The End, and a Story

So it looks like Blogust has come to an end. This was much more successful of an attempt for me. I said that I would try to post a portion of my project for Communication on today's blog, so here's what I have written so far for my assignment.

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I can remember the good old days before life got complicated, not to say I didn't live a good life. Back in the early 2000s I started college at Antelope Valley College in Lancaster. I couldn't think of what to do with my life so I just lazily took some classes until I fell deeply in love with Physics. I transfered to Cal State Northridge to get my Bachelor's degree and then I went on to UC San Diego for my doctorates in Theoretical Astrophysics.
I spent a good year on my dissertation alone. I'm sure if you looked hard enough you could find a published form of my paper, "Music and Blackholes" somewhere or another. In 2018, at the age of 29 I finally earned the title of doctor, graduating with top honors.
After graduating I applied at many universities across California in hopes to find a job with adequite funding for research. I was fortunate enough to get a job at my alma mater UCSD in the theoretic physics department. Though it was a little strange going from student to coworker with some of my professors adapting to the environment came fairly quickly.
Ten years, I spent ten years working at my dream job before I had to set that aside for my other dream, one I thought impossible, to hunt zombies. It turns out that a particular theory for improving travel in space, something we worked on with the biology department, had gone tragically awry. We tried to put astronauts into a heightened level of self-sustanance when they were taken over by their primal desires.
The zombie outbreak was uncontainable, or so it seemed. The infection spread through 90% of the science department within the first hour despite all of our precautions. Within a week San Diego was lost to the infected, only a hand-full of us survived long enough to plan an escape. As time went on the government set up quarantines and scheduled bombings/military cleansings of the areas. The tragedy was almost unbearable, the only thing that kept me going was the only other surviving member of my team, Doctor Margo Sezville. I lost my arm during our retreat from San Diego to save her, from that day we were completely in love.

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Basically from here the zombies are completely eradicated, save for a few that pop up occasionally, but thanks to precautions are dealt with safely.

It's been great and I hope you guys enjoyed my blog posts this last month. Until next time.

Notoriously,
Mandog

Penultimate

So this is the second to last post for my Blogust 2010. Tomorrow I plan to make a more significant post, maybe I'll post a portion of my Comm assignment on here to fulfill the one aspect of Blogust I had yet to complete. I'm getting ready to head off to improv, another great day in the great life that is the Mandog.

ZOMG

Today was a great, nay GRAND day. Nickbot needed to go to the Getty Villa for a school project, so a few of us went with him today. The Getty Villa is a really nice place, I highly suggest it to anyone. We walked around for a while and saw a lot of really awesome pieces of art. It was a nice relaxed viewing of primarily Greco-Roman art and structures, with some Egyptian stuff in there too. After walking around for a while and Nickbot getting the picture he needed we head off for food. We stop off at Subway just because it's there and it's not as insanely expensive as the Pearl Dragon. What happened next is the true highlight of today.

We decide that we want to visit Riot Studios since we were down near their offices. So we find their address, or well two, and drive over there. We After finding the first address we go up to the building and find out it was locked. So we walked around to look to find the other building, turns out that one was probably their old building. We decide to go back to the first building just to check and as we were outside looking at the listing and saw Riot Games. At this point some guy walked out he talked to us for a bit and told us that he was on the third floor too. He asks us if we want him to go up and ask if someone would come down and we were like, "Sure, probably won't get us anything, but why not?" He goes up there and a few minutes later someone else walks out. We talk to the guy that works for Riot for a while and he's like, "Want to come up?" We're all, "HECK YES!" So we go up to the studios talking to him about the game and who we are, once we get there we meet Pendragon. To avoid making us sign NDAs he does a very swift walk around the office and then takes us back downstairs talking a bit more about the game. It was awesome!

Also, picture

Winding Down

So my blogs as of late have been fairly inconsequential and just me rambling off to have a post for the day. I know that this sucks, but I've done a ton better than I ever imagined that I would be able to this time around. With my long posts on how to play Anivia, recipes and tales of woe I've exceeded the expectations I set for myself. The only thing I haven't done is posted a portion of a story, either an excerpt or a standalone. I hope to do this before Blogust ends, but there are a mere three days left and I'm going to the Gettyvilla tomorrow with some of the Nickbots. Now the chat on League of Legends is bugging out again, this is just awesome. I love that game, but the servers are seriously buggy as hell. Looks like it's back up, and I may be playing soon. Take care.

Yeah....

Blogging poop again today. Hanging out with peoples. Talking adamantly about console wars. Stuff and things. See you guys later.

BS

I highly dislike being forced to read as I have stated, so most of the upcoming English 102 semester will be me BSing my way through everything. So last night I got enough IP to get Ezreal, this makes me happy. Ezreal was a character that when I looked at him I wasn't impressed but once I decided to actually try him out I had a blast. He's a lot of fun, you can spam all of his skills because of Mystic Shot's secondary effect of reducing cooldowns by a second. I don't think I'm going to be posting an Ezreal guide, mainly because I'm not that great as him yet. All I know is harass, harass, harass. Well I'm going to end it here, and I won't post it on anything either because this post is inconsequential, but I hope to make one last post of meaning before the end of Blogust.

I Don't Want To

I have to read and post so much shit for my English class... I wonder if I can skim and BS the whole class. I really hate reading a lot of stuff just for the sake of reading. When I read I want to read for the sake of learning and entertainment. Most stuff I am force to read for classes teaches me next to nothing and is boring as hell. Well here's to a successful, hopefully, semester.

Blogust and Life

Looks like my posts may be getting wholly less significant for the rest of Blogust, aside from my few requirements I have yet to meet. I have decided, in an effort to make up for Spring, to take all Gen Eds this semester, of which most will require quite a bit of homework and writing. Once I hit college I decided that grades are important to me, so this hobby I chose to do is now going to be taking a backseat to my academics. I hope to be able to post more of my Anivia guide and the completed concept for my LoL champion. In fact, I have an hour I might as well work on the concept for Mao Shi.

Mao Shi: the Shaolin Weapon Master

Passive: I can't think of one that would fit... help?

Q: Jian Style / Heart Lunge - Mao switches from his current weapon to the Jian, increasing his dodge chance by a percent per level, maxing out at 24% at level 5. If already in Jian Style Mao will lunge forward at the target doing magical damage maxing out at 350 at level 5.

W: Twin Hooks Style / Severe Tendons - Mao switches from his current weapon to the Twin Hooks, increasing his attack speed by a percent per level, maxing out at 50% at level 5. If already in Twin Hooks Style Mao's next attack will hit the target in vital areas doing additional damage and slowing the target, maxing out at 200 damage and 35% at level 5.

E: Bo Staff Style / Iron Will - Mao switches from his current weapon to the Bo Staff, increasing his attack range to 150 and his defense per level, maxing out at 125 at level 5. If already in Bo Staff Style Mao will gain MR equal to the armor granted by Bo Staff Style.

R: The True Weapon is One's Self- Mao fights unarmed for 30 seconds retaining all of the passives from each of the weapons, and being capable of using each of the weapons' techniques.

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I just threw in numbers that I felt were appropriate based off of other numbers found on similar skills on other champions. Leave some feedback for him if you would like.

Back to School

I have got to say that even though I had one class that lasted only an hour it feels so great to be back in classes again. I missed the environment of learning, being surrounded by hundreds of people I don't know yet could at any minute meet. I look forward to learning something, anything. My life has structure once again, I missed it so much. Some people might think I'm weird to feel this way, but honestly learning is one of few things that I thoroughly enjoy and will never get tired of. I have a sort of obsession with obtaining new facts, it's just part of who I am.

So it looks like creating a LoL Champion is the thing that's been going on lately amid the blogging group I participate in (or maybe just the Nickbots in general) so I'm going to be working on mine. I'm contemplating some stuff, though it's a little complex I like it. The concept is a Shaolin Weapon's Master.

Gunna Get Heading Out

Going to watch Scott Pilgrim vs the World with Blakegetsbitches, Stanley and Joe in a bit. They should be here soon and then we'll head on down to Valencia. I don't think this is worth making a bitly url for and posting, so I won't. School starts tomorrow and I'm actually pretty excited. I'm looking forward to a good semester. Oh and I might post a review of the movie, or maybe more LoL. Take care Blogust.

Cutting it Close

Well it's just on the cusp of the deadline so let me briefly recap my day. I went to a good friends memorial service, though I was a little late, talked with people and exchanged stories remembering him(Tropical drinks... speaking of which, Marlon had come up with a plan for me to pee my bed in Jack's honor and well it involved drinking half of a gallon of Tampico, last time I had done this was when I was hanging out with my friend Brandi. I happened to see Brandi at the fair today for the concert). Went to hang out with some friends for lunch, came home and went right back out to go to the fair, looked around then watched Weird Al in concert (which I have done 3 times now and every time it has been phenomenal). Met up and hung out with some people from highschool, ate dinner and then left the fair. Now I'm preparing to head out one final time today to play pool and chill with some of the Nickbots before the summer ends.

Requiescat in Pace

Since tomorrow is his memorial service is tomorrow I figure I'll do a little memorial on my blog here. John T Hall, Jack, and I had met in improv I want to say in Spring 2009, but I'm not too sure. Jack was the old guy of the group, but that was only in appearance, he was one of us through and through no matter how old he truly was. The longer I knew him the more he worked his way into my heart. He was nice, fun, funny, smart and had many great stories to tell. Life was going well, he was pursuing something he loved, theater. I worked with him in The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, me being part of the production team/usher/house manager and him being one of the Caiaphas the Elder, seeing as it was double cast. Shortly after the end of the play I learned that he was battling with cancer, but it didn't seem to dampen his spirits, at least outwardly. He would commonly make cancer jokes and laugh about it. July 18th (possibly the night of the 17th) he had lost his battle with cancer and had passed on. Jack is loved by everyone who he has come into contact with, I say is because we will never stop loving him no matter what. I will refrain from crying and try my best to not cry tomorrow, instead I will try to smile and laugh for all of the good times we had, I'm sure that's how you wish to be remembered. So my good friend Jack Hall, requiscat in pace.

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Ok, now that I've brought the mood down I guess it's a perfect time to talk about the rest of my doings. I'm trying out the biscuit mix recipe scones, I've got to say, it ended up being a small ball of dough after I mixed everything in, so in an effort to maximize the number of scones I made them smaller. This whole thing is experimental, new scone recipe, candied oranges, orange glaze... let's hope that it turns out well. I plan to upload videos of my how to Anivia guide some point in the future but it's unclear seeing as my software is the trial version.

Hoo Ha! Nerdfighters!

As many (or possibly just a few) know I am a proud Nerdfighter. For those that don't know what a Nerdfighter is, we are not people who fight nerds, we are nerds that fight against Decepticons (non-Nerdfighters that try to put us down) and worldsuck. We live by a motto DFTBA or don't forget to be awesome. The concept of Nerdfighters was created by brothers who decided that for one year (2007) they will cease all textual communication and make alternating vlogs back and forth every non-holiday weekday. The brothers are John and Hank Green, the former an author the latter a ecotech blogger (www.ecogeek.com)/musician/webmaster. If anyone is interested in being a Nerdfighter headover to www.Nerdfighters.com and check it out, you could also watch the videos made by the Green brothers over on Youtube under Vlogbrothers.

So soon is John Green's birthday and every year the Hank will do a project for John's birthday, and visa-versa. Well I'm participating in this secret project, basically it involves me taking a picture of myself mimicking Hank. Hank wears glasses so I decided to put on my pair of glasses, which I no longer wear because doing so induces dizzying nausea. I'm alright, but I do know that I still shouldn't wear said glasses. So yeah.

I hate Farmville

I hate Farmville, it is the poop of the interwebs. I was destroying in solo lane, getting the first two kills of the game, then Farmville was loaded up and all of a sudden there was a solid 4 second delay between wanting to do something, and doing it. I was lagged so hard that my 7/0/0 lead was for not since I couldn't do anything. Once the interwebs cleared out we were already down hardcore, and they were at the level that their stuns tore me to shreds. So we lost and I'm blaming it 100% on the internet being slow due to the usage of Farmville. So in essence, Farmville is the worst thing ever invented. I ended up doing decently, but I couldn't assist my team when they needed me. Here's the result of said game:

SCHOOL!

I'm fairly excited for school to start seeing as I've been stagnant the last... FOREVER! I'm one of those really strange people like Marlon who, for some reason, enjoy going to school. I love learning, in fact I live to learn. I'm not 100% excited since a lot of my upcoming semester will mostly consist of annoying assignments that I'm doing not to learn, but just for a grade. I'm going to aim for a 3.78 this semester, that's an A in everything but English which is a B. We'll see how everything turns out. This semester puts me at almost completing my Gen Eds, I just need my majors now. Speaking of majors I'm feeling really unsure about what I want to do with myself career wise. Right now I'm set on a course to sit at a computer typing line after line of code. I'm really not sure if that's something I can live with for the rest of my life, so I've been contemplating alternatives. I really love math and science, it's just the type of guy I am, so I figured why not do something that is a blend of them and is a subject I love. Physics, it intrigues me and is something I can see myself getting a doctorate in, maybe. The problem is I'm not sure if I can stand to go through all of that to get a doctorate in the field and and try to establish myself. Also I had a horrid professor for my 101 class, so I learned nothing in that class, if that happened again I would easily fail in the field. Another thought, which is one that people keep trying to get me to do, is cooking. I love food, making, eating, smelling, being around... I just love everything to do with food. I don't know, I just don't see myself as a chef, plus just like in programming (and kinda physics) I don't see myself doing that for life. Music?... I'm not that good, plus every job market in music is insanely difficult to get into and in some parts (like composition which I would like) seems practically impossible.

So yeah, what do you guys see me doing for a career, it would be nice to see what you think.

Foodz Revisited

So I have yet to make them, but I'm looking at making scones once again, last time I made Blueberry Scones, this time I'm looking at making White Chocolate and Orange Scones, I'm even looking at an Orange Icing to go on top of the scones. I'm also looking at a marshmallow fondant recipe to try out so I can see if it's worth doing in times where I would need fondant. I can't stand how fondant tastes in almost every case that I've tried it in so I'm hoping that this homemade version will taste better to me. Also, I want to make my lasagna again, I haven't cooked a lasagna in almost a year and I kinda want to try to alter my recipe some. I should write up my recipe since I use one I found as a base and then changed it to my liking. There may be something to this whole quitting school and opening a restaurant with Matt, The Kaptain Mandog. I swear, if it weren't for the exorbitant cost I would go to culinary arts school just to learn how to cook better.

Since I'm talking about recipes I guess I can give you my (well I found it online somewhere and changed the amount of butter and garlic salt [maybe orgeno and not garlic salt] because I didn't think it was the right amounts) recipe for a copy cat of Red Lobster's Cheesy Garlic Biscuits. Mind you, this is from memory since I left my copy at Stanley's house... so if it's incorrect I apologize.

4 cups biscuit mix
1 teaspoon garlic powder
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
1 1/3 cups of milk
6 tablespoons butter (melted)
2 teaspoons dried or fresh oregano
3 teaspoons garlic salt (the last two amounts might not be correct, but it's close)

Preheat oven to 400° and prepare a (usually 2) cookie sheet(s)

Mix the biscuit mix, garlic powder and cheddar cheese in a large bowl, pour in mix and stir (I knead) until a biscuit consistency. Using a two spoon method (scoop with one spoon and then even it out with the other and scrape it onto the cookie sheet) set small lumps onto the prepared sheet, they will bake larger than they are prepared so make it smaller than you think they should be. Cook for 10 minutes.

While the biscuits are cooking melt the butter in the oven. Mix the oregano and garlic salt with the melted butter until homogeneous (evenly distributed).

Pull the biscuits out after the 10 minutes, brush with the garlic oregano butter and put them back into the oven for 5 minutes. Once they're finished cooking I like to give them a final brushing of the butter mixture. Enjoy, but try to let them cool a little first.

Wooing the Mandog

So I'm talking to my friend Batmanda about various things and a phrase I had just said to her is, "I'm fairly certain my heart is my stomach."

Well here's a few tips for all of you ladies out there who are like, "OHMYGODINEEDTOBEWITHTHEMANDOGHEISSOEPICANDAWESOMEANDIJUSTLOVEHIMSOVERYVERYMUCH!"

- calm down, I may be so awesome you can't breathe and forget how to space out your words, but being calm helps get my interest
- cook, just cook something, you don't have to be a culinary master and you don't have to be able to cook a lot of things but if you can cook one thing well or a few things decently it definitely helps
- enjoy and partake in art, it doesn't matter what form of art, be it dancing, music, singing (it is music but I'm separating instruments and voice), painting/drawing/etc. I love art.
- be smart, intelligence is fucking awesome... enough said
- be awesome, this can be achieved though a vast variety of methods I'll let you figure it out
- have a good taste, in everything... movies, music, tv, food and me...

Well I'm off to play some LoL.

Nothing

As I stumble (probably the greatest invention involving the internet aside from the internet itself) searching for inspiration for my blog today I find myself drawing a blank. I'm up fairly early seeing as I went to bed at around 7 and woke up at 10. It's all good though, I just got my coffee (though when I wrote that last sentence it was 11 and now it's 1). We're finishing up everything to get ready for Alice's first birthday party, so I was frosting cupcakes and covering the frosting in a sand design (cookie crumbs and sugar). I've got to get groomed up and get heading out. I'll see you guys around.

Sleep

I've been sleeping later and later in the day, and yes I do mean day. I haven't gone to sleep before four in a few months. I'm hoping that in a weeks time my sleep cycle has rotated around back to the place where I wake up at a normal hour (for me, which is about 10).

So last night into this morning I, along with Dave, Rob and Joe were talking about parents and I feel lucky. A lot of people complain about how their parents are constantly on their case about staying out/up late and everything, where as my parents know that I'm responsible and are ok with me staying out late. I constantly say, though usually only internally, that I am really lucky when it comes to parents. Growing up I had a set of rules that were enforced, I had both parents to raise me with support and love. As I got older they become more comfortable with me doing my thing, though transitionally I had to be with my brother which is fair. Now they support me, love me, and help me out while letting me leave at ten and come back in at ten. If, perchance you are reading my blog, and even if you aren't, I want to say that I love you mom and dad.

Adventure

There, I said it. It's out there and I'm not taking it back. I'll even say it out loud for the sake of being thorough on my blog. If I suffer the repercussions, know it was for you. So I had stated that once a week I will take a topic someone suggests, if there are any, and write about it and it looks like Marlon has challenged me to write about the word adventure. I will explain our aversion to the word via my favorite method, anecdotally.

Stating the word adventure is a great tool with a high cost. You see when you say that you want to have an adventure, and mean it, you will have an adventure. The downside to saying the word, is cops get involved (we theorize that it could be something negative, such that if you want police to show up, they won't and something much worse would occur). To this point I have walked away from each situation unharmed and with no repercussions, but there will be a time where my luck will run dry. Here's where the anecdotes begin.

Incident 1: Marlon, Waldino, Roadie and myself were dropping something off at Waldino's house. After Waldino gets back in the car we notice not only is there a police helicopter circling above us, there seems to be an abundance of cop cars in the neighborhood. Roadie decides that he wants to check it out, that it will be "an adventure", and so we are partially to blame since we listened to Roadie. After seeing a few cop cars and getting our fill we decide we're done and want to leave, the only thing is we got ourselves lost. You see where Waldino used to live was one of those neighborhoods with a few dead-end streets and a plethora (yes, more than useful) of looping streets that will make it impossible to stick to our grid-like system in the AV. We start pulling up on a T-section in which a cop car is parked, we approach it with caution and as we get closer the cop pulls his gun out and points it at Marlon's head. We are sufficiently freaking out about now, but trying to stay calm, as we pass the car the cop yells out, "Got nothing better to do?" and we just leave.

Incident 2: Matt, Stanley, Bobby and myself are driving around town because Matt had a bad day, also to note the word had been said whilst driving around. After Matt starts getting into a better mood the guys decide they want some food so Matt pulls into McDonald's. They order their food and everything is fine, except it turns out Matt had bought a cap gun earlier and was joking about pointing at the cashier. The guys wrestle over the cap gun so that Matt doesn't do this absolutely retarded idea. At one point during said wrestling the gun is waved out of the window, the car behind us obviously sees it, backs up and drives the hell off. We get the food, pull around and park so they can eat. As you can probably guess the cops show up now, just one car at first. We're told to put our hands on the car and then we're frisked (cop fingers linger and Mandog's taint.....) and while being searched the situation was explained briefly. Two of the guys get put into the back while they look up our records and another cop car pulls up. Very shortly after car number two pulls in cars three through six also pull in. The cops talk over the situation while Bobby and I still have our hands on the hood, during this discussion a female cop is ranting, "I don't care if it's one time or a hundred times we should press charges!" After a few minutes the cops give us our stuff back, let the two out of the back and say, "Get out of here."

Incident 3: Marlon, Waldino and myself hang out for the first time in almost a year so we want to go on an adventure. This was roughly a year ago today because it was during the Perseid's Meteor Shower which is currently occuring. We drive out to a secluded part of the desert and watch the meteor shower for a while after trying to do so at a park and seeing nothing. Once we had our fill of staring at space Waldino tells us that we should go to Eastside Highschool to look at their campus. We pull up and decided to put on a random selection of extra clothing out of Marlon's car and grab instruments. We walk around in the parking lot for a while playing stuff (Marlon: Guitar, Waldino: Bongos, me: Cowbell) and come across a gate that isn't locked and decide to just walk around. As soon as we take two steps into the gate a cop car is behind us and flashed his lights, at this point I'm like, "SHIT RUN!" and take a pre-running step and think, "That's a horrible idea, stop and turn around." The cop asks us a series of reasonable questions, gets our answers, tells us what we're doing isn't a good idea and then proceeds to say, "Now get out of here before I freaking pee my pants."

Incident 4: I wasn't present for, so I don't know very many of the details but to summarize. Marlon, sisters and Hannah go on a roadtrip to meet an author for his birthday. Was mislead and realized San Diego is too far to go to meet him in time so they'll roadtrip elsewhere. They go to a place called 'Chocolate Mountain' and on the way back are stopped by border patrol. They answer a series of questions and come home afterwards. At some point in the night Adventure was said.

So this is a warning about saying adventure so freely. I am not saying that you should forever forbid the word from your vocabulary, but heed caution, adventure is a powerful word.

Nickbot

So I posted previously about how cool Nickbot is, and I couldn't think of anything to post about today, so I'm going to talk all about Nickbot. You see Nickbot is a friend who I met through Stanley. Nickbot is insanely good at any videogame you hand him, he might lose once, but it doesn't happen again after that. Not only is he cool and good at videogames, he also has the best attitude towards the games. I get extremely frustrated when I'm getting slaughtered in a practice match, he just enjoys the challenge when people team up on him. Speaking of LoL (which is where said practice matches occur) that's how Nickbot got his name. We were looking on the forums and someone was complaining about how OP the Nunu Bot is and it just made us crack up, because bots are pathetically easy and fairly retarded. Next time we played a practice match after that we were joking around and said that Nickbot is OP (which is true) and thusly his name is now Nickbot.

"But Mandog, that just means Nickbot is kinda cool, but what makes him completely badass?" Bend over and he'll show you.

Summer

So I feel like I owe you guys quite a bit of Blog now that I've been slacking lately. It's just Summer destroys my sleep schedule, as you can tell by the ungodly hour that I'm blogging. I try to keep active and do stuff during the Summer, but it tends to just involve going to a friend's house (or staying in mine) and playing/watching games or watching movies. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love hanging out with my friends, but I kinda feel like doing more, I kinda just want to drive somewhere and be there for the day. Summer is usually a welcome break from the frustration of the semester and all the headache it brings, but as some of you were aware, I wasn't in school this last Spring. I got a stomach bug that completely knocked me on my ass for the week and I was advised by the majority of my teachers to drop. So I've been in a state of doing nothing for the last 8 months, and I'm not okay with this anymore, August 23rd, I welcome you to arrive. This semester I'm taking all general education classes, because I need to start working on getting a degree. So I have German 101, English 102, Nutrition 100 and Communication Studies 101 to look forward to.

Speaking of school I had mentioned last night that I wanted to blog about my opinion on the importance of music education. I'll try to keep this to biased opinion and facts that I can remember from my Senior Paper I wrote on this (or very similar) subject, but first some background on me and music. Going through my elementary we didn't have any music education, I had to seek it out on my own through private lessons. In fact, because I was so woefully under informed on the subject when picking out an instrument that I would like to play I said I want to play the Piccolo (caps because I knew its name because of the DBZ character) while I went on to describe a clarinet. So in the fifth grade my mother and I went to the local music store Mario's Music to look through their selection of clarinets. We looked at a handful of new and a few used clarinets until we decided to pick out a nice, well-loved, used clarinet because it was significantly cheaper. I went on to have private lessons from then through the rest of my elementary school years, which was up to sixth grade (last sixth grade class of Sunnydale Elementary WOOT!), and my middle school years in which I also had a band class at school. I continued taking band in high school in both concert and marching varieties. In my Junior year I went to a different music store, Simonetti's (I may be massacring his name) where I had been getting my instrument tuned up since I bought it and we proceeded to purchase a professional-grade, wooden clarinet. This Buffet R-13 was the most lovely thing I have ever created music through. Senior year I picked up the Bari Sax to be a section leader in marching band. In college I continued to take a few band classes when my schedule would permit and I also took the three (four if you count Fundamentals of Music, but it barely counts) semesters of Music Theory. So while I may not be the most well versed person in music education I do have a strong foundation myself.

Music education is such an important part of school. Yeah, kids who take music classes may be shown to perform better in school and have better attendance/attitudes, but that's just the facts you throw onto a pamphlet to get a parent to sign their kids up. Music education (especially a performance class) can be something that anyone can look forward to. Music when listened to helps soothe emotions (or invoke others depending on the mood of the music [NOTE: Just listening to a type of music will not turn your child into a murderer, there are other factors in their life that would contribute to this]) it is more-so true when one plays the music themselves. Even just knowing more about music can help you appreciate the music you listen to all the more.

Since I'm running short on concepts of how to convey what I'm trying to say without it turning into my Senior Paper I'll just put stuff here.
- Music made me me and I love the me that is me
- "One time at band camp" hahaha American Pie, you're so funny.... no, band camp is a really nice experience and can result in awesome stories, but don't expect tales of instruments and body parts
- One last one, without music education you will find more music with less actual music and more just abusing auto-tune. Music education affects all music in every form of media. So please Mr. Government Man, don't cut music education.

No More Short Posts

I know this is an impossible goal, but I want to try to stick to it. I think I'll try to blog about why I feel music education is important. I'll talk to you guys later

NICKBOTS!

Eventually I'm going to not be posting about League of Legends on here, maybe. It's just hard to not blog about something that takes up the majority of your life. Last night I was over at Stanley's house watching them play, since I do not own a laptop (refer to my post about Juarez) I can't play much outside of my own house. Well The Nickbots, it's the group of us who play LoL that I personally know... inspired by the truly OP Nickbot himself, were playing against a team that decided to stack Sunfire Capes. For those unawares, Sunfire Capes give a lot of life, armor and give an aura that deals 40 damage a second to anyone in the area, and since the other team had roughly 5 a person the output was high. At this point The Nickbots were 11 kills to their 60 some-odd and were down quite a few towers, Nickbot who wasn't playing and I told Stanley to buy Force of Natures and Madred's Bloodrazer. Force of Nature gives a great amount of magic resist and Bloodrazer makes your attacks do 4% of your enemies health per hit. Once all of the Nickbots purchased a Bloodrazer the enemies were dying almost instantly, so they had to re-itemize, which put them behind in gold. After an intense 80 minute game the Nickbots turned the game around and won. This is tale is told so that you will never click yes on the surrender box.

As for my own games I did pretty well today. Everyone else in my last game was level 30 (it's the summoner level cap, I'm at level 30 too) and had more wins than me, from 30 more to 300+ more. I ended up having the most kills, least deaths, tied for the most assists, most tower kills and most minions killed. I love that frozen bird.

I Knew This Would Happen

I knew that eventually I would post a blog that's short and close to the deadline. Well gentlemans and gentlewomans, here it be. Oh, Nickbot is double OP, he is the definition of awesome. Well I'm going to let Nick get back on his laptop. FAREWELL. Oh and Nickbot is cool, just letting you know again!

Foodz

Back in BEDApril I posted an eclectic blog in which a topic covered was my love for food, specifically in the cooking of food. I just would like to reiterate that cooking food is amazing. Today I, with the help of my mother who prepared the slaw by julienning the radishes and tossing it with the broccoli slaw and seasoning, made some delicious Blackened Tilapia Tacos. This dish was quite simple actually, and fairly inexpensive, we're feeding the five of us with plenty of fish and slaw left over for more while spending less than $12.

Ingredients (I'm going to list off what we got)

- a pound and a half of defrosted tilapia fillets (previously frozen is nice and cheap)
- one 10 oz package of broccoli slaw mix
- one bunch of radishes
- 10 (you should go with more since we ran out) corn tortillas
- Cheddar-Jack cheese (I would suggest something like Quesa Fresca, the cheddar jack is good, and I am quite a fan of it, but I think quesa fresca would work much better)
- Blackened Seasoning
- 2 or 3 limes

For the preparation cut the tilapia fillets in half, this will make cooking and handling the fish a lot easier. Coat each half fillet in a fairly liberal amount of blackened seasoning (it all depends on how much you like blackened seasoning) and now your fish is ready to cook. For your slaw just julienne (slice really thin)the radishes, toss it with the broccoli slaw mix and some of the blackened seasoning with a little bit of water.

Cook your fish on a skillet over medium heat, flipping a few times, until the fish is nice a flaky. Put the fish in a bowl and shred it with a fork until you have bite-sized pieces. Cut a lime in half, squeeze it into your fish and your slaw. Heat your tortillas and melt your cheese on the top of it, fill with the fish and slaw, serve with a slice of lime on the side. With this you could also add a salsa of your choice, but keep the salsa's flavor simple, you don't want to hide the amazing flavors already in the dish.

Enjoy cooking fish tacos if you ever have the urge.

Anivia the Cryophoenix pt 3

So... part three, gameplay. I downloaded FRAPS to try to get some footage, but the version I have only lets me download in 30 second intervals and I haven't gotten any good footage. It would be a lot easier to show you what I mean if I could actually show you examples. I can, however, show you exactly how to not use the wall. It's not my video, but it perfectly examples bad walls.

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Laning Phase: Mids

So with Anivia you are likely to be in mids due to your egg which will let you take more abuse than most heroes while staying in lane and the amount of harass you can put out. If you are mids just try to last hit minions and once you get your Frostbite start harassing your opponent. Throw a Flash Frost at them, preferably through minions to get some gold, and stun them. If they didn't avoid getting stunned try to close the distance, starting when you threw the Flash Frost guarantees that you get there, and hit them with Frostbite. If you do this two or three times you almost ensure that they have to leave the lane or die. Once you hit level 6 and pick up your ultimate you can harass that much better because you have two skills that make your nuke do double damage. Throw a Flash Frost -> Frostbite if you can and then a Glacial Storm -> Frostbite. If they dodge Flash Frost, let them come back to the minions throw down Glacial Storm where you get them in the area, preferably where you can continuously hit them when they retreat, and fly in for a Frostbite.

Side Lane

The side lanes you play almost the exact same as you would in mids, except you get wall earlier so you can check the bushes if your opponents are hiding in them. The other things to keep in mind while side laning are using all of your skills to try to save your ally if he gets focus fired and focus on one champion (squishier ones are usually higher priority because they are easier to kill and can output a lot of damage or can heal their teammate.

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Ganking Phase

Between level 6 and 10 is typically where the ganking phase begins. If you're mids and you've either gotten the kill or pushed your opponent out of lane you pick either tops or bottoms to go to in the attempt to aid getting kills in that lane. If you can do this as close to level 6 from the mids as possible the better. You want to make it so you have your ultimate and they don't. The phase goes into full swing around level 10 or later when you can take down a tower and roam from lane to lane getting kills and pushing the tower. As Anivia your main purpose in a gank is to tear their hitpoints down, with a well placed skill shot and your nuke you can knock them down by half or more usually, and if your teammates knew your target they can jump on them during that .75 seconds to get the kill. If you don't think you can get both champions you then are to try and cover the retreat by slowing stunning and, if you have it, walling them off. One of the best things about having a skill shot is that they usually have a much longer range than skills that have targets so you can hide in the bush outside of lane and shoot it in without them knowing that you're coming in for a kill.

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Team Running Phase

This is where Anivia shines. If you've gotten any amount of progress in your items by now you will be one of the people your team loves because of what you contribute. When you get into huge team fights all you have to do is make sure you're not focus fired to death before doing anything, so stay back until someone else initiates, and then just unload on the other team. With your Flash Frost you can get a short but highly convenient stun on their team and Glacial Storm will tear anyone who stands in it's area apart. Make sure to hit anyone who's chilled with your nuke and you will be sure to get some very lovely kills. With your wall you can either use it offensively or defensively in these situations. If you see an opponent who is almost dead and is running, you can stop that retreat and get yourself a kill, just be careful if it's poorly timed or placed you can end up saving their life. You can easily use it to retreat exactly as you did in the ganking phase, but just as using it offensively you have to be careful because you can wall an ally in and get them killed. Starting out as Anivia go ahead and under-use your wall, because bad walls lose games, good walls help win games.

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Well, I can't really think of anything more to add about playing Anivia so that seems to be the end of my guide to Anivia the Cryophoenix. If I get good gameplay footage uploaded I'll get it on here just to show examples. If you guys know anything I didn't cover or have questions leave them in comments and I will address them.

Anivia the Cryophoenix pt 2

So I said today will be about her skills and items, and thus it shall be.

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Skills

Flash Frost - Anivia brings her wings together and summons a sphere of ice that flies towards her opponents, chilling and damaging anyone in its path. When the lance explodes it does moderate damage in a radius, stunning anyone in the area.
A massive chunk of ice flies toward target location, dealing 60/90/120/150/180 (+0.5) magic damage, slowing movement by 20%, and chilling any enemy it passes through. At the end of its range or if Anivia activates the spell again, the missile detonates, doing 60/90/120/150/180 (+0.5) magic damage in a small area and stunning units for .75 seconds.
Cost
80/100/120/140/160 Mana
Range
1100

So Flashfrost is your basic skill that you use to harass and farm. Just be careful of spamming it too often because in crucial moments where you have to stun someone to save yourself and/or a teammate or go in for the kill it's semi-long cooldown will be your bane. The most important parts of learning to use this skill is leading your opponent with it and then exploding it right as it's gone past them so that you get two hits with it and you get the stun. This is one of your skills that synergies into your nuke Frostbite.

Crystallize - Anivia condenses the moisture in the air into an impenetrable wall of ice to block the movement of her enemies. The wall only lasts a short duration before it melts.
Anivia summons an impenetrable wall of ice 400/500/600/700/800 units wide, blocking all movement. The wall lasts for 5 seconds before it melts.
Cost
70/90/110/130/150 Mana
Range
1000

Your wall, it will almost certainly be the reason why your team loves or hates you. When used right it can save lives, prevent ganks, stop a chase, save a tower, get a kill or even start a gank. The best part of Anivia's wall is that if gives sight, so if you put it into bushes or the jungle you can see your enemies, this has prevented a gank countless times for me. In my opinion this is the best utility skill in the whole game. The most important part of the wall is summed up in three words: Placement, placement and(conjunctions don't count) timing.

Frostbite - With a flap of her wings, Anivia blasts a freezing gust of wind at her target, dealing a medium amount of damage. If the target has been slowed by an ice effect, the damage they take is doubled.
Anivia blasts her target with a freezing wind, dealing 55/85/115/145/175 (+0.5) magic damage. If the target has been chilled, they take double damage.
Cost
50/60/70/80/90 Mana
Range
650

Frostbite, this is where your damage will be coming from against champions. With a cooldown of 5 seconds and the ability for it's damage to be doubled when your target suffers from a "Chilled" effect this will be a spam skill against champions. Throw your Flash Frost, stun them, fly in closer, and tear their health down with this baby. If they survived that you can throw your ult on them wall off their escape and hit them with a second nuke. Most important thing is never use this skill unless they are chilled, you want that double damage, it's completely necessary (I've gotten a few kills with a non-chilled Frostbite, but because of it's short range it's usually better to wait for Flash Frost and kill them with that.)

Glacial Storm - Anivia summons a driving rain of ice and hail to damage her enemies and slow their advance.
Toggle: Anivia calls forth a driving rain of ice and hail, dealing 80/120/160 (+0.25) magic damage per second, slowing their movement and attack speed by 20% for 2.5 seconds, and chilling them.
Cost
50/70/90 Mana Per Second
Range
625

Glacial Storm, or Blizzard if Anivia really was Articuno, isn't one of those high damage, long cooldown ults like Veigar's, it's damage with a debuff and practically no cooldown. What makes it an ultimate? It does a decent amount of Damage per Second in a decent area, with a nice buff that doubles your nuke's power and has a 5 second cooldown. The drawback is that it costs a lot of mana, 90 mana per second may not seem like a lot when you have a 3k mana pool, but with this, and two offensive skills that cost more than 100, you do still run low. The main problem with its mana cost is early, at level 6 50 mana/sec is a lot. So the important thing to master with this are the three words with your wall: placement, placement and timing (though not as much timing because the wall's cooldown is a lot longer) as well as knowing when to shut it off, which is usually immediately.

Rebirth - Upon dying, Anivia will revert into an egg. If the egg can survive for six seconds, she is gloriously reborn.

Anivia's passive ranges from completely OP to completely useless depending on where you are, your opponents and your team. During the laning phase (which in hindsight I should've described the phases of the game since a lot of people who play the game still don't know about the phases.) egg will constantly save your life, you just have to be sure to get to a tower before they "kill" you so your egg will be protected. Outside of the laning phase a lot of times your opponents will just blow through your eggs health without a second thought as long as they know to do so, and your team isn't there to keep them off of you. Other than that you can use the egg offensively by baiting them into attacking it and then your team kills them, but I highly advise against it.

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Skill Build Order

There's really only one way you should level your skills as Anivia, with a slight variation.

The order is as follows:
Flash Frost
Frostbite
Frostbite
Crystallize
Frostbite
Glacial Storm
Frostbite
Flash Frost
Frostbite
Flash Frost
Glacial Storm
Flash Frost
Flash Frost
Crystallize
Crystallize
Glacial Storm
Crystallize
Crystallize

This is so you get your Frostbite maxed early, but you don't start with it because you need to chill them first. The only variation being if you're in mids take Flash Frost at 4 and Crystallize at 8, because you don't need the wall as much early on in mids. The reason you don't max the wall until the end is because all putting points into it does is make it longer and that's not really needed until later in the game.

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Items

So I run a slightly different build if I'm soloing, just because I want a little more health when I don't have someone right next to me. Otherwise full power to the thruster and tear them apart.

Lane

Amplifying Tome and Health Potion out of the gate
On your first trip back you want to try to get Mejai's Soulstealer and Tear of the Goddess so you can start snowballing (getting kills to get more kills) and mana
From here I just go back when I need to and get what I can in the listed order
Boots of Speed
Catalyst the Protector
Sorcerer Shoes
Rod of the Ages
Zhonya's Ring
Archangel's Staff
Void Staff (if your opponents aren't getting magic resist and you've gotten this far consider Rylai's Crystal Scepter as an alternative)

The only difference for my item build in mids is the following:
Start with Doran's Ring and Health Potion
don't build to Mejai's, instead get another Archangel's Staff after you've gotten your sixth item and you've sold Doran's Ring back.

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Well that's part two, hopefully it makes some sense, I was rushing it a bit. Tomorrow I will cover how to play, tactics and hopefully I can post some gameplay footage in the near future.

Anivia the Cryophoenix pt 1

In most lore, the phoenix is a creature of fire that rises from its own ashes. What few know, however, is that phoenixes are elemental beings, formed by the eternal essences of their native world. Anivia was conceived on a world such as this – a being of the coldest winter, a creature of pure elemental ice. On her world, Anivia was the protector of the frozen wastes and all those with the spirit to endure in such unforgiving places. She was consulted as a creature of great wisdom, one who could not die and who had seen the world renewed several times. Somehow, Anivia knew that the day would come when she would be plucked from her home and pulled across worlds, and when that day came, she received the call with grace. Seeing the imbalance and injustice on Runeterra, a world lacking elemental protectors, Anivia took residence at the League of Legends.
Anivia is an immortal being of intense power. She can instantly freeze a path in front of her, covering all in its wake with thick frost – she can even force the cold to violently explode, throwing razor sharp ice shards in every direction. She can also concentrate this ability on a single enemy, riddling his flesh with deep frostbite. The cryophoenix can also summon a glacial storm, a blizzard of terrible fury that both harms and slows those within. When defense is needed, Anivia can create an impassible barrier of ice. Furthermore, Anivia can never die. Whenever she is killed, she simply transforms into an egg, waiting to be reborn.
"Some say the world will end in fire, some in ice. Anivia awaits the inevitable latter."

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Alright, now I can get started on my section of the typing. As someone suggested last night I'm bringing this blog to you in parts because a single post of an Anivia guide will be just too much to type. So I'll cover all of the pregame stuff and my opinion of Anivia.

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"Why play Anivia when you can just play Annie?"

The forums are stupid and should not be on my blog. There are many reasons why I play Anivia over Annie. Reason one is that playing Anivia is by far the most fun I've had playing LoL. Two, her stun may be harder to hit and less AoE than a Tibbers stun, but you can spam it every 12-8 seconds (depending on it's level) and although Annie's stun is a full second longer Anivia's slows everyone it hits. Three, yes Anivia is possibly one of the hardest champions to master but if you know her she is completely worth it. Although there are more I'm going to put one last word, wall.

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Runes and Masteries

I feel that any caster that uses mana (see not Vlad) should run a 9/0/21 mastery set shown here.

For runes I like building
9 x Greater Mark of Insight +0.95 magic penetration
9 x Greater Seal of Clarity +0.1 mana regen / 5 sec. per level (+1.8 at champion level 18)
9 x Greater Glyph of Force +0.17 ability power per level (+3.06 at champion level 18)
3 x Greater Quintessence of Force +0.43 ability power per level (+7.74 at champion level 18)

This gives you totals resulting in
+8.5 Magic Pen
+16 Mana Regen/5 at level 18
+50.76 Ability Power at level 18

With Archaic Knowledge and your magic pen marks most heroes who have 30 magic resist will only have 17 against you. This means that instead of reducing the magic damage dealt to them by 23%, they only reduce it by 14.5%.

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That will do it for today's post on my guide to Anivia, tomorrow I'll probably cover skills and items.

What is LoL?

One of the things that has been the primary focus of my Summer has been the game League of Legends. Yeah, I'm a loser who decides to stay at home on a computer for most of his Summer months instead of grabbing it by its proverbial testicles and doing stuff outside. I'm not saying that I hate the outdoors, but this week-end has been double IP (Influence Points, points earned in game by playing and can be spent on heroes or runes which give your heroes passive bonuses) and so I've been on a lot.

What is League of Legends, or LoL? The best way I found to describe it is that it's a tower-defense game, but in reverse. You play as a champion, of which there are fifty-six to choose from, along with four others, or two if you're playing the 3v3 map, against another team of five. You, along with the other champions and the minions, or creeps, that your base summons are trying to take out your opponents towers, creeps, champions, inhibitors and nexus. The inhibitor is a building that when destroyed will let your base summon epic minions in that lane. The Nexus is the primary target in the game, destroy the Nexus and you win. There are a total of three lanes in the 5v5 map, Summoner's Rift which I'll talk primarily about, each lane has an outside, inside and inhibitor tower along with an inhibitor. At the Nexus there are two towers. The base is made up of the inhibitors, their towers, the Nexus, it's towers, the well and well tower. The base is surrounded by a wall that the only openings are found at the inhibitor towers. The well is where champions are summoned, revive at and recall to so they can heal or buy items. In between the lanes are forest, or jungle, areas where neutral monsters are found. Neutral monsters are monsters that either team can kill for gold and experience and a few of the monsters have buffs that you get when killing them. There are two neutral monster bosses, one that just gives experience and gold to all allied champions, Dragon, and the other, Baron Nashor, gives experience, gold and the strongest buff to all allied champions.

Sorry about the poor job at explaining the game, but this is to segue into my Anivia Guide that I will post soon. There's more to the game, but this is all I can manage right now.

Return of the Mandog

Well it looks like Blogust is already upon us. Back in BEDApril I made many cop out posts simply because I didn't have time and/or I didn't have anything to post about that day, I promise to attempt to do less of that. I also hope that I don't fail like I did last time. I kinda want to add a few things to the set of rules, this is mostly personal, no-one else has to follow it, but if they feel like it they are welcome to do so.

- Sentences must be true sentences: noun, verb.... subject and predicate... all that jazz. One word sentences don't count.
- Three sentence minimum is limited to at most twice a week. The other five will have to be at least full paragraphs.
- If both three sentence posts are used in the week I have one week from the second three sentence post to type a large post. The exact size isn't defined, it just has to be larger than what I would normally type.
- Once a week if I am given any suggestions that week I have to use at least one of them.
- I have to participate in another tandem story arch, but only if the others are doing it
- If the others choose to do tandem stories or not I will write at least one stand alone paragraph telling a story, either an excerpt from something that doesn't exist, or a full story told in one post.

I think that's good enough for now. Within the week I will try to post a guide to Anivia for League of Legends, that's something I think would be perfect for Blogust. So I will see you guys tomorrow and if anyone has any requests for a blog post it in the comments and it very well may be chosen.

Eclectic Blog To End It All

So I've been running through as many ideas as I could think of for my final BEDApril blog, I can't seem to think of one that would be sufficient. I thought, "Talk about cooking, you enjoy that." or, "More about the tandem stories.", "BEDApril as a whole experience?", "Still no, what about ANYTHING ELSE?". Well I couldn't figure any one of those would be enough seeing as this is the last BEDApril 2010 blog I'm going to post, so I'll try to touch on all bases that I get to.

First subject was cooking, I've wanted to talk about it for a while now. I love food, the taste, the smell, the look, food is pleasing to the senses. I love it when people cook me food, or I go out and get something made by some mystery chef hiding in a kitchen that I've never seen. Seeing as I'm the youngest of five and I have an older brother that went to a culinary arts school I didn't grow up cooking very often. When Nate, said brother, moved out cooking fell on my mom or my dad almost always, so when my mom worked it was either a stew or out to eat. Don't get me wrong, my dad cooks a good stew, but I love diversity, I like having something different all the time, so it's easy to see that I would grow tired of my dad's stews. I decided that I would take on a few meals here and there. I started cooking basic stuff (I haven't gotten that much more complex with my cooking) and I started loving it. I don't know why, if it's that my food just tastes better, or if it's that things taste better when I know I've put an effort into it, but my god it was delicious. I just love making something and eating it. So yeah.... that's my section on cooking.

Next was the tandem stories. Now I don't really have all that much to talk about with the tandem stories, though I may want to continue my story out some other time. The other thing I wanted to talk about with tandem stories a little was my thought process for them. My story I was sitting there trying to come up with a good opening to my story, because I try to make the beginning and the end as good as I can. I figured out the whole "Life isn't fair, but you don't have to be alive to be screwed over." line and went from there. Marlon's story was as follows, "I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO! GAH! I'll come back to it in ten minutes." Ten minutes later, "I STILL DON'T GET IT! I'll do it when I come home." I come home, "Ok, this will do." For Danielle's it felt a little natural for me, no major struggle there. Dave's took a bit for me to figure out where I was going but once I settled on the loss of friendship I wrote it out fairly simply. As for my final paragraph I just needed to find a way for my main character to end up screwed over and progress it five years, so I did. Last thing about tandem stories, MARLON FINISH YOURS!

BEDApril as a whole was enjoyable, I have a few blogs of significant size, I only missed one day, I did the tandem stories. I call BEDApril 2010 a success and I look forward to BEDAugust 2010 (BEDAutumn anyone?).

That's about all I have to write about, I feel that suffices. I most likely won't be seeing you tomorrow, unless I have the compulsion to blog out of habit that I have formed. Take care Bloggosphere and I look forward to our next meeting.

Successfully (well, mostly),
The Mandog

For the Creditz

Gunna go hang out. This is a cop out. Hopefully my final BEDApril blog will own hardcore, but I doubt it.

Twenty-Eight Days Later

Well, now that I have recapped of my Tehas trip I don't have as much to blog about. I do have some advice for anyone that may be going on a plane somewhere. Make sure if you are congested you take something for it before your flight. Normally when you go through a change in pressure, from flying or diving, your middle ear, or Eustachian Tube, will open or close to equalize the pressure in your ears to your surroundings. Apparently if you happen to be congested, as I was on Sunday, it will hamper this process causing your ear to act up. In most cases, such as mine, you will have mild temporary hearing loss and slight sensation of numbness, this usually clears up in a day or so, though I am still partially feeling the effects. This whole barotrauma, what it's called when you have something wrong with your ear from pressure, is really annoying. Last night I felt like I had something over my ear preventing me from earing out of it very well. Today it's been doing much better but there is still a small amount of numbness. So yeah, if you fly take decongestants if you have to.

Also, I got to talk to Chris today, even though his base has bad reception and our call kept getting dropped, it was nice. See you tomorrow for the penultimate post of BEDApril 2010.

Future Participant in BEDAugust,
Mandog

My Time in Tehas

Ok, I've been promising a real post since Wednesday and I haven't given you one until now. I've been pretty busy this last week and now I have time to do this.

Wednesday I went off to San Antonio flying on a plane for the first time that I'm able to remember (because the last time I was on a plane I was too young to form cognitive memories). You may be asking yourself, "Why did you go to San Antonio when you live in the best state in existence?" Well, you probably aren't asking that since anyone reading this already knows, but still, it's my transition tool. I went to San Antonio Tehas because my brother which I am really close to was graduating from Airforce Basic Military Training. When I got in on Wednesday my sister-in-law couldn't find her driver's license, so we spent a long time at Hertz trying to get something worked out. They let me be the driver and then use Erin's credit card (which is a HUGE exception for some reason). Once we finally got that sorted we went to the hotel and called it a night.

Thursday we woke up really early (which will be a theme for the week-end). After breakfast we left to go to Lackland Airforce Base barely getting there in time to see the Airman Run. The Airman Run is the last time they have to run since they're going to be graduating the next day. After watching the run we make our way into the auditorium to go through briefing to know what Chris can and can't do, all of which was covered on the website so it was fairly useless. Once we finish up there we move outside to watch the Coin Ceremony/Retreat. The Coin Ceremony is where the graduates are handed their Airman coin which is a symbol of something or rather. Then we all make our way back into the auditorium to watch the honors ceremony. Chris graduated with honors and barely missed getting his marksmen ribbon by three shots, he needed 43/50 he got 40/50. Once the honors ceremony was finished we were free to do whatever we wanted on base until 8, when the airmen had to be back at their dorms. You know how I said we got up early? Well from waking up to the end of the honors ceremony was finished by 12:30. Most of Thursday turned into Chris having to wait in line to get his stripes sown onto his uniforms, he's an E3 or Airman First Class so he had a two stripe emblem per uniform. The day ended with a game of bowling, I got a 73 which considering I had 15 in frame 5 isn't that bad, and then dinner at Cracker Barrel.

Friday we met up with Uncle Tim and Nate and Jamie for the Graduation Parade, of course we all woke up at 6 or earlier. Watching them march hurt me because majority of the airmen never marched before BMT and in 8 1/2 weeks they were marching better than some of my Seniors when I was Low Brass Section Leader in high school. The parade was nice but not much to talk about. From there most of us walked to Chris' dorm area to get a tour of where he was living while the rest took the shuttles back to move cars. The dorms were exactly what you would expect from military living arrangements, fairly confined and unremarkable. From there Mom, Nate, Jamie and I went to pick up the last few cars and then we picked up Erin, Cameron, Rey, Beth and Dad and met Uncle Tim and Chris for lunch (Chris and Uncle Tim went to the Base Exchange so Chris can get his DSi XL and Pokémon Soul Silver). Once we finished lunch we went to the Alamo. Now I know a few of you may have driven in LA, or know what traffic is like there, but this was so much worse. Downtown San Antonio traffic is probably just like LA traffic, but while we were down there Fiesta was going on. I'm not sure what is being celebrated during Fiesta, but what I do know is that there were a ton of people, a lot of cars, and quite a few blocked off streets. Driving to find a decent parking lot was horrible. We finally get into an area that has parking and we walk a very short distance to the Alamo. The Alamo was nice, it was cool to see everything they had there. We then walked to the River Walk, which is just a river with shops and restaurants around it. At this point we realize that we have very little time before Chris has to be back on base so we quickly find our way to a steakhouse and try to eat as quick as possible. Erin, Chris, Cameron and I run off as soon as we finish so we don't have to wait for anyone. After navigating our way out, which wasn't as bad because some streets were opened back up, we make it in time to drop Chris off by five minutes.

Saturday was a little bit more relaxed of a morning. I wake up at 8-8:30 to go pick up Chris, since there's nothing we need to do on base I go by myself. I end up having to wait over half an hour for his flight to be let out because they had to take pictures which took forever. We make it back to the hotel and get moving on our day. Most of the day was spent at the San Antonio Zoo. We only saw about 1/3 - 1/2 of the zoo because we went really slow through the first few areas. I tried taking as many photos as I could but our batteries died, so I only got some of the first few areas, but I did take plenty of photos, I might put them up on Facebook. From the zoo we just went back to the hotel so Chris could get some time to relax. While Chris was taking what turned out to be a really long shower Mom and I went to pick up dinner. We went to KFC since it would be easy to just pick up food for everyone there. Once we made it to KFC we noticed that it was a combination Taco Bell and KFC (see previous blog). After we got back and Chris ate I ran him back to the base and we called it a day.

Sunday was another day in which we didn't wake up really early, 7:30 for me. Around nine we went to the base for church and then went to the BX so Chris can pick up luggage. After spending over an hour and a half at the BX we go to breakfast at IHOP then head back to the hotel because Chris had to be back by 5:30 that day, also Erin, Cameron and I were leaving for the airport at 4. After relaxing for a little while we start packing up and we say good-bye to Chris and the rest of my family. We get to Hertz and out of the two hours they told us to allot for returning the car we use maybe ten minutes. Everything took a lot less time at the airport then we thought so we're passed the security check two hours before our flight leaves. We decided to get something to eat, we saw this little microbrewery place so we stopped there. I ordered brisket tacos and an Alamo Golden Ale. The brisket tacos were delicious, but it was just two slices of brisket and a tortilla per taco, two tacos. Our flight takes of a little late but we make it back to LA on time. We get home and I just zone out on the internet before going to bed.

Yesterday I just felt like hanging out, so I went to AVC and spent most of the day with Jimmy. After improv I realized that I needed to blog and my friend offered to let me use his iPhone, so I throw a tiny blog out for credit and promise myself that I would blog this today. Promise fulfilled.

Today was spend feeling sick, Beth coming home at about 3 in the morning (she flew back because she has a choir thing, while my parents, Rey and Alice are spending time with my grandparents) and hating that I'm feeling sick. Seriously, my immune system was handling it's shit up until now. While everyone else was catching some cold that was going around I was healthy and feeling great. Now I feel pretty crappy and I can barely hear out of my left ear.

I hope this blog makes up for a week of bare minimum posting. There's a possibility that I'll go into BEDAugust with Myer, Admiral and possibly Marlon, but we'll see. I'll see you guys tomorrow with a blog that will be much shorter than this one.

iPhone

Blogging on a friend's iPhone. Not much time. Better ones to come.

Very Little Time

I have to finish packing. I'm going to get lunch for everyone soon. Two hours until leaving for flight. Blogging for the day. Might post again later tonight.

Hastily,
Mandog

I'm at the Taco-Bell. I'm at the KFC

So I'm probably not going to blog all that much today, because it's ten-thirty and I'm a little tired right now. Regarding my title my mom and I went to go pick up dinner from a KFC that we've passed at least four times these last few days (more for me because I've picked up and dropped off Chris alone today). We pull up to the Taco-Bell and I realize that it's a combination Taco-Bell and KFC. So in my head I've been singing "I'm at the Taco-Bell, I'm at the KFC, I'm at the combination Taco-Bell and KFC." We went to the zoo today, a lot of pictures early on, then batteries started to die. As for right now I'm watching the game and I'm not happy. I'll talk to you tomorrow, probably early since I don't know what I'm going to do after I get back to LA.

From Tehas,
Mandog

So I Give You Another Filler

It's just about eleven here in Tehas, so I don't have much time to blog. I stole the computer temporarily before my deadline passed. Things that transpired today: I watched Chris graduate, I saw where he has been living these last two months, Ate lunch on base at a buffet, saw Chris play on his brand new DSi XL which he bought with money obtained via massaging, had fun trying to maneuver downtown San Antonio during Fiesta, ate at a steakhouse in Tehas, rushed to get Chris back in time successfully, relaxed at a pool and now I'm watching the end of the Spurs v Mavericks game. I promise to talk about some of my trip on either Sunday or Monday. Also, note to Marlon - WRITE YOUR STORY, and more importantly hope today was awesome, maybe sometime next week I'll make you accidentally a whole bottle of Dos Equiis with me in honor of today.

Sorry

I have a lot to write about. I'm a little pressed for time. I promise I will post more next week. See you guys.

I'm Leaving on A Jetplane, but I Do Know When I'll be Back Again

So here I am, up at the earliest I've been up all year practically. I'm going to be leaving the Antelope Valley in less than one hour for LAX. My flight departs at about one, with it being a two hour flight to Texas and a one hour time difference I will be landing at about four to five. I'm pretty excited to see Chris, though everyone is going to want to spend time with him and Erin has priority, seeing that she's his wife, but it'll be fun. Hopefully being able to be awake right now will help me get my sleep schedule back from being completely fucked up. Well I should finish my breakfast, get the last of my stuff together and get ready for my ride to get here. See you tomorrow Blogspot.

Mandog

Just For the Credit

So here's another cop out post, but I'm just not really in the mindset to post a real blog for today. What's running through my head is getting ready to leave tomorrow, school/the future, these last few days and how awesome they were and finally a little garnish of pathetically missing my ex. Today I went over to Dave's at like 1 and played some awesome DnD as my completely OP character, had fun playing that for a good few hours, then we watched Sherlock Holmes then I decided that I should be responsible and head home. I really enjoyed Sherlock Holmes, but I love Robert Downey Jr. and Guy Ritchie films, so it works out in my favor. Well I think I put enough so that I don't feel too bad just posting this. I'll talk to you later Blogger.

Mandog

Topic Unknown

Alright, so bloggerific stuffzors. Yesterday was a blast, I went down to Valencia with Josh and Stanley to hang out with Blakegetsbitches. After Dave got three things of Frozen Yogurt (1st was mistaken flavor Josh and I ate it, 2nd was what he wanted, 3rd was to wingman Blake) we watched Kick-ass. I loved Kick-ass, though there were a few things I wish they stuck to with the comic, but they changed it so it would translate to movie better (Also they dropped some of the violence to not be NC-17). We hung out at Blake's for a bit then we decided to head home kidnapping the fool. When we got back to Dave's we rolled up some characters, and just chilled around for a few hours. It was a great day, I look forward to more days like that. So I guess my topic for today would be, "My Day With Blakegetsbitches"

Mandog

SLEEPY DAY!

I'm tired, and so is pretty much everyone else. I'm hopefully gunna hang out with Dave, Blakegetsbitches and them. So here I am throwing together another blog. I hate that I've done this so often throughout this month, but hey, at least I'm sticking to it (though I failed). Speaking of fail only Danielle has yet to fail, Dave sits at one with me, Marlon has two or three now and Matt, well I think he's dropped out. So I'll talk about... something tomorrow, I got nothing.

Mandog

EDIT: Dave indeed did not fail, so Dave and Danielle are still going.

Juarez Was a Man

Well, Juarez was a man of a laptop. Juarez was the sort of laptop that you wouldn't take on a cheap date, you'd take him to a fancy diner with some high-end WiFi, and you would pay for his access to it. Juarez didn't take shit from no-one, in fact one time someone tried to give him shit and he just stabbed the guy using a puppy. Nah, Juarez was a good laptop, Gateway with 512 memory, 1.8 processor, and only something like 30 Gigs of disc space. He was a cheap model, even for four years ago, but I still enjoyed having the freedom of my own laptop. Then there was this day, one fateful day. I set Juarez down on one of those folding desk things so I can call my brother, I heard a crash and I came back into the living room... there Juarez sat, beneath a pile of crap that fell around the same time. I move the pile and I see only half of the screen working. It broke my heart, we went ahead and fixed his monitor, the price wasn't bad and I felt the need to have that internet freedom. I get him back and I live blissfully, for less than a year. You see, there's a fatal flaw with Gateways, or so I have been informed shortly after my experience with it. Gateway laptops' charging pins aren't set properly, and often times completely break off irreparably, this happened to Juarez, may he rest in piece, and may I retrieve my data from his Hard Drive.

So there we go, I told you of the life of Juarez as I had planned to. I hope you enjoyed my tale of woe. I'll see you tomorrow.

Sorrowfully,
Mandog

Crap

I'm heading over to Dave's. I have to put up my blog since I don't have my own laptop anymore. I hate that Juarez had to die, he may not have been the best laptop, or even a very good one, but he was my laptop. So I'll post something a little more interesting tomorrow. I'll post about... Juarez's life I suppose. See you tomorrow

BEDA-fully,
Mandog

Meh

So I was thinking that I would do a blog about music today, but the more I thought about it, the less I had to write about. Everyone is different when it comes to tastes and reasons to listen to music. I personally have more of an indie taste in music, though my indie cred is pretty low, I don't have a ton of really indie bands I know. I like to listen to music because it makes me feel good whenever I do, plus I abhor complete silence. The reason I like bands such as: Margot & the Nuclear So and Sos, Iron & Wine, The Mountain Goats, Tegan and Sara, Death Cab For Cutie, and more is because I enjoy the musicality and lyricism that they put forth in their music. So yeah, I don't really know what else to write about since I kinda have nothing to write about when it comes to music aside from, "Der, I liek teh muzaks." So keep well Blogger and I will see you tomorrow.

Foresightfully,
Mandog

Inevitable

I guess this was foreseeable, once I finish the tandem story posts I have nothing to type about. I'm just waiting for Marlon to post the end of his story. Like I said in yesterday's post I've been wanting to write tandem stories forever now. It kinda feels a bit like improv, where you give your little bit and then you let go of control and see where it goes. Improv is definitely one of my favorite pass times I have participated in. Our show is on the 22nd of May and it would be awesome to see everyone I know there. It's $5 and you're guaranteed to laugh your ass off. There's my little Improv plug, and my blog for the day. See you guys tomorrow.

Mandog

His Name is Derrick Safferfrack

"Life isn't always fair" my parents would tell me, well you don't even have to be living anymore to be screwed over; my name is Derrick Safferfrack, and I've been dead for five years now. I guess to learn about the situation I'm in I should probably tell you how I got where I am now. Back when I had my own body I was led an underwhelming life. I worked from nine to five, and my "hobby" was to sit on the computer every night wishing there was more to life. Twenty-seven years of doing the least possible and hoping for more and in one day I was wishing I could have all of that back.

It was Autumn. And Thursday. I hated Thursdays. And honestly I hated Autumn. It was the calm before winter and the cool after the summer months. It was so... bland. It reminded me of myself. And I hated it for that. So on this particular Thursday, there was an accident. No I wasn't involved, but it would still change my life. Chilesia. That was her name and she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Or at least at Aunt Jemima High. I taught there, as she was a TA working on her teaching degree. She has the most lovely ebony skin and perfect hair. I loved her the day I met her. So the accident. One day while I worked at my computer (I spent most of my time playing Galaxy of Space Quest, even at work) I heard an explosion outside. It was Chilesia.... oh god.... Little did I know, that following this tragedy in less than 24 hours would be my own death....

Death itself was quick and uneventful by large; it was the afterward that I was unprepared for. You imagine heaven and hell, but it's something so grand by comparison there is no way to describe it. I was in what appeared to be a large and infinite warehouse, it was completely empty aside from the other dozen or so people near enough to see. The others were walking all in the same direction, almost as if they had somewhere they needed to go. I tried to walk over to the nearest. A woman--Chilesia! she would be here somewhere--but as I attempted to draw closer I was stopped. My mind flooded with the command and my body tensed. That's when I first met one of the Custodians. It appeared from the unending ceiling and it was a hovering robotic creation at seemed to be humanoid only it ended at the waist. It was holding a tablet or pad of sorts.

"You have been processed. Disturbance of the others cannot be tolerated. Return to your directive."

"No. Dammit! I have not been 'processed.' What's going on here?"

The bot slowed and swung back around to look at me. It looked from me to his pad and then back to me, before pecking at the pad's surface.

"I am un-qualified to assess this. I am afraid that you do not exist."


There's something about that phrase, "you do not exist". You'd think, if someone didn't exist no one would waste their time telling them they don't exist; there would be no one to tell. Yet here it floated saying the exact phrase and here I stood baffled.

"I'm sorry, something doesn't add up here. I think you said I don't exist but tha--"

"You do not exist."

"How is that possible?"

"When man was given upgrade number 5974a, it included a soul that provided benefits such as enhanced toolmaking, verbal interface, and heightened critical analysis, among others; it was 75% more efficient. The new soul was more resource intensive than we would have liked and unfortunately we have not yet developed the hardware to keep up. As a result the functional period of the body was shortened, it became weaker, less durable and began to grow significantly less hair, while the soul was able to last billions of years longer."

"What does this have to do with me not existing?"

"Well, after this was discovered, a system was made to sort, monitor and regulate soul installation. This process, however is not 100% efficient, some souls, like you tend to accidentally slip into circulation without any serial numbers or records and for all intents and purposes don't exist. It happens approximately 4 or 5 times a millennium. You can tell by the size of the building this used to happen with much more frequency," That must have been the robot's idea of a joke "These souls can only be located after their bodies stop working and this facility has been constructed to sort, dismantle, recycle, and recirculate you all as properly documented souls."

It was scary at first, the though of my soul being taken apart and having those parts be used to make other souls with legitimate serial numbers, and how I would never be me again, but then I considered my life, how it had been and maybe being recycled was the best way to go.

Then it got scary again so I decided to escape.

I could have stayed, I could've been something greater than myself, but no I wanted to be Derrick Safferfrack of Vista Sierra, Nevada. I wanted to be back at my old job, playing Galaxy of Space Quest, wishing I had the courage to ask my TA out on a date. I wanted a minimal life where I wished for something unique and exciting. Well it looks like I got that excitement I was wishing so long for. Custodians were everywhere, I didn't remember seeing this many when I started walking in here. They were different than the first one I encountered, these seemed almost twice the size, and a few of them even had legs. I ran for my, well... afterlife. There had to be twenty custodians, eight of which were the more advanced "Hunter Models" as I called them. I thought briefly of fighting them off, but who was I kidding, the most combat knowledge I had was from three years of playing an MMO and a handful of action movies. Somehow I escaped the warehouse, be it luck, godly influence or whatever I was free. I was... stuck in the void of limbo. I figured there had to be something else, something that didn't want to dismantle my soul. I walked until the ground ended, and there I found I had no need to walk. I floated, drifting around looking for something. I eventually grew comfortable with the idea of being 'recirculated' as a recycled soul. I started flying my way back to where the warehouse should be, but there was nothing. I ran from my one chance for a new life, hell, maybe even my old life back. I ran out of fear, and now I have nothing. I am stuck in this void, most likely forever, I guess this way, I really don't exist anymore. My name is Derrick Safferfrack, and I've been dead for five years, I think.


Well that wraps up my story, IHis Name is Derrick Safferfrack I look forward to seeing the rest of the endings from this tandem story event. This was a lot of fun, and I've been wanting to do this for a while. Thank you Marlon, David, and Danielle. Look there for the other stories.

Penultimate Day of Story Telling

Steven Blizsinski was a normal fellow. He lived a normal life in an everyday situation. Except when he went to Thermastelya. It was a magical place that was, sadly, inside one of Steven's socks. He had found it doing something rather uncouth with a sock and felt something oddly cold. When he looked he was pulled inside to this magic world. The odd thing was, everyone inside this world, everyone was an object that in the normal world was inanimate, like clothes or furniture. Steve's best friend from Thermastelya was a cardigan named Chuck. The two of them had a great adventures all the time. One day however that all changed...


Steven Blizsinski and Chuck where having a normal day in and everyday fashion. At first nothing was extraordinary in Thermastelya. The duo had just spent the afternoon sneaking into homes and unpairing Sock children, for this was the type of adventures that Steven Blizsinski and Chuck enjoyed the most. Afterwhich, they returned to Chuck's Drier, but something was off. Chuck started to sneeze. Steven Blizsinski had never seen a cardigan sneeze before, it never occurred to him that cardigan's had noses or eyes or even souls--this however was a magical world, and Steven Blizsinski sometimes failed to actually acknowledge this. And Chuck continued to sneeze, which struck him as odd as he didn't realize that he could sneeze either. Discovering the root of the problem Steven Blizsinski quickly realized that there was cat hairs on everything in the Drier.

Steven Blizinski was not a fan of generalizations, but he knew cat hairs, as a whole, are no good, they're mischievous, immature, they certainly don't think before they act and they will follow anyone with a crazy enough idea. "Hey, do you think you can crawl out of my friend's, uh, nose, or fibers or whatever? He's kind of allergic, oddly enough." The cat hairs' reply was completely unintelligible, just a mesh of high-pitched garbles. They all spoke at once and none of them said exactly the same thing and the giggled relentlessly throughout. The main gist seemed to be that they found their little prank hilarious and they weren't leaving until they get completely bored. The strangest thing about cat hairs is although they're easily distracted, they can spend a frighteningly long time getting a kick out of the same old jokes.

Steven Blizinski knew he had to do something, but this would prove to be difficult seeing as they were cat hairs, and cat hairs are very capable of sticking to fabric and being difficult to grab. He ran through many ideas, "Wash them? No, Chuck is dry clean only. Distract them? No, they're too fixated on this prank." Just as he was getting frustrated by all of his dead-end ideas one last one hit him. So he ran, he went from store to store trying to find just one lint brush or lint roller, but he couldn't find any. "There are always way too many of them back home, why can't I find just one?" Steven thought, frustrated. "I guess all I can do is go back and see if there's anything Chuck has that could work." Defeated Steven walked back to Chuck's dryer to find Chuck sulking in a corner, no longer sneazing. "Chuck, they left, that's great!" Steven exclaimed to his distraught friend. "Yeah, they left, just like you did. I thought you were my best friend, but I guess man and cardigan aren't able to be friends." "But Chuck." "No, you'll just leave me at my weakest again. Good-bye Steven Blizinski, we are no longer friends."

Myerific's Tale Part Three

It was cold down on the surface. With the scientists still asleep, Jim Fozan was roused awake by the wind. He couldn't seem to adjust to the sound of the howling. He couldn't place why it upset him, but it didn't seem to phase the rest of the expedition. So, he wasn't about to start complaining, he did, however, miss the comfort of his bed. His bed and his wife. He missed her too; well, most of the time. She stayed on Terra. Ember had always hated the idea of space; he lived for space.
The rest of the expedition was largely a civilian group, aside from himself and Jones. All they were concerned with was that the Tablets were on this planet, after a century of research and the code had just been broken, it had to be here; they hoped at least. And they mamaged to convience the Government that this was indeed the case.
If he was supposed to protect these scientists, it'd be nice if they would actually listen.


The next morning, Fozan paced the extra chamber of the spaceship teporarily designated as the scientists' work room using every ounce of his strength to keep himself shaking some sense into Ferdinand Bemok, one of the leading scientists, an energetic and frail-looking man who apparently needed this expedition to earn his doctorate in xenoplanetary archaeology.
"So you're saying these tablets could literally be anywhere in the largest continent on this planet?"
"Yes"
"And this continent is thirty-million square miles of canyon, rainforrest and desert?"
"Yup"
"And it just so happens that there are about four trillion animal species living there with their own specialized ways of giving you an agonizing death."
"Affirmative."
"And we're just jumping in."
Ferdinand looked up from his stack of papers.
"You know, Foz,"
"Don't call me Foz."
"On the planet I come from, we have balls -- the men at least -- and because of those, we don't worry about a few obstacles, we leap over them. Like men."
"Look, we're not having this conversation because I'm worried about a fer gigantic poisonous rodents, sentient plants or the occasional hurricane-force wind, it's because we've been here for a week and you're only just now telling me how much you don't know. I have a good feeling there's more you're not telling me and keeping secrets from me can and will jeopardize the success of this mission and, you know, the future of your balls."
"Hey, man you're going to have to take that up with Dr. Fitzgerald, he's the archaeological supervisor. For all I know, he told you everything." The insincerity in his voice made Fozan's fingers involuntarily curl into fists. Before he could say more, Fozan heard the muffled sounds of an assistant screaming from the next room and Jones saying something about a stolen canole and calling someone a "pigfucker" or something to that effect.

"SEVEN! SEVEN TIMES I'VE TOLD THEM DON'T TOUCH MY FUCKIN CANOLE! YOU KNOW WHAT THEY DID SEVEN TIMES!?"
"They touched your canole?"
"NO! Well, yes, but not just touch it, they stole it. I'm tired of this job Fozan, we're just glorified security guards."
"Yeah, but they pay is great, and there are some pretty good opportunities here.'
"Fozan, you hate this place as much, if not more, than I do."
Fozan knew that Jones was right, to him this job really sucked. He was thinking to himself, what was Dr. Fitzgerald really after? These so called tablets had to have some special reasoning for them to be out in the hell hole called a planet. The mission briefing said that these tablets were crucial to learning about the history of the universe, but no-one could be this dedicated to the past. Even with the firepower they were packing, they could be killed without even knowing it.
"Jones, I think it's time we talked to Fitzgerald about this operation. Yes, I do mean talking the way we're used to."

Promise Fulfulled

As I promised I will now post my continuation of Marlon's story over at Thoughts of a Marlon

I wake up, I put on my overalls and hat, grab my sack of potatoes, and leave. I wake up, I put on my overalls and hat, grab my sack of potatoes, and leave. I wake up, I put on my overalls and hat, grab my sack of potatoes, and leave."Ever sit home and wonder to yourself--" I wake up, I put on my overalls and hat, grab my sack of potatoes, and leave. "if you had a gun to your head," I wake up, I put on my overalls and hat, grab my sack of potatoes, and leave."what are the limits of what you would do and what you wouldn't?" I wake up, I put on my overalls and hat, grab my sack of potatoes, and leave."Well I hope this was on your list of hypothetical scenarios" EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN IS A BLUR . I wake up, I put on my overalls and hat, grab my sack of potatoes, and leave."Because we don't have a lot of time." I don't know what this person thinks; I'm nobody, I've never helped anyone with anything, I have no skills, I'm just a potato man.

How far am I willing to go? Will pulling the trigger help anyone, or will I remain just a potato man? Questions, I find myself asking myself so many questions and finding so little answers. Sometimes I don't even know who I am anymore. I hold this guns, as I have many times before. This time, this time will be different, this time I will know what the limit of what I would do. Death is just another beginning, but I just can't find the time to start. What are the limits of what I would do? I guess this is just beyond that limit. Why do I want to hold on to my life? Maybe I'm not meant for death, maybe today I can finally help someone, maybe today I will no longer be just a potato man.

Tomorrow the story is finished over at The Admiral's Log