tornado tore though here and shut off power for days.  At least we didn’t have a blackout this time… but maybe the world will end on Saturday.  By the way, anyone ever notice that it seems like the world is supposed to end about every six months?  Odd huh…

Anyway as I said, today was pretty boring.  Nothing memorable in the forecast.  So to A. lengthen this post to torturous limits and B. try to keep the few readers I have, I’ll post a writing same.  This is the aforementioned Cái Li (see yesterday’s post).

Cái Li closed the phone without bothering to hang up, turning back away from the windows and walking briskly toward the chromed elevator doors. His piercing eyes, the same jetstone black as his hair, stared, laserlike, at nothing in particular. Recently the activity on the circuits had been dull. Perhaps this would liven things up.
As the elevator doors slid shut Cái Li allowed himself a small chuckle. At the very least it would be interesting to see how this played out. This man may be exactly what he needed.
 
Critique as you wish.  As for me, I have nothing left in the tank but this

SONG YOU REALLY SHOULD BE LISTENING TO:
 

Goodnight Saigon.  Over and out.

Wednesday: Blending Days

I swear, once the school year runs into April, I mix up my days at least once a week.  For about an hour today was Tuesday, and then for the rest of the day it was Thursday.  It’s not remarkable, but extremely annoying.

(SPOILER ALERT!)  As you know, most television series are wrapping up this week and yesterday was the season finale of NCIS.  (SVU freaks, move to the next paragraph).  It was excellent, there is really nothing more to say.  The action and suspense was nonstop and the character of the Port-to-Port killer Jonas Cobb was one of the best developed antagonists I’ve seen in a long time.  Despite the fact that he was a murderer and an assassin, I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.  You also got to see a new side of Vance, especially when he stood up to SecNav and made him take responsibility for Cobb’s creation.  The final scene however was the best; Mike Franks’s funeral.  It was such a sad moment for everyone on the show and most of the fans watching, as he was one of the favorites among the recurring cast.  And as always they leave a mystery, but I won’t tell it here.  Watch the show.  (For aforementioned SVU freaks): WATCH THE DAMN SHOW!!

Now that that’s over, it’s time for me to tell you I’m a writer.  Yeah.  I know you knew that already, because I’m obviously writing this blog, but that’s not what I meant.  I write stories.  Short stories are really the only things I ever finish, though I do attempt novels from time to time, and occasionally I’ll post a sample here probably if there’s nothing interesting to post about.  Antagonists are my specialty, and often they’re my favorite characters (If you’ll remember what I said in the previous paragraph).  In most stories antagonists are so underdeveloped it should be a crime, so I try to make up for it.  Currently the one I’m using is a Asian crime lord by the name of Cái Li who also runs a ring of street racers in a fictional city.  The novel is called Speed Trap.  (Note: this was inspired and the location is loosely based on the world in Need for Speed: Undercover.  Yeah.  I’m a geek.  I know that already).  Anyways, maybe I’ll post a segment sometime.

Sorry if I’m boring you by now, which is probably a guarantee.  Short and sweet is how I’d like to keep it, instead of 5 paragraphs every two months on my old blog (which, by the way, is deleted.  So don’t go looking for it).  I’ll leave you with one last thing, something I’ll do in addition to the occasional Hot Link.

SONG YOU REALLY SHOULD BE LISTENING TO:

This is called City of Delusion, by Muse.  Listen to it.  Enjoy it.  Goodnight.

Tuesday: Waiting for Friday

Normally I post pretty late, around ten or eleven before I either write (which you’ll hear more of later) or am about to go to sleep.  Except for today, because I have two articles due tomorrow and a psuedo-Shakespeare project to work on.  “Psuedo” because it’s not really a project on Shakespeare; we have to pick something from his time period and then write about that.  And since Da Vinci lived about 50 years before… well I guess it’s actually a Da Vinci project.  But nevermind that, I realize no one cares.  And I probably could have written longer last night (though there may have been a few attempts on my life) because those two phantom tests turned out to be some of the easiest tests I’ve had all year.

On a different note I’ve begun reading the Jason Bourne trilogy, and for those ‘people’ (believe me, I’d like to use another word) who tend to be too lazy and just go watch the movie… THE BOOK IS ALWAYS BETTER!  That’s an ALWAYS, in all CAPITALS.  Sure, I’ll watch the extremely popular, critically acclaimed movies later, after I read the book that I’ll bet ninety percent of the people who went to see The Bourne Identity in 2002 didn’t even know existed.  Sad… …

Tonight is also the season finale of NCIS, the only show I watch (besides Mythbusters) and the only drama on TV worth watching.  Yeah SVU, I’m talking to you.  Anyway, expect to see tomorrow’s post mostly taken up by my review.  If you’re a SVU fan, then just skip your daily visit.

And with that nothing else comes to mind today, so I’m making an early exit.  But not before this:

HOT LINK: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLAMhTorPCk

In case you live under the metaphorical rock or are under seven years old and haven’t seen this yet, it’s Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon on the pop culture sensation… Friday.  Which also makes my title a pun!  So enjoy.

Monday: Late Beginnings

I guess the blog technically opened on Friday, but seeing as this is the first day I’m going to post this to Facebook (yeah, I know I’m an idiot), I’ll call this the opening.  And probably for the only time this week I’ll have a few interesting things to say about my life so here goes…

Yesterday I neglected to mention that I officially worked for the first day in my life.  And even if it’s like lifting weights (the second day is twice as bad as the first) it still wouldn’t be too terrible.  In short, I get paid to turn on the power, unlock the doors, set up, and then sit in the back of my church for about five hours every other Sunday.  With good pay.  Which I’m not telling you.  If you want you can guess.

Then today we had two phantom tests, by that I mean two tests that they told us we were having TODAY, and then today alerted us that the tests were TOMORROW.  Good, because Monday tests are terrible.  Bad, because I spent time in homeroom studying math when I could have been sleeping.  And then in Spanish we actually get a chance at some extra credit.  The assignment: build a piñata.  Which actually sounds like fun, which is the first time I’ve ever associated that word with Spanish class.

Don’t worry, you won’t have to suffer much longer.  Being the geek I am, I’m also a bookworm.  And on the third Monday of every month I go to a book club at the library, just like I have for four years.  (Right here is where I shout out to Hope and Anthony, probably the only two people who ever actually care about my life).  And the next book actually sounds kind of cool, about a bunch of kids after a terrorist attack who spy on the corrupt government using hacked Xboxes.  Not bad.

And now that those phantom tests are real, I have to get some sleep so I don’t need it in homeroom.  Goodnight, and don’t bash me too badly.  It’s not that I can’t take it.  It’s that you won’t be able take my scathing replies.

Sunday: Important Differences

I’ll officially open up on Monday I guess, when I finally get every aesthetic and performance detail down in the myriad of settings.  God it’s been so long since I used Blogger for anything, you’d think having three previous blogs would have helped but then again they only had a combined 38 posts, so I’m pretty much back to Square One when it comes to mixing and matching.  But at least I can definitely iron out the posting details with Windows Live and everything… but I realize no one wants to hear about this so I’ll move on.

If you plan on reading this in the future, and I really don’t blame you if you don’t, you have to know the two basic differences.  The first is the basic difference between a geek and nerd.  I will often reference myself as a “geek”.  I will NEVER reference myself as a “nerd”.  The difference: geeks possess social skills, and have at least a few friends.  Nerds… well nerds are generally completely absorbed in whatever their latest obsession is and pretty much lack any type of social skills.  And I DO have social skills, even though many of my friends would disagree.

The other basic difference is between dumb and stupid.  And yes, they mean two completely different things.  (You notice these as a writer).  Now dumb is, for example, SpongeBob.  SpongeBob infuriates others without realizing it and without actually trying, and is actually one of the most lovable characters ever.  Stupid on the other hand is (since I seem to be going with SpongeBob references and pretty much everyone understands them) Mr. Krabs.  He knows it’s a bad idea to overcharge for everything, yet he does it anyway.  If it weren’t a cartoon, he would go out of business instantly.  In a nutshell, Dumb is not knowing, Stupid is knowing and still doing.

Don’t worry, I’m almost done.  I usually have a lot of free time so I like to trawl the web for anything interesting.  If I find anything worthy of sharing, it’ll be at the bottom of the post, looking like this:

HOT LINK: http://deadspin.com/#!5797756/an-essay-about-osama-bin-ladens-death-constructed-entirely-out-of-athletes-tweets

See, there.  And what do you know, I think I’ll call them hot links.  And this is a real one.  And it’s pretty funny, not to mention creative.  Enjoy, and peace.

Saturday: Overview

Seeing as the last time I tried this I ended up posting about once every two months, I’ll try a better schedule this time.  And by that I mean daily.  And my life is definitely not interesting enough to go through a daily schedule (which is beside the fact that, even if my life was that interesting, reading and writing about it every day would probably bore you and me to death).  So on those days when I have nothing special to write about (which will be very often) I’ll review books, movies, maybe even video games (yeah, I know I’m a geek).  Or news, or something random on the Internet, or anything really.  Really my only goal for this thing is to see how many people I can get to view this page, either by accident or because they, for some reason, were stalking my Facebook info page and found this website there.  Now it’s past eleven and I have to get up tomorrow, so goodnight.  And tell the bedbugs I said hello.

Friday: Welcome to Internet Junk

Yeah, I know already.  Don't tell me that no one cares about my life, because I know already.  Don't tell me no one will read this, because I know that already.  Don't tell me I'm an idiot... you guessed it, because I know it already.  But when I did this before it was pretty fun, even if I stink like cheese left out in the sun.  And as you can see by the title, I'm not claiming to be anything good at all.  That's all this is, more assorted Internet Junk.  It's like space junk, except in cyberspace.  (And I know how bad that analogy is).  But have you ever seen those people who trawl through garage sales looking for junk they can use?  In that case maybe this isn't junk at all.
Yeah, I'm kidding myself.  It's totally junk.
But maybe some people can enjoy this junk, and maybe it will infuriate just enough people to get others interested.  Well, you can only hope right?  Anyways, you'll find junk of any kind here, anything I feel like really.  I only have one rule.  Comment soon.  Comment often.  (If you don't have a Google account then get one).  With that, I say goodnight (really because I have no better closing line).