If you disagree with me...I don't care.

I'm bored as hell.

2006-06-15T15:32:00.000-04:00

I'm bored as fuck, so here's a little updated list on what I've been doing to pass the copious amounts of time I wake up to each afternoon:

- video games
- working out
- reading books (with and without pictures)
- expanding/rearranging/enhancing my music collection
- watching way too much TV
- hanging out with Bob and Al
- catching up on everyone's blogs. like everyone in the world.
- watching every movie that's on-demand at any given time
- walking around campus
- writing blog entries
- traveling
- getting ready to move to Japan

That's all I can think of. More on the "getting ready to move to Japan" part later (when I have a more robust attention span).

I have officially burnt myself out on Metroid Prime...in one sitting.

2006-06-09T04:28:00.000-04:00

Yes, to restate the title of this entry, I have indeed burnt myself out on Metroid Prime for the Nintendo GameCube in one 4-hour sitting (yesterday). I thought about popping it back in today, but I found that with a little introspective contemplation (about 10 seconds' worth), I had no desire whatsoever to play it again. Now why, you might be asking, do I not want to play this highly acclaimed game that so many enjoyed (perhaps you even)??? It's boring. That's why asshole.

Sorry (not really). I think part of my disillusionment towards the game stems from my attitude going into it: I was looking forward to a fast-paced first person shooter (FPS). Metroid Prime is definitely not a typical FPS. It just doesn't work. My biggest complaints are these: 1) lack of enemies to slay 2) lack of weapons with which to slay said enemies. One of the things that makes FPSs fun is a steady flow of enemies to engage in mortal combat. Now of course, these enemies don't necessarily need to be unique, hell, they don't even have to have good A.I....there just needs to be lots of them (or at least a healthy amount, dispersed throughout each level). Prime's enemies suck...they only pop up in pre-determined positions in only some parts of the levels and always in the same positions/patterns. Oh, and they all die in like 2-3 hits. Lame. My second complaint does not require much exploration. There are only like 6 different weapons you can get throughout the game or some shit, and they're all pretty boring. Totally lame.

Metroid Prime would have turned out much better in the form of a third-person/over-the-shoulder adventure/platformer. Don't get me wrong, it does have it's cool aspects. I mean, Samus looks pretty sweet of course, the story's pretty epic, etc., etc. There are cool little things as well, like the fact that if you're in a dark room (in the game) and an explosion goes off close to you, you can see Samus's face reflect off the inside of the visor. The visor also fogs up sometimes. Thinking back, this game would have been cool had it been set up like the Aeon Flux game (judging from the 15 minutes of that game that I played).

Anywho, I probably won't play Prime again. Oh well. Smash Bros. and Mario Kart are still fun, and I hooked the Dreamcast back up. I finally got my hands on Ikaruga (DC version); it's hard as shit, but still fun and nice to look at. I can't think of much else to talk about right now. This is the second night in a row I'm staying up till dawn, and I have to get up early...today...to drive to Indy for the weekend for my mom's birthday. I manage my time very well. Shut up.

Hisashiburi: Part Deux

2006-05-23T05:41:00.000-04:00

Well it's 6 in the fucking A.M., and I'm still awake. Every once in a while, my insomnia runs rampant, and I end staying up all night (i.e., I don't go to sleep until "normal time" the next night). By "every once in a while" I mean about once a week. Strangely enough, whenever this happens I don't really feel any more tired than usual...not to mention the extended TV-watching, video game-playing, and book-reading opportunities this skill affords me. So what does this mean? It means I've decided to talk about other crap that happened since my second to last post (the one from January) and/or to extrapolate on crap I talked about in my last post. If I feel like it, I'll add pics later.

=Spring Break (check out the equal signs instead of normal dashes...this is part deux!...shut the hell up, I'm bored and watching the Mr. T cartoon at 6 o'clock in the fucking morning on a Tuesday.)=
Spring Break was fun.

Ok, I'll go a little more into detail. I went out to California with my dad for some car-renting, road-tripping fun. It was sweet. We spent some time in San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Napa Valley (wine country), and Big Sur (cliffs, trees, and beaches). When we visited Big Sur, we ate at the famous Nepenthes restaurant. It was kind of coincidental in that I had brought along Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, one of my favorite books of all time, to read for about the millionth time while on the plane(s). He mentions visiting the restaurant in the book, and my dad suggested going there without me mentioning it to him. Who knows, I might have actually sat at the same seat Thompson did (at some point in his life), eating delicious food and watching whales in the distance from a cliff hundreds of feet up a cliff over the ocean. Oh, and getting attacked by the crazy birds. Too bad we didn't enjoy more coincidences with my favorite book...like the ample supply of mescaline. Haha...ha...just...just kidding...ha....

Anyways, the trip was fun, we had a ton of awesome food and wine, hung out at some sweet beaches, and got out of Indiana for a week. That's always cause for celebration.

=Class/Graduation=
Oh yeah, minor detail about the last five months, I went to class (sometimes...ok, not very often, but at least I went a little) and passed. Thusly, I am, as of May 6th, 2006, a college graduate. Lovely.

You know, it's interesting to see the varying paths my friends and fellow graduates (or otherwise) are taking now that they're done with school. Hopefully, the A-Team will end up in Japan once again. Some of my friends are freaking out about jobs. Some have jobs. Some decided to quit after 4 years and leave without a degree (I'm just tempting myself here -- I definitely don't feel like going into this for fear that I might go crazy and become a danger to myself and others). Like all the "major events" in my life, as far as I can tell, I am unaffected by the end of this chapter to my life.

=I need a girlfriend for the express purpose of keeping me out of situations like this one (and other reasons I guess)=
Due to some shred of honor and dignity that I possess (and laziness), I'm going to leave out any sordid or overtly identifying aspects of this story. That being said, I narrowly escaped certain death towards the end of last semester. Ok, not really physical death, but copious amounts of pain and suffering. I ended up getting roped into a short pseudo-relationship with the room mate of a friend of mine. I drunkenly (after many games of beer pong at Pat's) went home with and ALMOST hooked up with her. This is where the situation got rough (for me at least): she's physically attractive and we share a few interests. Unfortunately, she's not the type I typically pursue a romantic relationship with. Even more unfortunately, she seemed to be crazy about me (i.e., if I told her I wanted to keep the relationship platonic, she'd probably freak out and it would be soooooooo awkward. And no one wants that.). So what did I do? I completely blew her off. She eventually got my phone number from her room mate (my buddy), and started calling me. I didn't answer/return her calls, and excluding one short night of weakness after which I had to make up some bullshit excuse to leave her place (she kept calling me so I invited her to Yogi's one night on Little Five weekend with the Horwitz crew), I never saw her again. Until the Pat vs. Ronan drinking night...Keep in mind that I think this girl had been to Pat's house twice before that night (including the night we ALMOST hooked up); considering the amount of parties Pat had, even at that residence alone, her attendance can be ranked among the lowest of the low. This is in contrast to her room mate who came to Pat's parties quite often. So anyways, her room mate shows up with, YARGH, her in tow. Sure there might be other reasons why she came, but I'm pretty sure it's because she figured I'd be there. Flattering, but a bit creepy. This (and some advice from Anthony) prompted me to do something I hadn't done in a long time. Back in the day (that is, freshman and sophomore year), I had the tendency to get bored at parties and would just leave (walk or drive) without telling anybody. Used to piss a lot of people off. Anywho, that's exactly what I did that night. Came back from a short jaunt to the VP, got a beer, stood outside and talked to everybody for about 10 minutes, noticed that the chick chasing me was occupied talking to Pat (note: I found out later she was asking about me or something), nonchalantly walked into the vacant house through the back door, tossed my empty can in the trash, and walked right out the front door. She called me later and left an inquisitive voicemail, and I have not heard from or seen her since. Eh, I figured it would be easier if she just wrote me off as an asshole instead of me having to keep avoiding her clutches and turning down her advances.

Wow, I talked about that at much greater length than I originally planned. Eh.

=Deadwood=
It's a good show.

That's all.

=Did I miss anything?=
Hell yes I did, but I either don't feel like writing anymore or can't remember anything else at the moment. Oh well. It's light out now, and I was planning on getting up in 2 hours anyways, so maybe I'll try and take a quick nap before I head up to Indy. Probably won't happen, but there's always hope. I just wish there were always free popsicles. I love popsicles. Especially when they're free.

Hisashi-motherfucking-buri.

2006-05-22T17:16:00.000-04:00

Well, as per my typical M.O., this is my first post in roughly 5 months despite the lofty ambitions I purported in my last few posts. Oops.

A lot has happened (no shit) since my last post, and I have absolutely no intention of catching you up on all of it. What a pity huh? Instead, I'll give you the key points. So, without further ado...

-Japan (and my plans to move there)-
As anyone who knows me...uh...knows, I've been planning on moving to Japan for quite some time now, post-graduation. Well, those plans are coming to fruition as we speak. Nova (English teaching company) has offered me a job, and I interview with Aeon on Thursday. I think I performed quite well at the Nova interview, so I'm optimistic about the Aeon one. I'm requesting to be placed in Chiba (near Tokyo) since that's the area I'm familiar with, but I'm also seriously considering Osaka (due in no small part to Jun's prodding). Whatever. Either one would be great, and they'll be paying me more than enough to survive just to speak my native language while I search for a more, shall we say, career-oriented job (oriented towards my career at least). Anthony had the good idea of looking for freelance journalism work while over there, using our bilingualism as an advantage to cover stuff that might require some English skill. This kind of leads to our next topic...

-E3-

Yup, Anthony, Pat, Kyle, and I went to E3 in LA earlier this month to, uh, "cover" it for IUSTV. It was fucking incredible. We got to see the latest and greatest the video game industry has to offer, including the PS3 and Wii (though only Anthony and Kyle got in to actually see/play it). I'm extremely excited about the Wii, the DS Lite, and the plethora of awesome titles coming out for PSP. I, as I think many people were, was thrown by the price tag Sony is currently whispering for the PS3 (somewhere in the neighborhood of 500-600 bucks); that's fucking ri-goddamn-diculous. I honestly think the Wii is going to restore Nintendo to the head of the industry (and good god did they need it), despite the shitty name, especially considering they're shooting for under $200. I won't go into the sweet controller(s) or anything since I 1) didn't actually play it and 2) you can find all kinds of crap about them online in much greater detail than I would ever bother going into. However, I do encourage you to explore. Beyond that, we got to hang out at CCP's sweet ass two-story booth and drink free booze. Huzzah for being an esteemed member of the press. There were also a ton of hot booth girls there promoting various games. The best ones by far, in my opinion, were the SiN Episodes girls. Not only were they gorgeous, but they looked exactly like the characters in the game. Uncanny. My favorite was Cindy Synnett (portraying Jessica Cannon from SiN); she was amazing. On a side note, she writes a blog about gadgets, technology, and whatnot, which of course makes her even more amazing. Check out her blog if you are so inclined...and speak French. Yeah, it's in French. Babblefish of course butchers it (this is not to say it does not perform admirably however), but it will get the point across. I haven't studied/spoken/read/written French in like 8 years, but coincidentally I've been thinking of picking it up again. Well, I've sufficiently digressed from this topic...NEXT

-Boris and other sounds-

Zach, my official music hook-up, has been giving me some fantastic music to listen to lately. He introduced me to this Japanese stoner/drone metal band called Boris, and they have become a fucking obsession for me. Hopefully I'll be going to Cincinnati this summer to see them live. Also, another recent obsession of mine, recently indie-turned-big-label Bloomington band Murder By Death just put out a new CD, and it does not disappoint. Hopefully I'll get to see them one last time before I leave the country.

-The near future and other crap (because I'm tired of making headings)-

I'll be in Bloomington until the end of July when my lease runs out. After that, I guess it's up to Indy for a month or two while I wait to ship out to the land of the rising sun. In the meantime, I'll be fucking around, maybe trying to make some money, maybe posting more often (you have no idea how bored I am), maybe picking up the guitar, French, and photography again...then again maybe I'll just sit on my futon watching TV all day. Eh. Oh, it has come to my attention that I am horribly out of shape (read: fat). This of course means that I'll probably bitch and whine about it, but I am making an effort to get back in shape. Also, after looking at the E3 pictures, I realize that I really need to shave more often cause I look like a douche when I let the beard go.

What else....I guess that's about it for now.

A Cinderella Story

2006-01-09T12:37:00.000-05:00

I felt as though I should title this post something cliché like “So it begins” or “It begins anew” or something of that nature what with it being the first day of classes and all, but as we all know, I’m such an iconoclast. It makes me cool. It’s about 20 minutes past noon right now and a balmy 43 degrees (what happened to yesterday’s 60 degree weather?), and I’ve had one class so far. I had these gut instincts about the class that told me it was going to be about stupid telephony crap being vaguely referred to as “International Telecommunications”. I mean, I guess I should have guessed from the use of the word “telecommunications” as opposed to “media” or “programming” or something, but I was optimistically assuming that, due to what I considered an ambiguous title at the time, was a class that reflected the blurred lines represented by the department itself. But yeah, it’s about phones and crap instead of TV or even radio, so I’ll probably drop it. I was almost swayed by the professor; he seems cool. Also, and I didn’t realize this before now (since I was never actually required to take an intensive writing course but have taken like 5 anyways), but it’s an intensive writing course. Lots of annoying papers. Also, there were a couple potentially hot chicks and one chick that I know for sure is hot in the class. It’s hard to tell sometimes at the beginning of a new semester because the university actually instituted a policy a few years back requiring that hot chicks tone it down for the first couple days. There used to be a problem with guys feverishly dropping and adding classes based on sightings of hot chicks, and in the Drop/Add Incident of 2003, when the problem reached its apex, when thousands of male students attempted to drop/add hundreds of classes at the same time, the computers crashed and resulting erroneous nuclear missile strikes destroyed several small island nations. But they fixed it now.

So there’s class number one for Mondays (and Wednesdays), and it may end up being the one I drop. My next one is at like 5:30 or something, so I’ll make an update after that one, perhaps with a picture. Of something. Also, adding to the pile of crap to do in the future, I’m going to review bathrooms around campus. You know, for the kids, like.

**UPDATE: 4:30 PM**
After further consideration, I have decided to definitely drop the morning International Bullshit class. That way I won't have class until 5:45 on M/W. Score. I swear to god, if that fucking test credit doesn't hurry up and come through...I'm gonna be even more upset. Also, it would be nice if my JET confirmation letter came (along with an interview notice perhaps?). Looks like the evening's turning towards China Buffet later, which is a good thing because I'm hungry. Anywho, more later tonight after class, big number, 2 of the day, China Buffet, and constitutionals.

Let's get a handwax with that root canal.

2006-01-09T03:43:00.000-05:00

Originally composed at an earlier date.

Lucky you, after a short jaunt in the frosty winter air, I’ve decided to turn over that new leaf for my blog starting tonight. Oh joy. So hear I am at 5:30 AM on the futon watching Cowboy Bebop (Pierrot le Fou episode), continuing the assault on my (shameless plug) 20-10 vision. I’ll have some beer reviews coming up soon with the remnants of the holiday; I have some Chimay, Samuel Smith’s, and Upland in the fridge for imminent consumption. For now, here’s the first photoblog entry.

Over the break, my mom wanted me to go to the dentist since I hadn’t been in like a year or so. We used to go to this one guy, but he pissed off my family, so we had to change dentists. I don’t really care either way; I couldn’t be bothered to go anywhere if I had to pay for it myself. But since my parents are good enough to help me out here, why not. Anyways, the new place the family goes to in Indy is a place called Dental Spa. It’s…odd. They sent me a bunch of “new customer information” crap back near Thanksgiving. The idea behind the place is to make dentist’s office visits more bearable by providing the amenities of a spa. For instance, the chairs you sit in for your exam/cleaning/whatever are massage chairs. You can have paraffin hand waxings. They offer you water or various fruit juices ALL THE TIME (and there are assorted flavors of NutriGrain bars in the lobby…for free!). There are flat panels above the chairs so you can watch the tube while they work on you, and they slap headphones on you so can even hear it. High tech. They have kind of art deco/spa-ish furnishings complete with an arm chair in each dental work area in case you bring a friend to your appointment. I’m serious. A couple of older women came in when I did for an appointment, and one of them sat there in the chair and they talked the whole time with each other and the staff (all women). Weird. Haha, I freaked them out in the lobby of the place cause when we got there it was just my mom and I, and there was Dr. Phil or something on the TV, so I flipped over to the BBC for Monty Python’s Flying Circus. That’s when the two ladies (yuppie, upper class looking women) came in to see a sketch featuring Michael Palin spoofing a French movie. They did not seem quite as amused as my mother and me (or at all). So anyways, they offer all this crap and more included with the bill for your dental work which, they claim, is no more expensive than any other office. Maybe true, I don’t know.

My experience there was pretty good; it’s definitely aimed towards chicks, but I made out pretty well. The assistant that initially took me back was pretty hot, personable, and recently married (get your mind out of the gutter). After about a lovely half hour taking x-rays and pics of my teeth, I waited for about 45 minutes to move on to the dental hygienist (not sure what the deal with the wait was; didn’t care). She was also quite good looking, marital status unknown. She was good at the teeth thing, but I think she lacks a decent grasp of geography, ecology, and other cultures. She asked me what I was studying at IU, and I told her Japanese and Telecom. She then demanded I write her name and say something (both) in Japanese. I said “明けましておめでとうございます”, and she said it sounded like Spanish. I wrote her name in katakana, and she looked at it and said “Wow, that all just looks foreign to me.” What insight. She also told me that her brother had been to Japan on some kind of tour (not necessarily a tour of duty, but like a tour of naval bases in foreign parts of the globe) in the navy. She couldn’t remember where he had gone, even after I mentioned a few cities/regions, though she said it was supposed to be considered the “New York City of (she thinks) Japan” (which is unarguably Tokyo, assuming we really were talking about Japan). At any rate, she told me her brother had gone to a bar where he drank the local (or apparently national) specialty drink, some kind of psychotropic and/or hallucinogenic snake venom that every bar in the country served. She couldn’t recall the name and scoffed when I had no idea what the hell she was carrying on about. Frankly, I think she had Japan mixed up with perhaps a country in Southeast Asia. Or Mexico. Or she’s crazy and made the whole thing up, but considering the proximity of my head to her chest for the better part of an hour while she is bent over my face with her fingers in my mouth, I decided to take the path of least resistance, watch TV, use the massage chair, and enjoy occasional collisions with her boobs.

Finally, like every dentist’s office (that can afford to hire dental hygienists), I saw the actual dentist for about 10 minutes when she popped in, looked in my mouth, poked my gums, and sanded an old filling without even introducing herself, all the while badgering the hygienist about her brother taking LSD or dropping acid (she came in on the tail end of our snake venom conversation). So that about wraps that up. All in all, it’s a weird place, but it does make the dentist’s office not as bad.

Update: Look forward to a first day of classes blog. Or something. Also soon, a review of Chimay beer.

I have a white psp from Japan. And other news.

2006-01-07T04:36:00.000-05:00

Biggest news as of late of course: I got a white psp from J-land for my birthday. Well, to be more accurate, my mom asked me what I wanted for my birthday cause she could think of shite, then I ordered it online using her credit card. It's fantastic.

Also, I've decided to make some changes to the blog. By this I mean that I will actually be posting with some decent level of regularity, and I will be adding crap. Crap like pics. I've been playing around with the idea of a photoblog or even a (occassional) video blog, but these ideas are mainly aimed towards the future (i.e., once I'm in Japan and have interesting stuff to photograph and comment on). Coincidentally, a guy whose blog has somewhat recently captured my interest (thanks partially to recommendation from Nick) has changed the layout of his site (which is quite popular by the way, and deservedly so) and begun podcasting. Here's to Yongfook for trying something new (and succeeding at it; he's an entertaining fellow). So at any rate, check back for some new crap some time in the possibly near future. Or don't.

On a side note, I returned from the holidays at my parents house to find that my self-addressed, stamped envelope which I included with JET application has still not arrived to give me confirmation that they actually received the (humongous) thing. I'm going to look around for my FedEx stub tomorrow and see if I can check the tracking for that bastard just to make sure it actually made it there. They were pretty swift about getting Nick's confirmation to him, but I don't think Anthony got his yet. Maybe it's different depending on if you're applying for ALT or CIR (Nick applied for ALT, Anthony and I applied for CIR). Maybe they seperated the apps into piles of ALTs and CIRs and forgot to mail out the CIR confirmations. Maybe my application was never delivered. It'd be nice if crap went the way it was supposed to at least most of the time. But I can't be selfish here I guess; Martin Luther King, Jr. had a dream too, and his hasn't come true yet, so I'll get in line.

Yikes.

Finally, perhaps due to some measure of inspiration from surfing Yongfook all night, I'd like to start rating beer because I drink a lot of it. And not the crappy kinds. That's right, the ones that come in the big fancy bottles. So there. For the record, I do not consider myself a beer connoisseur, just a well-informed, better-judgement-than-you drinker. I mean cultured. Whatever. I have a lot of material to work with already since I was home for three weeks. My dad and I went to the fancy liquor store in Carmel (did anyone else hear Hamilton County got highest average income or some shit...again? psht) upwards of four times to get wine, beer, and spirits, and the total was always five digits (including decimals). I'm not bragging, but we like to get good shit, and lots of it.

Well I've written so much about what I am going to write about in the future (or some kind of alternate future in another dimension with weird versions of all of us) that I don't feel like writing anymore tonight. But cheer up, you have a lot to look forward to...assuming I don't forget/get too lazy to do this crap. Uh...I'm heading back to the psp.

This post is 3 pgs long. I really don't give a shit if you read it or not, but be aware that it is 3 pgs long.

2005-10-15T03:30:00.000-05:00

So it’s roughly 2 a.m. on a Friday night (Saturday morning, whatever), I’ve been cleaning my apartment all night in preparation for my parents coming down tomorrow, and I’m pretty bored considering I don’t have cable, my PS2 is broken, and the only books I have are textbooks. For some reason, I feel the need to write a history, a brief chronicle if you will, regarding the history of my relationship with this guy who I will henceforth refer to as “Waluigi” (keeping with my policy not to use people’s real names when writing about/bashing them). All you assholes out there snickering about my use of the word “relationship” (Nick, Anthony) can lick Hobbes’ ass, I’m referring to a platonic relationship, i.e., friendship. I should note at this point that this will be a rather long post. If you’re actually reading this, I would suggest you get some snacks. That being said, let’s get this show on the road.

I met Waluigi in my high school Japanese class (which sucked giant Rhino testicles by the way) in my junior year after I had moved from Louisiana to Indiana. Waluigi’s a year older than me and had been taking Japanese since he entered high school, so he was a teacher’s assistant in my first class. My first impression of this kid was that he was weird as fuck, but then again, I’m pretty fucking weird myself. So despite his weirdness, I thought he was pretty cool, and we shared some interests. I should note at this point that I recognized from the start his lack of, uh, experience with the ladies…in any respect (other than popping out of one some 20 odd years ago).

Fast forward a couple years; to be honest, I didn’t get to know Waluigi terribly well the first year I knew him. During my senior year of high school, he had already moved down to IU, and I think he came back like once to visit the class. At any rate, back to the fast forwarding. So it’s the first semester of my freshman year at IU. By some wicked, cruel twist(s) of fate, I got stuck in Foster-Shea. It sucked; I really didn’t like that neighborhood of campus housing…at all. Knowing that he was in Bloomington, I decided to email Waluigi to see what he was up to (my roommate hadn’t arrived yet, and I didn’t have a TV…I was bored). Also, at this point, we were still friends, so I thought it’d be cool to hang out with him again. The long and the short of it is, we became really good friends that semester. I spent maybe 5 nights total in my room in Foster (I usually only went back to shower, change clothes, etc.) that semester; I usually slept on Waluigi’s floor or the floor of some of his friends with whom I became pretty close as well. Later in the semester, I spent all my nights sleeping with my new girlfriend in Ashton. We had a lot of similar interests still, Waluigi and I: skipping class cause we stayed up playing videogames all night, skipping class cause we drank too much the night before, skipping class cause we didn’t do the homework and didn’t want to get yelled at, skipping class cause we…didn’t like class. You get the idea, we were slackers, we played a lot of videogames, did a fair amount of drinking, dicked around a bunch, and it was a rather unproductive semester. Being around Waluigi so much, I started to see just how warped his mentality was (and perhaps is even more so now). I also witnessed first hand his numerous failures with women. I ended up getting some pretty crappy grades that semester (the main reason my GPA isn’t great). Waluigi failed out of IU. Apparently he had been doing the same kind of stuff we did that semester for his entire freshman year, and it landed him a low enough GPA to get kicked out.

Due to certain circumstances, he ended up going back to Indy to live with his parents for a while, and then got his own apartment. He started working at hourly, minimum wage, high school student-type places (Office Max, Electronics Boutique). He started coming down to visit, and I would usually drop by when I was in town, and at the time he was impressing me with his resolve to work and get himself back into IU. By the end of first semester the following year (my sophomore year at IU), if I’m remembering correctly, he was pretty much coming down every weekend. Sometime in that winter (I don’t remember if it was first or second semester), due to some more of those lovely twists of fate, Waluigi started dating a friend of mine whom I will refer to as Birdo. He might tell you otherwise, but I’ll tell you the fact of the matter: this was his first real girlfriend. He was now 20 years old. Considering the increasing frequency of his visits (especially now that he was dating Birdo), I started to have a clearer picture of Waluigi again. What I saw was somewhat disturbing. I saw the same immature, dumb kid that I had been an immature, dumb kid with the first semester of my freshman year. Sure, at this point in my life, I hadn’t changed a whole much since then. I was still a slacker, I still played a lot of videogames, and I still drank a lot (and this is all still true today). I had, however, changed enough to be making decent grades, set some realistic goals in my life, and do other in-the-process-of-becoming-a-mature-adult stuff. Waluigi on the other hand, though a year older than me, was just the same as before. I realized this, but I was still distracted by his fervor to get back into school.

Into the second semester of my (and Birdo’s) sophomore year, Waluigi basically moved into Birdo’s tiny ass, size-of-my-current-apartment’s-closet room in Ashton. Now, you should know that these two should never have been dating in the first place. They both have extremely inflammable personalities, are overly emotional about pretty much everything, and all this was amplified when they started dating. After he moved into her room and they were around each other almost 24/7, it only got worse. It was so bad that we (myself and the rest of Waluigi and Birdo’s mutual friends) started dreading going places with them because they would get in embarrassing fights about utter bullshit in public places. They fought at a restaurant about if the parmesan cheese shaker was plastic or glass. They fought in a bowling alley because Birdo told Waluigi to tie his shoe, but he didn’t want to. Even when they didn’t fight in public, they would often be pissed off at each other from fighting ALL THE TIME and would make it rather uncomfortable for the rest of us when we would go out with them. Being the immature attention-seeker that he is, Waluigi would often storm off after said fights, usually punching walls and stuff. Of course I was stuck listening to both of them bitch about each other since I was friends with them both independently. It was at this time that I started to draw the line.

I stayed the summer following my sophomore year in Bloomington. With Birdo off doing crap somewhere else in the country, Waluigi moved in with an old friend of his and concentrated on working to get money (and on whining incessantly about how he missed his girlfriend). I was starting to get pretty fed up with Waluigi and had even started avoiding him. I would like to note that while he would profess to me his money problems and how he really needed to get cash for school (and necessities of living), he flew from Indiana to Maryland at least twice to visit Birdo and started going out to the bars (now that he was 21) almost nightly. That’s pretty much the gist of the summer…I had made some new friends which were cooler than most of my other friends at the time, and I started hanging out with them a lot. By the end of the summer, we were consciously avoiding and blowing off Waluigi.

With Birdo back in town as the fall semester started up (my junior year at IU), the fighting continued (now that she was back, they could fight in person instead of over the phone). Waluigi had managed by this time to get back into IU as well and was taking a full class load…which he was sucking at big time. He was still exactly the same immature kid from before, but now he had the added bonus of a girlfriend to waste time on…a girlfriend he never should have been with in the first place (I know I already said that, but it bares repeating). He continued fucking around and continued his new tendency to waste money, so he also continued to fuck up academically. Over the course of the first semester that year, Birdo broke up with Waluigi pretty much ever other week (this is probably an exaggeration…but not by much). I can’t remember how many times Waluigi would show up at my place and immediately start whining about how they had broken up for good. Again. As you can imagine, it got tiresome. He also started breaking stuff that wasn’t his even more than before. He’d get mad, walk down the hall, and punch the exit sign off the sealing or something of that nature. Not cool.

Into the spring semester, we intensified the avoiding and blowing-off, and it seemed he got the picture. Then it happened. Birdo had finally also had enough, and she dumped his ass for good. For real. Waluigi went nuts. All those bad aspects I’ve been mentioning about him started getting a lot worse. He also started randomly showing up places he had not been invited to, especially when we were hanging out with Birdo. We were all weirded out…you would be too if some douchebag was stalking you. Possessing the mentality of a child, he had dubbed his temper tantrums “Destructive Rage” and began to make a habit of destroying stuff in bars and restaurants. Yeah, not exactly fun to be around, and that’s the kind of shit that gets you thrown out. He also hurled in the corner of Upstairs. That was fucking gross. Finally, by the grace of some god, he started to get the picture that none of us really liked him anymore, and his presence started to fade (hallelujah).

I’m going to jump forward and wrap this up now, especially considering I am not at liberty to discuss the details of the story from this past summer to the beginning of this semester. I can tell you this: he fucked up big time. I finally decided to actually tell him off once and for all (something I should have done long ago). As far as I know, he either failed out of IU again and/or ran out of money (read: wasted every cent he made) and now is enrolled at Ivy Tech or some shit. Temporally speaking, he is a fifth year college senior. Credit-wise, he’s lucky to be a sophomore. My guess is that it will take him another 5 years to graduate, if he even does. Oh well, he’s a loser. I haven’t talked to him since I told him off in early September (nor have I desired to).

At any rate, if you read that whole thing…it was probably a huge waste of your time, so I hope you enjoyed it. There’s a lot of stuff missing from this account; I consider this a mere outline and constructed it as such on purpose. If I had put in all the details and whatnot, this thing would be 20 pages long. I think that about does it for now, so I’m going to finish cleaning my apartment and hit the sack.

I hate people (and other short stories <== thanks Kevin).

2005-08-28T14:53:00.000-05:00

Well, the new semester hasn't even started yet (though it does tomorrow morning) and already I'm stressed out and pissed off. Want to know why? People, that's why. There's one person in particular that's really been annoying the fuck out of me. As usual, I will refrain from naming her, but if you know/hang out with me, it's obvious. Anyways, she's a bitch, and I don't like her. She lived with a couple of my good friends freshman year or some shit, and her boyfriend just dumped her a couple weeks ago or something, and for some reason she decided to latch onto our group of friends. Now, that would be fine...if she was a completely different person and didn't act how she does. First off, she's depressed or something and cries a lot. In public, even. I kind of felt bad for her the first time (not really), but after she started balling in the middle of a friendly outing to Steak and Shake, it really started pissing me off. I mean, come on, it makes everybody uncomfortable and brings the whole group down. Go cry by yourself. At this point you're probably thinking, "Geez Brian, have some compassion". Sorry, I reserve my compassion for people that deserve it. Everytime we go out, this chick complains about hanging out with us. Let me reiterate that. SHE latched unto our group and calls us incessantly, then she sits there and bitches about hanging out with us. Seriously. I remember a certain example of this (again, at the Steak). She sat there the entire time leaning on one of her arms with a disgusted look on her face saying stuff like "Ugh, why am I hanging out with you guys?", rolling her eyes, and sighing loudly while eating her fries that she was lucky to not have shoved up her nose by me. If you don't like hanging out with us, THEN FUCK OFF AND DON'T HANG OUT WITH US. She even wrote a blog entry (or several) that apparently complained about us (haha) and blah blah (Anthony and Frank saw them, related them to me), BUT SHE DELETED THEM. At least have the balls to leave up what you write...and don't hang out with us. She's also one of those bitches that says shit like "Guys are so stupid", "Boys are all (insert adjective)", and all that happy horse shit. I'm not even going to get started on this topic (yet), but know that the next woman that says this to me is going to get punched in the face. Equality, bitch. Ok, this next one will be the final anecdote since this post is getting way long. Me, Alicia, and, uh, HER, are in Anthony's car driving home from the Steak. If you don't know us, you should know at this point that we joke around and pick on each other A LOT. It's what we do, we all know it's in good fun, and we enjoy it. So we're in the car, and Anthony and I made some joke about Alicia being drunk or something, and this fucking bitch starts going off about how we shouldn't pick on Alicia to the effect of something like this: "Don't pick on Alicia! If you pick on Alicia, I'll stab you!" Now, the stabbing part doesn't really bother me; I already figured she was psycho (and if she really tries to stab me, I'll drop kick her in the face). BUT DON'T FUCKING TELL ME NOT TO JOKE AROUND WITH MY FRIEND OF SEVERAL YEARS THAT YOU'VE KNOW FOR 4 DAYS YOU INTERLOPING BITCH. Anyways, I'm tired of writing about this, so I guess that's it for now. Notice that I won't be deleting this post like a pansy.

Well fuck it.

2005-07-29T14:24:00.000-05:00

Ok. I've been living in Bloomington for the better part of three years now attending college at Indiana University. It started out fun, there were some good times...but to save you three years of bullshit, I'll sum it up now: it has degenerated into a hellish shit hole. Seriously. I thought I could stomach it for my fourth, final, Senior year, but I might have spoken too soon. I just got back from spending about a month in Japan, and it made me realize that I would have been much happier if I hadn't had to come back here. Ever. But, there's not much I can do about that now...10 more months and I can go back to Japan permanently (or some shit. Turn A, seriously).

I'm evil.

2005-06-22T12:47:00.000-05:00

Haha, sorry to anybody (except Alicia) that read the last blog entry I did (which has now been deleted). To clarify, I am going to Japan for two weeks and only two weeks. For now. :D

Wow.

2005-05-19T21:44:00.000-05:00

Oh wow. Well, the latest Star Wars installment is out, and I have to admit that I'm a bit excited about it. So, my buddy Pat who happens to be a huge Star Wars fan comes in to the office today gushing about the movie and mentions something about this "Lucas-authorized fan film" called "Star Wars: Revelations" that is supposed to cover events between this latest installment and Episode IV. Now, I've seen my share of Star Wars fan films...Most of the ones I've seen (enjoyed, even) were low budget, 5-10 minute Star Wars-based comedies; good stuff. With this past experience viewing Star Wars fan flicks, I was pretty optimistic about this one; who knows, Star Wars otaku can be funny, maybe they can act, too. NOPE. Go download this thing if you want to see some great graphics completely wasted on THE WORST acting EVER (go here: http://panicstruckpro.com/). The computer generated graphics are actually quite well done, but all the work and money put into that aspect of the film was for naught when paired with the "talent"'s piddley-ass excuse for acting. I really can't comment on it much further than that...it seriously is just horrible. Think a bunch of Star Wars geeks running around in costumes with Mariah Carey-calibur acting and dialogue in league with the likes of my dog's ass. Go download it if you want to laugh, shake your head, and then cry for wasting your time. These guys are so talented that on the main page of their webpage, THEY MISSPELLED THEIR OWN NAME. Amazing.

On a side note, it appears that Microsoft is working hard as ever getting the new Xbox 360 ready...not. Apparently they were showing demos at E3 supposedly running off the new system when in fact they were running from two Apple G5s. Good job MS. See Gizmodo for more on this and some pics:
http://www.gizmodo.com/gadgets/home-entertainment/xbox/index.php#e3-xbox-360-live-demos-running-on-powermac-g5-104295

Want to be my friend? Meet these simple requirements and you can be!

2005-05-04T00:49:00.000-05:00

Ok, I've been catching a good amount of flak lately from people about my personality. It's Tuesday night during finals week, I don't have another final till Friday, and I'm bored as hell, so I decided to go ahead and write a post about this topic. So, here are some things that you need to realize/consider if you wish to maintain friendship with me (and since I'm so awesome, I'm sure you'll all be taking notes while reading this).

1- Have a sense of humor.
If you take serious offense to any of the posts I've made on this blog, then you might as well file a friendship with me away under "Nevergonnafuckinghappen". I don't expect everyone to laugh maniacally at all of my jokes, but I abhor people that take themselves and stuff in general too seriously. And don't even step to me with all that politically correct bullshit or I will strike you dead on the spot without hesitation.

2- Don't be stupid.
I hate stupid people. This is self explanatory; if you're sitting there right now wondering if you're stupid or not, then you probably are.

3- Drama=fuck off.
I hate drama, especially stupid bullshit drama. So don't do it. Or else.

4- Don't bitch.
Now, I can be a pretty nice guy. I have been known to talk to people for hours about serious problems in their lives, and I've been told on numerous occassions that I'm a good listener. That being said, quit your bitching. I don't want to hear, 24/7, all of your trivial bullshit. This goes double, no triple, no INFINITY times, if you complain about the same thing everyday all day for an extended period of time. This goes hand in hand with...

5- Don't be immature.
I hate immature people almost as much as stupid people.

In summation, don't suck. That's about it I guess...there are other factors of course, but these are the main ones most of the time. If you don't meet the qualifications outlined here, then I guess we can't be friends. Sorry (but not really).

Yoroshiku. ^_^

My Glorious Neighbor

2005-03-20T13:18:00.001-05:00

Well, I've finally broken down and decided to write a blog about my neighbor. First let me say that she seems to be very nice and is pretty hot. However, she and her friends annoy the fuck out of me. Here's the gist of it:
1 -- It always smells like shit around her apartment. As her door is no more than six inches away from mine and is in an enclosed hallway, the entire area around our apartments smells like shit. I don't know how to explain it. I think of myself as a very cultured guy, I'm used to and/or not bothered by myriad odors, and I am rarely grossed out by the smell of any food...but her apartment seriously smells like ass. I equate it to the fishing shed of the guide my dad and I went to for years in Texas, i.e., fish guts and carcasses, dirt, oil and gasoline, various bait (live and otherwise), east Texas swamp, and a KFC grease trap and/or septic tank.
2 -- She plays horrible music. I only recognize about half of it, and it's mostly 90's R&B/psuedo-hip hop. The shit I don't recognize sounds like the other crap, but by even shittier artists. She also seems to host a good amount of parties (in her apartment about the size of the trunk of my car) while blasting this music. Fantabulous.
3 -- This one's just weird to me. She comes out of her apartment on a regular basis (for instance, she's doing it right now and has been for about an hour), stands or sits in the hallway, and talks on the phone. No, not a cell phone. Her cordless landline. Our apartments are located in the basement of a university building, so of course reception sucks for radio waves, but even if she was doing this to try and get better reception, it still doesn't make sense. Even in the hall, she's still in the basement and blanketed by concrete walls, some of which are now blocking the direct signal to her phone's base. W T F.

I should also state for the record that I'm pretty sure she's a foreign exchange student. She speaks a language (and has an accent in English) which I'm certain is not a romance or germanic tongue, she's black and very dark skinned, and all of her friends have the same accent/speak that same language. I'm guessing she's African. Now, as I stated above, I consider myself a cultured man, but perhaps these are cultural habits/products that I have been ignorant of until now. At the same time, true humor is cultural and relies on cultural idiosyncrasies. Either way, I'm always right so fuck you.

I also have a rather humorous story involving certain activities, a location on campus, and some townie kids, so if you're interested, ask me about it. Unfortunately, I won't be posting that story here.

*EDIT*: 3/20/05 2:20PM She's out in the hall on the phone again (this time on the stairs), and I stand corrected: she's gorgeous. d=(^o^)=b Heh, still, I've heard "Who Let the Dogs Out" by those incorrigible Baha Men or whatever the fuck their name is emanating from her room on numerous occasions... \(-_-)/

CATCH27 IS THE MOST RETARDED FUCKING THING EVER. Almost.

2005-03-19T15:02:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I signed up for this Catch27 thing...it's gay ass online community designed to prey on stupid college students with its trendy theme and eXtreme (dare I say, Xtreme?!), i'm-cool-and-i-don't-care-INYOURFACE! attitude. I was temporarily stupid enough to join this thing and invite three of my friends to whom I feel compelled to apologize profusely. You get a blog on the thing, and here is my first and what I intend to be my last blog entry from Catch27:

Ok, so I log onto the good ol' Facebook a couple weeks ago, and low and behold, there's a message waiting for me with the subject "God you're cute" or something of that nature. Interesting. Intriguing, even. My curiosity sparked, I decided to read said message, as it was from a lady after all. Long and the short of it, this girl wants me to join this thing (Catch27). The message sounded like a telemarketer caliber script (read: load of bull shit), but whatever, either it's true or it's good BS, so I decided to go ahead and join. Wow, that was a mistake. Yeah, this thing sucks. Don't get me wrong, I'm probably in the upper echelon of Internet users, a product of this Information Age, but I'm also a lazy fuck. It took me long enough to fill out all that shit on Facebook, and I had to do it again for this crap. Marvelous. And what is my reward, what do I reap from this sowing, WHAT ARE THE FRUITS BORN OF MY LABOR?!!?!? Shit, that's what. This steaming pile of cyber-crap is the most retarded thing I've seen in a long time (to say nothing of the droves of people who actively take part in it -- that means you). It's obviously made to prey on innocent college morons who have too much time on their hands (or think they do). It plays off of three huge college trends of the past couple of years: cards, money, and online communities. The first two go together: ever since the World Series of Poker has been on cable, morons across college campuses nationwide have been playing cards, jerking off, and throwing away what little money most of them have (either in that order or all at once). There's also been a craze as of late for online communities like Friendster, MyPage, and the almighty Facebook. Some brilliant business guy somewhere at some point said, "Hey, we could make a site that incorporates all that crap and market it to college kids!" Et voila, here's Catch27, it masquerades as the chic new way to make online friends with a card theme and a device by which you can give them money! What, a way to be cool, play cards, and waste money?! Alright! Fuck, man. Speaking of wasting things, I just wasted 5 minutes writing this crap. Yoroshiku.

Why me, God, why did she come to my table?

2005-02-23T18:04:00.000-05:00

Goddamn it. Oh, ok, first of all this is the first post I've made in...a long time. Whatever. Anyways, back to my original point: Goddamn it. As you may or may not know, I'm in HPER E113 Beginning Billiards this semester. Now, in all honesty, with my skill level at Billiards (which does fluctuate sometimes, but overall) I should probably not be in this class. I probably belong in the next class up, but seeing as how I didn't really take the class to learn how to play, I'm not really bothered about it. I'm pretty sure that's about what 90% of the other people in the class are thinking also. It's a pretty sweet deal: I get to play pool for an hour twice a week, I get a credit hour for it, and I get an easy A+ towards my GPA. Gravy. Or so I thought. First, let me explain the set up of the class. We come in, and we play pool. That's it. The grad student that instructs the class occassionally makes us come up to the front of the room (in the IMU) to "teach" us something, but that usually takes about 5 minutes and then it's back to playing. Now, it's one of those classes where in the first couple weeks when you don't know anybody in the class(and Clark does not count...whole nother story), for whatever reason you get to know a couple people and probably end up sitting next to them; it's like how you pretty much sit in the same seat in each class each day. Well, I decided to try and defy that in this class and not talk to anybody, mainly because it's at 9:05 and I don't like talking to many people at 9:05; I just want to play some pool. Unfortunately the powers that be would not let me go unladen with some annoying fucktard...and they stuck me with a doozy.

I have no idea what her name is, and I've been playing pool with her for an hour twice a week since about the third week of classes. She's nice enough...and that's about it. She's not necessarily unattractive, but she's definitely not cute (I'm sure there's someone somewhere in the world that would find her attractive; Nick, maybe). Somehow, and this sucks, there are absolutely no cute girls in the class. There's one that comes close, but no cigar. But back to the troll that invades my space every Monday and Wednesday morning. The class after she and I had played each other the first time, she came right back to my table, and I knew I was fucked. I shouldn't have been nice. I should have said "Oh, uh, I'd like to play with some other people so I can play against other styles and skill levels." Hell, I could have at least said "Go away, you're ugly and you suck at pool." And oh does she suck at pool. I mean, I know this is Beginning Billiards, but seriously. It's not just that she sucks at actually shooting pool, she seems to be some kind of moron also (not sure which kind just yet). At least 3 times on Monday, she stood there and watched me as I took and pocketed shots, then walked up to the cue ball to take her turn. Let me say that again, on MULTIPLE occassions, on the SAME DAY, in the SAME GAME even, it did not register in her brain that when I sink a ball, I get to go again. JESUS TAPDANCING FUCKING CHRIST. I actually had to say to her "No, it's still my turn" or she would have fucking gone. I've also had to explain to her numerous times that if you scratch on the 8 ball, you lose the game. I know for a fact I've told her at least 4 times. Yesterday, the instructor was showing us follow and draw shots (because they're so hard to figure out after all), and I distinctly remember him saying "It's good to practice and master these kinds of shots because it helps you set up the cue ball to make other shots." Any person of normal intellect could probably have arrived at that conclusion, right? Well apparently she couldn't, even after hearing the guy say it (and I know she did, she was standing right next to me maybe 6 feet away from the instructor), because the second we went back to my table to resume our game, she turned to me and said "So what's the point of those shots?" I seriously thought she was joking. I actually looked at her and laughed. When I realized she wasn't joking, I explained the EXTREMELY SIMPLE CONCEPT OF STRATEGY to her and even showed her a couple of examples, and I'm pretty sure she was still confused. FUCKING MORON. Anyways, this entry's long as hell, so I'm going to cut it off here. Long and the short of it is, this annoying bitch is ruining my E113 experience and I hate her.

GO SOX

2004-10-26T21:28:00.000-05:00

This is a real short one, I promise. As you all should know, I am a HUGE Boston Red Sox fan, so you can probably imagine how excited I am right now. For those of you that haven't seen me recently and/or don't know anyways, I haven't shaved in about a week and a half out of support for my team and my boy Johnny Damon. It's looking pretty scraggily and ridiculous. Depending on how long the series goes, it could get pretty hairy (HARHAR THAT WAS A GREAT PUN!!@#$!@^%$^#).

Stupid Question

2004-10-26T16:01:00.000-05:00

Well, since I was just on the topic of stupid questions, I thought I'd mention this. I was making sure my profile on the blog was up to date, and here on Blogger, the last form on the user profiles is a "Random Question" that you can answer if you want. I'm guessing this is one of those stupid psychological bullshit things where the answer to the question is meant to help other people learn a little about you and your thought processes. Or it's just meant to be stupid, and in this case that is definitely what it achieved. The question posed by my profile was: "Unlike a dog, how can a turtle ever be naked?" See what you can learn from my response (which turned out to be over the character max for the profile):

This is a stupid question. According to Webster's, naked means "completely unclothed". I assume this question is meant to be cleverly referring to a turtle's shell. A turtle's shell is not clothing, it is part of the turtle's body. Unless you put clothes on the fucking turtle, then it's fucking naked just like any other fucking animal that's not wearing any fucking clothes. Jesus fucking Christ.

Goddamn.

Welcome back to the ass-kicking.

2004-10-26T15:25:00.000-05:00

Well, I'm back. I haven't written a blog entry since August for various reasons which I'm too lazy and apathetic to discuss right now. Lots of stuff has happened since my last entry, but, well, that's just too bad. Maybe I'll post later about some of that stuff with specifics. For now, here's all you need to know: uh, lots of stuff is pissing me off more than ever, and some stuff/people are finding new ways to piss me off (huzzah for innovation...). It's really amazing. At the beginning of every year, I sit down and think, "Brian, stuff pisses you off more and more every year, but this year is going to be different." And then God decides to pinch off a big, stinky loaf on that idea, and I hate more people than ever. Goodie. At least that means more blog entries. Maybe. So anyways, I guess I'll kick off the ranting with a couple things that have been bothering me lately.
Thanks to Anthony and the fact that I'm now actually a Telecom major, I decided to go ahead and actually officially join IUSTV. Now, when I decided to join, Kieran told me that there were a few teams with opennings, one of which was the new "Engineering Team". I thought it sounded cool; we were supposed to learn about all the equipment and stuff. I thought it would be fun, an opportunity to learn, and good experience. Well fuck all that, I guess. The Engineering Team is actually part of a bigger team called the Tech Team. The duties of leading the Engineering Team fell on the shoulders of one of the IUSTV vets who will remain nameless here out of professional courtesy (not much, but some...). Here we'll call him Ass. That seems appropriate. I think it's important to mention that when I first joined up, before Ass was the team leader, I emailed and talked to the Tech Team leader quite a bit about coming in to do stuff. I was very excited about being on the team, and, not to sound conceited, my enthusiasm was clear, which the Tech Team leader appreciated very much. Then Ass came into play. Ass scheduled the first meeting for the Engineering Team under his guidance on Friday three weeks ago at 3:00. I have class on Friday till 3:30, which I told him. He seemed to not think it was a big deal and told me not to worry about it if I didn't make it; he said it would be a short meeting. Thusly, I didn't worry about it. Then, two weeks go by. I don't hear anything. No calls, no emails, nothing. Finally, last Friday, I get an email from this mother fucker saying "Hey guys, this is [Ass], just wanted to let you know that the meeting today is cancelled." What the fucking fuck?! Yeah, I guess that ass-spelunking goat fucker decided that the meetings would be every Friday at 3:00, but did he tell me this or send out an email to everyone? Fuck no. I'm surprised that I even got the mail about the meeting being cancelled. I emailed him back on Friday, and he has yet to email me back. Unprofessional fucktard. I'm joining the studio and programming teams. Fuck him.
Ok, next I'd like to mention my fucktard J401 (Japanese 400 level) class. I'll keep it brief for now since I know this is getting long, but I will definitely be posting about these ass hats frequently. They were really pissing me off today because they're all really stupid. I don't understand how half of them even made it into the class. They bitch about the work load all the time, which in all honesty is massive, but what the fuck do you expect? It's a 400 level foreign language course for a language, no less, that utilizes a completely different alphabet from English (3 to be exact) and a completely different grammar system. Of course it's going to be a lot of work. Of course it's going to be hard. Shut the fuck up, or get out of the class. Then, actually in class, they all ask the same stupid questions over and over. Someone will ask some dumbass "I used to ride under the short bus to school with my head dragging on the ground"-question, and then the next moron will ask the exact same question phrased differently. It's fucking ridiculous.
Ok, that's all I'm going to write for now. Check back sometime; I'll try to make posting part of my routine. Lots of people seem to have made it part of their routines to piss me off on a daily basis, so I'm sure I won't have a problem coming up with subject matter.
Peace.

Worthless People Here at IU

2004-08-04T15:23:00.000-05:00

Well, as per my normal blog-topic tendencies, I've decided to write an entry about people that I find to be worthless, incompetent, and/or ineffective at whatever they are supposed to do here at good ol' Indiana University.
~Residence Hall Janitorial Staff~
Ok, I'm going to start off with these completely and utterly lazy and useless fuckwads. Of course, I can't speak about all of the janitors, but I sure as hell can (and am going to) rant about the losers that work here in Asthon. Now, I can hear you now saying "Oh Brian, don't be so mean; just because they're janitors doesn't mean they're losers!" True. What makes them losers is the fact that they don't do their fucking jobs and opt, instead, to sit around being creepy (and nasty). If you would like proof of their worthlessness and ineptness at CLEANING STUFF (because it's so fucking hard), simply come step into Ashton Vos. The place is filthy. More proof? Look in the bathroom; you'll find toilets that haven't been cleaned in weeks, shower stalls with mold and fungus growing in them, lightbulbs that have been burned out for about a week, emply toilet paper and paper towel dispensers, and empty hand soap dispensers (and you have to offer a sacrifice to get those refilled). Moreover, it is extremely rare that I actually see them working. Take today, for instance, and this is what I see pretty much everyday. This morning when I was leaving for class, the janitors were outside smoking. Ok, that's fine. When I came back from class? They were sitting in the first floor lounge looking like two blue-shirt wearing, flesh-colored bean bag chairs. Ok, maybe they're just taking another break. A half hour later, I walk downstairs to go out to my car. They're still sitting there. About another half hour later, I walk down to get some water from the water fountain...they're sitting in the third floor lounge doing nothing. So then I go to eat, and they're back down in the first floor lounge. When I came back from eating just a little while ago, one of them was gone, but the other was sitting at the table in the first floor lounge reading the phone book....Now, I say "reading the phone book" because he wasn't looking up somone's number, no, he was reading the stuff at the front of the book. GET OFF YOUR DISGUSTING, LAZY, DIRTY ASS AND DO YOUR FUCKING JOB. Sorry. I could go on about these shit-lickers for hours, but I have other morons to get to.
~UITS~
I abhor the UITS "Support Center" at the Info Commons at the library. They sit behind their little desk and look at you and talk to you like you're a fucking tourist from the paleolithic era and they invented the Internet. Now, I already hated these people simply because they look like fucks, and friends had told me about how stupid and worthless they are. I was in the library trying to get the printer utility to work on my iBook to no avail. I had checked every setting and set it up according to the instructions on the UITS Knowledge Base, but it still didn't work. With seemingly no other options, I decided, hey, why not, I'll go ask them. Couldn't hurt, right...GRRR. I went to ask them, told the guy (there was also a girl, and I'll tell you now, she's a bitch, but she was helping someone when I first walked up) that I had checked the Knowledge Base, and the utility still wasn't working. So what did he do? He spent 15 minutes staring at the instructions on the Knowledge Base before he told me that he didn't know. Then the girl, err, the bitch, having finished wasting someone else's time, turned to me and with the snottiest, most condescending look and tone said "Psht, does he have it connected to the internet?" Please note that she was looking at me, a mere foot and a half away, while she said this to her partner in stupidity. After making similar bitchy remarks and queries which she tried to disguise as IT help, what did she do? She looked on Knowledge Base. At this point I said "Forget about it" and walked away. It was a total waste of my time, but it was nice to see the morons squirm, especially when I mentioned terms and ideas that I don't think they understood. These fuckwads are completely useless, and I will tell them so the next chance I get.
~IUPD~
Finally, and yes I know this is long, so I'll keep this one short, we have the IUPD. Total fuckwads. They walk around like they're gods and apparently gods that have a vendetta against all students. They stare at you regardless of what you're doing as though you were a convicted grandmother-murdering pedophile. They spend a whole lot of time creating an uncomfortable environment for the students and busting parties (oh no!) while failing to stop things like, uh, let's see, stalkers breaking into residence halls, rapes, muggings, and shootings (a short list of stuff that's happened since I've been here). Great work IUPD, you worthless sons of bitches. Anyways, I'm tired of thinking about all these fuckwads, so I'm out. Later.

The hits just keep coming...

2004-07-29T11:54:00.000-05:00

Oh wow. Seriously, I've written two entries about this professor of mine, and I thought that was enough...but apparently not. Today we had another professor and a grad student come in and administer and talk about a study they were doing. The grad student came in first to give us the exercises, and he happened to be Chinese. Now, being Chinese, he had a bit of an accent. The exercise involved looking at pictures of guys and rating them. When the grad student was explaining the exercise, he referred to the pictures as images, but like I said, he had a bit of an accent, so he pronounced it more like "ee-madjes" (that's the closest I can think to represent it, phoenetically). It was obvious, though, that he was saying images because we've been discussing IMAGES IN THE FUCKING MEDIA (sorry, she's really starting to annoy me), and he said he would be displaying them on the screen. Duh. So before we're about to start, what does my professor ask him? "Um, would you explain what e-matches are?" OH MY FUCKING GOD. This is a woman who goes on and on (I mean, she teaches classes about it...) about displays, perceptions, and images of different races in media and seems to be big on awareness, etc. She also seems to love mentioning the 50 fucking different foreign countries she's lived in or whatever because she brings it up all the fucking time. I GUESS THAT REALLY JUST DOESN'T MEAN A DAMN THING IF YOU'RE A MORON, HUH? I'm just going to come out and say it...after this shit, I think she's fucking stupid. SERIOUSLY. Jesus...anyways, it was funny that she embarassed herself like that, and thankfully I don't think the grad student was terribly embarassed or insulted. That is all for now, until she pisses me off again.

Annoying Profs Part II

2004-07-27T11:42:00.000-05:00

Ok, I thought of something else that annoys the hell out of me. She always has these random statistics and facts or whatever that she inserts into her lectures, which is fine, but it's the way that she presents them that irks me. She stands at the front of the class with this moronic smirk on her face as though what she's thinking about is either the most clever thing ever thought about and/or is of colossal importance when, in actuallity, it's something obvious and/or completely inane. But does she just come out and say it? No. She stands up there and tries to solicit the answer from the class by asking a question. Now, I respect her attempts at trying to interact with the students, but she extends it to the point of ridiculousness like a bad imitation of Ben Stein in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" ("Bueller...Bueller...Bueller....?").

Oh, and Nick...you just might be riiiiight...
そうだよ。正しかった。

Annoying Professors...

2004-07-21T21:27:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I've decided to go ahead and write a blog entry about a certain professor that I have had recently who will remain unnamed here out of what shred of respect I have for her. She seems like a nice person and a good professor I suppose, but she has certain tendencies and qualities that annoy the fuck out of me. Where to start...
Well, first off, she's always either late for class or right on time. Now normally that doesn't really bother me; a bit unprofessional, but that's ok. What irks me about this habit of hers is that she practically busts through the door of the lecture hall at the last minute like a fucking gorilla and power walks (and I mean POWER WALKS) across the front of the classroom to the control center, depositing her notes, keys, videos for class, etc. on the table on the way. Oh wait, I should be more specific; she doesn't "deposit" them. No, she drops (at the very least) or slams them down on the table (most of the time) all the while with a funky look on her face.
Next on my list of complaints is the way she lectures. She seriously sounds like a nervous student trying to rush through a presentation. She talks with a touch of a lisp kind of like she always has just a little too much spit in her mouth while she's trying to talk, and she talks at somewhere around 3000 words per minute. The result is a garbled mass of syllables that can barely be likened to the sound of an elephant with diahrrea, let alone human speech. It's seriously ridiculous.
Ooooh and that brings me to my next point of contention with this person. She tries to act like she's one of the students (i.e., about 18-22 years of age), or at least that's how she comes off. She sits on the table a lot while lecturing and swings her legs like some catholic schoolgirl wannabe...that or a French whore trying to get some clients (which I don't think she'd be very successful at). Much to my chagrin (as I sit in the second to front row), she is more often than not wearing a skirt; not a pretty sight when I happen to glance up from whatever I'm doing on my laptop (as opposed to paying attention) and forget that she's there. Anyways, I digress; back to what I was originally going to complain about. She makes waaaaay too many feeble attempts at sophomoric humor throughout the course of her lectures, and everytime she makes a joke, she laughs at it herself...and nobody else does. Worse yet is how she laughs. Her laugh can be described with one or all of such words as grunt, snort, or guffaw (I like that one). I think it's kind of a combination of those three. So she makes a stupid joke, grunts noisely and gruffly at herself, and then immediate says either "Okaaay?" or "Ya know?". I think she may have been a failed stand-up comedian before her present job.
Anywho, as Anthony has pointed out to me, this is a long ass blog entry, so I'm going to stop the rant here. Hope you enjoyed it.

OMG I fucking hate otaku...

2004-06-28T10:55:00.000-05:00

So Anthony's been bugging me to write a blog entry since T101 is over, and I haven't in a while. Don't get me wrong, it's not that there hasn't been anything going on to write about (see www.aleong.com and www.nirobert.blogspot.com/; Tony and Nick's blogs cover what I would have anyways). You see, it usually takes a lot to make me write a post, and when I do feel like writing something, it's usually a rant. This is one such occassion.
Now, if you know me at all, you should know that I love Japanese music. You just might also know that my favorite band is L'arc~en~Ciel. Knowing this, you might think that the news of L'arc actually coming to the US to play a set would make me crap my pants. Oh, I crapped my fucking pants alright. I crapped my pants because, indeed, L'arc is coming to the US...However, they will be playing at the 2004 mother fucking OTAKON. Now, you might be asking, "Hmm, what is otakon? Is it really that bad?". My answer for you is a resounding "FUCK YES IT IS". Otakon is short for "Otaku Convention". The Japanese word "otaku" is used to refer to anime/manga/video game dorks. Ahahaha, you say, but Brian, are you not an anime/manga/video game dork yourself? I won't deny it, I am, but I do not come close to these assholes. If you'd like a taste of the otaku world, do me a favor. Go to Google. Do a google image search for "Otakon" and "cosplay". Those are the mother fuckers that will be attending the event at which L'arc will be playing. A whole fucking convention of them. I ABHOR OTAKU. Seriously.
There are two things about this that piss me off. One, obviously, is that I hate otaku. But that doesn't bother me so much. I would gladly brave Otakon to see L'arc. What pisses me off even more is that THIS IS L'ARC'S FIRST CONCERT IN THE US AND IT IS AT OTAKON GODDAMN IT. I don't want those cosplaying, non-showering, geeky-ass mother fuckers to be the first (and possibly only) US crowd L'arc will play for! My god! Ok, I have to get going to class now, but there will be more on this later as it develops. FUCKING OTAKU.

Things I Hate

2004-06-01T12:52:00.000-05:00

If you get to know me, you'll learn that I'm for the most part a pretty seemingly laid back, calm guy. However, you'll also find that there are a lot of things that irk me and piss me off. I'd like to take a minute, even though I'm not sure anybody reads these, to gripe about a couple of things I hate.
First on the agenda is something more recent that I hate, and that is the periodic cicada. Now, when I heard about the so-called "Brood X", I thought they sounded pretty cool. Even when they started emerging from their 17 year subterranean lifestyles to propogate and die, I thought they were pretty cool. That lasted about three days. These little bastards are really starting to piss me off now. Why do they seem to think it necessary to fly all over the place and run into me? I don't mind the noise (I lived in Louisiana, I'm used to it), and even the stench of their rotting shells and carcasses don't really bother me. It annoys the hell out of me, however, that I can't walk down the street for more than five feet without one running into my face, buzzing by my head, or landing on me. If they want to fly around, that's their business, but they seem to actually try to land on people. So, in summation, I hate them.
Next is something that has perpetually pissed me off: Nazis. Now, of course, my primary problem with the Nazis (and their more current wannabes) is their promotion of senseless hate and violence. They also killed a whole lot of people for no good reason. It would seem to me they were (and are) bad people. However, and don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to detract from these travesties, there is something else that pisses me off about Nazis: the swastika. I'm trying very hard to refrain from using profanity here, but it's a bit difficult. I love the swastika which is called "manji" in Japanese. I won't go in depth into the history of the symbol, but it's been around for a very long time; if I am not mistaken, it is actually a Sanskrit character. The symbol has come to be used in Buddhism since forever to represent such ideas as peace, the flow of the universe, the connections between heaven and earth, yin and yang, etc. In Japan, the symbol is used on maps to denote the locations of Buddhist temples. It is used (throughout Asia) in temples, on lanterns, and myriad other things. Thanks to a buddy of mine who went to Japan recently, I have an omote manji charm on my cell phone (omote manji turn counter-clockwise and represent intelligence, mercy, and compassion). So, obviously, I hate the Nazis for adding a perverse chapter to the history of this symbol. This leads me to something else I hate, though: stupid, ignorant Westerners. I guarantee you that 9 out of 10 (if not all 10) people would call me a Nazi if they saw my phone. Ignorance and cultural insensitivity abound. Oh, but wait you say, aren't I being awfully pretentious, hypocritical, and inconsiderate?! People take offense to me walking around with a swastika hanging off my phone! Oh the levels of profane insults I have reserved for such people are astounding. If you want to be an ignorant bastard, don't come talk to me. I could write another ten pages about this, but, honestly, I'm getting bored, so I'm going to wrap this up soon. I hate stupid people. There, I'm done for now.
I decided to add one last thing after I published and read through this real fast. I don't hate people that don't know the full history of the manji symbol. I should be more specific. I hate people that immediately say "Whoa! You're a Nazi bigot!" or something, as opposed to something more, shall we say, civilized and intelligent such as "Hmm, why do you have a swastika on your phone?" God forbid we, who live in such a great nation of freedom and tolerance, actually stop to think and learn something.