#77 - listening to old people

do old people really know what they're talking about? i used to think not, because old people are just people like you and me who have been living longer, and there's no magic portal that shifts you from young adulthood (where, supposedly, you know nothing) and regular adulthood (where you're wise in the ways of the world or something). but lately it seems like the old people are right... annoyingly right all the frickin' time. here are some examples:

1) "if it was meant to be, then it'll happen, if it doesn't, then it wasn't meant to be..." - this one has to do with my place. the first lottery that i entered, i was so stoked to be getting a chance and i thought that would be my one and only chance at finally having my own place, but i got shot down and was totally bummed. it seemed like the LONGEST time between that rejection and finally getting a place, but really, it was within the span of only one year... which brings me to:

2) "you never know what'll happen..." - as in, just go for it, put yourself out there and see what develops. who knew that it would take me five lotteries plus someone else backing out of their contract to get me my new place? you can't plan that stuff out, but the end result is the same.

3) "it's always when you least expect it..." - man, i can't tell you how many times in the past year or so i've heard this one (probably because i work with a whole room full of substitute "moms" who give me motherly advice all day long), but damn it if it ain't turned out to be true. of course, it makes you wonder... is it the expecting things that make them not occur or is it that when you do no expecting then your brain doesn't take note of the time inbetween things occurring? why does this line seem to be so darn consistently true? it's confounding!!

anyway, the point is... maybe i should start to listen to old people. haha, why is it that they're so annoying right all the time. not that i'm complaining, because it seems like maybe i already know the answer to this. you take a look at the life that you've led so far, and how many dead-ends in your life have turned into wonderful opportunities? if you backtrack all the good things in your life and try to rediscover how you got to those points in the first place, how strange does it seem that you are where you are right now? could you fathom even the tiniest bit how things would turn out from even the most auspicious of those beginnings? what the crap is up with that? i've got TONS of situations like that! look how i ended up at my job (which right now is very good), just two years ago i was thinking about quiting, and a year before that i was trying to work up the courage to drop the program and career path entirely, and the four years before that i could not comprehend the idea that i might one day have a job and go to work everyday instead of being in school. how do lives get so incredibly twisted (in good and bad ways), yet somehow seem to turn out into such realistic, plausible, and sometimes wonderful everyday experiences?

that must be the good part about life huh?

#76 - over-react much?

so, you have a free afternoon, you flip on sportscenter and everyone's talking about his guy. at first you think, "what the crap?" and then you start laughing, and then he gets louder so you laugh more, and then it goes on for like 2 1/2 more minutes and by the time he was done i was on the floor gasping for precious air to breathe in so i can laugh more and not die.

and who the heck CLAPS after that?! HAHAHA!!

#75 - year of the dog

just watched "year of the dog." i like this kind of movie. low-key. it kinda takes a lot to get me interested in a movie, after having netflix and blockbuster pass and with my parents going nutsos renting like 15 movies a week i've learned to filter the crap movies from the good ones. so actually, i should rephrase that it takes very little to get me interested in a movie, that is, it takes only a little bit of well-made movie to get me to sit down and watch the whole thing (usually i'll give it about 10 minutes and if i'm not interested it's back in the postage-paid envelope for ye!). like this one, very simplistic, not a ton of music or dialogue, but good use of non-talking time and seemingly plain yet effective cinematography. not like i know anything about movie making or anything, but i think that quality work is when you don't notice the camera angles or special effects or movie-production extras. just a simple story very well executed. not too intellectual, actually a bit depressing, kinda wussy, but surprisingly uplifting. i liked it.

#74 - to whoever the crap is in charge of uh sports

to whoever the crap is in charge of the uh football schedule (aka herman fraizer),

so what good came out of scheduling charleston southern (aka the SECOND Div. I-AA team out of 12 games this year) really? let's list them:
1. rest colt
2. colt got to rest
3. no playing on a bum ankle for colt

that's it. "oh, but they got another 'w,'" you say? big whoop. so now they're 4-0 with two wins over two Div. I-AA teams. right.

"oh, but graunke got some good real game experience," you say? and the rest of us got a glimpse at uh football 2008... uh oh.

"oh, but we got to see the second and third string guys play and score and get confidence," you say? great. just what they need, MORE confidence, that way when they tackle someone for the first time maybe they can king kong their way to even more unsportsmanlike conduct penalties (poor dan kelly's right leg).

ah, well, i guess a win is better than a loss anyday huh?


on a related note: i would like to take this moment to publicly thank the new mexico state university women's volleyball team for:
1. actually existing
2. bolting from the sun belt conference (where they dominated almost as much as UH in the WAC)
3. joining the WAC
4. finally giving UH a worthy opponent in conference play and making the mid-season actually matter again

uh sports rant = the end.

#73 - humor

so i was watching snl tonight and it made me laugh. i think i tend to laugh for different reasons than other people, very different from my family at least. here are some things that make me laugh:

1. meaningless randomness - here's a good example:


2. repetition - like mike says, there's a point where you can make a joke over and over and over until it stops being funny... and then you make it again and it's even funnier:


then that one became even funnier after seeing this (even though i don't watch this show, this is where the snl joke came from):


then this one is just silly:


3. kids getting hit in the back of the head and falling down - self-explanatory:


very simple huh? no need to try and flesh it out, keep it simple and dumb and that equals funny.

#72 - why i will never drink heineken

forget the fact that the girl looks like a creepy evil elf or something, or that some idiot actually thought making her a cyborg would make her MORE attractive, but damn that music is first-rate crappiness. at first i thought i'd give the keg a try, but after seeing this damn commerical 17 billion times an hour during UH games i swear to never again drink another heineken in my life. this crapload of a commercial ranks right up there with the gary shandling show and mambo no. 5 (re: things that i hate from the very bottom of my soul).

but fortunately, the majority of beer commercials actually do serve their primary function very well, which is not hard since i like funny stuff and love beer. ejemplo uno:



i definately need a russian accent. bud light, you got a problem with that? also, example 2 (aka my halloween costume this year):

#71 - things i know to be true

1. date of freedom = october 15.
halle-frickin'-lujah, i'm finally getting the ass out of this place. i swear, everywhere i turn there's someone in the way. can't escape. the house in back of us has been having pool parties every monkey-butt-lovin' day. their patio is right outside my window and i can hear every horrible word they say (including all the baby crying and scolding). my dad turns on his portable radio and dials into krater for the entire frickin' night and those two old bastards perry & price every morning. i need space. i need quiet. i need alone. i'm a loner, dottie, a rebel.

2. eliza is hot.
mornings are crap, especially when you have to wake up and go to work. to help make mornings more appealling, i've been picking up zippy's or jamba juice breakfasts on the way to work and treating myself to some morning tv (morning tv is also crap by the way, but what i found out is that mtv actually plays music videos before 8:00 am). this morning they played nickelback's "rockstar," which i've heard and liked on the radio (mainstream catchy enough to satifsy a car-ride sing-a-long) but it was my kind of video, a bunch of random dorks lip synching with a few celebrities scattered throughout. and guess who was one of the celebrities? hottness = eliza dushku. okay, so she was only on screen for probably a total of three seconds but even that was enough to make mornings right again. if you haven't seen eliza, i mean, the video, check it out here: http://www.kovideo.net/music/video/Nickelback---Rockstar/1693.html

3. i'm an idiot.
i consider myself pretty strong-willed when it comes to most things. i have my opinions and my opinions are damn good. haha, but how come with some things i'm very easily influenced. things like "buying stuff" (i get anxious in stores and, despite my most-thought-out plans, i seem to very often leave the store with stuff i didn't want after completely letting my plans flop when one part doesn't go the way i had planned). for example, today i went to restring my tennis racquet, i wanted to try out new strings so i researched them online and picked out ones i thought would be good. but when i got to the store one or two things didn't go the way i had expected and i got flustered and ended up buying different strings. i can't even explain why except to say that while it was happening i knew i should've opened my damn mouth to say something but i didn't, i just stood there like an idiot and let it all transpire beyond my control. which, in the end is not such a big deal because if i wanna be a good tennis player anyway i gotta adjust to different racquets and strings, but the point is that i'm an idiot who lets anxiety completely overtake what my brain tells me to do, or not do. and then later on i reflect on what an idiot i've been and wonder what could have made me such an idiot. i blame parents. putting so much pressure on a young kid to manage money and always make the best decisions. what's wrong with impulse buying? why can't i buy something the first time i see it instead of going back home to research and then look in the ads for months before finally going back to buy it on the 14th visit to the store? so much anxiety for such a simple task. man, they screwed me up.

4. people are fat.
wow, i just watched "the biggest loser" for the first time and while i commend those people on their effort to get themsevles healthy again, i was watching the weigh in and those fat guys were taking off their shirts and geez it's like jabba the hut here. how the hell do people get that fat? i mean, forget the psychological factors (re: bullshit... haha), physically just how does a human body get that ginormous (i apologize for the use of the word "ginormous," and yes, it is a real world, it was inducted into webster's or oxford's dictionary last year... which, although i think is very stupid to acknowledge, i am not opposed to because language is, by definition, a constantly evolving thing and therefore anything a native speaker of that language says is correct). can you imagine being only half that fat and then just watching yourself get even frickin' fatter? geez! how?! well, i actually like the show because g-damn those people need to do something about themselves. but i don't like that they get voted off one-by-one, for the sake of humanity, leave them on the show and get them healthy again! i mean, i'm not the fittest guy in the world but i try and if it ever came down to me getting like a quarter of that fat drag me off to boot camp quick! can you imagine what the world would be like if we all evolved to be that fat? holy crap. seriously though everyone, health is important, and it's something that (biologically) everyone can (and should) keep under control (not counting syndromes/diseases/etc.). i'm deadset on that. find me a girl who values fitness, she's a keeper.

5. people are one part of nature.
along the same lines of human evolution... who's to say that we're above nature? maybe we have wrestled away a bigger slice of the control pie from mother nature than some other species, but we still live on earth and still abide by nature's laws. therefore, why fight so hard against changes? first off, global warming. remember when it was called "the greenhouse effect?" haha. anyway, guess what, environments change, sure pollution and all that probably changes things a bit faster, but nature's got an aswer for it. we might not like that answer (and we may not be around for the end product of that solution), but life in some fashion will still go on. that's the whole point of "life," it adapts. lookie at those shrimps and crabs who live on the sides of those underwater volcanos that are thousands of degrees F and like tons of pounds of water pressure, yet they thrive. okay, and when the volcano gets used up they all die, but something else comes along to replace and benefit from their death. ever think of that kind of creature will come around to benefit after all the humans are gone? okay, that's kinda morbid, but what i'm saying is that us humans are kinda getting a bit over-populated in terms of "a species living on earth" so don't you think that nature would have a solution to deal with us? if any other species gets over-abundant something comes along to eat them or stomp them out or otherwise balance the scales eventually. so what's out there to stop us? well, ourselves for one. then there's viruses... some people say higher incidents of developmental disorders (like the spike in autism) or whatever could be nature's way of thinning the herd. hey, how about gay people? think about it... they don't reproduce, they're still productive members of society, and in some cases they even help the over-population issue by adopting orphans and whatever. see? so nature's at work out there, we gotta remember that we're still a part of that.

6. sleep is good.
and i need more of it. makes you a better person. or rather, a lack of sleep makes you a crappier person.