Okay, let me 'splain...no there is too much. Let me sum.

Basically I'm talking about my summer. It has been a wild adventure to say the least. As I mentioned in my last post (which is also the only post I've made all summer do to general laziness) I spent the summer in the nation's capital, Washington D.C. (actually just outside of it in Maryland, a mere metro ride away). So where should I begin?

Well obviously I can just start with the beginning of the summer. After finishing a mini-term at school, I made a quick drive back home to spend a day with my family and unload some things I wouldn't be needing. Then my sister and I set off on a road trip that would take us from here to Maryland (almost coast to coast). It took three hard days driving, but we were able to save money by staying with family on the way out there so it wasn't too bad.

After we made it out there, my sister spend the remainder of the week touring DC with us before she flew home on Saturday. We went to places like Mount Vernon, the National Zoo, made a trip to the Natural History Museum to watch Night at the Museum 2 on an IMAX screen, went to the National Archives, etc. We packed a lot in for the three days we had there. It was a little difficult coming off of the long drive with little sleep but we made it work and had a great time doing it.

Then comes the post-Chelsea time of the summer. This is where the real work of finding a job began. After about a week of searching I finally found a place that was willing to interview me and I was hired. It's really hard to explain what it is I did though.... It basically boiled down to these three words: I sell knives. Yeah...I know. Sounds really weird. If you must know I work for a company called Vector Marketing selling Cutco. They advertised a flexible job for college students and it hasn't turned out to be that bad so far.

As far as other highlights for my summer, I was able to check out so much more of DC than can even be seen in a week. I was surprised with tickets to VGL as well as many other things.

Now we are at the end of the summer. I once again spent three days driving across the country, this time with Erin, to spend the last week of the summer at my house before going back to school for another year. Bottom line: I would do it all over again if given the choice. There just isn't anything quite like it.

Is That All, Stranger?

"Hehehehehe, thank you."

For those of you who don't know, I'm spending the summer in the Washington D.C. area. As part of my experience I get to spend evenings playing video games with my girlfriend's brother. That quote I just did is from the one we are currenty playing. It is, in my opinion, one of the best survival horror games ever made, and overall one of the best games there is to play. I am actually working on my 8th time through it.

This is our third game to beat this summer. We already beat Halo 3 and Gears of War 2 (The former of which I had already beaten, the latter had never played). It's funny how I am once again staying up late on a regular basis to play video games. I haven't done it this regularly since I was in early high school. I have also noticed how much harder it is to stay up late like this again. I may be a night owl but my eyes have a harder time staring at a screen than they used to. Even typing this is a challenge. But I cannot seem to stop this strong urge to relive the glory days.

And I just realized as I was typing this that I don't know what my point is in telling you all of this or why I'm even writing about it in the first place. I guess just sitting here and watching it happen in front of me made me want to share it with all of you. Plus I haven't updated this in a while so I figured I needed to put SOMETHING on here. If nothing else, hopefully I was able to stir up some feelings about an old habit of yours that you think might be fun to revisit every once in a while. Everybody had (or still has) one. Maybe you could think about revisiting it.

“The unreal is more powerful than the real, because nothing is as perfect as you can imagine it. because its only intangible ideas, concepts, beliefs, fantasies that last. stone crumbles. wood rots. people, well, they die. but things as fragile as a thought, a dream, a legend, they can go on and on.”
-Chuck Palahniuk

Until next time....

Men on a Mission....

We were two men on a mission. We had set our course and it looked to be headed to complete disaster. The goal: make an adaptation project for Intro to Lit. The result: one Grits music video. *Insert climactic yet foreboding theme music*

We spent a lot of time debating our projects. Normally we are supposed to do individual projects, but when the bright idea of doing a Grits music video came to my mind, we couldn't resist asking if a "group" project could be turned in. Obviously she said yes.

Okay, background:
At first it was a sort of joke. We weren't really that serious about doing a music video. We knew we could do the acting in the video. We knew we could memorize the song. What we weren't sure we could do would be secure a camera and edit the video properly. That is where my friend Korey came in. He not only had an HD camera, but he also had incredibly high end video editing software which he used to regularly edit and create promo videos.

Now, in this Intro to Literature class we were to study literature, obviously. But...the class took a turn I didn't expected. Little did I know I would spend the next four months in Literature hell. Not so much because of the class; I could complete the class. It was the professor. I could make an entirely new blog much longer than this about the things wrong with the professor of that class. I'm not going to go into it here. Just know she drove all of us nuts.

Part of what is now considered literature is the category of music videos. They tell a story so they are considered literature. Fair enough. So part of our final project, which was either a traditional research paper about an already created adaptation (i.e. Lord of the Rings) or to create our own adaptation (i.e. making a poem into a comic book graphic novel.

So, as you already know, we made a music video. And here is the part where I stop talking about it and just show you the final project. I'll show you the video Grits made first and then our version of the song. Enjoy...or don't enjoy, whichever the case may be.

The Grits video:


And now our version:


There you go. And, as I got out of the habit of providing a quote for the end of my blog, there you go.

"The man who smiles when things go wrong has thought of someone to blame it on."
- Robert Bloch

Until next time....

Insomnia

I am alone. And when I am alone I tend to be an insomniac. It's how it's always been. I find random reasons to stay up all hours of the night. I don't really need to. But even when I make plans ahead of time to go to sleep early something comes up. I'm not sure why I do it. Maybe it's because when I'm alone for long periods of time I tend to feel very lonely. Not something I'm very fond of. And when I'm lonely I feel the need to occupy my time with random things. I could go to bed but then I just lay in bed wishing I had something better to do.

Tonight the objects of my time were old cartoons. I have a few shows that I watched as a kid that I would still watch today if they were running. The one I chose to watch tonight was Batman Beyond.

Now if you don't know me, I have randomly picked up the Batman symbol as something I use to identify myself with on a regular basis. Not sure why. I do know that the idea stemmed from a love for Batman.

I came in on the tail era of Batman: the Animated Series and was on my way to leaving cartoons behind when Batman Beyond came out. I remember more about Batman Beyond simply because I was older when it came out. I also loved the idea of a futuristic Batman. Because a lot of what Batman did had to do with his gadgets, having a whole slew of new gadgets based on future technology enhanced who he was.

Anyway, that is enough for tonight. Join me next time when I decide to stay up late and blog about Jackie Chan Adventures. Just kidding. No really...it actually could happen if something good doesn't happen this week...

Until next time....

Our Whole Universe...

...was in a hot dense state was interrupted by a speech. Yes. Big Bang Theory is not on tonight. Why? Because CBS deemed it a good idea to air Obama's speech about the economy lots of different things (thanks to people who deem it good to talk about the economy and then ask a random question about Iran). So I guess I can just blog about the show. What else am I going to do?



So basically I can say if you haven't watched this show you need to...right now. Okay not right now because the President is on. But as soon as you get the chance, you need to watch this show. There are many reasons for this. I mean, look at this screenshot and tell me if it doesn't look at least interesting to watch once.



You can't see that and not be at least a little interested to see how they got to that point.

So here is the basic theme of the show: 4 really really smart guys who are incredibly socially awkward interacting with a girl who is a social butterfly but barely passed high school. She lives in an apartment across the hall from two of the smart guys (though it may as well be all four because the other two are always there).

Now take those 5 characters, add an occasional guest star, and put them in normal, everyday situations. And there you have Big Bang Theory. Go watch it, and sin no more...or something like that.

Update: They showed it later at 8:30. So we didn't miss it completely. And yes, it was funny.


Until next time....

Snow days?

Believe it or not my school has had two days in a row of no school. The cause: snow. Lots and lots of freezing rain and snow. The campus looks beautiful in the absence of classes and the addition of snow. Since my girlfriend wanted to see some pictures, I took my new camera out for a test drive and snapped a couple shots of the view from what has been deemed by the students as "Snowbarger Lawn."

So all in all isn't a bad show for this part of the country. It gets cold, but usually all it brings is some freezing wind and a whole lot of groans from students who have to brave the weather to get to their classes. But with snow on the ground and little to no wind, it is actually bearable. Now if I was a good student, I would have spent today catching up on homework in anticipation of tomorrow. But I held out, hoping for a second snow day, and my wish was granted. So now I can take this day and either a) goof off more or b) catch up on homework. I hope to be studious and do homework but we'll see what kind of distraction fights for my attention.

Until next time...

StumbleUpon Round 2!

Okay, some of you may remember a little post I made last October about a little tool for Firefox called StumbleUpon. I won't go into much detail in this post since you all either already know about it or can read about it through the link I just posted. Bottom line, it's addicting. More addicting than anything you can think of (unless you thought that StumbleUpon is the most addicting thing there is. Then you're either right, or if my statement is true, then StumbleUpon is even more addicting than itself. Mind blowing concept...).

Basically I just wanted to give you a few more links to some neat stuff I found through this Firefox add-on. So here you go:

Some High Def wallpapers for those of you looking to replace your current inferior backgrounds

Shirts for all of you geeks out there...you know who you are!

Tired of the music you purchase on iTunes being locked for other people? If you're willing to read a little, here is your solution.

Turn your photos into a TiltShift photo And if you want to know what TiltShift Photography is, here is a good source.

For some humor in your life...

So there you go. Some cool and interesting things to look at. And as always, if you want more all you have to do is ask. I have a whole portfolio of stuff I could show you. I'm telling you, the wonderful well that is StumbleUpon has barely been tapped. That program has limitless power!


Until next time...

I'm Bored....

...therefore I blog. It feels like we just started school and we are already at the end of week two, poised to conquer week number three. It has gone by incredibly quickly; I just hope this pattern continues until the end of the semester.

So what do I do when I'm bored? The usual stuff: video games, watching television, counting the number of stones in my wall (224), or write a blog. I know people don't really read this blog, but it does serve as a place to deposit my random thoughts from the day.

I already redid the blog layout. No more winter look. So I built a new banner and color scheme to go with it. It is simple, but I like it. A simple picture of a waterfall can be manipulated in many different ways. This is just one simple one.

So welcome to the new year. It will hopefully be full of blogs and exciting random things to explore.


Until next time....