moron_from_hell

That was interesting, I had a real test of my endurance, having a Monday last 48 hours and managing to get through the entire day without falling over. I think I'm getting better, hurray! Though, in sad news, I've stopped eating as much, and started exercising (five days a week I run at some point in the day, when I wake up I do some basic stretches, push-ups and sit-ups/crunches and on the weekends I do weight training alternating light and heavy loads on the two days). When I first started all this, I weighed in at 256, then dropped to 248 within three weeks which pleased me to no end; then suddenly I rocketed back up the following month and have now been stuck at a constant 260.....I'm confused and even a little discouraged but to hell with it, I'm feeling damned better and that's what I care about!

Also, for those that would like to note....ONE MONTH TILL D-DAY! I have one month left and then the doc spells out my fate, and then I have a whole new beast, military bureaucrats, to deal with but I'm volunteering to deal with them. January is just one more hurdle among many more to come; lately I've been having my own set of worries and concerns, I wonder if I want this beyond reason and to the point that it might be more hurtful than helpful...but I do want this, and I think that no matter what happens, this will be a critical stage in my growth regardless of the outcome. Just wanted to say thanks to everyone for being around and there, sorry if I haven't returned the favor in spades, but thank you still.

Okay, now to go on the main course.

Australia was a wonderful time of it, though I'm told that Sydney is more or less the only really big city and the other are more just suburban sprawls, anyways, Sydney itself is a lot like LA in that there are individual cities within the Sydney area and all together they comprise greater Sydney. It was really fascinating to study it all on a map. We got in last Friday, and caught a taxi to our hotel (my sisters, mostly Briseis, are the pissiest traveling partners, having a good time around them is like bringing a hyena to dine with the Queen) and the entire ride my eyes were darting all over the place, I'd slept almost the entire 12+/- an hour flight and was so well rested I was practically bouncing in the car much to our cabby's distress, poor guy!

I'd like some feed back from my other internationally traveled friends, what's the first thing you notice in another country? For me it was the cars, it was the scenery, the people, or the places, but the cars and how different they are from what you find in America that caught my eye, they and all their variations could comprise an entire post but I won't go into that more than to say I was delighted in identifying and cataloging all the models I saw. My sisters were more than a little miffed by my enthusiasm.

We reached our hotel and went exploring almost immediately (there was a brief delay as we waited for our luggage) and found a relatively cheap (nothing is cheap in Australia, but there is no sales tax so it evens out I guess) cafe to eat at. That is something for all those that travel, in Australia (and I'm told in England, so I imagine it to be true of many Commonwealth nations) a cafe is usually a place for sandwiches and drinks (surprisingly non-coffee kinds), while a bar is a coffee shop and a pub is a bar/restaurant. I also learned the hard way that asking for lemonade gives you a strange fizzy soda-ish drink instead of squeezed lemons.....I didn't even bother trying to ask for actual lemonade after I realized this and settled for the strange fizzy-ish soda thingy. During our explorations, we decided to head up, as that should give us the best view of the place, we found a weird castle-like structure and what appeared to be a park, but I got distracted when I realized that going downhill to the left lead to the harbor, and you know me, I can't resist the sea so away we went.

Surprisingly we didn't make it to the harbor though, we found a bridge and a very narrow stairway leading up to it and made our way up and onto the span. We got an excellent view of the harbor and ferry terminals from there and eventually we went down via a big glass elevator to walk along the harbor side. Eventually we bumbled into the Sydney Opera House, which started a trend that lasted the entire trip, my perceptions of things not meeting the reality of them. The Opera House is actually much smaller than I thought it would be, it is still very impressive though, looking out from the house you can see Fort Dennison (more on this later) off to the windward side and leeward is the Sydney Harbor Bridge which we have over two dozen pictures for some reason (it really caught our eye). After dicking around at the Opera House for a bit we noticed a park to windward of it and wandered over there to find it was the Sydney Botanical Gardens (there is a sign inviting you to:"....walk on the grass, hug and talk to the trees...."), after purchasing some ice cream for the three of us we entered and explored the various plants and wildlife. The Gardens are apparently a massive sprawl, and if the maps I've looked at are accurate we only explored about a third of it which surprised me because we walked a lot through there.

We eventually found ourselves back at that castle-like structure that I mentioned earlier, we'd managed to go in a relative circle, and as Briseis was beat we ourselves beat a retreat to the hotel where we loitered for a half-hour before Jill and I concluded this to be a waste of our time and struck out again while Briseis napped. Jill and I headed down to the opposite end of the harbor, around the dock called Circular Quay, heading towards the Harbor Bridge from there. We found the area called The Rocks, which is one of the oldest portions of Sydney. Its a tightly packed neighborhood that is dominated by shops and cafes in tightly packed alleys and the like. Jill and I spent hours exploring it and finding a place for dinner there even before we made our way out to the wharf opposite the Opera House. We spent over an hour just sitting there looking out at the Harbor and its environs. It was really enchanting and we took a lot of pictures (need to hoist those out in facebook sometime). We eventually went back (towards evening) and found Briseis, dragging her out to the Italian place we'd found for dinner, and then we explored the outdoor market that wound through the alleys and streets before we finally headed back to the hotel for the night.

I should mention that it was during this time that I was able to discover the answer to a nagging question: what is the First Fleet? The answer to this question had been bothering me the entire time we wandered through Sydney as everywhere there was mention of 'The First Fleet' and I had no idea what it was and yet it seemed to be some prominent aspect of the culture. I discovered thanks to a monument in The Rocks that the First Fleet was the original fleet that first sailed into what would become Sydney Harbor and established the original Penal Colony in 1788. I love the reason why Australia was originally colonized, the English needed a new place to put its criminals having just lost the American Colonies. It was concluded that Australia would serve nicely. So in a strange twist, the first settlers in Aussie land were convicts and their jailers, both groups were eventually granted land and thus the future of a nation was born.

I went to sleep around 8-ish, the girls stayed up a little later but didn't leave the hotel room. We woke up (or I did) early the next day and packed quickly so we could go meet Helen at her hotel. We traveled across town to Darling Harbor, our new staying spot. After bunking down we went out and explored a bit, finding the Sydney Aquarium, the Wildlife Center, and the Maritime Museum all neatly situated in the area. On the flight to Sydney, I met an Aussie who gave me advice about the area, saying that we should avoid the New Town and Red Foam areas, as they were the bad parts of the city and not safe, especially towards evening and night time. We didn't have any call to go there though, and after catching some breakfast we met back up with Helen and embarked on a ferry ride out into the harbor, the Toronga Zoo being our goal.

The ferry ride was fun, we had a great tour guide who was really vibrant and lively, after embarking from the Aquarium we headed out to Circular Quay, people debarked and embarked and then we were off again. I spent most of the trip with my head sticking out the window like a dog snapping pictures of the harbor and everything else that caught my interest. The next stop was at Fort Dennison (remember that place?) The fort sits on a sandstone island out in the harbor and was built in 1841 to defend against incursions, ostensibly the fort was built to fend off Russian aggressors during the Crimean War. However the real reason was because in 1839 two American warships sailed into Sydney Harbor (the precursor, ironically, to what would become a tradition in the 20th century) unopposed scaring the scheisse out of the Governor-General. The fort has been in constant use in one form or another since 1855 and now serves as a tourist stop (whenever I get back to Sydney I will go there).

We finally made our way out into the greater waterway and headed towards the zoo, again my head was out the window as I snapped pictures of everything I could, the area is really beautiful and I'm afraid I would fail to describe it accurately. We reached the zoo and the most amazing thing happened, we found ourselves going from the ferry to a gondola that took us up and over the zoo, an aerial tour over the center of the place. My first view of the zoo really stunned, it was gorgeous and really amongst the zoos that I have seen, Toronga has now assumed a rank alongside Denver, Houston, and San Diego. After disembarking from the gondola we acquired tickets for what was called the 'Koala Encounter' since we had time to kill, we went first to see the wombats and platypus, sadly the latter was not in evidence but we did find the wombat (and again my perceptions were surprised) I always saw wombats as small dog sized animals. However that is not how large they actually grow. Full grown wombats can be the size of medium sized dogs and are apparently nasty and very resilient creatures. They regularly survive cars hitting them and the cars are usually more damaged than the wombat which I was told 7 out of 9 times walks away from the crash.

After that little discovery we went to our encounter, and it was a moment to remember, we were allowed into the koala enclosure and though we couldn't touch them, we were able to stand in the enclosure with the koalas, we got a five month old baby and her mother. The mother slept for most of the time until she woke up and spent the rest of the time glowering at us while the baby clambered all over the place and seemed quite pleased with our presence. I will never forget having a baby koala try to sit on my head! That will teach me to be six feet tall! They were really adorable, and if they'd let us, I'd have stayed there all day and gotten to know the pair, but there was a time limit so we had to toddle off. Our next stop was with the kangaroos and wallabies, surprisingly they are in an open exhibit and are free to move around the path with the people! It was really funny watching them sit around as we walked THROUGH their exhibit, the shocker though was the lone emu in the exhibit, I about had a heart attack when it got up and squawked at me (it had been in amongst some trees so I had no idea it was there). After the initial shock, it and I spent a long time watching one another, I'm not really sure why, but the emu really interested me and I eventually gave it a name: Gopher due to its impotent irritation.

We went to the nocturnal house next, and I was surprised to find the multitude of small (palm sized) animals that hop, glide, and scamper around at night in Australia. For some reason, the preferred locomotion for most mammals in Australia is hopping! I don't know why, but there you have it! We got to see the ichidna too, they are the most....curious little fuzzies ever. Especially since they aren't actually fuzzy but prickly! However they are highly inquisitive animals and will come right up to the side of their pens to investigate their visitors. Helen at this point decided that we needed to go see the Seal Show, so we made a mad dash for the Seal Theater (inventive aren't they?) which was jam packed. The show was a riot, the seals were very well trained to entertain and it was even educational, again they showed off the caliber of the zoo. The seals even seemed to really be enjoying their interaction with the audience, the first seal actually screwed up and realized that it did and scrambled off stage! The poor thing was actually embarrassed! The trainers actually had to COAX the seal back out to finish the opening number...it was adorable.

By this point we were famished, and the eatery was right next door the theater, so we went in and purchased some sandwiches before making a failed escape. I say failed because it was then that we collided with the Asian elephant enclosure which ranks number two on my list of things I saw at the zoo. There was even a newborn (less than a year old) calf with them and it was amazing to watch how the herd (there were five adults) watched over the baby even when the mother wandered off to get watered (the handlers got a hose and started spraying water at them). We again attempted to make our way down to the gondola, but detoured through another exhibit where I was scared shitless by a fake leopard! It sits in a tree above one enclosure and I thought it was real at first (it looks very convincing out of the corner of your eye). The tree was 20 feet in the air, the enclosure was only 10 feet high, you can understand why I jumped upon seeing a leopard up there and well beyond the fence. It was in this same enclosure that I saw two things: the ancestor of all modern chickens (why it is still extant I will never know) and a tapir. Here is my perception mix up, I always thought tapirs were the size of a hog or pig. They are not, they are the size of a small-mid sized bear. Freaking huge!

We finally (after navigating an atrium) made our way back to the gondola and rode it up again to retrieve our Koala Encounter picture, it's cute, the baby is scrambling up the tree in an attempt to get away from the four people crowding it. By this point the final two ferries were drawing near, so we tried to escape a final time, but got caught by the reptile house, which is just like every other reptile house I've ever been in and there was nothing really special (the frogs, as usual, looked like plastic toys) in the place....though they did have a model of a fully grown reticulated python, it was ten meters long and had a head wide enough to swallow me....vore fans rejoice?

Again we tried to escape, but our final trap lay in wait. The snow leopards. For those that do not know this, the snow leopard competes with the wolf as my favorite animal, ever since 7th grade when I had to do an in depth report (I actually went to a few zoos in addition to writing letters to talk to animal handlers about them) on them. These two were adorable, and I didn't even realize why until later. At first they just did what most big cats do, laze about (the lions we saw earlier did the same thing and yes, there are animals I'm not mentioning because otherwise this would be even longer!). However after a few moments one of them got up and joined the second, which promptly stood up and they switched places. Literally one went to where the other had been and vice versa. It was really odd. After a few moments more they joined each other under the waterfall and snuggled! It was very cute, then all hell broke loose as they began wrestling, growling, and leaping (one of them ran ten feet up one side of the enclosure from a sitting position) much to our delight and we very nearly missed the ferry thanks to them.

More than the koalas and elephants, the snow leopards made my day. I was in blissful pleasure watching them frolic. It was about this time that I looked up and realized why they were so boisterous. They were kittens! Barely two years old (a snow leopard will stay with their parents for about three years) and were from the same litter (average litter 1-2). The mother was now in France, while the father was in a zoo further south....and shit I can't remember the name...Melbourne! There we go. We rushed to the ferry and began a reverse trip of our earlier cruise, this time however I did not stick my head out the window, no, I stood out in front on the deck of the ferry and felt the sea spray and loved every moment as the ferry skimmed across the waves. I only came in when it began to rain, and then not before it really started raining. Once back in Darling Harbor we went to a market called Pady's Market, which amazed me. In the basement of this old (Industrial Revolution era) warehouse building is this massive bazaar filled with stalls with everything from fruit and other produce to fake Luis Vitton bags and Aborigine art work. The most astounding part of this place was that the upper three stories of the building were taken up by a modern mall! It was a mash of two distinct cultures that I found enriching and intoxicating, I could have stayed there for hours exploring but it was closing when we got there so I only had a handful of minutes.

We had dinner, Helen and Jill went out to the Christmas concert (which was apparently very disappointing while I stayed in our room and watched the fireworks over the harbor. Dinner by the way, was had at a pub that Helen frequents, it was a really nice little joint just a few blocks from the hotel. The next morning, I again woke first and set out with the intent of catching breakfast and then going to the maritime museum. I ended up arriving before it opened, so I wandered outside (this was when you called me Jala) examining the various ships tied up there. The museum was free, but if you wanted to go on the ships you had to pay. I found, out back of the museum a wall that was about a half mile long I believe, on which family names are scrawled, they are the names of various families that have immigrated to Australia since it was first settled in 1788. It was fascinating to read their stories and really drove home that, even more so than America, Australia is an amalgamation of dozens of cultures all fused together to create a fascinating country.

When the museum finally opened I wandered inside and aside from the guards and guides was the only one there. I saw a light house from the 1800s that was six meters tall, went through the immigrants exhibit, went inside a mock up of an Australian submarine before looking through the rest of the Australian Navy exhibit, I discovered that until the early and mid eighties Australia had carriers, I never knew! Finally I found the US Navy exhibit and learned (remember those two warships that spurred the construction of Fort Dennison?) of the extensive relationship between Australia and the US Navy, not the US, but the Navy of the US. It was fascinating, but apparently the US Navy is basically a celebrity in Australia which is really fascinating in and of itself. I went back to the hotel and got dressed and ready for our plane trip, the real riot? We spent four hours at the airport for no reason and ended up going back to the hotel! That night we explored the extensive parks and fountains around our hotel before having an improvised dinner at the Harborside (a mall on the harbor) foot court.

The thing was though, I was DELIGHTED that we didn't get a flight back! It meant that I had one more day to go to the aquarium! I woke up early, and RAN over to the aquarium, bought a ticket, and spent the entire morning there and loved every second of it! This has taken me over an hour to write, so I'm going to try wrapping it up finally...if you're still reading this...wow, you've got stamina. At the aquarium I saw my first platypus, and found out another perception goof, I'd always thought them to be the size of a house cat. They are not, they are the size of my foot, about 30cm. There was also a very grumpy looking fish all alone in a tank, and I felt bad for it, then I read the label: "This fish is highly territorial and WILL KILL ANYTHING that enters its territory." I didn't feel so bad after that. I stumbled across the salt water crocodile and learned two things: 1, the salty is the croc that is the basis for the Peter Pan monster that haunts Captain Hook and 2, the largest salties are 7 meters long! Just to give you an idea of how big that is, that is larger than most shark species (the Great White doesn't even get that big). I wandered through more the of aquarium (I was shocked to find that despite outside appearances it is a massive place, and easily as good as Monterey or Sea World) and found the Dugons! They are the Asian cousins of the Manatees that are found in Florida and along the Gulf Coast.

They were adorable to say the least, I spent a good half hour watching them frolic in their enclosure (there was a bubble tunnel that let you go underwater and see them). It was really enchanting to watch them swim and play with each other and it pained me to leave. The next bubble tube I found was even better though, sharks and rays! And I was in for another perception shock, stingrays are not all the size of a dinner platter, there were two monsters in this tank that were the size of an armchair. The sign on the tunnel read thus: "This acrylic glass makes these animals look 25% smaller than their actual size....." So that means, these things were even bigger than they appeared. Their barbs were three feet long! If you were stung by one, the barb itself would kill you regardless of the venom (I also learned that until Steve Irwin was killed by a stingray the last recorded deaths by ray were in 1945 and 1938).

The rest of the aquarium passed very nicely, it was all very beautiful and when I came out my only regret was that I'd forgotten my camera! I went back to the hotel, finished packing and changed once more. Off we went to the airport, and I enjoyed a good three hours of conversation with my seat mate who had grown up in Alabama, served in the Navy, and now worked for Lockheed Martin and lived in Germany. All in all, this was probably one of the most fulfilling trips that I have ever taken that was not to visit relatives or friends. I will be cherishing it for years to come, and I wish I could share the experience with a few people next time I go.

Shit, now I've only got four hours of sleep to go, AGAIN, and I have my tutoring session today...crap, off to bed I say!

So today I really bit the bullet and started a new workout routine that is actually busting my ass. Know what's funny? It isn't the Navy that made me do it, Jala caused it; she probably knows why and I'm not really going to mention it here because its something between us anyways. The oddity about the motivations here are that here's where they rank in priority: Jala, Navy, personal. Go me I guess? I have my priorities straight!

Also my dad, while not in the sour mood he has been is still sulking a great deal and raving about the Chinese, Koreans, and Russians all in one and how they're rearming and enlarging their military at the same time as I'm joining ours. My response again and again has been: "Its part of the job, you take the risk with the rest of it when you sign your papers." I think that's part of the reason he's sulking really, that I'm so calm about it and honest about the threat. I think he hopes that I don't realize the potential danger and that him telling me about it, will scare me away from the Navy. The trouble is that I do realize the danger, and am still willing to go in because its what I want. Shane started talking to me again (joy?) and said about this: "you are so fucked." He then went off about all these death rays that various Scandinavian countries are developing and how China can kick the US' ass etc etc. He finished by saying that if this was the '90s he'd join right away because he wouldn't have to do anything, but now that there's actually a risk of fighting he won't say boo to it. I never understand that way of thinking, I like avoiding work as much as the next guy but I don't see where this unwillingness to put effort into anything comes from. My dad accuses me of taking the easy way out and looking for external motivation but then I hang out with Shane.

A funny conversation I had with everyone at Daniel's B-day:
Me: "I've been going to school for a little over three years and haven't done anything or gotten anywhere. I need to change that."
Devin: "I've been doing the same thing, what's wrong with that?"
Daniel: "Yeah, I don't even have my AA yet. What's the difference?"
Me: "The difference is this: you're both happy with that. I'm going completely insane to the point of despair. I can't do this anymore and I'm going to stop it now and do what I want before that's no longer an option."

Not really sure where this post has gone actually, over the hills and far away I suppose. This is going to be an interesting week coming up, I have this dinner tomorrow (early Thanksgiving at my aunt's) and then for Thanksgiving we're going to Sydney Australia. Interesting indeed.

 So this past weekend was Daniel's birthday and I was right, Vegas was the last place our group needed to be; a few of Daniel's other friends who came along had a good time drinking and gambling but a lot of us just had more fun sitting around and chatting, making fun and generally doing nothing. Myself I had the usual reaction to the sensory assault that is Vegas, my head was on a swivel and my eyes fixed on anything that moved. I swear I felt like I was going to be stabbed, I actually felt more nervous in Vegas than I've ever felt in a random back alley walking to my car at night in LA and that's unpleasant.

Anyways, we walked about the strip, discussing the social whatever the fuck, that is Las Vegas before arriving at Paris and having a quite lunch and then heading back to our hotel for a round of drinks and gambling, I didn't participate in the latter but I did decide to be shameless and flirt with a bar girl who was flirting with the group trying to coax us into a bar no less, surprise? She kept bothering and buggering us to come in and have a few, finally I just grinned and pointed to Daniel and Logan (everyone else aside from Devin having wandered off): 
"Sorry, but we can't. He's got head trauma and this one's Mormon."
She laughed and waved us in anyways:
"Head trauma head schmauma, come get something!"
I shrugged and went over and bought a jello shot just for the hell of it and to get a good look at her smile, she really did have a nice one! Devin, for whatever reason decided that if I was doing something, he must do it as well...he does seem the following type doesn't he.....very amusing. I took the shot down all at once after popping the lid and wondered where the alcohol was, then it hit me at the very bottom and I laughed:
"Ah, there it is, I was wondering."

That was the extent of my drinking escapades, we wandered around the casino for a little, every started staring at a girl dancing on a bar in a bikini singing very badly before we headed back to Daniel's room and just lazed around. For all the activity we partook in we might as well have had the get together at Daniel's place instead of Vegas!

Later we had a dinner that was just....well it was pure fantasy. I swear the food just slid down your throat and warmed your stomach, amazing stuff. Daniel got a gelato afterwards, and it being his birthday he got a candle in it! This seemed rather silly to me since, you know, ice cream+candle=melted ice cream last I checked. But we had a good time, the little bastard blew the candle out before we could sing happy birthday, so we re-lit it and sang much to his pained expression!

The show we saw was Carrot Top, who we had no idea about aside from the fact that George Carlin loved to insult him, and having seen him I understand some of Carlin's jokes in a fuller manner too. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the man is actually quite funny and damned good at what he does. One of our party is an ardent CT fan and sounded like a hyena on helium, it was a sound I have never heard before, but dear god it was nearly as funny as the comedy act!

Afterwards Daniel was worn out so we all went back to our rooms to get some sleep and go at it again the next morning. At about 200 or 300 in the AM however I got a call from Daniel, I was groggy as all fuck so I actually just hung up and rolled over to sleep again. Turned out that he wasn't feeling well and went home at 2 or 3 in the morning. Whoops? Devin and I woke up, checked out, went to buffet and had a very filling breakfast and began the long, joke filled ride home.

I also found something rather funny, Devin apparently weighs 208 and is 6.2 I weigh 248 and am 6.0 yet for some reason he's fatter than I am. I know there's a muscle-fat ratio going on here, but still, that's just a bit silly!

On another note, Gab bought me (yes, it was Daniel's b-day but Gabe bought me a gift) CoD MW 2 (figure out what that stands for I dare you). His reason for doing this was so that he would have someone to play with, go figure? After installing it this morning after my run, I was greeted by this message: "Some content in this game may disturb the player. To skip this content select "Skip" from below. You will not play the level at no loss to game enjoyment." Right away I was interested so I of course chose not to skip, when the level came up I understood fully what it meant. You are a terrorist in an airport armed with SAWs and body armor, guess who your targets are. That's right, your job is to walk (running in the game is literally disabled) through the airport and slaughter every man woman and security guard (children aren't seen, that's always been taboo in video games) you come across.

Now here's the part that made me blink, the fact that I was wholesale slaughtering innocents (obviously the 'disturb the player' part was this) didn't actually bother me (the scene is pretty gruesome as you calmly walk up to the line of people waiting to board their plane and mercilessly open fire, I can see how this would bother people). I admit that I waited for the NPC characters to open fire first before I let loose on the crowd because I actually was not sure if I was supposed to shoot the crowd or not and didn't want to do something I wasn't supposed to. Once the bullets started flying though I emptied the entire box before reloading and going at it again. The part that actually disturbed me wasn't all the killing, it was after that initial wait to see what the NPCs would do, I just walked through the place firing at anything that moved; and when I found a survivor, injured or not, I walked up and finished them off without batting an eyelash. By the end of the scene, I found myself shaking my head at the futility of those that tried to escape the five man team that I was part of, I was far too thorough to let them get away and actively hunted them down whenever I got the chance.

I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, and I think the game designers did an excellent job portraying the intensity of the scene. Props to them, and a mental ward for me I think. Walking up to injured civilians (even simulated ones) and slotting them in the gut and enjoying the experience probably isn't a good sign! Infinity Ward seems prepped to take the "Most controversial video game title" away from Rock Star anytime now.

www.youtube.com/watch

So this is one of the first J-rock videos that Jala ever shared with me...and I bumbled into it today because I was looking for it desperately on youtube. I still love it, so thanks Jala, you've gotten me hooked by proxy.

I guess PC wasn't what he had in mind......

 blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/10/16/friday_photo_triumph_of_the_gnomes

www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000XZ9ZYO/sr=8-1/qid=1256169181/ref=olp_product_details

Yep, I'm a dork, but damn me if I don't wish I could afford that so awesome! Plus you get to assemble it! Better and better...oh god I need help don't I?

How do you garner sympathy in the international community online? Tell them you grew up in Canada but moved to the United States, they will cry for you. 

 

Meet the Toyota FJ Cruiser, or as I call it, the Yota Tank. It is this random, Hummer copycat that the Japanese came up with for who knows what reason and aside from the fact that its big, curved, and brightly colored (even when colored darkly, it still seems to be bright...I don't get it!) I know very little about it. Anyways, when I first started seeing them I was very curious because it looked most odd and I've never seen a single ad for it. I thought that it looked a bit like an armored vehicle so I started calling it a tank, then I found out its name and Toyota Tank came about because in WWII the British classified their tanks as Infantry, and Cruiser tanks and this was an FJ Cruiser. However driving around I found that calling out: Toyota Tank, was a mouthful so I had to look for other inspirations. Thus I realized that I could cut Toyota down to Yota which sounded like Yoda. Thus the Yota Tank was born, and I love them to death. Also if you notice, and this is amazing, instead of two windshield wipers they have three! AWESOME!

 

Yes, this is completely random considering my last post, but this is my mind, enjoy your stay....JESUS BOINK!

 So a few things, first, I got to drive the SUV today instead of the Prius, it was so relieving to have a car that actually had traction in the rain! Driving the Prius in the rain is suicidal at best I must declare, it has no traction, and is too light to handle the corners in Topanga when the road is slick.

Another thing, Helen had the nerve to tell me, not ask me mind you, but tell me to put my cats out in the rain. I looked at her calmly and told her a flat no. When she asked why I raised an eyebrow and asked if she wanted her cats in the rain to which she said no. My response was exactly, which seemed to baffle her. If I let the cats out in the rain, they will get sick, it has happened before, and we can't afford to take them all to the vet and get the ungodly expensive medication they'd give us. She also lectured me on the frailty of her cats and I couldn't help but be amused by how precious her cats are to her, but how disposable my cats seem to be. To go further she lectured me further on the twins and and how I was doing things that weren't to her liking. Things like giving them a snack when they got home from school, or letting them stay up to wait for her to tuck them in among other sillier things. She told me that I had no authority to make the kind of decisions with the twins that I was making, my response was to say that I earned that right when I became one of their primary caretakers and she could get stuffed if she didn't like how I was doing things, she could do it herself. She clammed up nicely. I'm a hostile SOB aren't I?

And now for DRIVE BY TRAFFIC, bringing the accident to you!

Todays news is simple, DUCK! First rains of the year and already shit is flying off the mountainside, we counted no less than a dozen different miniature slides, fallen rocks and branches to count the most common hazards on the road. So when you go out in the rain, especially in the canyon areas, watch yourself because shit is coming down and its coming down hard.

So, first off, I HATE THE PRIUS! It handles like a greased brick!  You think they'd give it better handling, I've never driven a Toyota that has such bad handling and I've been driving their SUVs in most cases! To say that the Prius has worse handling than the Sequoia would be a compliment! OIY! Japanese people, do what Honda and Ford are doing! Stick your hybrid engine in proven chasis instead of this freaking wheeled lunchbox, you might actually make a decent car!

In other news, I've started volunteering at the twins' school. Its kinda strange because as some people know, I would eventually like to be a teacher, and this is a bit of a crash course in the affair so to speak. Its quite enriching to interact with the kids and teachers, so I believe I shall continue to do it for the time being and see what comes of it. I believe my dad is hoping that doing this will dissuade me from the Navy, I don't know about that, but we'll see. He also fears that the Navy will beat all the creativity out of me, I don't know about that one either, since many of my favorite authors are ex-Navy...so I really don't think his fears are warranted at all. So yeah, if you can't reach me in the mornings, its because I'm at the elementary school working as a TA and loving to learn.

I am a racist bastard, I admit this wholeheartedly. I insult everything under the sun willy nilly without so much as batting an eyelash, I don't care if you're white, red, green, blue, black, or purple. I will insult you, and if you're religious, you're just giving me more ammunition. Now this being said, I hate intolerance. Sounds funny doesn't it? A racist ass who hates intolerance, someone is confused right? Wrong. You see, I'm all for diversity and the studying of cultures and mixing of the races and so on so forth. However since I consider nothing sacred I insult (and sometimes assault) everything. Now here is an example of what I can't stand:

Dad: "Why the hell do we have a three day weekend?" 
Me:  "It's a Jew Day."
Dad: "A what?" 
Me: "A Jew Day, denoting a Random Jewish Holiday, Yom Kippur is what this one is I believe (I also believe I'm wrong)."
Dad: "Why are we celebrating a one sided Jewish war?"
Me: "We aren't, there was a war on the holiday, the holiday isn't about the war."

My dad went off on further rants about the entire affair and other things and my ire rose to the point where I no longer wished to be in the same car as him. You see, I will not insult things that I know nothing about. If I have no knowledge of something, I can't insult it now can I? I need to understand and comprehend something in order to even begin to insult something or someone. Otherwise I won't do it, I can't be racist or intolerant if I don't know anything about it. It just wouldn't be fair to go at it with a beating stick if I don't know what I'm beating.

I've been thinking on things that two friends have said about me, one who has known me the longest, and the other who has known me the best.

I realize that they're both right in their own way, I am a simple person. I think in animalistic and base ways that are incomprehensible to most people simply because they are un-complex and simplistic in the extreme. If two animals have a disagreement and cannot find it in themselves or their environment to coexist or separate they fight until their dispute is settled. My mind works much in the same way, to me, if someone harms me or someone close to me, I must either kill them, or damage them in some way so as to make them as dead and incapable of competing. It is the only way I can think and feel at peace. So for instance, when Lourdes would not stop hitting me despite my warnings, I bit her, hard. It was cruel, it was base, but she will never do it again because she will remember that pain. That is how I think, knowing that, the military makes more sense for me than not.

My view on war and politics is much the same, it is why I disdain extremes such as nuclear weapons and falsities such as sanctions. Neither does anything, the human state, whether it wants to admit it or not, is base and simple. It cannot contemplate absolute annihilation and it cannot understand false punishment. Sadly the current state of humanity is such that we deny that we are a violent and intrinsically barbaric creature, and thus we try to stamp out war by threats of nuclear destruction or economic sanction. If we would realize that neither solves anything, and that we must either evolve to a higher state, or fall back on our old truth, things would be better in the world. Even constant war is better in my mind than this farce we call peace as of now though in truth an evolution would be preferable.

There are individuals I have met, who as a single unit have evolved past the base nature of humanity and no longer require this violence to settle their accounts, they are both enviable and pitiable in that they live in a world that will never understand them in their lifetimes but they are absolved of the cruel truth of human nature because they have moved beyond it. Perhaps it is indicative of my will or something akin to it, but I choose to remain base and simple. I relate more to the animal of humanity, than the humanity of animals.

Kaiem examined the board carefully for a time before nodding as he reached for a piece and flipped it over. Slowly it shifted from a simple coin shaped piece to a standing character. Placing a finger at its base, he leisurely pushed it forwards across the playing field with a bored smile.
"You can't be serious." Demion muttered looking at the move distastefully.
"He's done it before, why not again?" Inquired Tyrdrid said with a shrug, contemplating her move.
"Yes," Demion agreed, "but does he have to do it three times in a row? This is getting silly." In preparation for his response, he morphed three of his own pieces into their active states and made ready to move them.
"Oh?" Tyrdrid said, "a little premature isn't that?" 
"He's probably hoping to change things this time." Kaiem said with a smug smile, "you have to realize that it won't work." 
"Neither will your move," Tyrdrid reminded him, "you haven't been able to do anything with that posture this entire game."
Kaiem shrugged, "my goal is wear down the opposition." 
Tyrdrid took two of her pieces and morphed them, moving them upwards towards the impending clash though she kept them well to the sidelines of the conflict.
"You are all getting tiresome," muttered Hajjen as he leaned over the board contemplating the movements of his friends. "You could all simply win by other means yet you insist on doing this pointless grind continuously until your moves are exhausted." 
He moved his hand in a sweeping motion, and a dozen of his pieces morphed and moved to their new places, his companions eyed the move cautiously.
"What are you trying? " Demion asked, looking in confusion at the odd move.
"He's fortifying and building." Tyrdrid said, a smile playing across her features.
Hajjen smiled modestly, "if you all insist on trying to fight one another for center stage then be my guest, however I will take the outskirts and take care of matters in my own way."
"Well then," Kaiem said, his smile shifting as he moved his pieces closer to Demions. "Lets not keep everyone waiting."

You know what I don't understand?  I don't understand how people don't understand me, I mean I'm not a complicated person, I like to laugh at everything in life to the point where I try to find the humor in even the most dour cases (I mean hell, I make jests about my mother dying all the time) and I am always willing to live with my choices and their consequence.

I am a person of consequence, that isn't to say that I actually matter in the world, but instead to say that I believe that everyone makes choices and those choices have consequences. I also firmly believe, that every person, when they make a choice (not making a choice is a choice too) should be prepared to live with the consequences of that choice. I wasn't always like this I admit, but I am now, and it is who I am fundamentally. I choose to be and do as I am, and I will live with that and its consequences.

Why so few people actually understand that is beyond me. I'm trying to think, who do I know that actually understands that? Jala...Elisabeth....Rachel....Devin....Daniel....Gabe.....Abe....maybe Jehan? Shane, ironically enough has known me longest of all the people I have ever called friend and yet seems to know the least about me despite the fact that I know everything about him and his personality by now.

You know what I dislike most about people in general? They lack a sense of humor, now yes, most people have a sense of humor, however that sense of humor is so limited as to be downright dull. I mean yes, I understand the sense behind remaining somber and un-smiling as so many people do, but you're only going to live for 7-8 decades if you're lucky, why not smile and laugh more often?

I've been working on a lot of things lately, everything from fanfictions and board games to naval enlistment and personal training. So for a change I'm actually keeping a bit busy (I still get teased by my dad about being a layabout, wonder how much of a layabout he'd think I was if I clocked him?) and its very refreshing.

One of my fanfictions is Star Wars based, and I've been working on the idea for quite some years (the original idea was born back in 10th grade) and in its current manifestation I am realizing something; and that is that I actually have a publishable story. What the majority of Star Wars novels are are fanfics that are approved for publication by Lucas Arts, so once I finish this story, I am going to go over it once more and polish it up a final time, make sure to get the kinks out of it and then go bugger Lucas Arts for permission to publish, now I don't expect them to agree, but I am going to do it just because I want to give this story a chance at being something more than a simple dose of brain crack. If I have to keep going back to them and revising the story for years to come, I'm still going to keep at it, because I think this story deserves to see the light of day....for those that know about my writing habits you'll know that this is very weird, normally I hide my writing. I don't even share it with people I'm close to frequently enough.

Now onto another matter, in writing this Star Wars fic I realized something about the three Sci-Fi universes I love: Star Wars, Star Trek, and Battlestar Galactica(new); and that is that Star Wars is the only one that has a world rich enough to be written in. There are so many things explained in the movies, or the books, and a myriad of other mediums that the world cannot help but be rich enough to allow things like my story to flourish. Star Trek focuses so much on the individual ships and their crews to the exclusion of much of everything else which leaves no real room for a viable story, and while Battlestar Galactica has a rich world, it is such a preset storyline that to do anything other than prequel-esque materials would be all but disastrous. So as far as writer liberty is concerned, I vote Star Wars as having the most diverse, and easily entered universe for a writer.