New Cereal

After the death of Waffle Crisp, the horrible makeover of trix, and the collaborative hiding of rice krispies treats cereals, I've had to search for a new standard of morning sugar rush.

Corn Pops. They've been there for a while and they are still solid. Let's hope they don't go away. CP you are my new favorite cereal.

On a side note, today I bought a $70 trash can that had a dent on top. I'm torn on whether to use it or exchange it. Right now my decision is to exchange it. I demand the best.

Disaster!

When it rains, it pours.

Some days, it seems like everything goes wrong. I really try hard sometimes to make things work but fate has it that the more I try, the more disaster strikes.

I can barely count on my fingers the # of things that didn't go as planned this past Monday. We went fishing, by the way. First, I was late by about 2 hrs to the beach. We got stuck in traffic because I made 2 bad turns (btw, whenever you see a long line it's probably a good idea to get in it). Then I realized that we had to walk half a mile to the fishing spot, which is half a mile of me dragging my big fat reclining chair out to the ocean edge. Then I realized I bought a 6' rod instead of a 9' rod, which is kinda necessary for shore fishing. Then I realized I bought freshwater bait and all my gear was pretty useless.

THEN a cloud came and we heard thunder and had to leave the beach an hour after I dropped in.

The rain poured down as we got into our cars and we had to drive back in heavy traffic. The whole time I thought, "wow all the people who decided not to go had more sense than we did."

We ended up eating and playing cards at a local seafood joint. We spent about 2 hrs of quality time whereas it took about 4 hrs of total travel to make it happen. I spilled my wine glass onto my best friend after taking a single sip (I lost pretty badly in Big2). I learned an important lesson. Throughout the entire day I could barely believe how many things went wrong as they did. I planned it a week in advance, yet despite all my worrying things went downhill before we even got to the beach. But the lesson was that I still had a good time. David and I kept talking and staying positive. Evan still laughed. Marc still laughed. The girls, Susie and Marissa, followed suit and obediently played cards with us (Which is rare for girls). Rich and Timmy were both enjoying themselves... and because of this I was encouraged. I think they perceived that I would be disappointed, but I really wasn't. I was just happy to be sharing this moment with my closest friends. After all, disasters make for great stories.

I don't think I've said nearly as much as I should. I should probably get to bed though, I have barely enough time to watch half a TV show and shower nowadays. I will wait for the next time for us to make great stories. Maybe I should pledge to always put friends before myself... so we'll never run out of stories to tell. =)

Maybe I need a new car...

I had a weird dream yesterday. You know how you always get close to dying in dreams but never really die? Well this is the second time in my life I had a dream where I actually died. Last time I woke up... this time I just blanked out.

I was in a car driving the winding path to work. I saw the RPM meter on my car hitting 6k, and was thinking "whoa that's dangerous." I don't even know what the RPM actually means but I know if it hits the red it's bad. So for some reason my hand slipped and I shifted down in gear, which as we all know jacks the RPMS wayyy up. Basically at that point my car made a loud buzzing noise and blew up in my face. I heard a short loud static sound and then BAM. Blackness and silence overtook me. It was weird, I had no afterthought and all my senses were shut off, but I was still aware that I was dead. Anyway, it happened.

I could use this post to talk about death but I'm not. I don't think anyone wants to hear my thoughts on that.

If I had all the money in the world I'd buy my dream car which is the Lexus LS 460. Don't ask why I like it, I think it just looks nice and is the ultimate epitome of class and luxury. $75k and you can get a base model I think. As to the color- I have no idea. If I bought a corvette or corolla red or white (or a mixture) would definitely be my choice. An Acura TL, probably black. An Aston Martin, prob blue. I think if I got the LS460 I wouldn't be too picky about the color- I'd just be glad I had one. =)

Fast Lane

I'm going to attempt to make a post that hasn't been very well thought out.

Life has changed, permanently. With the start of a new job and a new home comes a new persona and new lifestyle. Although I am not where I want to be yet, things are escalating higher and higher. Things cost more. Work is serious. Friendships are tighter.

Recently I've taken the big step of applying for a mortgage and buying my own property. The last 1 month has been going at four times the speed as my life in Austin, and it has been frustrating the entire way. My parents insist on emailing me and then calling me while I'm busy to recite exactly what they e-mailed me in poor, broken English. I've filled out countless papers and called numerous people and visited one too many properties and it seems like all this effort is because people are too lazy to coordinate amongst themselves. There needs to be a shared system of information for everyone (the INTERNET hint hint). Too bad the government never learned to use that.

Enough griping. I slept 5 hours yesterday and the day was terrible. I vowed I would sleep 8 hours today and it's already 30 minutes past my bedtime. I think coffee really does affect me contrary to what I've believed up until now. It used to put me to sleep, but today I drank some and felt less tired and definitely warmer. However, relying on that stuff is a bad habit, because the natural high of self-motivation should be sufficient to keep me awake.

French vanilla creme ranks as one of the top 10 most awesome consumption inventions ever... right below bagels, donuts, and of course rice krispie treats.

I need to get to bed now... tata.

Analysis

I was going to post something a few months back but I had no good ending so I decided not to.

Life has changed a lot for me. I went from AustinTX to PrincetonNJ and started a new job with new stages in my life. Right now I'm supposed to be reading a book for my training class but I don't feel like it.

I realized that although I feel like I've changed for the better my reactions reveal the opposite. As I moved back home I had the opportunity to interact with my parents on a more-than-regular basis. Normally they call me once a day and I can ignore them if I wish, but now I was released from the comforts of independent living. So the past few weeks I've exploded at them more times than the past year... even when my mom was feverish and throwing up in my car I was showing the toughest face love could bear. It took me about 1 hour to finally force out an "are you okay?" and even my tone was unforgiving. Though, behind all the yelling and frustration I know there is still love that holds our family together. My father makes dumb purchases but he makes them for the family. My mother has terrible tact when it comes to money but she is just making sure I don't get ripped off. My brother... well you get the idea.

I realized the thing that got under my skin the most was the notion that I didn't have my choice still. I am 23 and have a well paying job but any big decision I make is hampered with resistance all the way (like which apartment to get). My stubbornness clouds my judgement and I lash out at any opposition to my own choice. When the other side gives up I realize the logic behind the resistance and become much more accommodating of new ideas left and right. I guess it's just that age where I need to be independent.

On a more uppity note, I saw a really pretty girl at work today. She's 5'4 and has long hair and is probably Chinese, that's about all I know. It's nice to finally be in an environment where silent crushes are again possible. I think the difference between .01% and 0% makes all the difference in this world.

The Survival Instinct

As much as I don't like to get my views from pop culture, one movie I pleasantly enjoyed was Saw 2. During the movie, the serial killer spouts philosophical nonsense about how humans have lost their Survival Instinct. The very things we do when we know death is imminent are different than the things we do when we have the luxury of not knowing when we will die. Thus, we go from day to day eating but not tasting, seeing but not adoring, hearing but not understanding... If evolution does stand as a theory, it has lost its value through the birth of man: a being that lives on as the top of food chain yet does not have the "edge" to be there. We throw away our lives with gluttony, sloth, and indifference. The very ones we are suppose to love (family, friends) we push away in selfishness and stubbornness on a regular basis.

While this may very well be true, I don't have cancer nor do I have knowledge of my death. Yet I see the complacency sink in as my goals are or are not accomplished in life. Call it being a guy, but when I don't meet the par I fight hard to get there; and when I finally do I sink back in inactivity and dullness.

We see this everywhere. Girls dress up and put on makeup, and when they finally score the guy they want- they cut their hair and put on weight. Guys improve their character and work hard to impress the girl they like, but when they finally get what they want they sink back to their gaming chairs and computer screens. And it doesn't just apply to sexual relations- careers, hobbies, knowledge... Gov't workers are slow because they can never really lose their jobs, and so any type of work that they do will take much longer (ever been to the DMV?). But these are all in the context of marginal survival. If you want to be accepted socially, you need a spouse, a job, and an interesting personality. None of this relates to actual life and death.

We live in a world that has removed conflict from our lives, and that confuses us. Civilization has removed all danger of death from us, and so we turn to society to give us answers on how to get that "edge" to survive. Boys fight and play with guns for the first 5 years of their lives, and then the next 10 years they are taught that guns and fighting is bad. Now I'm not making any judgement calls on parenting or how things "should be", but I think that we are wired in some way that is evident in how our lives should have been lived. After all, we are definitely different from the other animals and so maybe our challenge is figuring out what exactly we are to do with that difference.

I'm boring myself and losing track of what I originally wanted to post.

I don't want to be complacent. In 20 years I don't want to lose my push, my edge, my focus in any of the hobbies or aims that I have in life. I look at so many of the older people I know and they are quite simply lethargic and single minded corporate robots. Now, raising a family probably had quite a bit to do with that, but what role models would we be if we don't start pushing ourselves now? It should never stop, I think. We should always strive to be better. And I just realized this is the speech that landed me a job.

Maybe I'll continue this post later. Happy thanksgiving.

Profanity

I've been watching South Park very recently. After running out of interesting shows to watch, I decided to pick up something that everyone I know watches but I really never cared for. It started about two months ago, when the boredom of unemployment really caught up to me.

That show is FUNNY. And each episode (usually) actually has a point. They used to be just random stories crafted to entertain for 20 or so minutes, but lately it's gotten very political and current events driven. In fact, I'd say half of my current events knowledge stems from watching that show haha. If you haven't watched the show, watch the current season and work your way back. Don't watch the first 3 seasons.

My favorite characters are definitely Kenny, Butters, and Kyle. Kenny is just super cute with his hoodie always covering his face and obscuring his speech. The fact that he's a very passive character and yet I immediately miss him in the episodes he's not in means that he is placed VERY strategically in the show. Butters is just adorable, and that song he always sings gets to me. As much as they bash his character on the show, butters is there in all my favorite episodes. Kyle is the Jewish boy of the show and I like him because his character is 90% anger and yet he makes me laugh regardless. That is a well defined character. I think out of all the characters in the show I identify with Kyle the most because he is always bashing Cartman for being racist, insensitive, and just fat. Without Kyle, Cartman would not be half as funny as he is on the show.

But the title of my post is profanity. Why? They curse on that show a LOT. I think the fact that they say the f-word uncensored in later seasons is a good indication that they push for linguistic freedom. In fact, if you've ever seen the movie, they have an entire song dedicated to the f-bomb. Yet the show is still hilarious... more hilarious than any show that has extreme censorship. I think it has to do with freedom of speech's affect on the writers. They don't believe in censorship, so the genius of their scriptwriting shines through in its true nature. They have more tools, and because of that they can cross all sorts of borders that other scriptwriters can't. You can express anger and shock ten times better with swear words.

I haven't cursed since middle school. I can't say it's been a good decision, but it was a conscious one. I made it a rule to not even use "substitutional" words such as 'freak' or 'heck'. Nothing. Looking back, I think this was a stupid decision. Sure, it saved my hide and people respect what I say... but what good is that? In the end my personality remains as evident as those censored cartoons ended up, dull and bland. Even when I'm angry, I can't express it properly and so it becomes unfamiliar territory for me to express anger through words. And yeah, I started using substitutionary words anyway. So what's the difference?

I started cursing again in my mind in mid high school. It became a habit and sometimes I would habitually think it when something terrible happened. Sometimes I would utter partial curse words and stop myself after the first two letters. But I think that the fact that we have these words is evident that our friends are invaluable to us. After all, if you were alone and had no one to talk to, could you hold in the feelings of anger, joy, or shock without saying a word? Words aren't there just to implant an message into those around us, words are there for us to express ourselves. Profanity is just a small part of those words, and if we ignore those we live in denial of our frustrations and angers... and if we live in denial long enough we may lose that part of our personality when we actually rightly need it.

We should always filter the words we say but we should never filter who we are and how we feel.