Tomorrow, but for real

"A man falls in love through his eyes, a woman through her ears." - Woodrow Wyatt (1918~) English Journalist

I have this weird feeling inside me, I don't know what it is. It kind of feels like motivation. It feels like it has been a while since I have truly had that feeling. The problem is that feelings like this are fleeting, so I'm going to wait and see how long it lasts before getting entangled in some new project(s). It could also be the copious amount of caffeine I had this morning, so who knows. I am getting a lot of things done though and that always feels good.


This weekend I went downtown to hang out with my friend Oscar and his girlfriend. We checked out a new bar that I had never been to, but really liked. It was the first time I met his girlfriend and she ending up being a pretty cool chick. I always hope I make a good impression, but usually I'd rather just be me. I tend to ask a lot of questions when I meet new people, so I got to learn a lot about her background and their story together. I had an enjoyable night hanging out with them and they even invited me to go to Stubbs the following day to check out her brother's rock show. So her 15 year old brother is like a guitar prodigy and on Sunday night I got to see exactly why I had read all those amazing things about him online. He was also the lead singer of the band. The rock band was a little heavier than I expected, but I was amazed at his guitar playing skills and the fact he wrote those songs. I want to say the kid is gifted, but that might discount his hard work. He has an impressive road ahead of him.

'Unfriend' Is Oxford Dictionary's 'Word Of The Year'. I think it is a fitting word to win this year. The definition of the verb is just as you’d expect: “To remove someone as a ‘friend’ on a social networking site such as Facebook.” Several other tech and social media centric word choices were considered, including hashtag, sexting, freemium, and paywall. I'll be sure to talk about sexting another time. I've had my fair share of "unfriending" experiences in my short online social experience. First, I removed all my family members that were kids and too young to be online. 13 might be the cut off, but 18 and below and you are out in my book. I thought it would be nice at first to have this window into their world, but I was totally mistaken. First of all, they shouldn't read the sexist and adult comments that happen to find their way on my page. And more importantly, I don't want to read the filth they and their friends post on their own pages. Seriously, I want to shoot myself sometimes. It is like the idea of these kids as young innocent sweet teens is changed to obnoxious perverts who post way too many self pics. I think all their friends are bad influences and man the boys get started on the shady and douchy at such a young age. I don't have the energy to police that shit, so I just do what my mom did raising us as kids, just pretend it isn't happening and live in my own imaginary world where they aren't at all like me at that age. I will say, if I was a parent, I'd be all over my kid's page judging them and their friends trying to micromanage their choices until I learned how fruitless that approach probably is. I know, I'll probably be lazy about it.

On the same topic, the following article is great and very relatable: 12 Great Tales of Un-Friending. I will say that there are legit reasons to unfriend a person. One example I think is usually after you date a person and it doesn't work out, but you still give a shit. It seems petty, but I think it works on two levels. One, it stops your stalker like tendancies that make you join social networks to begin with and two, it gives you the freedom to move on. I'm sorry, but if I'm going about my day and I get a facebook update that the girl I was really into is about to go on a cruise with some guy, it is going to dampen my mood. Now if it wasn't a big deal, then yeah, my test is if I care to see the posts of guys hitting on her wall. If I don't mind, then it's cool. Maybe I'm too much of a believer of see no evil, hear no evil in many facets of my life. Then there is the person that farms too much, you know who you are. Though I may be guity of this sometimes. Turn the updates part off. I will say the "hide" feature has worked great on removing the too many applications posters while keeping them as my friends who I can still talk to. The cool thing is that of all the people that may have 'unfriended' me, I don't really know who they are or if they did remove me cause its not like you take roll. So its not like people feel bad when they are removed for the most part.

What I will say about Facebook is that on my 2nd and 3rd level friends that I know in passing or only through Facebook, over time you feel like you get to know them better. Questions I would never ask, like how many kids they have or whatnot, you find out over time and sometimes it paints a cool picture of someone you only thought you had an idea about. I think I've made some good friends of people I didn't know too well to begin with. Though I do have a few friends who don't know me and who I don't really know, but we have friends in common and if that was enough for facebook to suggest them, then its enough for me to have them as my 4th level friends.

On a final note, the new sexiest man was named today. I already forget who. Once again I did not win that honor, so maybe I should stop formally applying. This is what I think is bullshit, they change it every year. If you are the sexiest person, I think you should be dethroned like in boxing. The headlines should be, "So and So no longer sexiest man, grew ugly goatee and New So and So has moved up and taken the title." It just makes it mean less I think if a different person gets it each year. I will note that 3 people have gotten it more than once. I know this is just sour grapes though. Maybe next year.

meet me halfway

Fading Away

"Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much of life. So aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something." - Henry David Thoreau

I have a long quiet drive to work each morning. It is all back roads and takes about half an hour. I'm driving out in the country so I usually space off and get lost in my thoughts while I'm still half asleep. It is a nice way to start to day because its a tranquil commute alone with my thoughts, although I wouldn't complain if it was shorter. One of the things that slows me down other than the 55mph max speed limits, is that I have to drive through 3, count them 3, school zones. This morning I noticed that they are building another elementary school along my 22mile route. This means that I'll soon have 4 school zones to get through in the morning. That is a lot of kids to try not to hit, even though I've never seen a kid crossing the street in a school zone in my life. Maybe it would work out if I had kids and I needed to drop them off at school. I need to find a place much closer to work I think.

Have you ever woken up from a dream and thought that it would have made a really boring movie. Usually I wake up and the memories of my adventures in imagination land make me question what powers or events actually did or did not happen. Damn, I think as I'm waking up that all my dreams came true and then they slip away into the forgotten fog of the fading false memory. Then there are mornings, like this morning, when I wake up and wonder why I was having such a boring and mundane dream. I'm glad that wasn't real I think to myself and then I feel like I wasted my night in some way. It goes hand in hand with the bad dream example where I awake to be glad that it wasn't real, but wonder why I have the residual emotional reaction to something that didn't really happen. Though, nothing beats the disappointment of waking from that dream where you finally got what you wanted or where she makes an appearance and you are ripped away by consciousness. It is those dreams I really enjoy, too bad last night was not one of those.

South Park this week was awesome. South Park takes on Glenn Beck. I could not stop laughing at the Beck parody and I liked it so much I watched it twice. I really liked the part about Avatar, since I didn't see that joke coming at all. I thought the Kill Smurfs idea was a dumb tangent and little did I know it was awesomely funny. You should check out WATCH: The 5 Funniest Glenn Beck Parodies Of All Time.

I found out this week that Dollhouse is Cancelled; Begins Journey to Nerd Martrydom . I'm not going to say I'm the biggest fan of the show, but I haven't missed an episode. I have been a Joss Whedon fan since Firefly and therefore was interested in his work on Dollhouse. The show was good, but not great. I wish it would have gotten another season. I wish when shows were canceled they would get money to film one last ending episode for viewers to tie things up. I hate for example how My Name Is Earl ended.

I'm glad the first time homebuyer tax credit was extended. It is still my goal to get my first home. I now have until April 30th. For some reason all I can think is that I want a house with an indoor jacuzzi. I think it would be nice to have. That and two stories. I think that would meet my requirements I set for myself as a child. The adult me has other requirements, like a shower instead of a tub and an island. Those pragmatic things I'll talk about when selection time comes nearer. This is definitely a leap of faith here and will take a huge blessing to become reality.

Oh, so I find out that the Austin Trail of Lights is going to be smaller but still free this year. That really sucks. It is one of those Austin events that I really enjoyed. I did like the event for more than a memory about an experience I had there with a girl (as my friend Christina correctly guessed), but also because of the way it really helped me get in the Christmas spirit. I don't know if I'll go this year since I feel like it can only be a let down. I think I would have rather had them charge (I know the recession) and do the full event than a smaller event. It just sucks I guess.

I say congrats because I worry I'm going to spell congratulations wrong.

Lone Wolf

"A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory." - Unknown

I wish I had Wednesday, Veteran's Day, off like government employees do. Anyway, today is one of those days where I feel like writing, but I don't really have anything pressing to say. Anything I've had to say, I think I've done my best to say in the normal course of events. I guess a lot has been going through my mind as of late, but nothing relevant or pressing. Nevertheless, I figured putting pen to paper would help me shake out the cobwebs.

Saturday night, Abram and I went to a comedy club to see Joe Rogan perform. I think he is a pretty cool guy and a good stand up comic. Cynthia and I saw him a year or two ago here in Austin and I enjoyed the show very much then. I was still feeling sick from my cold, but I was still able to make it out and have a few drinks. We got pretty cool seats near the front. It was his last show in Austin and I wondered if he would go all out on his last show or be burned out by then. I hear Thursday night was an awesome show where he went 2 hours 45 mins. (source: twitter). I had a great time and laughed a lot. After the show, Abram and I hung around to meet him. We shook his hand and I got a picture of Abram and him on my iPhone. It was a cool experience. Rogan is definitely a jack of all trades and I'm always amazed with his MMA knowledge. He is an asset to the UFC and is the source of most of what I have learned watching over the years.

How I Met Your Mother's episode, "The Rough Patch," this week was awesome. I was kind of worried that the show had been really dropping the ball plot wise when they just spun some amazing gold. Watching Barney become a fat slob is something I'm sure many people can relate to. You have to see the episode to fully appreciate it. I think I'm going to watch that episode again. I think it would be fun to a show's writer.

A friend reminded me today that my people are dispersed. There is a lot to be said for one's social network of friends. I value my independence and my alone time, but it sucks not always having your best friends around to talk about the randomness that is life. You know, to share adventures that you bring up years later as an epic story over drinks. I have so many of those memories, but I'm not making as many of them as routinely. I think I'm lucky I have some good friends here in Austin, but I should really expand my social group.

I feel like I'm always having to stop and reevaluate things every so often. It usually comes after a triggering event that puts a mirror up to my face. You'd figure I'd have it right by now and wouldn't have to be always taking stock of things going forward. Maybe it is a good periodic exercise, instead of just blindly moving forward without considering if you are truly doing your best. The problem is that the changes I make are usually too big, or even if the correct change, are just not sustainable over the long run. I slowly slide back into my past routines and habits and find myself starting all over again, or worse, waiting to start all over again. I don't mean to sell myself short, I think as I have grown, I have become a well rounded person adapting to life's lessons. I'm just not where I want to be, though part of me thinks I should just be content. Maybe it is just a function of expecting greatness. I think it is time to stop expecting greatness and start pursing it.

If you play poker you know that if you make the mathematically correct move under the correct circumstances, that even if the final cards draw out and make you lose in a big way, that you can't really question if you make the right call. It is when you make your call and you find out that you misread things, like what you put the other person on, then you need to adjust your approach. You just have to have faith in the long run. It is easy to get discouraged when you are drawn out on, but the next hand is new and independent. Of course you have the common problem of thinking you are making the right calls, but are actually making terrible uninformed calls and are sticking to your bad choices for hope they pan out in the long run. I think that describes many players, confident in their losing ways. The other concept I always found important was looking at the bigger picture than just this individual event. A high probability move that risks everything is a great decision late in a tournament and not so great a decision early on. So every decision you make can't be viewed in a vacuum.

I think I've hidden this far enough so that most people don't get here. I have to admit that the show Glee is pretty cool. As of right now, I don't much care for the plot and really just watch the music scenes, but the plot is starting to sneak its way in and each time I watch it and I watch more and more of each episode. This was a show I was wrong about and I think I'm a great judge of shows. I still feel I shouldn't like this type of show.

I need a new adventure

Restless

"A cynic is not merely one who reads bitter lessons from the past, he is one who is prematurely disappointed in the future." - Sydney J. Harris

Halloween weekend was a blast. The weekend could have had a somewhat better ending, but all in all it was a very good time. I dressed up as Max from Where the Wild Things Are after all my work putting the costume together. Abram dressed up as Wonkavision (A TV he told me) I think, but I didn't get to see the costume in action. Unlike last year where I purchased candy for the trick-o-treaters, this year, we just turned off the lights. I didn't think I would be around the house at the time, but I was home getting ready as the kids passed by. Our neighborhood is growing and there were a lot of kids out.

Friday night I went with Christina, Adriana and their brother Jorge to Six Flags for Fright Fest in San Antonio. I hadn't been to Six Flags since I was really young. For some reason I vividly remember the "Hasta la Vista" sign on the way out, that and the fact that it was in a canyon of sorts. We all dressed up in our costumes and headed for the park. Christina went dressed as a Greek Princess, but didn't wear her crown because of the roller coasters. Adriana went dressed as Malice, an evil Alice from Alice in Wonderland. She makes a good angry face. It was time to test the Max costume for more than ordinary wear and tear, but also 3G forces. It was cold, but thank goodness I was well insulated. I got a lot more attention than I was used to. It was very positive and I loved that the little kids really got it. They would call me Max as I walked by, though some would just yell "Whiskers!" One girl ran up to me and randomly gave me a hug. We road a few roller coasters and stayed until the they closed. We had a great picture on the Superman. I had a good time and then afterwards we headed out downtown to Howl at the Moon, a dueling piano bar. Piano bars are always so amazing. The lady who was playing there was pretty gifted. She could play, sing and even rock the drums. After last call we called it a night.

Saturday was Halloween and we went down to 6th Street in Austin to drink and see all the costumes. Christina went dressed as a Greek Goddess/Princess with her crown and Adriana went dressed as a French Maid. I don't know if you would append "sexy" to their costumes, but I think you could. They both looked great. The traffic driving down was packed. 6th Street was very crowded with people all wearing such amazing costumes. It is like a parade. Some of my favorites were Green Man, Balloon Boy's Dad and UP. I even ran into the characters from Where the Wild Things Are (picture above). Here is a link to our pictures from the night featuring some of those cool costumes: http://www.flickr.com/photos/hyadus/sets/72157622587401367/ Lessons were learned about patience, for everyone, including me. I was having such a good time I didn't even drink that much. I was hoping to see what a drunk stumbling Max would look like. We also had an extra hour to enjoy since there was the time change. That was cool. I had a great time and am glad I had great friends to spend the holiday with. That is always nice.

In older news, since I've been delayed on blogging, last weekend my father came up to visit my brother and I. He helped us re-install our electric fence. The dogs learned their lesson over a year ago when we first put it up and stopped digging out. We turned off the fence and they were trained to stay away. Well now they figured out it was off and tore it up and dug out and got picked up by the pound. $100 a dog to get them out, plus having the fix the fence they broke. That hurt. It was time to get things fixed up. We also got to watch the Texas game together. It was nice visiting with my father and I hope he had a good time.

In technology news, I upgraded my home PC to Windows 7. So far I like it, but it is taking me a bit to get use the new taskbar. Everything I read about it is really positive. I also finally got my 13in Macbook Pro. I don't know how I feel about my switch to Mac. I mean, I know so much about PCs and with the Mac I feel lost somewhat, but hopefully that will go away with time. I installed Windows 7 into bootcamp, but I'm trying not to hold on to it like a security blanket. I guess only time will tell. Either way, I have some computing work ahead of me. It feels a bit weird having Windows 7 at home, OS X on my Macbook and Windows Vista at work. Speaking of computers, I also fixed an old computer that I had around the house that I thought was done for. That felt good. Now I can give it back to my sister after getting it to work.

I don't know what it is, but I have been restless as of late. Part of me feels like I should be doing something, but I don't know exactly what that is. Maybe it is the idea of watching 30 approach and wondering if I am where I want to be. It is hard to think of any significant changes between Marty from a year ago and Marty from now...how about two years ago? I feel like I could have used the year to learn something new or pursue some new passions. Maybe I just feel like I am a man who hasn't lived up to his true potential. It is tragic really and not because I'm a failure of any sort, but because I haven't taken any real daring action. I haven't pushed the limits, tried things where I have failed. I've coasted through with accomplishments that were never really out of reach. I'm proud of myself, but I just want more and know that I am capable of so much more. What that more is, I should figure out soon. I just need to remind myself that this isn't enough.

an interesting character