Growing Pains

Phew! I'm exhausted! Let's see... when was the last time I posted? Since I posted last, I've been really busy. Actually, that's a damn dirty lie, but I've been incapacitated, I'll say. I don't know what caused it exactly, but for over a week, I've been really sick. Like a stomache virus or something along those lines, which isn't surprising, since our place was a total shithole. I just thought it was funny how the morning that I woke up sick was right after the night when I took the dare to eat a cotton ball for $4. Hopefully it's just a coincidence, cause that was a lot of pain to go through for $4.

The worst part about it, thought was that a couple days into my sickness, my girlfriend of 2 days and her friend decided that they wanted to come back and visit us again before they went off to England. I wasn't going to say no, just because I felt bad, so they made their way down here from Brisbane, and I picked them up at the bus stop feeling like hell. It was probably about an 80 degree, overcast day out and here I was greeting them with jeans and a long sleeve shirt, sunglasses, tousled hair and a cup of coffee. I'm surprised they didn't get back on the bus when they saw me. But either way, I got them back with me, and we all spent the rest of the day napping.

The next day, I still felt terrible, maybe even worse, but I walked the girls down to the beach. It was nice, though, and I decided to get over myself for a while, and have fun, and once I got into the water, I started to feel better. I even jumped into a couple waves, until one crashed into my stomache and put me out of commission for a while. We walked around town, and I was having so much fun that I almost forgot that I had class. With only 20 minutes before class was ready to start, I had to hop in a cab back to school, where I strolled into class, beach towel in hand, hair stuck straight up and a box of seafood in hand (and no, seafood ended up being a terrible thing to eat with a bad stomache).

The next few days, we sat around, taking it easy, as I had class still and some deadlines for my projects were coming up. As the week started to wind down, and I started to get thing done, I started feeling better and better, so when Friday night rolled around, I felt good enough to come to campus and help all the Mexican cook some mexican food for us all. We made everything from scratch, even the tortillas, which was the funnest part since we rolled them out using cricket "stumps" or the sticks that you try to hit when you play the game. They worked just fine, though. Then we had some good guacamole and salsa, beef, chicken, everything to make a stellar meal. My stomache was feeling great, so I ate mostly what I wanted, and had a few beers to wash everything down.

Then we started into a game of foosball, where if you get scored on, you have to drink this beer that has chili powder IN it, just just around the rim like I'd had before. It was really spicy and was a really dark, cloudy brown, so I called it Mexican Tap Water. I started out just watching, but when people started dropping out because they were starting to sweat from the drink, they made me step in. Right off, I started scoring a lot of goals for my team and making them look like fools, but when they started dropping out, then a bunch of jackasses came in that kept spinning the players as hard as they could. I wanted to kick them all in the nuts, especially since they almost tipped the table over a couple times they were spinning so hard. So we started giving up a couple cheap goals, and I had to drink some of this drink from hell.

Even as I was going back home that night, I still felt good. I woke up in the middle of the night, and I was done for. I stayed in the bathroom for about an hour straight, and seriously, 5 minutes before I was ready to go to the hospital, I started feeling better, but I still slept on the floor, just in case. The next morning, I went to the doctor, and told me I just had a stomache virus. The entire time I was sitting in his office, I wasn't even thinking about what he was saying because my mind was just stuck on the bathroom. I was almost sweating, I was clenching my muscles so hard. I snap back to reality when he says "But you don't look like a guy that's in too much pain, you know?" He looks at me, and I laugh and smile. "Yeah."

I go back home and let my stomache settle. I snuggle up next to Livi and don't move from the couch for the rest of the day. Rain pours down outside, and everyone is stuck. People start congregating at our house to play video games. We play Mario Kart all day, and for dinner, Melisa made a nice meal. I couldn't eat it. Luckily Livi helped nurse me back to health, but the next morning, she had to leave already, and I was sad that I was finally getting better now that she was leaving, and I hadn't been able to show her a good time like I had wanted to. But she was understanding. So now my girlfriend of 6 1/2 days is gone again, probably never to return, and my life has started to slow back down. My assignments are all turned in and the house is quiet. I'm finally getting my health back, since I hadn't eaten a full meal in over a week. Things are back to normal, but what's ever challenging about that?

Borat

How can I be so torn? I saw Borat tonight, and I think it's the first movie that I've ever seen where I walked out not knowing how I truly felt about it. Let me walk through it. I'll try not to give too much away for those who haven't seen it yet.

Good: Borat is hilarious. It's well made and well thought out, and the fact of the matter is: I couldn't stop laughing. Until I cried.

Bad: I cried. Almost. Seriously. Not from laughter either. I know this isn't the first movie ever made where people use hidden cameras and try to draw out the most explicit reaction they can from individuals, but it's certainly one of the most in-your-face. It catches people giving their open and honest opinions about gays, jews, gypsies, blacks; none of which are good, as you might guess.

Good: Maybe this will open some eyes. Some of the things said in this movie are so bad that, as an American, you can't help but hold your head in shame. Example: A discussion on homosexuals brings this up "In my home country, we take them out back and finish them." "That's what we've been trying to do here." At that point, everyone in the theater stopped laughing. A collective gasp resounded in the theater. These are real people saying this. Borat is just there to help out. But when something like that comes up, that one man, whether he knew he was being filmed or not defined an entire country.

Bad: This movie sets Americans back. No. Americans set themselves back in this movie. Big time. The fact is: I would be a lot more comfortable watching this movie in America. Being here in a foreign country, I couldn't help but hide my face in my hands as some of the situations unfolded. I actually felt embarassed to be an American at points, and that's why I have the lump sitting in the bottom of my stomache even now. But that's exactly how people in other countries view Americans. Up until tonight, I thought everyone just thought that we were greedy SOBs, but now they have this to add. We're racists. Sexists. Alcoholics. ABSOLUTE Jesus FREAKS!!! We're total assholes.

It's just... ah... man... I don't even know how I feel about it. I want so badly for the world to think differently about us, but we're not even helping ourselves out by trying to change our actions and thoughts. This is one of those posts where I'm absolutely torn. I guess I'll leave it with this: if you've seen the movie, go ahead and write in and let me know what you thought. And then let me know if you thought that the movie set Americans back. That's really the only thing I can think of.

Goodbye November

Well, Movember has come and gone, and I'm now clean-shaven again, but I did manage to capture a few pictures before it all got the chop.



Hm... now that I look at it, it looks like a bad piece of art.

And since snapshots of my erratically-grown facial hair can hardly fill up an entire post, I also have this for you. I was involved in a fight last night. I'm not going to say that I was IN one. I don't think there's ever been a single fight in my young adult life that I was in on my own accord, even though I've been INVOLVED in many. That's why I saw everything coming.

But long before I even got down here to Byron, I'd heard from a lot of different sources that the locals are a bunch of tossers, but once I got down here, there was so many people from everywhere, I didn't even think that there were any real locals. Last night, being the end of the school week, we went out to the bars. Everywhere was packed, mostly because this is Schoolies week: as I understand it, it's the week right after high schoolers graduate, which doesn't mean much for me, except there's just A LOT more girls walking around a town where the guys were already outnumbered 3:1. So Play had a $15 cover charge, and Cocomangas was giving away free drinks of some sort, so the line was backed up halfway down the street. So we decided to start out at the Hotel Great Northern; a place that has it all: live bands, pool tables, slot machines, even a breathalizer in the lobby. That's all class.

We sat at the Northern, watching the band (a trio of guys, most likely a couple years younger than myself) do their thing. I thought they were pretty good, but my neighbor Harry was sitting next to me and telling me about how much they sucked, all while he was sipping on his drinks and getting louder and louder. But that's Harry. When the set ended, we gathered everyone up and were going to try Play again, to see if our SAE IDs would get a discount. We walked down the main street, past a group of people standing out in front of our favorite bakery. I was in the middle of the group, and when I looked back I saw my friend Lang talking to someone. Things looked like they were getting heated, but then he started walking away to catch up to us again.

When he catches up he starts saying "If that little **** comes up here, I'm gonna...", so I look down into the street, and this little man is following us. He's not more than 5 foot 3, so I thought he was a little Schoolie that Lang had started up with, but when the light hit his face, I saw that he was a short, lanky black man. Nothing against them, but more on that later. So the little guy gets up onto the sidewalk behind us and starts yelling at Lang, trying to lead him into the small town park that we were walking past. The park isn't well lit, so it'd be absolutely ridiculous for us to go over there. So Lang is yelling back at this guy, and then Harry starts up with him too, the three of them yelling at each other across this park.

Then, like a freaking magic trick, all these people start coming out of the woodwork in the park, popping out from behind trees and bathrooms, including this 6 foot 5, shirtless bald guy. He comes running out and jumps over some bushes to get up in Harry's face. Harry sizes up to the guy (but not even close) and when he tries to walk away, the guy spins him around and punches him in the face. Harry could hardly stand to begin with, but the force knocks him to the ground, and he hits the back of his head on a metal rail. He sits there and curls up on the ground, holding his face in his hands when the little guy that started it all runs up and kicks him square in the right eye while he's totally defenseless.

When all this started, I was staying back, just letting them work things out, but when they started throwing punches, I started running back to where they were. The big guy was still standing over Harry, saying all kinds of shit, so (being a little out of my mind myself) I run up and push the big guy out of the way and tell him to "F*** off" then bend down to try and help Harry up. From behind me, an arm swings around my face and catches me across my eyes with a forearm. I push Harry out of the way, back up the street towards our friends, and try to get out of there myself. The guy grabs on to my shirt collar, and for a split second, all I can think is "Damn, this is a good shirt, he better not rip it." So I punch his arm and he pushes me away and starts yelling at all of us not to come back around. Don't worry about that.

The night was a rush, us trying to get Harry back home in a cab, trying to tell a security officer what had happened only to hear him say "That's not my job", and still trying to have a good night, it being no later than 10 o'clock and all. So we finally get back to Play, and as we're standing in line, the guys are loving getting the chance to tell all the little high school girls about the fight that they'd just been in.

So back to the comment about the little man being black. As you all know, just like Native Americans in the States, down in Australia, before the land was ever settled by the Europeans, there were Aboriginies around here, and just like Native Americans, most Aboriginies were forced off their land or killed. And Australia is an even younger country than America, so all this is still fresh in their minds, and most of them are pretty violent towards foreigners because of it. And as opposed to America where most Native Americans are given land by the government, and given posh jobs in casinos, most Aboriginies were left with nothing, and a lot of them feel that they don't need to get jobs or blend back into the new society. But I don't think it means that they (in all their 5 foot glory) should provoke people into fights, and then when people start up, they grab their UFC fighter of a friend to kick ass either.

So the night ended when we were walking out of the Beach Hotel around 1 o'clock and here comes our little friend walking up the street, and he starts to talk to Lang. "Hey buddy, you got a cigarette?" Lang looks at the man in disbelief. "Do you not remember 2 hours ago when you kicked the shit out of my friend?" "Hey man, you got me wrong, I'm a good guy." He obviously didn't remember. "Man, you got 2 seconds to f*** off out of my face." The little guy looked insulted, but he slinked off down the street.

A Feast Fit For A Pack Of Wild Boars

Not being in the States for Thanksgiving, I didn't know what kind of celebration I might be able to have. Surely I couldn't just sit at home, eating my Oodles of Noodles and watching Futurama like I always do. That's not what a true American would do, is it? Then I got an idea! An awful idea! The Grinch got a wonderful, awful idea. I'd steal Thanksgiving from all the Whos-her-ears and Whats-his-faces up in the States-es, and bring it down under, back to my lair!

I started talking to people to see if they'd want to celebrate with me, and while I found nary an American around, I found a lot of people that wanted to support me in my cause; that which was to feed the starving college students. I told everyone to bring a dish, and gave anyone suggestions of what they could bring for a traditional Thanksgiving feast. After some planning, I got together 8 of my friends, and as the time got closer, it looked like everything would fall apart at the seams. Schedules started to conflict, people didn't know how to cook... maybe Thanksgiving would be ruined after all!

When the day rolled around, I had to plan ahead to cook my part (the turkey) for most of the day, so I could leave it in there during class, and have it be ready around 7. I had never cooked a turkey before, so I was going on a prayer that it'd work out, and when I got back from class, the turkey looked AMAZING! The skin was nice and crisp, and the inside was still a little bit juicy. Excellent.

Then people started slowly arriving, and not only did they bring the things that I asked them to, they brought more. We had so much food, we could hardly keep it on our two tables. Then people started showing up that I hadn't even invited. But we had plenty of food. Come on in everyone! After all was said and done, here's how much food we had:

12 lbs of turkey
2 lbs of ham
8 lbs of mashed potatoes with 2 liters of gravy
A gallon of various fruits
Stuffing
Vegetables
A broccoli and cheese casserole
3 pies and a cake
Ice cream
11 liters of wine
2 bottles of whiskey
A bottle of rum
30 ice cube tray jello shots
5 liters of Pepsi
2 liters of Lemonade

Somehow, we have plenty of leftovers. Of the food that is. The alcohol was all gone (not really, Mom). Maybe that's what lead to Harry cutting his hand open when he tried to grab a steak knife from Melissa. I'm not a doctor, I don't know.

So there was nothing to do after that except play Tiger Woods on the PS2 and listen to the Red Hot Chili Peppers with everyone all night. The night ended with a yawn, but it was way better than I could've hoped for.

So now I'm here watching cricket, and I think I've almost got it figured out. Just don't ask me any questions about it. It doesn't quite feel right watching cricket the day after Thanksgiving, but with the Broncos dropping a big game to Kansas City, maybe it's best I wasn't around to see that.

I hope everyone else's turkey day was everything that they wanted it to be. Take care all!

20/11/06 - The Most Feared

I almost missed the weekend. Well, I did here, but I could act like I snuck it in just before midnight on Sunday night, while you were all tucked into bed. Why was I so late? Maybe it was because I spent all weekend playing shirtless soccer under the hot Australian sun, trying my damnest to outflex Goose in Top Gun. But mostly it's because my computer has become an entertainment center around here, mostly for the fact that it has the only copies of the first 6 episodes of the 3rd season of Lost, which have been dominating everyone's lives since they first arrived here. Strange how that works.

But that's all beside the point, as I'm here this week to tell you a little bit about the wildlife around here. First off, when I first arrived here in Australia, one of the first things that was said to me was "If you go down to the beach, watch out for the brown snakes. They're in season. They're aggressive, and highly venomous." It was quite the warm welcome. Then, in the first week of classes at SAE, we had a health and safety lecture, where they warned us again about the snakes, and then added on top of that the threat of spiders. They told us about the black widows or "redbacks" as they're called here, and another kind of spider that when it bites you, it actually dissolves your skin. Super!

Luckily, I haven't seen any snakes, or poisonous spiders, thusfar, but there was one more threat that they mentioned. Everyone laughs at it the first time they hear it, but when it happens to you... Oh boy. They warn you about the magpies when they're in their mating season. Maybe you've even heard of this, or seen the silly damn hats that some people wear with eyes painted on the back of their heads, because what these demon birds do, is after you pass them, walking, or riding your bike on the road, they'll swoop down behind you and drill you in the back of your skull with their beak. The only way to stop this, is if you see them before they get to you, and you look them in the eye, then they won't attack until you look away. This also brings up the issue of people getting their eyes plucked out when they turn their heads at the last second...

So when I got here, everyone was finally getting back to their normal lives, done living in fear of these nasty creatures, because their mating season had just ended. I didn't get attacked at all, so I completely forgot about it. You know where this is going... Then earlier this week, I was riding my bike home from class with my friend Melissa, when CLICK CLICK CLICK WHAP! A magpie had swooped down behind me, and while it didn't auger its way into my brain, it clicked it's beak about 2 inches behind my head, and then hit me with its wing as it flew past. I was so confused. Surely I did something to piss him off. So I do as they say, and keep my eye on him, and I see him up on the telephone wire, but as I ride on, he hops along up there, following me the whole way!

Melissa is laughing her ass off because I'm staring this bird down, while trying not to wipe out on my bike, when I look and the bastard is coming down again. I start flailing my arms wildly at it, much like a little girl would wave cobwebs off herself. Luckily it did the trick, and it left me alone, but my dignity was sorely bruised. Perhaps that birds name was Karma, telling me that I drank too much the night before. Or maybe it was a sign that I need to watch my back, because I'm making too many enemies. But it probably just means that birds hate me. We have a history.

13/11/06 - Sand in your bum

What constitutes a beach party? I'd like to say that all beach parties are like the one in The Big Lebowski with big-breasted, topless women getting launched into the air via bed sheets, but alas, not all of us can live the life of The Dude. However, there's always a number of things that you can expect at any party on the beach.

1. Fire - If you don't get a good fire going, you don't have a party. A good fire is absolutely essential to every other activity that takes place that night, as you'll see.

2. Alcohol - I don't want to sound like a total lush, but everyone enjoys a drink every once in a while. Alcohol gets the social juices flowing and slowly starts to erode your brain matter, making you more open to doing stupid things, and inevitably makes you more attractive to the opposite sex (did I get that right?). Plus, everyone knows that it contains essential vitamins and minerals that moms love.

3. A makeshift hippie band - This is composed of an acoustic guitar, a bongo, and a scraggly-faced man with a raspy singing voice. You might not always know the songs that they're playing, but neither do they. Even though they just sit there and "jam", it sets the mood for the night. Also, they are true freaks of nature, where as, long after most of the people at the party have either passed out or gone home, this mighty trio will still be sitting there, playing their slightly off-beat tunes for many hours, or even days afterwards.

4. Fire twirlers - Fire twirlers are kinda like bobsledders. No one knows how or why anyone would start doing such a thing, yet pretty much anyone could be a twirler. You could be sitting there, reading this to a fire twirler as we speak, but you might not even know about it until you go to a party on the beach. When this happens, they'll shed their outer layer of skin, which makes them less-flammable, and they'll start drinking large amounts of lighter fluid and spitting fire out of their mouths. You wouldn't know what hit you. However, they are generally mildly entertaining and opens up the conversation to threats of stabbing a flaming stick through someones sternum. It's a very natural progression.

5. The drunk kid who tries to jump over the fire - This kid gradually shows himself to be "the one" as the night goes on, and when it comes down to it, the build-up is usually a lot larger than the payoff. Odds are calculated using, fire height, height of said individual, amount of alcohol consumed... and in the end, the kid just goes and jumps over the fire like you'd expect. Not much to it, but there's always gotta be one.

6. The skinny dipper - This one is a bit of a wild card, but especially in a hippie town like Byron you'll find a large number of people that don't mind baring it all and going for a swim. That's cool, I'd even partake on certain nights, but then you get the ones that are natural nudists, and come back and "dry off" by the fire, squatting down spread eagle right behind the girl that I was talking to. Gross.

Keeping in mind a few other wild cards that could pop up on any given night, these things are basically the genetic make-up of a beach party. Do not go to beach parties if you are faint of heart, or are pregnant. Side effects may include sand in your crack, head aches, and 3rd degree burns.

5/11/06 - Sundays

Today was the day that Byron Bay showed its true colors. The past two days have been covered by a torrential downpour, a fact that threatened to ruin my entire 4-day weekend. The days were filled by watching Lost and reading The Prestige, but today, I woke up and the skies were clear and the bullfrogs were singing sweet, sweet melodies. I knew I had to take advantage of the nice weather and head into town.

With my bike once again out of commission, I started out on foot, just planning on going to get a bite to eat at the fish taco restaurant on the near edge of town, but when traffic started backing up a kilometer outside of town, it reminded me that the traveling market was in town today. I've been regularly making my trips down to the empty fields every Thursday when they have the Farmers and Organic Produce market, where I usually get strawberries and prawns, but this is one that only comes on the first sunday of each month, and on other sundays it goes to the surrounding towns.

I liked this one a lot more. First off, the farmers market is one small row of stalls, but this one took up the entire grounds, which is probably the size of a football field. All along the outside was every kind of food you could imagine. I went the burrito, chocolate-covered strawberries, and fruit shake route, but there was also sushi, pizza, and burgers. Then in the back, there was live music and a jumpoline, and a lot of tables all shoved together under tents, making it feel a lot like Oktoberfest. Everywhere else on the grounds was filled with all the arts, crafts and Che Guevara T-shirts that you'd come to expect out of a small hippy town like Byron.

Finding my room a little bit blank and dull, I found a couple different artists that were selling prints of their work, and snatched up a couple copies to spice up my walls.

As the sun continually beat down upon my neck for the 3 hour straight, I felt that it was time I got a move on out of there. I walked back home, and crashed into the beanbag chair to write this, and as I did, the skies clouded over and it's starting to sprinkle. That's the nature of Byron in the rainy season, but I'm just glad that I got to spend some time mingling with the locals while everything was bright and cheerful.

A LONG WAY BACK

I have a lot of ground to make up. I'd like to tell you all of the things I've done and seen, but with my planned website (which I'll pick apart for this here post) going down the drain, I thought I should put something up to keep all of you up to date. It's a bit of a cut and paste, but I think this will be easier to digest than if I threw everything at you at once. I'll try to break it down like so:

First, I'm in Australia. I hope all of you know that.

Secondly, all of you should know about my past troubles with roommates, so to try and fix that problem, I decided to go for a deluxe room where I get my own room and bathroom. What I got was a big house and two really cool roommates. Here you go:


My Roommates:

Name: Matt
Age: 19
Build: Short, Lanky, 4 eyes, hair pulled back in a pony tail
Home: Brisbane, Australia
Favorite Food: Anything Microwavable
Favorite Show: Futurama, Family Guy
Favorite Music: "60's and 70's era progressive rock and 90's grunge"
In his spare time he: is a student rep for the school and goes to clubs where him and his friends dance to Grease Lightning.
Quote: "Jerk is such an American word."
We get along just fine.

Name: Chirag
Age: 25
Build: Tall, twiggy, wide eyes
Home: Bombay, India
Favorite Food: Crisp Pepperoni
Favorite Show: Everything
Favorite Music: Trance and Classical
In his spare time he: plays ps2 and talks about life.
Quote: "See, here I could buy a bike... or a horse."
He's hilarious.

What else do you need to know...? The town is really amazing. It's just a small surfing village, where everyone is really environmentally and health conscious, and it's even made me change towards that a bit, too. The school is also way nicer than I could've ever imagined. All the teachers are really laid-back (most of them take their shoes off during class) and the facilities are top-notch. I'll get some pictures up later.

It's also been really good having our big house. At times it's almost like a hotel, and we've already had some English backpackers come and go. They stayed for two nights, and we went out for a nice dinner to show them the town and then we partied a little, which broke the cycle of staying closer to home at night, which was probably for the best. Some of the night life can be scary, though... with a club like Cheeky Monkeys around, you never know what might happen, or who might... oh nevermind.

But along the lines of the scary night life, (I have to tell this story) last night Matt and I went to a party with the two girls,a nd it was in this really high-class swanky warehouse apartment, and the whole place with littered with candles. I was talking to one of the girls, who I had a bit of a thing for, and we turn to go sit down on the couch and my back feels really hot, so I look back and I had caught my shirt on fire with one of the candles. Luckily, a quick swipe of my hand and I got it all out, but it left me with a nice big burn hole in the middle of my back for the rest of the night.

The backpackers were really sweet, though, and they invited me to spend Christmas in Brisbane with them, which now makes 3 places I have to be for Christmas, so I might have a rough day then.

Um... I suppose that's good for now. It's hard enough on my brain trying to rememberall the things that I've done. I'll try to keep things up to date about once a week, probably on the weekends, so check back later, and go ahead and leave a comment or questions if you want to hear more about anything. Hope all is well back in the States! Take care!

Flick

What to say? What to say? Nothing new really. My days have been filled with Lego Star Wars, frisbee golf and cleaning my room. I can't complain. Then, tonight the fam went out and saw The Departed. It was really amazing. Not since Fight Club have I been filled with 2 1/2 hours of fun characters, amazing action and a plot twisting script to die for at the movies. But everyone in it did a ridiculously good job, and... hm.... yeah, they all deserve Academy Awards. I just decided.

Like a Charm

As I put it so lightly to Sara: I popped my cherry. I finally gave in and bought an iPod. It needed to be done, and it's over with, so let's move on.

But getting everything set up on that almost made me forget that I was going to see a Broncos game on this cold, rainy night. Getting settled in with a little less than 3 minutes left before kickoff, I thought I might've been in over my head. I was already soaked, and cold, and the the fat man sitting next to me was wearing a moo-moo that was only funneling more rain down onto me.

Then the game started. Even though the first half of the game was probably the most boring thing anyone at home has ever seen, I was ecstatic. Whenever you get cold, you just yell and stand up and cheer and jeer and any of your worries disappear.

But the game really wasn't that bad, for a defensive struggle. With all the rain getting onto the field, there were fumbles and interceptions, and you knew that with any play, the entire game could change. And finally, the Broncos powered past the Ravens defense and put up a touchdown to ice the game, and warm up the fans.

When the clock ran out, everyone walked back into the night, still whooping and hollering, and some of them even fighting Ravens fans. It was an incredible atmosphere.

So if the rain couldn't even stop us from having a good time, what could put a damper on this night? When we get back to where we parked, we find an empty spot. We check the signs, and nowhere on the 3 different signs does it say that we couldn't park there. In fact, we seemed to have found the only time that we COULD park there. So was it towed? Was it stolen?

I called the information center that we were referred to on the signs, and while they couldn't tell us if the car was towed, they could tell us that we would have to walk about 4 miles to the middle of the boonies to check things out. We set out on foot. I don't mind the exercise, especially on a beautiful night as such, but I'd rather kinda take a cab, but we figured we'd already be paying out the ass to get the car back.

After our trek, and many, many wrong turns (we had to ask some guys at an ice cream factory!?!? where to go) we arrived at the gates of what appeared to be a maximum security prison, but in fact was the Waste Management Center. By this point, my dad is likely to burst. So he walks up the gate and when a guard opens it, mistaking it for an invitation to walk in, my dad tries to walk in. The guard gets offended by such a gesture and says "hey hey hey, don't get so pushy there!" Seriously, this jerkoff would be perfect as the asshole cops that you see in movies that blow everything out of proportion.

"I'm not pushy, I just want my car back..." my dad starts up with the cop, clearly getting pushy.

"Can we get going here, we're ready to close up" the guard's supervisor says.

So the guard raises his voice and yells back to his supervisor, but he's clearly yelling it to everyone within 100 yards of us, "I would, but this guy here is getting pushy with me."
Somehow this feels like sketch comedy.

My dad finally lets the dillhole to let him in, and then, the gate being open, I mistake that for an invitation too, so the guy gets all pissy with me because I tried to follow my dad in to get our car. So I sit out in the cold and rain, waiting for all this bullshit to get over with. After a good 20 minutes, my dad finally comes roaring out of the lot, and we get back out on the road.

Apparently, it was $100 to pay the tow company, and it was a $120 fine to the cops, which he'd have to appeal later, which we would clearly win, yet would have to go back down to Denver to do.

So while my dad was in there paying them the $100 CASH!!! to get our car back he asks, "Does this bullshit happen a lot? Does the city make a lot off of this?"
And they leave us with this gem, "Oh yeah, this could basically pay their salaries."

That's our wonderful government at work, everybody. Towing cars illegally, and then charging people up the ass to get them back, relying on the fact that everyone is too lazy or busy to challenge the ticket.

Well do ya, punk?

I'm sorry. I dropped the ball. I had the perfect rambo moment today, and I didn't even get pictures. But I can help you visualize it:

For months, if not years now, my uncle (a cop) and I have always been masterminding a plan to get out and go shooting with all of his sweet ass rifles. As everyone's pointed out, I've been acting like I only have 2 more weeks to live, so with me leaving, it seemed like the perfect excuse to finally get some lead out.

My uncle picked me up bright and early at 10 o'clock and we set up towards the Pawnee Grasslands. For those of you who don't know where that is, it's a national reserve out east of A Unique Little Town (or Ault for anyone outside of Ault), which is out east of Severence, the quiet town best known for their Rocky Mountain Oysters. Now if you're getting farther out into the country than a town where they're known for their amazing ability to choke down bull balls, you know it's out there.

We make it there and we lay everything out. There's an AK-47, two AR-15s, two police-issue 9mm, and a Dirty Harry style Smith and Wesson .357. It was a step up from the pellet guns of my youth. He runs me through the safety issues with each one, how to work them, then tosses one in my hands and gets me going. It really is amazing holding and firing something that could kill a man. I got a woody. Not really, but it was still fun to work through all of them.

A couple of targets and pop cans later, we loaded some armor piercing bullets into the .357 and let a large metal sheet have it. Those things ripped through there like nothing. Then we tried the normal hollow points, and even with the amazing recoil on the handgun, the rounds bounced off one by one (which probably wasn't really safe, us being 10 yards away and all). Just to let you know that armor won't do shit against some of the stuff they have now-a-days all you robbers-to-be.

We head back to where we set up shop, already satisfied with the day when my uncle says, "You want to Rambo it and get out of here?" Of course I'd been waiting for him to ask that all day. We both grabbed a rifle with two magazines, then each loaded 9mm with 2 mags and strapped them all up. We had everything ready to go, except my ear plugs. I'd worn them the entire day up until that point, and I was having too much fun to stop and go back. We started out from about 100 yards out and started pumping the rounds into the target as we walked up on it. When one clip was empty, we loaded the next. All I heard was ringing. We kept moving forward. When the rifle ammo was gone, we switched to the handguns. My eardrums were literally bouncing in my head. When one clip emptied, we loaded another. We emptied every shell we had, and stopped there, in front of the target that we had thoroughly ripped to shit.

"You want to get some lunch?" my uncle asks.
"Huh?"
150 rounds had just gone off by my head.

So that's pretty much how it was for the rest of the day, but it was absolutely worth it. I still can't hear much of anything in my right ear, but I go to a lot of concerts; I know it can recover.

Could be fun!?!?

Being an avid South Park watcher, tabloid follower and music listener, I've come across a lot of information about Scientology. Of course, South Park takes a total mockery of the entire religion, but when I read that Beck was a scientologist, I decided, with a little free time, to check out "the information" a little more.

I found their main website at www.scientology.org, and while I couldn't find anything on aliens like South Park might suggest, I did find some interesting things. The home page of the website outlines the religion clearly, in that the religion springs from 3 "truths":

Man is an immortal, spiritual being. His experience extends well beyond a single lifetime. His capabilities are unlimited, even if not presently realized — and those capabilities can be realized. He is able to not only solve his own problems, accomplish his goals and gain lasting happiness, but also achieve new, higher states of awareness and ability.

In Scientology no one is asked to accept anything as belief or on faith. That which is true for you is what you have observed to be true. An individual discovers for himself that Scientology works by personally applying its principles and observing or experiencing results.

Through Scientology, people all over the world are achieving the long-sought goal of true spiritual release and freedom.

While I can't attest to the third "truth" the first one summarizes the main problems that I have with some other religions *Christianity, I'm looking your way* by way of giving power back to the indiviual, instead of having to put all your faith in a higher power. The second "truth" is also kind of nice, because it just lays out that "life isn't going to be the same for everyone".

The second thing that I found interesting was "the Clear". It sounds to be a lot like Buddhist's Enlightenment: a state that can be achieved through realization of yourself, which gradually lets you deal with life more rationally. Through it, though, you also have to recognize that the body is nothing, and that the soul of an individual is all that matters in the big picture of life.

With the time I had, I didn't get to delve too deeply into the website, since there was a lot of information, but what I found was, strangely, intriguing.

The Final Countdown

Good news: I got tickets for the Broncos monday night game against the Ravens. They're in the nosebleeds, but the lower region of the nosebleeds at the goalline. Not too bad.

Better news: I have two more days of work left. I'm ready to get out, too. The town is killing me and once again, Mr. Conspiracy Theory (CT from now on) keeps managing to auger his way into my psyche more and more each day. The main thing is that he refuses to be wrong. And so do I. So there's a lot of debating.

Today we were talking about reading and school and I mentioned about how books like Harry Potter are good for young kids because it lets them know that 800 page books aren't always daunting, and it introduces some kids to loyalty, imagination, and a world without television.

Then he comes back with the ol' "Yeah, but it teaches kids witchcraft" rebuttal. And we all know where that led us to.

It's just been a long week. I'm ready to see all of my friends at my going away party!

The police found a body with no brains, fucked up teeth and a retarded face. I was worried. Give me a call.

As I've written before, I work with a conspiracy theorist (don't call him that or else he'll accuse you of being like 99.9% of the rest americans who "can't handle the truth") but some of the thigns he's saying now are bugging the hell out of me.

There's the things about 9/11 being an inside job and the towers falling was the result of a controlled demolition, which I believe to be true, also, but then there's the things like "in the upper corner of the dollar bill, you'll see an owl. That's moolah, that's the god that they worship" which I don't know if it's a joke or what the fuck it is.

But the thing that really sent me over the edge was when he was telling the three of us who are college-aged, that there's no point in being in college anymore. I myself have said that numerous times, but I meant it in the "you can do OK without it, you can work your way up if you want to" way and he meant it in the "your college skills will do you no good when the end comes" sort of way. I didn't buy into it, and another kid has already dropped out of college, but the third kid is just starting his freshman year and is buying into the things that this guy says way too much for his own good.

It just seems ridiculous to me that this grown man spends his waking life talking about these things, which he declares are "documented and accurate", when it's something to have at the back of your mind at the most. There's a difference between trying to prevent something from happening and trying to be prepared for it. He's trying to prevent it, but really, he's not doing a goddamn thing about it besides freaking out.

Might make a good band name

When my family goes up to Mount Vernon about once a year, we can always expect a few things: good food, a great view and fun for the whole family. Now we've got something else to add to the list: FLAMING CARS!!!! As we were pulling up to the entrance to the country club, there was a lot of smoke coming from up by the doors and as I look closer, I see flames bursting from underneath the hood of a classic Cadillac! Before we could even see what was going on more, these fire engines come screaming up the driveway. So the valet boys casually show us to the back door, even though 2 minutes later they start talking about evacuating the building. What a mess!

But everything turned out fine in the end and no two people were on fire. Eventually, we got all those other things that we expected out of such a trip. Mmmm Mmmm.

The Bout to Knock the Other Guy Out

I don't know who's the trouble. Not long at all after Craig and Matt's outstanding "I don't like you" story, we've all got another one to hang on our shelves with pride.

After a LONG day of watching college football action, even though i was wearing thin for the night, we got a call of a party up by the stadium. Everything sounded good. And it was. We knew a good deal of people there and everyone was in a peppy mood from the second we arrived. Maybe it was the Southern Comfort that we downed first thing, and maybe it was the infinite jokes that came from the fact that we had to drink our beer from coffee mugs. But everyone was having a good time, especially the guy who was cradling the Crown Royal the entire night, even after he had downed the entire bottle, and was too hammered to walk without assistance from the wall.

If we had stayed away from the beer pong, everything would've been fine, but there was two douchebags down there that were running the table and talking shit like you wouldn't believe. I don't care that they beat us from behind but even halfway through the game, things started escalating and i knew it wouldn't be long before the mud slinging would turn south.

Drew, from the dorms two years ago, was the one that eventually started it all after a couple of cups of beer started flying across the table, then the kids did the same. With everyone there, they tried to hold them back while we got Drew out of the house, and it worked out OK. Sara, who lived at the house, told the guys to leave, but they were still furious, and were trying to get after everyone who had been talking shit to them the entire night (everyone except their girlfriends, who were passed out on the beer-strewn pong table).

As we keep them away from everyone and work them up the stairs and out the door, one of the little fuckers stares me in the eye and yells "You were talking shit, too!" Yeah? And? So he bum rushes me up the stairs and tried to get me in a choke hold. I might've preferred that, because instead, he missed and got his arm around my face, and started pulling my head sideways. With his arms in my sight and my head cocked sideways, I didn't want to start throwing punches at someone I couldn't see incase I hit someone who was trying to help me. However, I did see the kid try to knee me in the face, and then I was disoriented when a punch caught me in the forehead.

Finally, whoever was trying to hold off these kids got them away and started to push them out the door. I walked away into the kitchen, fuming and paced off the steps as I saw them get pushed off into the night. I was a half step away from going after them again, but again, I didn't want to make things worse, when they were finally getting resolved. Fuck.

I didn't really get hurt much, but i still feel as if i got my ass kicked just because i couldn't retaliate the way I wanted. I'm not worried about it though. It just goes to show what 12 straight games of beer pong can do to a person.

Bar Bums

It had been a long day. I worked, played nine, fought through a thunderstorm and was thoroughly blazed. I started making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and was content with sitting on the couch watching Kill Bill all night on TNT. The weed kicked in and the peanut butter and jelly wasn’t cutting it. I needed some nutrition.

Since I knew Dave would be at the Pot Belly, I thought I’d go there and chat while he drank, and get some good grub. I walk in and Dave is already talking to a lady. He’s been here 20 minutes, maybe. She’s an older woman. She’s got the wrinkles that say she’s over the hill, but her skin and body is still healthy. I want to let them talk so I sit on the other side of the woman until they might finish. As I’m ordering the woman swivels around and starts talking to me. She’s immediately interesting. That might not be saying much since everyone up here has their own quirks, but as I was ready for a quiet night, she pulls me out of my daze with her first sentence and she’s off. She talks and talks, and even though at some points I struggled to get a few words in, it was a great mutual conversation that I haven’t gotten up here before. She talks about how she works at Shambhala and the music she likes and the books that she reads. It’s all basic stuff, but when a 20 year old can make these connections instantly with a 50+ year old, that’s something. So we talk. She tells me about how her dad died, but they weren’t done with him yet, so they “borrowed” him from the mortuary. They throw him (in the casket) in the back of their truck and take him back to their house and open the casket. They light candles and talk to him and have a wake. OK, so that was kind of creepy, but it was also cool. Then she asks me about if I’ve been in love, my relationship with my family, what I think about kids, people, society… and everything that I say isn’t judged but she stares at me with awe as I tell her about these simple things in my life, but she makes me look at them again and lets me know that it’s right and that I’m fine.

When everyone else has cleared the bar except us two and the bartender, he starts putting on music DVDs of all sorts. He shows off his $18,000 sounds system and it blows us away. He tells us about how the speakers are made and how they’re used in studios and everything he’s saying is suddenly becoming very relevant to my future, and it doesn’t seem so bad at all. Any doubts that I had about my future at all slowly faded as he cranks up the crystal clear sound. It suddenly seemed like the exact perfect thing that I should be doing.

It amazes me how at the most unlikely times, someone who most of the time you’d hardly give a second thought to, can validate your life. Your past, your present and your future. A single-serving savior.

Blah!

When any of you makes me dinner and I say "It can't be any worse than what I have at work", I really, really mean that. There's the meals that get you excited, like yesterday's ribs, but even those were burnt to a crisp, but then there's the meals like today. After the ribs, we were all optimistic about the future, but today wiped the smiles off our faces.

I believe it was supposed to be some sort of Thanksgiving dinner (possibly inspired by a recipe they got from a homeless shelter) because it had the turkey and the stuffing. However, the stuffing was a bunch of bread crumbs, soaked in water to make them maleable, then mashed in with dry, stale shredded turkey to make a sort of casserole. It was the first meal there (or even in my entire life) that has made me physically sick after eating it.

Then they even had peach cobbler and ice cream cake for dessert, but I couldn't even get into it because I started to feel nauxeous. This coming from a person who's eaten worms, dog, and horse penis (from my short stint on Fear Factor).

So I might not be good at articulating how much I love all of your food, but please don't get offended when I say "I've had worse."

One MIIIILLLLION Dollars!

Did you ever see The Million Dollar Man? The one where the guy gets the surgery and the doctor drops a million dollar bill in the incision, and then everyone beats his ass to try to get the money. That doesn't really feel like me, thank god, but I have had so much work on me these past couple weeks to get ready for Australia, that I feel like a million dollars worth of work have gone into me. And there's more to come.

The worst part was today when I went to the dentist. I don't usually mind the visits, since I like the way my teeth hurt when I'm done, but I didn't like today when they were telling me that I need more fillings. Even the fillings aren't that bad, I've gotten my last couple without any pain killers, so I don't have to worry about a numb mouth for the rest of the day, but the new ones are going to go over the ones that I had already gotten. Aren't those suppsoed to be permanent? Or did they just do a shitty job the first time?

Then they tried telling me that my teeth were decaying and my gums were rotting or something like that. That's exactly what they said to my brother and sister, but my brothers gums were bad because he was brushing TOO MUCH and my sisters teeth were bad because she was drinking too much orange juice at the time. Seriously... is there nothing good in the world anymore? I don't see how brushing your teeth too much is going to destroy your gums any more than when they go in there and tear your mouth apart with their spear. Then they tell you to brush up and down, to work in your gums.

They wouldn't call them quacks if they weren't full of shit.

My eyes burn!!!!

1st. I think my stolen internet at red feather is gone for good. I'll now be limited to trips home and trips to the library.

2nd. I think i have a bone fragment floating around in my back. I broke my tailbone a couple years ago and every once in a while i get really bad back pains without doing anything. But maybe i'm just being dramatic and the real cause is i'm over-exerting myself while trying to SIT AND BE FIT.

3rd. The wonder is gone. It seems like no one believes in magic or ghosts or aliens anymore, yet millions of people can put their belief in God. I've seen evidence of all of these, but it seems now that a belief in any of them is becoming increasingly frowned upon in most of society, including God.

Because we have nothing to compare our own existence to, anything is possible.

*Cough*

I'm now all set to go for Australia. I've got everything sent in and now I just need my visa and then I'll be ready to blast off. The final step in the process was yesterday when I had to go down to Denver to get a physical and a chest x-ray, supposedly to make sure that there aren't any aliens bursting free from my chest while in Australia.

My physical was in a really nice building which was strangely placed right next to some sort of Air Force base. It turns out that I have 20/15 vision, which they said is one line away from having x-ray vision. Also, I don't have testicular cancer. The nice lady even explained to me how to check myself. Apparently guys are supposed to check every month just like women check for breast cancer, and she said that scratching myself everyday doesn't always do the trick. I had to ask that one specifically. Then, after much bitching and moaning, they were nice enough to let my keep my smock that I wore, so I can dress up as a loonie for Halloween with my bareass hanging out the back.

The chest x-ray really didn't turn out to be that bad, either. It was just weird. I thought that an x-ray was supposed to take a 2-dimensional picture of your bones, but instead they tried to flatten me against this wall so the x-ray wouldn't have to do all the work. I had to keep my chest, stomach and shoulders all flat against the wall, and after they took the first one, the lady asks "Does your chest hurt? Any shortness of breath?" I said "No" and she gives me this look like "Oh, you just wait." So she kept having me squash myself up there, and if I didn't have anything wrong after the first one, I'm sure I did after the last one.

Overall, it was all worth it, just to get me set up to leave in October.

I guess my next challenge may be this blind date that my dad is trying to set me up on...

Things you should do:

Go see Little Miss Sunshine

Go read A Million Little Pieces by James Frey

Invent a new game

Go on a blind date

Lay in the grass

Climb a mountain

See the world

Get scared shitless

Jump off a cliff and fly

Invite change

Suicide is a funny thing...

I thought this picture was strangely appropriate because a) I finally heard back from Australia and I got accepted, so I'll be shipping out and b) I almost ran over a rabbit last night on my way back up to Red Feather. The stupid thing is completely out of harms way, but then it runs directly out in front of my car and SITS DOWN in the middle of my lane. This bunny had a death wish. Either way, I slowed down but kept driving and as far as I could tell, I drove right over the S.O.B. since I didn't hear a thud. He'll have to try harder next time.

For more suicide bunnies, check this out.

Euro Flash

I was really planning on putting up some more pictures of my trip to Switzerland on my website, which I may never get up, but my brother finally got some of his own up on his site. Plus, his pictures capture the World Cup craziness a hell of a lot better than any of mine did. Go ahead and check them out through the link on the right side of the page. Also, he has some pretty amazing pics from our trip to Mexico City and his trek to Argentina. Damn he travels a lot, and he's getting ready to go to Philly and then he's gonna teach English in Costa Rica this fall. (Note: Costa Rica isn't an island, like I had thought up until about 25 minutes ago.)

Point / Counterpoint

AUSTRALIA

Why I have to go to Australia:
The whole "If I go to Australia..." thing is really starting to piss me off and I always start to feel sick whenever I say it now. The fact is, I've been planning my life for the past few months, deadset on going there for school. Now what would happen if I didn't get in? As far as I can see, my life would be a fucking mess: I'd have no place to live, it would be too late for me to get into another school, and for the most part, I'd have to spend the next year working again, probably in Fort Collins, and the fact of the matter is that the city has absolutely nothing to offer me anymore. I've been so set on leaving this place that I can't imagine spending another year of my life idling through the town. If there's a time for me to do something with my life, this is it.

Why I can't go to Australia:
I've never made a decision in my life. As everyone knows me, I can't follow through with anything and it worries me the most that I'll get down there and say "Shit. I don't want to be back at school... I've tried this and I decided that I didn't need school anymore to get through my life." But mostly, as much as the thought of the change intrigues me, it's the kind of change that I'll never really be able to look back from. As much as I hate Fort Collins now, it's always been my home, but once I get in and out of school, there's really going to be nothing there for me anymore. If I go through with getting a music production degree, then I can't come back to this town. There'd be no job for me here. And as much as I want to leave and see the world, I feel like I'm not going to be able to sit down and stop to evaluate my life in the next 5 years, and see if it's what I really wanted to be doing.

Bottom Line:
Even though I never thought I needed to go to college, I've always NEEDED to go to college. Maybe it'll open up new avenues to my life, and without it I know I'm looking at an uphill battle as far as jobs go for the rest of my life. So while I could easily just keep working as I am now, I know it'll never fly, and never make me happy.
Also, just having this choice of getting back to school and out of the country has given me the "No Regrets" attitude on life right now. I don't want to be looking back once I leave (no... IF I leave... fuck) and saying to myself "Damn, I really wish I had done that" or "I really wish I had told that person how I really felt." It gives me a lot of freedom of thought and gives me a fresh look at everything. That I'm thankful for.

LOVE

Why I can never love again:
It sounds like what a neutered dog would say, but I still got my huevos. The thing is, maybe I don't know how to use them anymore. I know I don't say it enough, so here it is again. Lori really fucked me over when she left. I'm not saying I still love her. I'm past her, but for the most part, it still feels like I have a girlfriend. Not really... but basically all I'm trying to say is: It's been so long that now I've forgotten how to start a relationship at square 1. I've forgotten the whole, you know, talking part that usually comes when you meet someone.

Why I will love every person I meet (and therefore, never really LOVE again):
I got two girls phone numbers at the concert I went to a couple weeks ago. I keep sounding like I'm bragging, but it's started to mess me up more than help because now I kinda think it's just that easy. I went to a restaurant tonight and talked to the girl for maybe 5 minutes and thought "Man, I totally could've gotten her number." It's really quite an accomplishment when you don't know your ass from your elbows on what to do with the damn thing. But the point is that every girl I meet now, who shows any kind of interest in me somehow grabs a hold of me, but in doing so, each one eventually becomes less special. It's turning me into the kind of guy I always hated, who'd go through girls like nothing just because it was another place to stick their dick. But don't worry... remember, I don't really know how to talk to girls in the first place anymore.

Bottom Line:
Yeah, I'm a bit of a romantic. We're a dying breed, especially in today's world, but that's why it bothers me that no one puts in the effort anymore. But maybe the effort is exactly the problem. After a two year relationship falls apart, you wonder if you want to go through it all again, when it could all go just as wrong. Of course you do. But here's a little known, but highly speculated fact/quandry about me: I'm still a virgin. Well, maybe I am, it's up for debate. I really don't mind much because it's taught me that everything else is what really matters. Without putting in the effort, even great sex doesn't matter to me. Yeah, I know... "Fag!"

Impeaches and cream

I was going to make this post "An open letter to Dubya" to tell him to go see An Inconvenient Truth, since it's probably the only movie that will ever showcase his largest contribution to the world, but after seeing this clip on the daily show, I was so utterly disgusted and offended, I had to show it to all of you, if you haven't seen it already.

Then people comment about it saying "Stupid media... you and your liberal bias. Why are you so disrespectful to our president? I'm a diehard patriot and I love my country and my president.... blah blah blah, blow me..."

The report isn't bias. It's stating what everyone in every country in the world believes to be common courtesy, and here, this bastard can't fucking show any of it. And that's why everyone is disrespectful to him... because he continually kicks every single person in the world in the sack. I'd get pretty tired of it, too, you douche. You're just lucky Blair has so much of that english charm and doesn't shove that fork down your throat. I'm actually appalled.

A case of misspeak

I've told some of you the story about this drawing I did. And if I haven't, I think it's still funny anyways.

When they got done, that table looked like (insert Middle Eastern country here).

Work was hell today. It would be funny, seeing a golf course in hell where everyone plays with eyeballs and fibulas, but sadly, that's not what it was. Even with a cool breeze blowing through, the temperature shot up. Unfortunately, they had me mowing fairways today. Usually they go by before lunch if you've got two people, but with one of the mowers broken, I already knew it would be a whole day project. It's terrible getting up there. You think the mower is like a throne, but it really just gets you that much closer to the sun, and when it was getting towards the end of the day, I could actually see my skin bubbling. Grotey.

I managed to make it through the day with only minor heat stroke, but there was no question that I was going to crash when I got home. After a half hour shower I took a three hour nap, but woke up feeling like I was going to puke. I went on over to the High Country, looking every bit as fucked up as I felt. But what's the best way to get over heat stroke? By dusting off a plate of ribs, some baked potatoes and an entire pitcher of water. I should've timed myself. My eating was swift and methodical, and even half way through the meal, while I knew I would need another nap, I already felt 100x better.

Once I got my mind back about me, I got back to my normal people watching that I do up here. Especially at the High Country, you get every kind of person imaginable, and even some that are unimaginable. But my favorite group tonight was this family of all guys (except for the mom, of course) but every single one of them was HUGE! Not the typical fat italian mobster family, but the "pump up your muscles and the gut will surely follow" huge. Even the littlest kid, who was probably about ten, already had the beginnings of a nice gut poking against the hem of his shirt. What was most funny about this family was that they were wearing nike, adidas, harley davidson and UNDER ARMOR! "Some might call it tacky to wear under armor to the dinner table, but what else is going to stretch as much as I do?"

But they were a nice family, and it's kind of how you would expect: all of the kids were loud and animated and the dad sat there with his arm around his smoking hot trophy wife. So I was wondering: Is this the new "American Family"? I don't see why it couldn't be that with all of our adrenaline-obsessed youth out there, who are always eating poorly, but pack themselves into the gym to show off to their smoking hot girlfriends, that this could be a new direction that America is headed in. You can almost see the evolution of the american family happening right before your eyes. But maybe that's how the rest of the world already views us. It certainly follows all the right stereotypes.

We Hardly Knew Ye

Let me go on record as saying "MySpace can suck MyBalls." I'm sorry if I faked any of you out and got your hopes up by creating a MySpace account, but sadly, it brings nothing new to the table for me, and I'll have to let it go. Commence fade out: now.

Thank you, Lance

Now we just need all the other members of boy bands world wide to come clean.

It's not scary!!!!!!!!

I don't usually do movie reviews on here because there's enough people out there that have their own opinions in things, but when a movie with as many mixed reviews as Lady in the Water comes out, and you generally disagree with all of the reviews, i think it's my duty to tell it how i saw it. After i read the reviews on RottenTomatoes, which totaled a whopping 19% that liked the movie (right down there with Little Man) I was wondering if they were really on to something and it sucked, or if they're all a bunch of pretentious bastards who don't have a drop of that imagination juice left in their imagination juice sack. When they started describing how the plot made no sense to them, that's when i decided to go see it, and i already knew i'd like it. Generally, "no plot" means "too much plot for me to keep track of."

So Meg n' i sailed off to see it last night and during the movie, I could see why people might not like it. Characters who have no grounding in reality, a lot of (good) dialogue, and (oh my...) it's not scary. Have any of his movies been truly scary? Sure there's scary parts, but when i think about it, was the Sixth Sense "scary"? No. It was suspenseful, but it was also mostly dialogue that just kept you interested until the end. As I recall, i was almost bored before the end of that movie.

But what's amazing about this movie is that while it mixes reality and fantasy, the two parts often cross over, where the real characters start doing extraordinary things, and you hardly even notice. You think it's too far-fetched to believe it, so you start to believe that everyone and everything can be as real or as imaginary as it wants at any point. People start doing extraordinary things, and then the last thing that happened doesn't seem so crazy.

All of this factors into the fact that this was originally conceived as a bedtime story for M. Night's kids, and when it comes down to it, that's what it is. It's a bedtime story in real time, where if you took the plot down off the screen and told it to your own kids before they went to bed, then you wouldn't feel foolish at all, but you'd feel incredibly smart for making up such a dark, funny, imaginative, and engaging story, which would thus make you the best father/mother in the world.

You stole my scent!

I'm not usually one for promoting products that i use everyday, BIGGEST BOOBS ON THE NET! but every once in a while, when I sit down and enjoy a nice refreshing Pepsi, I can't help but marvel at the power of my new favorite household product. No, it's not my wonderful new George Foreman, which takes out the fat, but leaves in the flavor (and even has removable plates), but rather the greatest turd spray in the world. Here it is:












The Lemon Mist Mate doesn't just try to cover up bad odors coming out of your ass, it kills them. No, it doesn't just kill them, it latches on to you and follows you around for the rest of the day and takes out whatever unpleasant smells might be emmanating from you. I even use it as deodorant on occasion. But the best part is, it doesn't come in "mountain spring" or "cayenne pepper" scents... it's just lemon, and the most powerful, potent, and pleasing lemon you will ever come across.

So the next time you've had one too many Starbucks brand grande white chocolate mocha (my personal favorite, as i find it to be the perfect mix between heaven and... oh, who am I kidding, it's just heavenly) then don't forget your turd spray. And you better hope it's Lemon Mist Mate.

I'll show you a Body World

Today I made an effort to be cultured with my family, so we took off down to denver to see the Body Worlds exhibit at the nature and science museum, and since we had a bit of time before they would let us in to see it, we wandered around the outer space part, which was really interesting, but once we'd been through that, we went to get in line for the Body Worlds and then there was a massive power outage throughout the entire building.

Everyone just milled around for a few second, until the fire alarm went off, but even then, all of the staff was looking at each other like "Are we supposed to kick them out?" So it's kind of understandable that people might be confused in this situation, but as we were leaving, there was a couple different groups of people that were saying that the same thing had happened yesterday, too.

As we're leaving then, the fire trucks are pulling in to make sure everything's alright... then we get out onto I-70 and see a massive fire right in the middle of a neighborhood, with the flames bursting up higher than the trees. I feel sorry for those people that lost their house because the fire fighters were more worried about a power outage at the museum. But that's the way the cookie crumbles.

A formal introduction

Thanks for that comment, deep throat. I just realized that i haven't told you all about the people i work with, or the machines i work with. Let's start with the people.

Castleman - He's the crew leader and the manic depressive. He's a good guy but he often leaves us hanging. He's always good for a surprise, though... he's the one that told me not to let my meatloaf.

Cupp - He's the oldest and the most senile of them all. He's the one that mows the grass without the reels running (both literally and metaphorically) and who likes to tell the stories that go nowhere.

Old man Vince - He's not that old, but he's kinda like your grandpa. He's the one that's best suited for shovel support.

Mike Kent - He'll probably find this page by searching for his name on the internet because he's a huge conspiracy theorist. That's why he's up at Red Feather Lakes to begin with, to escape everything. He believes that the government dumps metals from planes to help control the weather and thinks that out of all the missiles that Korea has been launching recently, the US hasn't been able to track any of them. I'm totally neutral on the whole debate, but it's fun to hear his ideas... especially after he's smoked a fatty joint.

Dave - Dave, as i've told many of you, is most closely realted to Boomhower from King of the Hill. That's not a bad thing at all, since he's my favorite character on that show. But he's the only guy i'm living with right now, and he's always good company, and he knows a hell of a lot about grass.

Sean and Tara - Both of these two are younger than i am, and they both came in at the same time, both work together, and both got the same bad ideas from Old Man Vince. They were doomed from the beginning. Sean's a good worker, but Tara can be a bit lazy. She's also afraid of pretty much everything from what i've seen.

Buddy - Buddy doesn't work for the grounds crew because he kept stealing stuff from them. Now he works in the kitchen where he steals beer all day. Then when Dan moved out of our house, Buddy stole all of his 2Pac CDs. I was fine with all this, but now i think he stole a CD case of mine which probably had 50 CDs in it, but everyone just keeps saying that I can't prove it. He can burn them if he wants, but i just want them back.

There's a couple more good guys who i have no real problem with, but are all really nice.

Then there's the equipment. The best part about a job like this is making up nicknames for all the machines you use, and so far i've come up with:

Shit stain - This is my least favorite mower. It bucks a lot, it squeals like a little bitch if you try to do ANYTHING with it but mostly it got it's name because anytime you try to turn it takes out a huge chunk of grass behind you and leaves shitty skidmarks all over the course.

Yoda - It's a little green club car with a silver cab, so it looks like Yoda, but also, when you try to drive it, it's just like Yoda said "Do or do not, there is no try." This thing will take off.

Doctor Oc - Just like in Spiderman 2, this huge mower has long arms with all kinds of hoses shooting out in all directions, and you can almost imagine it grabbing it's way along the ground like the classic villain.

The Patriot - This is the greens mower that i usually use and it has an american flag sticking out of the back from the 4th of july. Not much to the name, but it perfectly balances with the other greens mower...

The Injun - Nothing racial, just a cute play on words. But it kind of fits because either a) the middle rell won't cut, leaving a mohawk in the grass or b) it will "scalp" the fringe because the reels don't always come up fast enough.

That's all of the ones that have deserved a nickname so far, but i think it gives you a nice intro into the world that i live and work in.

So it's not just me

Everyone has their own thing going on up here. The entire crew that i'm on is about to explode at each other. It all starts with the fact that our crew leader is a manic depressive, and on certain days, you won't see him at all and won't be able to reach him on the radio.

Then, a step down from that, us people that work hard have to try to regulate the newer people and make sure they know what to do because our boss won't tell them, and then they usually just stand around anyways, and there's nothing that we can really do about it.

And the next step down, the people that really don't do anything... don't do anything (mow without the blades turning... try to keep shovels from falling over...) and they're mad at the boss because the one thing he did this week was tell everyone that they couldn't clock in early and milk the clock by drinking coffee and telling stupid stories about when they were younger and usually end with "so i said 'sure.'" Amazing climax.

Today, one of the harder working guys went home early just because he didn't want to do the bitch job that he felt everyone else should've gotten done yesterday. Maybe he's right, maybe no one's right, but things are gonna go south in the next week.

Insanity

If you want to see someone go insane, come up to red feather and i'll let you into my house free of charge to watch my mind eat itself alive.

Now the world cup finals are on, and i have to watch the fucking scoreboard on the internet because we don't get local channels on our dish.

I'm tired

It's been a long long time since i've piggybacked posts, and by all rights, it should never need be done, but the coffee is good and I got too much on the mind.

I went to play frisbee golf with some high school friends today and one thing became strikingly clear. I've lost religion. This isn't that great of a revelation knowing me, but since high school, that has been the largest change in my life. Here were my friends and they were planning their whole night around going to church and i look at them and say "I haven't gone to church since easter... and christmas before that." And all of a sudden I'm proud of it, even though i've turned into that semi-christian bastard of a person that i hated a few years ago because they would do everything that the chirstian holidays of easter and christmas entailed except without the religion. They would give their gifts (which were often more elaborate than actual christians' gifts because to them it was all about giving presents rather than the background and the thought of being with family) without any guilt of just using the occasion to get work off and lavish niceities upon themselves.

But now i've turned into one of these people, and i don't know if i mind. I still go to church on these days, but only take a novelty approach to it, and enjoy the beauty of the ceremonies and just use the time to reminisce about past years, instead of taking any actual religious meaning away from it. My sudden decline in religion is because of these "realizations" in me:

1. That organized religion takes too much power and credit away from the individual. People often say think that christianity and other religions that strongly bank on ideals like fate and destiny are opposites when in fact i believe now that they are almost the same. After the Super Bowl, everyone likes to thank God and their teammates for making it possible, so if they truly believe that they couldn't've done it without God, then doesn't it seem like it was only in God's power to make it happen, and thus only fate for you. I say what's more important is the will in every individual that pushes them through every moment, but is entirely dependent on one's own past experiences and upbringing to make them act a certain way. I'm trying to sound smart, but it's just that it's the small, everyday, humanly actions that eventually prepare us for whatever it is we have to do. Unless there is a case of absolute divine intervention, it's more a factor of one's own actions that make up their greatest accomplishments.

2. Religion probably would've been incorporated into society, even without a uniformed approach. The seven deadly sins and the ten commandments do make sense, and they do work, but when you look at it, they're also stuck in our laws and they're all things that are necessary for a society to work. They seem like the most basic laws that could've been established for a true government to form, and maybe this is why as kids come into college and generally start being those damn liberal freaks, they also start to lose religion slightly more as they rebel from rules and mind sets. Also, the seven deadly sins, maybe be terrible to deal with in the afterlife, but here on earth they're just things that you can try to avoid if you want to live a better, healthier life. It's almost more a practice of common sense than anything revolutionary, just like everything i've just written down.

I kind of just spaced out for that whole thing. It was just a mind flow of what has been going through my head for the past couple years, so don't get offended if i'm totally wrong.

Another one for the books

Rack up another speeding ticket for me. I've lost count now. Is that bad? The cop said I was going 21 over, which is probably generous in it's own right, which would make it a 6 point ticket, but he knocked it down to 15 over so it'll only be $71 and a 2 point ticket if i mail it in. Good guy I guess, but they were only doing it because there's been an abundance of accidents in recent weeks.

So I'm all good with it, but the frustration sets in when we start chatting and I tell him what I do up here and how when it's this late at night (almost midnight) and i gotta get up early and i'm tired of making this fucking drive so often because I always forget stuff and it's boring as hell... oh wait... speaking of always forgetting stuff, i look over at the 4 bills i have to pay for the apartment i never get to stay in on the seat next to me, and the ticket i've just added to the pile, and i realize i forgot my fucking checkbook. There's the frustration, because i know i'll have to go back down to get that in the next few days, where i'll have to take the time (which has now been extended to 2 hours round trip because i can't speed) just to pick up one fucking thing.

So there's the bills + the ticket + the gas + the... I can't afford this job.

Sorry. Maybe I get carried away, but it gets old, and almost makes me want to quit one of the best jobs i've ever had just because i'm so secluded from the rest of the world and have to make my way between my three homes every day just because i can never keep everything straight. So that's why everyone up here smokes pot and/or does meth.

The Swiss, JA!

I know i've been promising a new site for a while, but it looks like that'll take a bit longer than expected, so i thought i'd throw some pictures at ya from my trip to switzerland. Enjoy!


These are the kinds of pictures that you'll get of my family if you ever try it. Charmers, ain't we?

Nothing special here, i just think living pinata donkeys are cool.


First, you have to know that all of Europe is lightyears ahead of america in the category of urinal entertainment. This picture is obviously a frowny face, but when you pissed on it, it changed to a smiley face. This was just one of many, even though it's the only one i got a picture of. Other games include a soccer game with a ball that you can piss into the goal and a target, where if you pissed hard enough it would play the "ole, ole ole ole" chant from sporting events. Fantastic.

This is the top of the Schilthorn, one of the highest mountains in Europe, and right above my favorite place in the trip, a little town called murren. There was also a James Bond movie shot here.

The swiss know their cheese, and this is a cheese factory that we went to where they just rolled this shit out. Here's a picture of their cellar. Each one of those wheels is... fucking heavy... probably 50 pounds, and there's 3 hallways like this.

I like this picture for 3 reasons: 1. It was taken in this huge sampling room at a chocolate factory we toured. 2. My brother is stealthily flashing the international sign for rock and roll and 3. We endlessly made fun of my mom (left side) because she's practically a blur she was stuffing chocolate into her mouth so fast. I was doing it too, but no one has any proof.

This is also the chocolate factory. It's kind of like a covert ops pic that i took, but that was really the color of the room that these poor employees had to work in. But they were eating chocolate in this picture, so maybe life isn't so bad for them.

We've all seen these on planes, but when i was coming back i noticed how they only show one black person in the whole spread and one time he's getting his game on and in the other he's kissing his ass goodbye. Do the brothas let this slide? Perhaps they'd just say "yep, that's us alright." I'm not black, i don't know.

That's kind of it for now. If you want more details or more pictures just let me know. And i'll keep working on the site.

Staying clean

I've gotten sucked into the World Cup a bit. I even got up early yesterday to watch the Brazil vs. Australia game. I found myself yelling at the tv like any other sport, and i found myself lighting up cigs at 10 in the morning just so i could fit in... all by myself in my apartment. Either way it was a good match, and then i had a big Father's Day meal to look forward to. I went over to my parents' house and had a good time and afterwards i was talking to my mom and told her about the game and pretty much everything i just wrote, even about the cigarettes.

Apparently this was news to her, even after i had worked at a bowling alley for a year, and she freaked out a bit. I suppose she might, but i don't think she realizes that a cigarette every once in a while is absolutely nothing compared to what i could be doing. If i wanted to right now... if anyone wanted to... they could make no more than 6 phone calls and get any drug known in the world. Just as easily i could get to Kevin Bacon, of course. I was thinking about it and i could probably do it in 2. That's nothing. So i don't think my mom realizes how lucky she is to have a son... two sons... who stay relatively drug free in today's world. And all this when she doesn't even know if her own husband has ever smoked pot or done anything like that.

As far as the rest of the weekend went... it was nice. The highlight was probably seeing Nacho Libre, which was everything i could've hoped for. Maybe it would've been better if i had worn my wrestling mask, but i guess that can pass. Hope everyone's father's day went well.

Maybe?

Last night, as i was coming up from fort collins to the good ol' beebee house, my tank starts rinning on empty, and there's two places i can stop at without heading back to fort collins. The first one closes at 10 (it's 10:15 or so) and you can't use a credit card, and the second one is closed and doesn't even have the credit card slot. I'm in the middle of nowhere, so i have to stop for the night and sleep in my car.

I woke up when it opened and had a half hour to fill up and get to work. When i get up the red feather... get this... the cafe is on fire. This is the only place that you can hang out in the whole town that has a pool table or anything like that. I look and the roof is caved in, so i know it's gone. Turns out, later they tell me, that the first call to the fire department was placed at 6 o'clock of, of course, 6/6/06.

Then today at work, two of us almost rolled our mowers into sand traps and it took forever to get out. Just one of those days where everything, coincidentally, happens to go exactly as it seems it might.

The Beebee House

So here's the set up. Yeah, i've been stealing internet up at my new house, and while the guy i'm sharing a room with gets a good enough connection to stream music and everything, i barely have enough time to write a stupid/halfway witty comment on someones blog before i get kicked off. Life is unfair, but i guess that's the life when you steal other people's shit.

But really, things are going well. Work is going great. The house is... ok i suppose. It's really kind of comical, this house.
- The dishwasher is rusted on the inside, and has a pool of brown and blue in the bottom.
- One of the showers is a faucet. One of the showers has a hole in the back wall, which is covered up by a severely water-damaged painting.
- I haven't even ventured to go downstairs, but i hear there's a washer and dryer, a weight room, and a handful of replacement mattresses which all look soiled... to the max. Supposedly the clothes washer also spits out brown water.... I do my laundry at my parents house.
- There's no bowls, but there are about 50 tiny coffee cups. There are 3 normal-sized drinking glasses.
- One of the guys that lives there is supposed to be getting out today. He would go to work with the fox acres building maintenance crew, clock in and then leave, then was completely taken by surprise when they fired him. He went back the next day, and they fired him again. I guess he was also fired from the grounds maintenance crew last year. If he's not out by today, the cops will come help him move, which he doesn't want because he's already been to jail twice.
-Another guy i'm living with has 3 DUIs, and sounds like Boomhower from King of the Hill. I think it must be something with me... this string of weird roommates (not including the ones i choose to live with). They'll probably all be gone by the end of the year.

That's all i've gotten figured out in the first 4 days that i've been there, so i'm sure there's plenty more goodness to come. I'll let you know as soon as the internet pops up.

PIZZA!!! PIZZA!!!

I don't know whether or not any of you like Little Ceasar's, but either way, it's coming back to Fort Collins. Hell yeah!

Ugly Nugglets

Thank God for hockey, because basketball is just starting to get ugly. I'm sitting here watching the Nuggets game and, while the calls aren't going our way, I'm wondering "Do the refs ever think of what it's like to watch these games?" I couldn't care less who wins, really, but I at least want to see a good game. When the game is being stopped every 15 seconds for one reason or another, not only is the 8:30 game extended far past my bedtime, but I find myself hating everything about the sport cause everyone involves seems to be a complete pussy (except, now it seems, the 240-year-old Doug Moe, who's sitting on the sidelines).

I watch some of the fouls: brushing your chest against someone, touching their finger tips long after a shot has been released... they're all so lame, and after which, the person who got "fouled" has to have seizures on the floor, and yell "RAPE!!!", or else they pout about it until the Earth's end. The worst thing about it is that it's only in this series. In all the other ones that I've seen, there's been good solid basketball all-around, and it's generally because there's a flow. And the most important thing is that without all the fouls, there are less free throws, which are the most vile, stupid, mind-numbing, game-wrecking moments in sports. There's too much emphasis on them, and they ruin most games in the final minutes.

I mostly blame the whole National Basketball Association, as I can see them sending the most experienced refs for the playoffs (naturally). But these also end up being the oldest, most conservative refs, who were told to blow their whistles, and make sure that none of the players end up in the skybox, going after fans. While it's important, it has to be bad for the ratings and overall acceptance of the sport nationwide. Sure, it seems popular enough, still, but outside of my apartment, I'd probably be hard pressed to find too many people who watched more than 25% of the (enter team of choice)'s games this year.

Perhaps I'm way off on most of this shit, but now that the game is reaching two and a half hours, all the while going 200 fouls per hour, I'm just about ready to shoot myself in the fucking head for wasting my time, while I could've been intricately researching when the next Avs game is, just so I can see someone get their block knocked off... Charlie Brown style.

My 200 cents

Yesterday I went out to my car and found the driver's door slightly open. I always remember to lock my car, but whether or not the keyless entry works or not is another thing. But either way, I went and started looking around my car and couldn't find anything missing, but i did find a couple things that were where i hadn't left them. CDs were just moved around and some of the stuff that was in the back seat was moved to the front seat. Then I checked again and saw that about 2 handfuls of change were gone out of center compartment where i keep my coins.

So my CD player, snowboard gear, tons of jackets and all the other shit that was piled up in my car were still there, but about $2.50 was gone. I can just picture someone running through Ram's Pointe thinking "Too bad I couldn't carry anymore since both of my hands are full of coins." Oh well, I guess I should be grateful, and hope that someone worse doesn't get in there next time.

FYI

If I ever tell you what I'm going to do next year, I'm full of shit.

Pudding the right foot forward

This weekend, i just felt that i had to get out of town for a while. Things haven't been stressful, really, since i'm still in between jobs, but maybe that's exactly why: i've been stuck with nothing to do in this town for the past couple weeks. So on Friday night, edward, matt and i went down to boulder to go to some sort of sexy party, the likes of which you could see in a family guy episode, but alas, there was no party, at least not one that we could get our dirty mitts on. Instead i ran into some other friends and went to a party with them.

When we got there, we realized that it was a frat party, but as everyone there seemed to be cool enough, i didn't make too much of it. In fact, it was almost like a high school reunion since so many people i thought i would never see again ended up being there. Some of them i wanted to see, others like jamie butzek, i guess i would've been just fine not seeing her again. But it was actually a fun party, made all the better by two fights, and getting capped off by the cops breaking everything up.

The next night, i was pretty impartial to partying, but it was quiet around these parts, except for the nuggets game, and there was talk of a jello wrestling party down in boulder again, so i figured "what the hell?" Eddie and i jumped in the car again and took off down that way. Halfway there, i got pulled over, but luckily didn't get a ticket cause i think i'm getting to the revoking of the license stage. When we got everyone together and got to the party, it was strange to see a whole freakin bunch of deer hanging out in front of the house where the party was at. Real live deer. And this happened to be the first time edward had ever seen a deer, so we had to tell him not to ride them and such, but it was still pretty sweet. When we got inside and got some beverages, we saw that it was pudding wrestling, instead of jello, and that 70% of the people that wanted to do it were guys in speedos, but it was still hilarious to watch. After long enough, and after a few more girls joined in, i hopped in the pool with them and got a little slippery. It was a freaking sweet feeling, flopping around in there. I got some pictures, but i don't know how to get them on here, but maybe they'll get around to your eyes sooner or later.

Also, after meg put up that south park character website, we went a little crazy and made some of our own. Here's my favorites that i'm allowed to show on here:


Jake Plummer

















And Brian, my roommate from last year