HOLY SHIT! YOU GOT YOUR RAINBOWS AND MOTHERFUCKING UNICORNS IN MY ESPN!

So, yeah. As it turns out, ESPN has been unicorn'd. You may think I'm crazy, but it's true!!! LOOK!!!

Go, and look at the page. Once you've done that, enter the Konami Code (Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right b, a), and hit enter. UNICORNS AND RAINBOWS!!!

Ah, I love when the internet does awesome stuff.


So, anyway, bloggin' tiemz. So, not much new since my last post. Except for, well, STATES. HOLY SHIT. It was awesome! Except for the parts where I actually needed to do work. But still! Awesome!

So, it all started with a long-ass bus ride on Thursday up to Albany. As it turns out, once you're past the Bronx, New York is nothing but highways and farmland until you hit Albany. Which, while a nice change of scenery, can get pretty damn monotonous after a while. But, at least I wasn't next to anyone intolerable. Although he did steal my phone, call a friend of mine, and call his mom hot. Yeah...thankfully, the person understood that.

So, get to the hotel, go eat some dinner; what are a few teenage guys to do? Why, run to Kmart and buy useless shit! $5 knockoff nerf guns are so goddamn much fun to shoot people with.

Anyway, the next day, things don't start 'til 4:00. So, we all have time to chill, get some nomz, all of that. 'tis quite nice and relaxing.

Aaaand, later on, we start the first rounds. I suck. BAD. My first speech, I have no sources or citations to go on, and have to BS the whole thing. Kinda the same with my next one. And, a tiny bit more of the same with my third. So, not too bad.

Oh, wait, forgot to mention; by the time this whole ting is done, it's 10:00, and I still haven't gotten any dinner. So, quick ride back to the hotel, before the REALLY stupid shit goes down. Anyway, what fast food joint is the perfect cure for the midnight munchies? WENDY'S!!! And, there happened to be one right nearby!

...if by nearby you mean "Across a crosswalkless, busy pseudo-highway that it's a terrible idea to run across." Of course, the most logical course of action was taken. RUN IT! GOGOGOGO!!! Which turned out okay...'til we found out Wendy's was closed. So, we had to run back across the street, down an incline, and into McDonald's, where we finally got some food.

Now, it's the next morning. At 5:00 AM. I had gone to sleep at 1:00. Yeah...I wasn't happy, to understate things. Furthermore, I didn't even get any breakfast! Greaaaat.

So, on no sleep and an empty stomach, my team walks into Albany High School. Things start up, and, like magic, I'm doing something I never thought was possible; not sucking! (Shocking, no?) Talk about tea parties and the Mexican drug trade, all that good stuff. But, I get the feeling that 2 good speeches won't make up for 3 terrible ones, and I start getting ready for impromptu, which I'm confident I'll do okay in. Due to the fact that I'm A+ Pro at going on about random bullshit for as long as necesssary But, a tweest!!!

For some reason, I made it to Semi-Finals. Yeah...I guess I didn't suck as badly as I thought I did. Surprising! Go into the prep room, get a question that can be directly answered by an article in Newsweek. Great. But, I only have enough info for half a speech! So, where do I get the other half? I'll let TvTropes speak for me on this one. It ends up not going very well. But, what're you going to do?

Well, if you're me, you're going to find people to chill with! Doing this was probably one of the better decision I made this weekend. I ended up meeting a person with an awesome hat, for example. Who, in the end, turned out to be more awesome than their hat. Which is saying a lot, given the awesomeness involved here. Oh, and I watch a random guy recite both the Shamwow and the Slap-chop commercial. From memory. With a perfect Vince imitation. EPIC.

So, yeah. That was states. I went, took a bus, made some shit up, got called on it, was last place in semi-finals, and had a great time with it. Overall, that was great.

Hey, Teacher! Leave them kids alone!

(Pink Floyd, in honor of 4/20. Yeah, they're not stoners, but a whole hell of a lot of stoners listen to them. And, any excuse to listen to Pink Floyd is worth taking up.)

Anyway, long story, but today I got to pondering how people become involved in the lives of others. And, how matters of marriage come into the equation.

Let me preface this with something that, in an ideal world, would be needless; I am completely straight. So, now that that's out of the way; same-sex marriage!

Apparently, Gov. Patterson is currently considering putting forward legislation that would allow same-sex marriage in New York. Personally? I'm all for it! IMO, if both parties are consenting adults, it doesn't matter what gender they are. It's not my place to tell people whether they can or can't get married. Furthermore, denying same-sex couples the right to marry is creating a double standard that I just can't support. Nothing makes love between a man and a woman any more valid than between a man and a man or a woman and a woman. Love is love is love. And, you can't mess with love.

Some of the arguments against same-sex marriage are ridiculously stupid. Example being the complaints about weakening straight marriage. Buddy, if your marriage is weak enough that allowing people to have some basic, essential rights breaks it apart, then your marriage wasn't that great to start with. Furthermore, the argument that it's unnatural. If it was unnatural, would it turn up in the animal kingdom? Yeah, think not. Hell, even if it was unnatural, who cares? Is it really hurting you? Why, no, it seems that it wouldn't!

So, yeah. New York Gov? Do the right thing; give New York same-sex marriage!

If Music be the food of love, I'm hungry. When can I eat?

(Why, yes, I DID misquote Shakespeare terribly in my title, thanks for noticing! Again, stealing from the brilliant to help the dull.)

By now, you're probably somewhat bored of me and...well, me. So, what may be the least boring aspect of myself; my tastes in music! I'm just gonna shamelessly plug some bands that I like because...well, it's fun! (Also, if you introduced me to/got me obsessed with them, I'll mention it. *cough*youknowwhoyouare*cough*. This is by no means a complete litany of my tastes; I just thought it might be fun to talk about a tiny sector of the music I like. :D

Anyway, off to the races!


The Beatles

This should not need any explanation. But, I shall anyway! One of, if not the, biggest bands from the "British Invasion" of the 60's. Starting off as fun to listen to, if somewhat sterile, pop, they later came out with psychedelic powerhouses, and, well, just plain decided to go from great, to Godly. I'm not saying that John, Paul, George and Ringo deserve sainthood, but...

While My Guitar Gently Weeps. If you haven't heard this song yet, go listen to it right now. It isn't my favorite song ever, but it's damn close. It's beautiful.


Led Zeppelin

The pioneers of Heavy Metal, Led Zeppelin is probably best known for their epic "Stairway to Heaven". And, for good reason; the song rocks so damn hard it's almost unbelievable. ESPECIALLY the guitar solo. I'm always amazed at the end; even though I've listened to it a countless number of times, it still retains a strong gleam of majesty, a feeling that, when I'm listening to it, it's something that I can never fully get a grasp for. Of course, that's just one of their songs. I'd advise you to go out and immediately buy "Mothership", their "Best-of", but I legitimately don't think it comes close to capturing everything that's good about them. I mean, it has "Dazed and Confused", yes, which is a great song. But, while Dazed and Confused sits on the album at a decent 6 and change, there are live versions that are almost half an hour long. It's stuff like that which makes the band legendary.

Stairway to Heaven.

Iron Maiden

What Led Zeppelin started with Heavy Metal, Iron Maiden took to a whole new level. From "The Trooper" to "Aces High", their songs have a relentless, assaulting feel that takes one in, and just holds so much sheer power as to be almost unbelievable. Their music doesn't just run, or meander along; it gallops.

Run To The Hills is probably their best known song; not my favorite (That distinction belongs to Fear Of The Dark), it's still an incredible song, which demonstrates their style nicely.


World/Inferno Friendship Society (Thanks, Marnie!)

OH MY GOD AWESOME. As a wise sage once said, "Punk Cabaret is freedom". It's almost impossible to classify them as any one genre. Unless that genre is "Epic Win". Which isn't a very conclusive classification, due to the fact that it extends to tons of bands. They do a lot of interesting and awesome things with their music; and they do all of them extraordinary well. Lots of great stuff to go on. For example...

Secret Service Freedom Fighting USA- a great song, which I once quoted in my status. For some reason, a guy I know assumed that I had accidentally knocked someone up. A strange assumption, given, well...me.


The Dresden Dolls (Thanks AGAIN, Marnie!)

Again, a band that could be classified as "punk cabaret". They're also ridiculously awesome; go figure! The piano seems less like an instrument, and more like a third member of the band. It careens, sprints, explodes with passion. Amanda's voice is melodic, beautiful, with occasional touches of insanity to awesomeify** the mood. And Brian, the drummer, is possibly the epitome of being an enthusiastic, off-kilter, 110% invested in it musician. He doesn't play the drums; he owns them. (He also happens to do drums for W/IFS. Which is impressive; how is he involved in so much awesome stuff?). Amanda's also been involved in some other stuff for that matter; her solo album is astoundingly good.

Awesome performance by the Dolls on Jimmy Kimmel. The non-live versions are a bit less rough around the edges, but it's more than worth it to see how into their music both Amanda and Brian are. Props for that.

Amanda Palmer's youtube page. She made a music video for every one of the songs on her solo album, which happens to have been produced by Ben Folds. All of the videos are available on youtube, which is awesome.

So, there you have it! A small sample of my general tastes in music. Not terribly exciting or shocking...but I thought it'd be fun to do!


Now, to play us out, a great live version of Ava Adore!. Well, technically speaking, I should be thanking the Zoe half, for naming Ava after such a good song..

From Schrödinger's Vault, the tales of...THE (un)AMAZING ENNUIMAN!

So, third entry in three days. I'm on a rapid pace! If only I had time to do this during the normal school year. Anyway, on to more matters of myself, just in case you're not bored enough already. (On a related note, I'm thinking of making a vocal recording of my blog posts, and using them for profit. I mean, this stuff would be PERFECT for curing insomniacs!)

Sometimes, I feel like a weird paradox. I'm both one thing, and another entirely. I feel stupid at school and with some of my friends; appear to be the brainy nerd when I'm with others. For example, while hanging out with some friends, we were joking about how stuffed animals would reproduce, due to the fact that they're...yeah. I was going to suggest asexual reproduction, such as mitosis. I said osmosis. Was I sure holding the idiot ball that day!* In fact, I don't hold the idiot ball; it seems I wear it. Sort of like idiot pants, I guess. It's not so much that I occasionally drop the idiot ball; I just occasionally forget my idiot pants, and make it through the day with some semblance of intelligence. As soon as I realize I wasn't an idiot for a day, I know why. And, I soon end up accidentally re-dressing myself into my idiot pants, thus resetting the status quo. Oh, of note, the idiot pants have nothing to do with my actual pants. In fact, I'm usually wearing pants when I've forgotten the idiot pants. On the flipside, hearing Bizarre Love Triangle does not instantly make me smarter. But, you more or less get the point.

Anyway, paradoxes! Right! Another is that, sometimes, I feel like an unfortunate paradox between being too open, and not open enough. I trust my friends quite a bit; with many of them, I'm quite open, willing to talk about matters that some would consider too personal to reveal. Of course, there are things that I hold "close to the vest" so to speak, things that I've never really revealed. I mean, I'm perfectly alright in sketchy/hilarious conversation with my friends, but when it comes to "liking" people, my openness suddenly changes. I mean, even mentioning it to friends who don't know the person has been something I've only found myself able to do recently; revealing it to friends of the person being even harder; and I've only been able to bring myself to tell the actual person once. I'd very much like to be able to; I think my greatest fear is, well, me. It's like how I pointed out that I honestly don't think I'm awesome. I just find it hard to believe, sometimes, that people could see anything in me, before or after me revealing things like that to them. Of course, that's me being too closed off; on the other hand, I've probably made some mistakes in the past about being too open. Overall, in the cases where I've revealed feelings to people, be it the person proper or someone otherwise, I can't think of a case where I regret it. However, I've always had a bit of a tendency to second guess myself. Thus, I'll have times where I look back, and begin to over-analyze what I've said. "Should I have said that? I shouldn't have. Great, now I've done it!", thoughts like that. It's never going to help, but I've never been able to stop those feelings of over-openness.

So, there you have it. I'm not just boring, I'm a boring, and contradictory! Isn't this blogging stuff fun? :D

*-This is a reference to the trope page "Idiot Ball", of TVtropes fame. Now, this link, while completely safe for work, is EXTREMELY non-productivity safe. If you're the kind who is easily addicted to browsing/editing wikis, this site will suck up all your spare time, and then some. Here be wiki-dragons.

Just Want You To Know Who I Am

I lead a double life, it seems. Unfortunately for those of you with active imaginations, I'm not a nigh immortal stuntman-by-day, nigh immortal spandex-wearing crimefighter by night. (Which would probably be hella awesome, to be honest.) No; I'm much less exciting. By whenever-my-parents-are-around, I'm a mild-mannered nerd with a smile too big for any emoticon than a :D. The rest of the time, I'm, well a mild-mannered nerd with an addiction to the :D face, some very eclectic tastes in music, and awesome friends. Doesn't seem too different, right?

Yeah. Well, I forget to mention that the "rest of the time" me has a procrastination addiction, girl troubles, school troubles, a constant sense of longing, an inability to accept complements, and a whole host of other stuff. The "parents" me has just the procrastination and school issues.

So, why do I create these separate facades? The answer is quite simple. It's easier. You may object, "But how can directing your energy into living two lives be easier than one?". Quite easily, actually. The simple truth is that, if I had to deal with my parents being able to see my "rest of the time" life, I don't think I'd be able to do anything at all. They'd be quite surprised, to say the least.

To my parents, I present confidence, joviality, general satisfaction with life. My problems begin and end with school, more or less. My romantic life? Yeah, right! And, my friends? Nerds, just as socially awkward, boring, and quirky in the same was as I!

My non-parental life? I'm confident, jovial, and satisfied; however, that doesn't stop me from feeling like a total wreck or failure sometimes. I mean, it's weird; when I feel like a failure, I'm either in a very bad mood, or appear to be in a great mood. Mainly because I find it therapeutic to laugh at myself. Yes, that sounds somewhat strange. But, I figure; I'm either going to be depressed, or laughing. Might as well go with the more fun one! Also, in reality, I do have somewhat of a love life, if by "Love life" you mean "Series of realizations that I'm kind of pathetic, and just generally boring, which explains a lot about the lack of much going in this one respect." Oh, and my friends? In reality, they're the quirky, cool, non-socially-awkward ones, who surprisingly still hang out with me. (I've said that before, but I'm still honestly surprised I've found such awesome friends, both at school, and elsewhere.)

So, yeah. By day, I'm not much of a man. By night? Actually, to be honest, I'm still not much of a man, even then. I'm just still more or less pretty boring. But I'm pretty sure you already knew that. :D

Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Today, I took a walk. I wondered silently to myself, "How am I?". This blog post may or may not answer that, but it may help.

To begin, yes, that is a Douglas Adams reference. I figure, hey, how can I make my writing look instantly attractive and enticing? Why, build off the success of someone infinitely more awesome than I! Of course, being more awesome than me isn't saying much. Kind of like saying that you're taller than a two-year-old when you play in the NBA. Of course, I digress.

You may have realized by now that I sometimes don't think too highly of myself. You may see this as a sign of bigger issues, or of my needing some mental help. To be honest, I hope it isn't. I'm not trying to be negative, or depressive; I'm just trying to be honest. Which is why I express incredulity at being called cute, or funny, or awesome. It's because I don't think that those things are true about myself. Thankfully, I've found a way to compensate for my lack of awesomeness, cuteness, intelligence, wit, etc. I surround myself with awesome, smart, and witty people. Some of whom happen to be quite adorable/cute (You know which ones you are.) In fact, if you're reading this, you're probably one of those people. Smart, witty, etc. that is. You may be one of the cute ones, too. Again, digressing here. (I do that a lot.)

Three paragraphs into my first post, and I haven't even started talking about what I originally set out to: my life. Unless you count my opinion of myself as part of my life. And now I may just be wasting space. So, before you lose interest, let me talk about myself. If you're still interested, this should do the trick and convince you otherwise.

Anyway, I was not born in a log cabin; like countless others, I was born in a hospital. I entered my "dinosaur phase" early, and am yet to leave it. Which links into a vital experience of my life: CTY '07. It's the summer after 8th grade, and when it began I was quite angsty. I was leaving behind the people who had basically made up the entirety of my friends for the past four years, and entering a whole new world, High School. Of course, then I got to CTY. Saying that it was awesome and life changing would be an enormous understatement. I came out of it a much different person. Oh, also, I became the worst kind of liberal for a little while. (Many, if not most, liberals are genuinely good people. Just sayin'.) Specifically, the kind who looks at conservatives as all being worthless wastes of air, and who isn't for gay marriage. (Now, as a moderate, I realize that both sides have their points on different issues. Except for gay marriage. There isn't anything correct/logical on the side against it. All the arguments against it suck. (I should probably get off of the political tangents now. Oh, and I probably shouldn't use nested parentheses.)). Anyway, after that, comes Freshman year. Oh man was that a year to remember. I made great friends, had some great experiences, and was generally somewhat happy. Then, comes the summer.

It's scary now to believe that I almost ended up at Siena, first session. I was originally going to go to Lancaster, first session, electrical engineering. Of course, because I didn't get my course selection in soon enough, by the time I was choosing, only Siena had electrical engineering open. My Mom was going to make me go there. Of course, I had my heart set on LAN. My mom was angry at this; I was choosing based on the people, instead of the course. When I was making the decision, I was insisting I was genuinely interested in the course, and wasn't just going to LAN for the people. Now, after meeting those people, my response would be "So what? I'm going for the people. Fine. I'll admit that. Maybe I'm valuing the people over the course. But, it's the people who make CTY great, not the course." Of course, I digress again.

So, LAN! OH MY LORD BEST ANYTHING EVER. I go, and it's not what I expected. It's so very very much more. It's love. Who can imagine anything like this? The people are awesome, the food less so, and I have a smashing good time. I meet a ton of awesome people, and if I met you at CTY and you got through this from Twitter, then you're most definitely one of them. In fact, if I met you at CTY, and you're reading this, you're one of them. I end up in complicated situations, but it's so worth it.

Anyway, we're progressively getting closer to the current day. School starts, and it's great. Well, as great as school can be. People are still good, most of the freshmen I meet are awesome (including a CTYer), and I end up with a Facebook. Which happens to be the reason this is being written. Thanks to Facebook, I have contact! Inspiration! Ability to attend...

REUS! Oh man, reus. I don't know what to even say about them. Looking forward to them has saved me from insanity many a tough right-before-vacation week. Of course, they're also why I'm occasionally a very sad person. But, overall, I'm glad I have them. Plus, I'm pretty sure that I can blame myself for all those bad times. And, isn't that what matters?

Anyway, that's more or less me. Pretty boring, but with one good skill: finding cool people to hang out with. If you feel that I've wasted your time in bringing you to this realization, that's my fault. So, overall, I'm...good. :D