My Memorial Day in Review

I ended up in Orlando. Orlando the city of theme parks, and some of my closest friends. It was a lot of fun. We went to Universal. We had barbecue. We figured out how to make Starbuck's Passion Lemonade. It was cool.

I had never been to Universal so I got to ride The Hulk, and Spider Man and everything else for the first time, and I am now the proud holder of a season pass, so I'll definitely be returning. I also spoke to my ex-girlfriend on Saturday, which may have been one of the best parts of my trip even though it was a little weird. We actually seemed to have a really productive conversation and it was really cool to be able to talk again. There were definitely some communication problems between us towards the end of our relationship, and it was nice to kind of talk about what happened and what each other had been thinking and feeling, in reflection. We had a few "ah ha" moments, and I think we both understood at least a little better. I think we may be able to at least remain friends out of the whole twisted mess.

The rest of the weekend was spent mostly relaxing and hanging out. We kept wanting to do things like sing karaoke or go to the movies, but then would run out motivation, and would end up just talking, joking, and laughing instead. Overall, a very nice (and a little expensive) weekend.

Interesting News

I have seen more photos and videos of naked ex-girlfriends online from jilted men than I ever though imaginable. Today a woman filed suit against Yahoo for hosting naked pictures of her that her ex-boyfriend posted. Evidently, he created a profile for her, complete with the pictures and also impersonated her, communicating with men that contacted her. Random men would show up at he office expecting a sexual liaison. She, apparently, had asked Yahoo to remove the profile multiple times, but they had refused.

I still cannot believe women let men photograph them and video tape them in sexual positions and then lose track of the pictures or tape before a breakup. In the days before Internet, this probably wouldn't be such a big deal, but in the digital age, one has to be a little more cautious. Ex lovers can just be so sweet sometimes.

Speaking of sweet, recent studies have also concluded that Americans drink the bulk of their caloric intake. Yes, that's right, at one time it was from white bread, but now it's from soda. Drink up, kids. Did you know that there's a statistical probability that you will get a partially dissolved rat in your soda can? I learned this from a food law attorney. Apparently, settling the lawsuits over these occurrences is built into the soda manufacturers' operating budget for the year. Mmmmm, tasty.

I am currently in the section of the book Fast Food Nation where the author discusses slaughter house practices and such. He doesn't really focus on any potential animal cruelty or anything like that - or if he does I'm not there yet. His focus, presently, is more on how the meat processing plants try to get everything done as quickly and cheaply as possible, which causes much higher rates of contamination and injury to the workers. I guess most of the workers are uneducated immigrants - you know the type of people you would probably not trust to take care of your child, are helping to prepare his/her food. In any event, it takes a certain amount of time and skill to get the cleaning of the animal down so that the intestines and such don't get serrated and contaminate the meat or the carving instrument. Unfortunately, there is such a high turnover in the plants and the speed is so demanding that few carvers ever get it consistently right. Reading it makes it difficult for me to consume meat only because I now know the potential contamination rates, and that the industry polices itself and is known to lie. Good times. I can't give up meat, man. I love it too damn much.

I have no idea where I will be this weekend. Hopefully, it will not involve me sitting at home on my couch. I hope everyone else has a splendid weekend.

Business

Before this blog was a blog it was a weekly email to my friends. I did this for two reasons: one, my friends were important to me and I valued their opinions and thoughts, and two, I didn't want to have to contend with what some bloggers have to contend with everyday, mean people posting comments. Just look at the comments to this recent post and you'll see what I mean. After much convincing, I started a blog, but one of the main reasons I started it was because the emails became a sort of journal for me, and every time my hard drive crashed, I lost two or more years of my life. I am not sure a blog will be any more permanent, but it's worth a shot.

I did not start a blog to meet people. I did not start a blog to please people. If I am around people that I constantly have to please or worry about offending, then I won't be around them for very long. My happiness is not determined by how much I can please others. In my opinion, no one's should be. "Do unto others as you would have done unto you."? Bullshit. Try hanging out with a masochist and see how far that rule gets you. "Do unto others as they would like to have done unto them."? More krap. Hang out with the abusive bastard and see where that rule lands you. The only possible rule out there is live your life to be happy. Yes, there will be consequences to your actions, both positive and negative, but you cannot live your life in a vain attempt to please everyone because you can't please all the people all the time.

If you don't like my blog; if you don't like what I say or how I say it, then go read someone else's. There is no shortage of blogs. Hell, start your own. Clearly, based on some of your more recent comments, some of you would like to have your own blogs to discuss such things as cliches, and their profound import.

I was asked a, presumably, honest question by Anonymous in his comment to my last post, and I gave a very honest answer. I explained why I said what I said. If this does not meet your expectations of how you want me to act like or how you think I should behave, then too bad. I am not writing here to please you or anyone else. I don't even know you.

If you had clicked on the link that I supplied in my previous post, you would have seen that one of Kiki's most recent posts was about relationships and her having been in them for about as long as she can remember. This inspired me to write my last post. That is how it was inspired. Kiki's comment was a cliche, but it was supportive and it was after we had already talked about what happened much earlier. Finally, Kiki has a boyfriend, who she is extremely happy with. The mere fact that we get along should not bug anyone. Obviously, my "meanness" has not kept me from making a friend or two.

So there it is. I ain't changing to please you. My blog is what it is. It is mine, and only mine. You comments are mine to dispose of as I see fit. If you don't like it, look elsewhere, or start your own.

The Game

I remember once my friend compared this girl to a video game. Something about guys having to keep putting quarters in her to see how far they can get. Somehow this amused her tremendously. I repeated the comment to a girl and it went really badly. I told me friend what had happened and her cried, "You did what!? You can't just go around doing that to just any girl." That's when I realized, I was really in trouble.

Through most of college, I was single. However, given the dating pool, I felt I was better off for it anyway. When my friend and roommate finally moved away from Miami, Florida, he told me it was a shame we had not gone somewhere else for school because we had wasted some of our best years on some of the most materialistic and mean women ever. I thought he was probably right, but when I went to a different university for my advanced degree, I knew he was right. It was ok. I had so many friends to keep me occupied that it really never bothered me. When I did have a girlfriend she would get jealous of my female friends and think I was sleeping with them. Suddenly I lost my autonomy and my freedom. Besides, I was still figuring myself out. There was no real necessity to have a girlfriend.

After I finished school, I suddenly had about a tenth of the friends to hang out with. They were scattered throughout the country, and in some cases the world. The friends I did have worked terrible hours or had significant others and so I didn't see them as much. I decided that I now needed a girlfriend, and that I was ready to have one. I had finished my degrees, I had a solid career ahead of me, things were looking up and I was tired of just hanging out with myself at the end of the day. However, I wanted a cool girlfriend. I wanted one that was fun to hangout with, someone that I would hangout with even if I wasn't sleeping with her. I had this theory - beauty fades, but personality is forever. So I had to genuinely like the person that I was with for more than their body. Don't get me wrong, there had to be some sort of physical attractiveness, but it was not high on my list. She only had to be "cute".

The problem was that I don't like hanging out with that many people consistently, and the ones that I did like hanging out with were already my friends, and I was not going to try and convert a friend into a girlfriend. That was just not an option, which may or may not be wise. Well there was always that one girl that became my friend after I tried to date her for two years, I would have totally converted that one, but she was too busy sending me mixed messages. For example, one day after I listed my requirements for a girlfriend, she asked me, "so which one of those qualities don't I have?" What an unfair question. The other problem was that I didn't meet women my own age through work or something like that. I am about half the age of most people I work with so it's hard to have office romances or be introduced to young friends of co-workers when their young friends are 40.

As I reflect upon all of this, I wonder how it will all shake out in the end. I am not really sure, but I think I definitely need to find some extracurricular social activities to meet new friends and such. Unfortunately, I really have no idea where I will find the time, nor which ones I should join. A lot of the clubs I look into joining are also filled with old people. Where did all the young people go? I think they must all be chained to desks slaving away, and not joining clubs.

This post was partially inspired by Kiki.

My Minor Weekend

Wow. I didn't expect the amount of comments I received from my last post. I suppose one just never knows. Interestingly, other people posted sad break-up posts on their blogs this weekend, without receiving anywhere near the number of comments, and one of my friends broke up with her boyfriend. It was a big relationship weekend.

I went out of town for most of the weekend. However, due to the magic of technology, no one really knew that. On Sunday, I ended up on a very large sail boat. The owner has had it for a long time. He sailed it from California to Florida when he moved here, and has taken it to Cuba, Mexico, and New York. He's a very successful businessman, which is probably obvious given that he owns a huge sailboat. He told me he had to learn to relax. He said he realized over the course of his life that at the end of one's days, one does not think about the huge deals that they have closed, but instead remembers the fun times they had with friends and loved ones while they were relaxing, and enjoying their life. I know, easy for someone that already has a lot of money to say, but that doesn't make it wrong.

I saw some of my friends, and my best friend took it upon herself to set me up on a blind date, which I didn't find out about until I was on the way to the restaurant. Evidently, the woman is a real estate broker that models in her spare time, and is the sister of one of my other friends. It was very casual though with some other people there, thank God because I could not have handled a real date yet. She thought I was cute, and spent seven hours hanging out with us, when she had only planned to spend fifteen minutes.

One of my favorite parts of the weekend was on Saturday morning at around 8:00 AM when my best friend and I got into a debate about the tax consequences of a transaction she had recently encountered. Neither one of us had real legal support for our positions, but we were arguing based on tax policy. I was absolutely convinced she was wrong and explained to her what I thought should be the consequences. She had to call her grandmother, and so I did some research, and found the magic Internal Revenue Code section that vindicated me. I felt very triumphant. Yeah, I know, we're nerds.

I was invited out again for next weekend when the three day Memorial Day bash occurs. Basically, this guy throws this three day open bar, free food party on this 90 acre piece of property. I am not sure I'll attend it, but it is a whole lot of fun.

Not a very eventful weekend to report on really, but I figured I should post something new now that the dust has settled.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

I don't care how many times you hear it, it always seems easier until you do it. No matter how many you go through, they all suck. Suddenly, this person that you cared about and shared everything with is not a part of your life. All the whispers of love and forever and the like evaporate in the wink of an eye and you are left sitting there feeling as though you have just been kicked in the crotch saying "What the hell just happened?".

Is it really so terrible that I wanted to spend more time with her?

She says she loves me still and thinks about me often, but she just has too much going on in her life right now to work on our relationship. How does that happen? When did the relationship that is supposed to last the rest of your life become an after thought? The after dinner mint. Something to occupy yourself in-between working, sleeping, and eating.

I suppose it is all priorities, and some have different priorities than others, but I just don't see how the person that is supposed to be so important to you occupies such a low spot on your list. I also don't see how you love someone and care about them and miss seeing them, but don't put forth the effort of keeping them in your life. Maybe I am not supposed to understand it, but just accept it.

No matter how it all happens or the reasons for it, all you are really left with is the empty spot that is quickly filled with the rush of regrets. Eventually, from this you will take the memories and the experience.

Ramble On ...

I have been very bad at updating about my life on my blog. So many entries, as of late, have been just general pontificating. My roommate and friend during law school had a girlfriend named Sharon that I met once, and hung out with for a weekend. We became fast friends. She was a gifted actress and I was a talkative bastard. She was cool. As a thank you to me for taking her all over Miami while my roommate was at work she bought me a CD. She also called my endless ramblings, that I am prone to undertake, pontificating. That's such a nice word.

My weekend was interesting. I had a friend fly in from D.C. and I hung out with him and a bunch of other people that I haven't seen in about three years. I learned that one of them dropped out of medical school and is now a teacher, and that another one just received his Ph.D. (but he was in California still, not here). We started out by going bowling, an activity that I generally avoid. My only memories of bowling, prior to this weekend, involved going with my father after my parents separated. Those were always fun weekends. Hanging out with some guy that I never liked and who I barely knew so that we could have "quality time" and he could bitch about my mother, and check out women of ALL ages - including my 13 year old friend. I don't know why "quality time" with me became so important once they separated. I ended up having to get a restraining order on the guy. Fun times.

I also played poker this weekend, with chips, for the first time. I never had to know how to handle "blinds" or any of that stuff. Most of the people there were teachers though so it was an early night because we all wanted to get to sleep by midnight. Alas, the days of clubs 'til 4 in the morning may indeed be past me.

The rest of my weekend was extremely mundane - shopping, cleaning, eating, reading, and playing video games. I did beat Halo 2, which considering how long I have owned the game, it's really sad that it took me this long to beat it. I watched Unleashed, a decent flick, and I spoke with a lot of my friends to catch them up on recent events. They all had interesting thoughts ideas.

There ya have it, my moderately eventful weekend in review.

Oh, and I added my photo to my blog today. Not sure if I want to keep it up, but I figured I'd try it out.

Common Sense

I read an article recently that explained how many cities are converting their streets from one-way to two-way. There is a push by many business owners to have the streets converted to increase the flow of traffic by their businesses. The public also supports the conversion because they believe it is more convenient.

I lived in Tampa, Florida for a brief period. Many of the streets there are one way, which can be confusing at first, but which I found to be incredibly efficient at getting me home. One of the greatest benefits for my purposes was that the city could synchronize the traffic lights. Once I had gotten one green light, I often caught all the rest of the green lights on a given street. As such, there was much less stop and go traffic. From reading the article, I learned that one-way streets are also safer, and having them actually increases the flow of traffic by local area businesses.

It is ironic to me that people are pushing for reform out of a belief that the new system will be more efficient without realizing that they will actually be sacrificing efficiency and safety if they achieve the reform they desire. I think it is easy to gravitate to what we are used to, and to believe basic common sense is always right. Most cities have two-way streets. We are used to driving on them. It also seems to make good sense that if you have two-way streets you'll get twice the amount of business or cars flowing by, which evidently, is a false assumption.

I was reminded of "A Beautiful Mind", and the scene in the bar, where three women enter, and all the guys at the table want to ask out the most attractive one. John Nash, played by Russell Crowe, points out that the best approach for the men to take is to ask out the less attractive women first. This approach seems counter intuitive and backwards, but, he explains, will produce the most favorable outcome.

Things fascinate me that way. Oftentimes, common sense is just wrong. If I knew nothing about science, common sense would have me believe that the Sun revolves around the Earth. It is not terribly hard to see how one may think this. However, through science and experiment, this belief has been proven wrong.

(This post was tremendously shortened through either a copy and past mishap, or more likely, a Blogger accident.)

Life Happens

I was very indirectly reminded of something through a response to my previous post that life can get in the way of a relationship. Suddenly, someone gets a new job and is more busy, family members and friends get sick, injuries and illnesses occur, financial difficulties, job loss, other people, etc.

This always made me question the love of Romeo and Juliet, or movies of that vein because the infatuation or love depicted did not have to last. It did not have to survive the bachelor parties, the long hours, the financial hardships, the insecurities, the past baggage, and the day to day worries and concerns that is life - well perhaps not the life of Paris Hilton, and the like, but the life of most of the people that I know. Basically, Romeo and Juliet got off light. I know, it's romantic, and it's star-crossed, and it's love, and they were soul mates, and blah blah blah. However, would Juliet have stayed with Romeo for all of the bad times? How long would it have lasted? Could you imagine their Thanksgiving Dinner?

People are constantly in search of this perfect person. This person that "completes them", and the simple fact seems to be that a lot of people do not seem to be finding this person. All the Internet dating service sites, find love books, and other miscellaneous paraphernalia, clearly indicate that love is illusive for most. The "soul mates" are few and far between. People grow and change and life happens and suddenly the "soul mate" is long gone. People want such contradictions in others and expect such odd things to just magically happen at times.

I went out on dates with several women that simply believed wanting a relationship would make it happen. They were really busy and very goal oriented. They had next to no time to date and get to know a guy, but refused to accept this. These were the women that were simply too busy for relationships and could not understand it when they either couldn't find a guy or the guy they were with suddenly wasn't there anymore. Women can be contrary with their desires, wanting a man who is very goal oriented and successful, but who doesn't work "too much". I'd imagine men do the same thing. We are victims of fairy tales and lies that attempt to convince us of this utopian life that does not exist. When we fail to achieve it we feel stupid and weak. We feel as though we have failed, and become depressed.

We are often not shown that love involves work. We hear about it, but we rarely see it. I mean what is "work" to people in the on-demand age? The movies are all about the meeting and the falling in love. It is compartmentalized and all of the horrors of romance are resolved in a 2 hour period. It is shocking to some that find that reality moves slower than a movie, and that they cannot simply order their significant other with mushrooms and pepperoni, and have them delivered to their door? We are not taught that lots of perfectly decent people end up alone. We are not very well educated in reality because we want the fairy tale. I mean who wouldn't want the fairy tale and the happily ever after ending. It's simple. It's perfect. It's easy. However, life is rarely any of those things.

Reactions

"It's a second marriage," she whispered to me. As if I was supposed to understand that this made it less important or a silly little trifle. It was as though she was confessing a sin, and cleansing herself of the situation; as if to say, yeah I'm driving a Kia now, but my other car is a Mercedes.

Somehow relationships take on different elements as you get older. The ones you have in college are often not like the ones you had in high school and the ones you have after college are often not like your previous ones. There's even something to be said of the statistics relating to the marriages of people who marry for the first time after the age of 25, and the comparison of those to first marriages of younger partners and second marriages for the same age group. Perspectives seem to change ... maybe.

It seems men and women get jaded with relationships over time. They start out believing the fairy tales. The man on a white horse riding to their rescue. Rescuing the princess. Finding that perfect someone. That person that just instantly gets you and it's like magic. The glass slipper. Happily ever after, and the whole deal. Then they get some false starts. People cheat on them, or hurt them, or they see the relationship going in the wrong direction somehow, and poof. Suddenly, this relationship that was supposed to last forever is done, but forever hasn't come yet.

So now these injured lovers spend time looking over their shoulders, always wondering when the next hit is going to come and trying to bob and weave out of it. Fast on their feet. Ready to run at a moment's notice. "I won't get hit again," they think. They begin expecting less, or they demand more, or a little of both. They don't want to get stuck in another relationship like the last one. Never again. They are more cautious. They ask more questions. They analyze every person they meet, trying to see if this one is like the other one. Every misstep scares them, like a gunshot to a deer. Fast. Must get away. Don't want to be trapped. Don't want to be hurt. Don't want to be ... safe?

Safe?

Well the theory runs, it is possible for one that has been hurt before to be too scared of ever being in another relationship. That they will either sabotage them or run away from them because even though the relationship they are in is safe and exactly what the person is looking for, they cannot deal with it. It scares them, or they do not feel they deserve it or something. It's all rather individual.

It's like we are all chemicals in a big experiment and some of us interact well together, some do not, and some just should not be mixed with anything. Some chemicals need catalysts to react, some take forever, some only react well at certain temperatures, some remain suspended for excessive periods of time, and some reactions occur amazingly fast and are quickly done.

So what's the point you ask? The point? I need a point? Well ... ok. How about this one: We are luckier than chemicals because we all have the ability to figure out why we react the way we do and change it.

A Couple of Items

I know I haven't updated in awhile. Things have been intense, and not in a good way. So I haven't been feeling in a very post friendly mood. I've been commenting though. It's easier to comment on other people's thoughts, ideas, and posts than to come up with my own in these times of confusion, or at least to come up with my own that I wish to share in the public forum that is my blog.

It has been amusing to leave the same post up for so long. I received six comments on it. Count them, 6! If I had only left the post up for a few days, I'm not sure the commentators would have scrolled down to read it, let alone post a comment regarding it. So maybe it's a good thing to be stagnant sometimes. It's also been interesting to learn where people reading my Webpage are from and how they end up on my page; statistics intrigue me. I am even listed as a link on a random person's Website. Go me.

Growing up, and even currently, I have been friends with a lot of girls/women (their classification changes as I age). They taught me an awful lot about themselves. One thing that I often heard them complain about was men just audaciously walking up to them and trying to pick them up. They hated that and used to complain about it a lot. This has always been a tough thing for me to know because as a result, I never want to approach a group of women when they are out because I never want to be that guy that spoils their night by trying to pick them up, who they complain about the next day to their friends or on their blog. The other problem is I never know if I want the woman I am dating to be a chick I picked-up one night at a bar or a club. Then again, women also complain that the guy's they like don't ask them out or "make a move". So I was always stuck with a vicious conundrum when at a club or bar or anything where there were hot girls I wanted to get to know better but didn't want to offend or annoy. As a solution, I ignored the situation and decided to stop caring. This sometimes led to random women making a "Justin sandwich" to get my attention or some other random happening, but often ended up with me just being amused at the sites and sounds, and going home as alone as I was to start the evening, which is not always a bad thing. This also, at times, led women who liked me to think that I was not interested. Women - dammed if you do and dammed if you don't.

It strikes me that there really is no other way for men to proceed than to hit on lots of girls and let them be annoyed or frustrated. Women are afraid to appear "too interested" so they give "subtle hints" that men don't pick up on. Sometimes when a guy asks her out she thinks it's because of the "hints", but it often is because he's hitting on lots of women. Unless the woman has been particularly obvious in her "hints", which I have seen occur. Amusing. There really should be a rule book.

Turning to another national issue of great importance, the new Real ID Act passed. A lot of people were upset about this item and wanted people to write their senators and such to stop it from passing, but it passed anyway, and will be signed into effect by the President later this month. What does that mean to you? Basically that it's going to be ridiculously hard to get a damn driver's license from now on, and lines are just going to suck. Not to mention a ton of your personal data is supposed to be kept on these electronically readable cards, but there's no real clear way to keep the information secure. So the guy that swipes the card at 7-11 could be selling your info to someone else, or using it for his own twisted ends. I am not sure that enough thought was put into this system. In fact, a lot of states say they don't have the resources (funds) to carry out the requirements of this measure - under which all of their licensing systems have to link with the Fed's systems.

So there are a couple interesting items on which you may comment. Because, as you know, I am a comment whore.

We're all mad here

... or so the grinning Cheshire Cat said. My friend Chad said, "All women are crazy, it's just a degree of how much." Over time I have gotten mixed reactions from women regarding this statement. I have yet to find a man to disagree with this topic, unless or until, a woman that he wants to hookup with is present. Then suddenly, women are the second coming and you are a dick for ever having said such a heartless thing. How dare you? I know, I'm terrible.

I believe women think men are just as crazy though. They totally do not understand us. Even the ones that think they do, don't. However, they have their girlfriends, cats, and dogs to complain to about us. That is, after all, a wonderful past time, with a long a glorious tradition. Some women even read magazines and books to figure us out, and what we like. Not only that, but they also read men's magazines (Maxim and Stuff and the like) to "really understand us". I have yet to find the man to resort to women's magazine's to "really understand them". We understand that we don't get them and, as such, they are crazy.

Some women will confess to me that they are crazy. Generally, those women are very open, and just don't care. Very fun. I listened to this one woman on the radio yesterday who wanted to get this guy but she didn't really care about him and she felt she was too hot to go after a guy but she wanted to know how she could go after him but still have him come after her instead but he had said he didn't want to go out with her but he must like her but he has a girlfriend. Huh? No really, it made sense to her. Good times. Then there are the women that stay with the guy that hasn't changed in 10 years, but she really thinks if she just stays with him a little while longer....

Women I think are so much smarter than men and that may be the problem. Women listen to their inner emotions. They are very emotion driven, in my opinion. They analyze everything, and anything can have some hidden extra meaning. Why did she say this or why did he do this or that? Everything is very significant. We don't really seem to think like that at all. I've heard women talk about a first date with a guy for hours. Hours! Amazing.

I think my favorite argument for women being way more complicated than men, and hence, "crazy" is that a woman can go to another guy with her "guy issue" and give him the facts and circumstances and the other guy can figure out what her guy is thinking. If a guy goes to another woman with his "girl issue" the other girl will often say, well it's hard to know because it could be this this this or this. Men are so simplistic that it must confuse women sometimes. They're like is this really all they do? And they spend so much time trying to find the other buttons or knobs and such, but ... nothing. Imagine a fully loaded, high test (performs better after warming up) engine, luxury car. That would be a woman. The old clunker in the junk yard, with no options and various fluids leaking out and some pieces coming off - that's the guy. The woman looks for our power windows (or whatever) and just cannot believe that there are none to be had and so continues to look for them for as long as possible.

I think the one problem with being emotionally driven is that emotions are inherently irrational. For example, a human being (man or woman) will stay in an abusive relationship, oftentimes, because they are used to it or they are afraid to leave it or some other emotion. Their emotions will even impact their rationalization of the situation. The rational answer, of course, is to get the fuck out. Get out now and run, run fast, and "tell someone you can trust". Not only that but emotions can be inherently contrary. Another person can both repulse and strangely attract you at the same time. Rationally, you may want someone completely different, but emotionally, you are drawn to this other person for completely illogical and irrational reasons (or so they seem). Hence, anyone driven by emotions can often behave in a completely illogical manner or "crazy".

Men act crazy too. We beat each other up, often over women. It's usually irrational. I doubt you are going to "knock sense" into anyone, but we do it. How about guys at football games in the freezing cold with their shirts off and oversized bellies painted. Totally irrational - "crazy" even. That's often how it turns out - acting on emotions or acting in a way that the people outside looking in cannot understand will often be seen as "crazy". Is it?

Minor Observations

When I read Brave New World and 1984 in high school they freaked me out. I suppose that was the point of them of course. The authors wanted to show their respective audiences where we could be heading. I don't remember anyone in high school not being freaked out by these stories. Yet now it appears there's a sizable segment of our population that really sees no problem with a lot of the items in those books becoming reality. I remember after 9/11 there was a lot of talk about "what do we do now?", which included the idea of placing cameras on street corners and the like, and I remember listening to people endorsing this as a necessary measure. Where were these people in high school? They clearly were not raising their hands saying well this seems like a good direction for our society. It really fascinates me how people's view points and opinions change over the years. I think one of the most dramatic for me was college.

At my college, there was a lot of discussion and debate and thought on all sorts of issues. We were by far not a very politically active campus, but in our dorms and during various impromptu events, we discussed everything. We were all rather open to listening to different viewpoints and ideas. Now when I speak to a lot of people from college they seem to have mastered the meaning of life and the answers to everything, and they no longer have room for a difference of opinion. It astounds me. Perhaps it has to do with less interaction after college. In college I was bombarded with different views and ideas and people. After college, I had a much smaller pool of people with which to socialize. Maybe if you stop encountering several different viewpoints on a daily basis, your own become more entrenched. Maybe life experience makes us think that our views are the correct views. I have no idea why it happens, but I am definitely encountering more of it.

I received 922 junk emails yesterday, and, so far, another 143 today. Wow. Do those things really work? Do people ever really respond to junk emails?? That was always my question with junk mail too. Who responded to that stuff? I imagine a decent amount of money is spent sending all of it out, and I guess it must generate a profit at the end of the day or the companies wouldn't do it. But who the hell is responding to these damn things? Ridiculous.

Birthdays

It's my Birthday and I'll ... well I'm not going to cry over it. :-)

Thanks to everyone that remembered my birthday. I am truly impressed, given that I really don't remember anyone's birthday.

Getting older can be annoying - more things to deal with, health issues, physical stuff, and all of that, but really, I'm pretty happy about the whole thing. I feel like I'm ready to get older, not at heart, but in status. I have had lots of life experiences. I've worked really hard, and maybe with all of that comes a certain acceptance to get older.

Overall, of course, aging is really not the hardest thing in the world. Billions and billions of people do it every day, and are doing it even longer than days of old. However, I'm still impressed that I have made it as far as I have, and I feel like my age is a little bit of a testament to how much I have done. That is not always the case. There are many people that grow to 40 and still haven't done so many things, and there are people that are 14 that have likely experienced things I never will. However, I feel that I've done enough and am ready to get this aging show on the road. :-)

Thanks again, everyone. I'll do my best to stay young at heart.

A girl in NY City called the "Human Trampoline"

I realized something recently. The thing that intrigues me about a lot of writing that I see is the author's use of "showing words". In my high school English class, my teacher tried to drive through the concept of using such words to make our writing more interesting and entertaining. This task was often about as successful as driving a toothpick through concrete. The idea is to express things with more imagery. For example, instead of saying her lips were "red", one might say "her lips were like luscious strawberries that I longed to devour." Instead of calling someone is "old" or "wrinkly", one might say that "his body's skin stretched with his every move, occasionally giving indication that it may in fact crack from its years of wear."

I happened to naturally use showing words and was very good at being descriptive and fun. Somewhere in the middle of law school, I think this must have ended. It also may have resulted from all of the history papers (over 50) I wrote through undergrad. I now look at my writing and am disheartened. Where did all my flash and pizazz go? I'm so much more succinct, and to the point now ... well I'm not sure anyone has ever really accused me of getting to any point too quickly.

My weekend was again full of exciting adventure - and plenty of sun. We went to a little even called Sun Fest here. I had really wanted to go Sunday because 3 Doors Down was going to be playing, but people's Sunday plans being what they are, we had to go Saturday. It was probably the better choice though because the sun was out and the breeze was blowing and it was really just a beautiful day. Sunday was much darker.

Sunday I made a dinner inspired by Stacey. She had recommended that I use this whole wheat penne pasta I still had kicking around my apartment in a stir fry. I had been unable to obtain baby sea scallops yesterday so instead I was left with only chicken breast. However, I persevered with a wonderful marinade selected by my girlfriend, some added spicy sauce she acquired in South America to kick it up a notch, and some lime juice. Then stir fry it with the pasta in a garlic olive oil sauce. Top it all off with roasted vegetables. Good times. It did involve having three items cooking at once and a little bit of timing on all of it, but I really think the prep work on it was harder than cooking it. Cooking it is just high paced, but the prep work is ... annoying.

We attempted to find a new brunch place closer to where we live. This first attempt was, decidedly, an utter failure. I didn't even eat the food I paid for. Tragic. I did get to see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which only reaffirmed my belief that Disney should never be allowed to do sci fi. New Lucas (Episodes I and II) is bad enough, but Disney is just tragic. Overall, it wasn't a bad flick, but I think it's a little hard to translate Douglas Adams' English written humor to the big screen, and given this, the task certainly should not have been left to Disney. Give it to those Monty Python boys, but Disney??

I did hear one interesting item to report. A new study performed by some American university has shown that email and such is not only addictive, but that it makes you twice as dumb as smoking marijuana. Apparently, it is so distracting that it actually reduces the ability of your brain to function more than dope. Party on.

I hope everyone had a good weekend.