Will's Uber Blog

Only a year and 7 months since my last post

2008-07-30T22:44:00.002-04:00

Not bad, I say. So is it at all possible to catch ~~the world~~ no one up on everything that's happened since the end of January 07? Probably not, but I figured since I decided to randomly read my friends' blogs... and then be stalker-ish and find Krista's... and because she promised to update if I do... WHY NOT POST? :D

So, I tend to have this problem where I over think things. A lot. Take, for example, my future: Well, I'm interning at a Fortune 500 company basically networking with people (the joys of being a second-level support guy), and I essentially have a guaranteed job lined up once I graduate (in December of this year). Good situation, right? Not exactly. First of all, I will be 21 for about 2 weeks before I receive my Bachelor's degree. Not saying age means much, but it means that for all intents and purposes, I'm still a freakin' kid! I don't know if I'm ready to grow up! Uncertainty is beyond scary, but I guess one can ever be absolutely certain about his/her future-- it's sort of how he/she deals with uncertainty (whether embracing it or fearing it) that determines who he/she is and who he/she will become. (Gotta love correct grammar :P).

Another example of over-thinking? Well, a little back story is needed I suppose: Rewind to late summer 07. Ryan and I were going to get a place in Panther Hall for our Junior years. We had a double picked out, got all the necessary paper work, etc. Well, turns out he didn't want to room with me at the last second, and called Panther Central the day before the deadline for getting out of a housing contract, and canceled it. So, I was roommate-less, and had a day to decide what to do. I guess, in a way, I had figured something like this would happen. I always saw the French Living/Learning Community in PA Hall as an option should something not work out. Well now, if I didn't want to be relegated to a Tower C single for the 3rd year in a row (and probably meet NO ONE again), I'd have to do it. Luckily P.C. obliged, and stuck me in PA Hall on the French floor.

I figured it'd be all intensely French, but nah... it wasn't in the slightest. Whatever. I told myself I was going to put myself out there-- make friends; get to know people; hopefully enjoy the last year I had in Pitt housing. My roommate was cool and was in a similar situation that I was in with a friend bailing on him last minute. We didn't really talk all that much (probably because he was rarely there), but we got along great.

I did, though, end up getting basically assimilated into the girls' suite down the hall. I ended up befriending Alicia (whom I had seen from Orchestra) and we ended up talking and hanging out. In the process of all this bonding, I got to know her roommates. Figured all was going well until the little cute one ran away from me the one day when I told her I knew Katie Angus after she expressed her desire to become her. Perplexed, and figuring I ended up making enemies with one of my new friend's roommates, I went back to my room and figured I'd kinda failed in my little endeavor.

Well, somehow a day or so later I ended up in the little cute one's room as we talked with Alicia and her actual roommate (the girl with whom she shared a bedroom) about visiting the gynecologist. I guess in my love for vivid images of doctors all up in female genitalia, I reached over and pulled the little cute one closer to me. I'm sure she was beyond weirded out, but whatever-- I wasn't there to judge. All I knew was she was cute and she was in my arms.

I guess for the next month or so, I pretty much exclusively lived in the aforementioned estrogen suite. I probably ended up watching more movies there than I'd ever watched before, and the little cute one and I always curled up on the couch together to do so. Not sure if either of were really certain of what to think, but hey, whatever, right?

One thing happened to lead to another as the little cute one and I grew closer and closer. Her birthday came and went, and I hope it was as memorable for her as it was for me. Somehow we ended up as a couple out of all of it, and I don't question how it happened, I just know that I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I love you, Krista.

Now how it relates to me and my irrational fear of the unknown? Well, I see her in my life. I see her in my future. I guess a better way to put this would be-- if she somehow weren't in my future, I'm not sure what I'd do with myself. And you can ask anyone about relationship futures, and they'll all tell you that they're full of uncertainty. So as far as that road goes, the only thing I can do is pray everything works out and pretty much live in the here and now, enjoying every moment I can.

I better wrap this up as I have work tomorrow. I obviously omitted quite a bit of what has happened in the past 19 months, but for those who know me, they probably would understand why. Though apart from all the utter crap I wouldn't wish on anyone that happened in that time-span, I did want to talk about the... I don't know... blessing that was bestowed upon me. She was exactly what I needed-- The direction I was searching for, so to speak. She's the sane counterpart to my fucked up head and I'm not sure what I'd do without her. I guess I'm ~~pretty~~ really freakin' happy, and writing it all down definitely made me realize it.

No idea when I'll update again, but until next time kiddos!

Procrastinating

2007-01-28T22:46:00.001-05:00

Yes, stop the presses, wake the kids up-- I am posting a blog entry. Procrastination has definitely got the better of me this time. Did you ever realize that the stuff you do when you should be doing something else is always more-effort consuming than the actual task itself? I don't know how many times I've sat up and read about some damn historical tribe of New Zealand on Wikipedia, or decided to randomly calculate the distance the Earth would have to be from the Sun so the average surface temperature would be JUST enough to boil the oceans? (8.88x10^10 m, btw. By comparison, Venus is about 1.08x10^11m). Point is, yeah, I should probably be working on the half-page single-spaced french "écrite libre" I have to have for tomorrow, but meh. It's a lot more fun writing a blog post instead!

Anyway, yeah, it's been way too long since the last "hey what's Will been up to recently" post, so I don't really plan on tracking through, what, 5 months of random shit. But meh, we'll see where this goes.

Biggest thing I'm looking forward to currently is my 6 week study abroad in France. That is going to take place May 24th-July 7th, and I couldn't be more psyched about it I don't think. The application along with a bunch of other crap is due next Friday, and I still have quite a bit to do. Worst thing is the essay-- "What do you plan on accomplishing overseas? How do you think this will better yourself as a person?" Does anyone else hate those types of question as much as I do? It's like, who gives a flying fuck guys... honestly. Oh well, gotta do that at some point.

But I'm already planning ahead for what to do there. I'm leaving Pittsburgh on the 23rd probably... not sure if I have to fly out of Pittsburgh or fly to New York or what (they don't tell me these things), but I'm going to land in Paris that night hopefully. The experience officially starts on the 24th, so my guess is we'll all meet up somewhere then and go from there! We're spending Thursday-Saturday in Paris and then taking a train to Nantes on Sunday where I'm actually going to be for 6 weeks. Going to be taking 2 classes there... both of which will probably suck more ass than Mike Haley (oooooo burned... I just said that because you probably won't be reading it. :) ), but meh, those two classes are probably going to be the least of my concerns while there. I'm sure bars will be frequented nightly and hopefully there are other things to experience.

At some point, though, I'm taking my ass to Amsterdam. I don't care if I have to go by myself for Christ's sake, but there will be a side trip. :) Ryan said something about coming over, but he's flaky and he'll probably bail on me-- but no worries. I suppose I'll have to do that one of the weekends I'm there, which probably makes the most sense.

I'm staying with a host family which is probably the thing I'm looking forward to least. While I'm sure they'll welcome me with open arms, there's always that chance that they won't. Also, I don't fricking speak French. I can understand it almost fluently, but expressing ideas into words is my biggest fricking problem. I can't see myself holding large-scale conversations with them without throwing in an english word with an "é" at the end and them looking at me like wtf. It'll probably be like that for the first 2 weeks, but I'm hoping I'll grasp the language for at least the last 2/3rds of the trip.

That kinda makes me have mixed feelings about it. Although there's no reason why I should be anything but ecstatic to have this opportunity, I still always manage to make those tiny negative nuances so exhibited that it almost makes me not want to look forward to this. I gotta work on that. Big time.

Anyway, what else? Oh! Orchestra! Yep I bought a bassoon and joined the Pitt Orchestra. It is amazing, to say the least. The songs are ridiculous and it's been quite hard trying to pick it back up to the level I was at, but I think I'm getting at least a little bit better. I have been neglecting to practice, which I have to get back into the habit of doing if I want to survive through these concerts. We're doing Beethoven Feb 7th, and our main piece is Eroica -- 3rd symphony. It's close to an hour long, so I'm kinda buggin out about that one. It's a lot of (COMPLICATED) music to learn, and I rarely have the time or the energy to sit down for long periods of time by myself and crank out note-by-note the pieces. Guess I should find time and energy.

Work has been getting kinda busy too. Over Christmas I ran my first job and got about 30 hours over 3 days, which hurt-- quite a bit. But it was worth it. Time flew, and the paycheck was hella nice. Since it's slowed down considerably, but that would be because I do not have a mode of transportation the 5 days of the week they need me the most.

Eh, anyway I've gotten bored. I'll update later. (I'm lying here. I'm sure I won't, but hey, stranger things HAVE happened.)

Update: Woops, it's his 3rd symphony not his 5th.

Procrastinating

2007-01-28T22:46:00.000-05:00

Yes, stop the presses, wake the kids up-- I am posting a blog entry. Procrastination has definitely got the better of me this time. Did you ever realize that the stuff you do when you should be doing something else is always more-effort consuming than the actual task itself? I don't know how many times I've sat up and read about some damn historical tribe of New Zealand on Wikipedia, or decided to randomly calculate the distance the Earth would have to be from the Sun so the average surface temperature would be JUST enough to boil the oceans? (8.88x10^10 m, btw. By comparison, Venus is about 1.08x10^11m). Point is, yeah, I should probably be working on the half-page single-spaced french "écrite libre" I have to have for tomorrow, but meh. It's a lot more fun writing a blog post instead!

Anyway, yeah, it's been way too long since the last "hey what's Will been up to recently" post, so I don't really plan on tracking through, what, 5 months of random shit. But meh, we'll see where this goes.

Biggest thing I'm looking forward to currently is my 6 week study abroad in France. That is going to take place May 24th-July 7th, and I couldn't be more psyched about it I don't think. The application along with a bunch of other crap is due next Friday, and I still have quite a bit to do. Worst thing is the essay-- "What do you plan on accomplishing overseas? How do you think this will better yourself as a person?" Does anyone else hate those types of question as much as I do? It's like, who gives a flying fuck guys... honestly. Oh well, gotta do that at some point.

But I'm already planning ahead for what to do there. I'm leaving Pittsburgh on the 23rd probably... not sure if I have to fly out of Pittsburgh or fly to New York or what (they don't tell me these things), but I'm going to land in Paris that night hopefully. The experience officially starts on the 24th, so my guess is we'll all meet up somewhere then and go from there! We're spending Thursday-Saturday in Paris and then taking a train to Nantes on Sunday where I'm actually going to be for 6 weeks. Going to be taking 2 classes there... both of which will probably suck more ass than Mike Haley (oooooo burned... I just said that because you probably won't be reading it. :) ), but meh, those two classes are probably going to be the least of my concerns while there. I'm sure bars will be frequented nightly and hopefully there are other things to experience.

At some point, though, I'm taking my ass to Amsterdam. I don't care if I have to go by myself for Christ's sake, but there will be a side trip. :) Ryan said something about coming over, but he's flaky and he'll probably bail on me-- but no worries. I suppose I'll have to do that one of the weekends I'm there, which probably makes the most sense.

I'm staying with a host family which is probably the thing I'm looking forward to least. While I'm sure they'll welcome me with open arms, there's always that chance that they won't. Also, I don't fricking speak French. I can understand it almost fluently, but expressing ideas into words is my biggest fricking problem. I can't see myself holding large-scale conversations with them without throwing in an english word with an "é" at the end and them looking at me like wtf. It'll probably be like that for the first 2 weeks, but I'm hoping I'll grasp the language for at least the last 2/3rds of the trip.

That kinda makes me have mixed feelings about it. Although there's no reason why I should be anything but ecstatic to have this opportunity, I still always manage to make those tiny negative nuances so exhibited that it almost makes me not want to look forward to this. I gotta work on that. Big time.

Anyway, what else? Oh! Orchestra! Yep I bought a bassoon and joined the Pitt Orchestra. It is amazing, to say the least. The songs are ridiculous and it's been quite hard trying to pick it back up to the level I was at, but I think I'm getting at least a little bit better. I have been neglecting to practice, which I have to get back into the habit of doing if I want to survive through these concerts. We're doing Beethoven Feb 7th, and our main piece is Eroica -- 5th symphony. It's close to an hour long, so I'm kinda buggin out about that one. It's a lot of (COMPLICATED) music to learn, and I rarely have the time or the energy to sit down for long periods of time by myself and crank out note-by-note the pieces. Guess I should find time and energy.

Work has been getting kinda busy too. Over Christmas I ran my first job and got about 30 hours over 3 days, which hurt-- quite a bit. But it was worth it. Time flew, and the paycheck was hella nice. Since it's slowed down considerably, but that would be because I do not have a mode of transportation the 5 days of the week they need me the most.

Eh, anyway I've gotten bored. I'll update later. (I'm lying here. I'm sure I won't, but hey, stranger things HAVE happened.)

Week 3 Picks

2006-09-23T14:04:00.000-04:00

Haven't had too much time this week to write on last week, but I was 12-4 last week and my fantasy team won bringing me up to 1-1. Picks for this week:

Carolina (0-2-0) def. Tampa Bay (0-2-0)
Chicago (2-0-0) def. Minnesota (2-0-0)
Pittsburgh (1-1-0) def. Cincinatti (2-0-0)
Green Bay (0-2-0) def. Detroit (0-2-0)
Jacksonville (0-2-0) def. Indianapolis (2-0-0)
New York Jets (1-1-0) def. Buffalo (1-1-0)
Miami (0-2-0) def. Tennessee (0-2-0)
Washington (0-2-0) def. Houston (0-2-0)
Baltimore (2-0-0) def. Cleveland (0-2-0)
New York Giants (1-1-0) def. Seattle (2-0-0)
Philadelphia (1-1-0) def. San Francisco (1-1-0)
Arizona (1-1-0) def. St. Louis (1-1-0)
New England (2-0-0) def. Denver (1-1-0)

Monday 9/25
Atlanta (2-0-0) def. New Orleans (2-0-0)

Highlights this week:
- Carolina and Tampa Bay - Well at least one of them's getting a win this week eh?
- Jacksonville and Indianapolis - Should be one of the best football games you'll ever see.
- Giants and Seahawks - Again, something to define the Giants.

This is gonna shape up to be a very different year from last year it seems. You have teams that finished well below 500 have a 2-0-0 record to start the season and some teams that were super bowl contenders last year starting 0-2-0.

Week 2 Picks

2006-09-14T17:07:00.000-04:00

This week should be significantly better I think. A lot of very one-sided match ups-- though, that could always lead to an upset, eh? So without further ado:

Sunday 9/17:
Miami (0-1-0) def. Buffalo (0-1-0)
Carolina (0-1-0) def. Minnesota (1-0-0)
Cincinatti (1-0-0) def. Cleveland (0-1-0)
Chicago (1-0-0) def. Detroit (0-1-0)
Indianapolis (1-0-0) def. Houston (0-1-0)
New Orleans (1-0-0) def. Green Bay (0-1-0)
New York Giants (0-1-0) def. Philadelphia (1-0-0)
Baltimore (1-0-0) def. Oakland (0-1-0)
Atlanta (1-0-0) def. Tampa Bay (0-1-0)
Seattle (1-0-0) def. Arizona (1-0-0)
St. Louis (1-0-0) def. San Francisco (0-1-0)
Denver (0-1-0) def. Kansas City (0-1-0)
New England (1-0-0) def. New York Jets (1-0-0)
San Diego (1-0-0) def. Tennessee (0-1-0)
Dallas (0-1-0) def. Washington (0-1-0)

Monday 9/18:
Pittsburgh (1-0-0) def. Jacksonville (1-0-0)

Some things to watch:
- Was TB's loss last week a fluke? I'm kinda hoping so as I believe they're playoff worthy. Do I think they have the power to defeat Atlanta? HELL yes. This game is a toss up and should be very fun to watch.
- This week will put the Cards to the test. If they can pull off the upset against Seattle which, judging by last week, shouldn't be too hard, we might see a new playoff contender rise out of the ashes in the NFC.
- First week of NFC East inter-division play! Oh man I can't wait-- all of these games are toss-ups I think and, hopefully after this week, we can have a more defined picture of who will be playoff worthy from that division.
- Do the Jets have what it takes to beat the Pats? Pennington surprised everyone when he came out of last week as the best passer in the league, but that was against a fairly crappy Tennessee team. Then again, Brady's clearly missing Givens and Branch. If he can't find a new strategy soon I think the Pats won't have a chance this year.
- How will Trent Green's injury impact the Chiefs? With Huard be able to step up and defeat a Denver team that rather suprised all of us last week?
- And finally, how is Big Ben going to be in his first regular season action since the motorcycle accident + appendectomy? If history tells anything, I don't think the Super Bowl champs have much to worry about... other than the fact that they're playing a Jacksonville team that has a hell of a lot of potential.

NFL Week 1 Results

2006-09-12T00:59:00.000-04:00

Well this was one hell of a kickoff weekend, wasn't it? I already want to re-adjust my playoff predictions! But no, I'm keeping them up and seeing how off I really am at the end of the year. If I were to change them now, though, I'd definitely add a few things that I noticed after this weekend:

Jacksonville
Yes I didn't pick Jacksonville to appear in the AFC playoff picture. I'd probably revise that now as after watching them in the Cowboys game, they really showed a lot of talent. They're very well-rounded-- amazing defense, and just a good offense all around. Defense wins championships and I really think the Jags will excel in that category in 2006.

Miami
I'd be taking them off if I could. After watching Culpepper's performance on Thursday, there is no way that he can put up the hall of fame numbers he did in Minnesota. Why? Two words: Randy Moss. They'll have a good season, and could still make the playoffs, but I would take them out of the number 5 spot if I could.

Giants
DAMN did they play well! I was really impressed by Eli-- he's grown a lot and could finish off the season one of the top 5 quarterbacks of 06. I probably wouldn't change their position on my playoff list, but last night's game upheld my expectations for them this year.

Carolina and Atlanta
WTF? Here's a two-for: Is Vick back to being what he was in 04? Is Carolina not all they're hyped up to be? Granted, Smith's hurt and that sucks and all, but jeez-- it's the Falcons! C'mon I have you going to the Super Bowl! Don't disappoint me!

Seattle
Won against Detroit by THREE! Ahaha, Super Bowl loser + Madden curse anyone?

New England
DEION BRANCH IS NOW A SEAHAWK! Jesus... Brady now lost 2 of his premier receivers and BARELY squeaked out of Sunday with a win-- against the Bills. THE BILLS! Just thank your fatass lineman who fell on a scrambling QB in the end zone for saving you from the utter humiliation of losing to J.P. Losman.

The other stuff
- Chad Pennington had the best game of any QB this week. Take a moment to let that sink in.
- Your highest passer rating for this week? 126.5 -- Charlie Batch. He really stepped up, didn't he?
- Reggie Bush. Is anyone from the Texans going to admit they made the most retarded draft move since Ryan Leaf?
- Philip Rivers had a decent start, eh? Granted it was against Oakland...
- Tampa Bay... Come on!
- Hope Trent Green feels better!

Anyway, my fantasy team sucked this week. I have both McNabb and Warner and was wracking my brain over who to start all week! I finally chose to stick with McNabb, but it wouldn't have mattered either way, as they both had amazing games (22 points in my league). Larry Johnson really held up to my expectations (YEAH RIGHT). And damn Peyton shoulda thrown more to Marvin Harrison!

Yeah I lost this week 75-40. Which makes me 0-1-0 in my league. I'm also 10-6 in my picks. Let's see if I can get out of this season with a winning record. :)

Will's Uber 2006 Football Predictions! (Week 1 Picks)

2006-09-06T21:32:00.000-04:00

Yeah I'm back and not dead! :D

The 2006 NFL Season starts tomorrow at 8:30, so I gotta get my football picks in. I'll see if I'm motivated enough to do this every week-- will give me something to blog about at least, eh? Since this is the first one I'll include my picks for the whole 2006 season, which will probably be way off, but eh I don't care.

Playoff Picture (x = 1st round bye, ** = 5th, * = 6th)
AFC North:
- Cincinatti
- Pittsburgh*
- Baltimore
- Cleveland

AFC East:
- New England
- Miami**
- Buffalo
- New York

AFC South:
- Indianapolis(x)
- Jacksonville
- Houston
- Tennessee

AFC West:
- Denver(x)
- San Diego
- Kansas City
- Oakland

Wild Card contenders: Miami**, Pittsburgh*, San Diego, Baltimore

NFC North:
- Chicago
- Minnesota
- Green Bay
- Detroit

NFC East (The toughest division, by far):
- Dallas
- New York*
- Washington
- Philadelphia

NFC South:
- Carolina(x)
- Tampa Bay**
- Atlanta
- New Orleans

NFC West:
- Seattle(x)
- Arizona
- St. Louis
- San Francisco

Wild Card contenders: Tampa Bay**, New York*, Washington, Philadelphia, Arizona, Atlanta

AFC:
Miami over Cincinatti
New England over Pittsburgh

Indianapolis over Miami
Denver over New England

Indianapolis over Denver

NFC:
New York over Chicago
Tampa Bay over Dallas

Seattle over Tampa Bay
Carolina over New York

Carolina over Seattle

Super Bowl
Indianapolis over Carolina

Week 1 Pics:
Thursday 9/07:
Pittsburgh (0-0-0) def. Miami (0-0-0)

Sunday 9/10:
Philadelphia (0-0-0) def. Houston (0-0-0)
Seattle (0-0-0) def. Detroit (0-0-0)
Cleveland (0-0-0) def. New Orleans (0-0-0)
Carolina (0-0-0) def. Atlanta (0-0-0)
New York Jets (0-0-0) def. Tennessee (0-0-0)
Tampa Bay (0-0-0) def. Baltimore (0-0-0)
Denver (0-0-0) def. St. Louis (0-0-0)
New England (0-0-0) def. Buffalo (0-0-0)
Cincinatti (0-0-0) def. Kansas City (0-0-0)
Dallas (0-0-0) def. Jacksonville (0-0-0)
Chicago (0-0-0) def. Green Bay (0-0-0)
Arizona (0-0-0) def. San Francisco (0-0-0)
Indianapolis (0-0-0) def. New York Giants (0-0-0)

Monday 9/11:
Washington (0-0-0) def. Minnesota (0-0-0)
San Diego (0-0-0) def. Oakland (0-0-0)

To all those from Riyadh: مرحبا!, أهِ وسهِ!

2006-05-17T20:24:00.000-04:00

Just playing around in my blog logs (o_O) and found that I had two distinct, separate hits from people in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Apparently one got referred by sexyrussianblondes.blogspot.com (thanks!). Yeeeah...

Well I guess it shows that more people are (maybe) reading my blog than I thought, so I suppose I should make more of an effort to update this. Although, I can't see too many people caring about my mundane life. Heh, oh well.

Last two weeks I've been working, but not very hard I guess. Last week I only worked at SportsWorks on Tuesday and it was busy as hell. I spent the rest of my time getting some server work done for MNX, which will amount to a pretty nice paycheck I'm assuming. This week I worked yesterday (Tuesday) and today. Yesterday was pretty bad, 1250 or so in groups, all came at the same time... yuck. You'll never fully realize the utter mental strain that a bunch of screaming kids puts on you until you work a full 8 hour shift with them. It could be one of the worst things-- but oh well, I can't really say I hate my job. It just gets so exhausting.

Today I worked but it wasn't so bad. I had to work 5 hours, still dealing with a butt load of groups, but it seemed like the day went by a lot faster, even though I was put on the monotonous exhibits. I don't know, maybe I successfully zoned out better, or maybe it was the fact I got more sleep-- not sure. Either way, I'm happy with it.

Anyway, looking down the road at the immediate future, there doesn't seem to be much difference from what I've been doing. Sad thing is, that until I get a set schedule from MNX (which may be never), I'm going to be playing each new week by ear, pretty much. Even worse is I have to play "on call" seemingly 24/7, which could very well mean I may have "nothing planned" on a day, but end up working 8 hours with my boss on a project. That's the only thing I really don't like about this so far is just the uncertainty factor. It was hard enough planning stuff like the trip up to see Em and praying that they didn't call me to do shit while I was up there and unable to do anything. But I don't know, I still believe the perks outweigh this simple drawback.

It's gotten to the point where I'd probably quit SportsWorks if they'd give me a set schedule at MNX. It's like, why am I sitting here working at SW, where there's no room for advancement, no room for anything DIFFERENT when I could be working at my own pace, with guys I can associate with, learning a hella lot more, making more than double what I make at SW, and having, literally, something new every step of the way? It's the ideal job! I don't know, but even if I were to get a set schedule and decent hours for MNX, I don't think I'd still quit SW. It's true what they say about that place-- it just stays with you no matter what. I've made enough bonds with everyone in that place that I'd probably miss them all dearly if I were to leave. And I guess only 2 have really surpassed the level of co-worker (well 3 now that Halapy's started), but even those I really don't get along with too well, I think we all share that common thread of having to put up with the same shit that is SW on a regular basis. And I believe that common thread is enough to justify a psuedo-relationship and a bond that'd be really hard to break.

Oh well, we'll all have to move on some day, but even with all these other, better opportunities quickly approaching, I don't think that day is yet for me. Anywho, nothing else really groundbreaking I guess. Found a FANTASTIC deal on a Montreal hotel... hopefully going to get that arranged soon.

So, until next time kiddos!

Home

2006-05-04T19:58:00.000-04:00

Yeah I know it's a bit late, and I've actually been done with school since last Friday, but I haven't had the desire to update.

So yeah! I'm a sophomore in college! Wow, that's a scary thought. It seems like just yesterday I was graduating high school. This year definitely flew, and it was probably the best year of education I've ever had. College rocks hard and I love every minute of it (except maybe those 4 papers in one night shit). Now that I'm home, even for 6 days, I'm already missing it. Even though I have my car accessible 24/7 and no curfew or anything, it still feels as though I don't have the complete freedom that I did a week ago. Oh well. It's great to be home, and it's gonna be better when everyone's back too!

As for grades, which I got last night, I did significantly better this semester. And I'm proud of myself since I think this semester was a lot harder:

- French: A
- Skiing: A
- Music: A
- English: A-
- Psych: B
- Poly Sci: B-

Granted, I really wish I got the A in English, which I think I deserved because I got good grades on all my essays (my portfolio revisions probably fucked me over though) and the B in PolySci. I knew I was stratling a B-/C+ in PS, probably because I didn't participate at all (which was 33% of the grade), but I guess I should be happy I got the B-. Was a hard class-- only grades were 2 papers and participation. Oh well. Music was a joke. Skiing was, also, a joke. Psych I didn't try at all and used the hour and 15 minutes to catch up on the hour and 15 minutes of sleep that I didn't get to finish in my nap. And French the teacher loved me. I really lucked out getting two awesome French teachers this year. That makes my GPA a 3.53 for this semester, and a 3.47 cumulative, so far (counting my two CHS courses senior year). Gonna really try hard to maintain that.

SKIP DOWN TO WHERE IT SAYS START READING AGAIN IF YOU DON'T FEEL LIKE READING A LOT OF TECHNICAL MUMBO JUMBO

Anywho, now that I'm home, it gives my other job time to load hours on me. Yesterday I spent about 6 hours putting together a server that I picked up. My task was to take it apart, put an IDE controller in, a 250gb IDE drive, and a new CD-ROM drive, boot it up, install Fedora Core (Linux) on it, and get all the network protocols established. Seems simple enough-- pfft. Nothing's simple when it comes to computers.

So I open it up and first thing I notice is that there are NO 3.5" drive bays in it. For those that don't know, a hard drive, floppy drive, etc. all fit in 3.5" drive bays, a CD-ROM and the like fit in 5.25" drive bays. So I went digging upstairs to find a converter, which I knew we had, to mount on to the sides of the hard drive to make it fit into 5.25" bays. Well that worked until I went to slide the drive in. The server didn't have screw holes to mount a drive on... it was one of those old school bays that needed drive rails. Well we also had some of those upstairs, so I found those, and when I put them against the drive, none of them fit. So I went next door to ask our neighbor (who's also comp savy) if he had drive rails, and thank God he did. So I put them on, all good, drive fits. (CD-ROM we had drive rails for, so those just slid in).

So I fire it up, it boots up, RECOGNIZES THE IDE CONTROLLER (which is a miracle because NEVER have I turned on a comp and have it recognize a new controller, LET ALONE the HDD and the CD-ROM on it), boots into the Linux install. Get it all set up, point it to install on the new IDE drive, starts cranking out, all good. Go back to check on it once it's at about 94% and it starts flipping out at me-- giving me all these weird error msgs saying the drive is corrupted, blah blah. Yeah so it forces me to reboot, losing all the data that was installed and have to go back and reinstall everything. I thought it was the CD because it kept saying replace the media, so I call the boss dude and he tells me to just try it again. So I try it again, keeping in mind it takes about an hour to fully install, and it does the same thing again to me. Well I get frustrated and try another CD-ROM drive-- still no dice. Finally I call the dude back and tell him all that's going on and ask him if he wants me to just try to install it on the SCSI's then. He goes "YOU GOT THE SCSI'S TO WORK!? That was the whole point of getting an IDE drive-- the client said the SCSI's didn't work. Bah." So I install it, works perfectly, got everything up and running.

So I spent all of today taking the machine back apart, unmounting the IDE drive (which we don't need now, so bye bye 2 hours of work) and getting everything back in working order. It's all good now... going to head up to the dude's office and get this shit set up tomorrow. Oh well, the pay is amazing, so I'm not complaining, even though the technology level is way above what I'm at currently. That's my only quam about this job... my coworkers and boss tell me I should be doing this and that with the servers and I have very little clue as to what they're talking about. I guess not having worked with Linux before and with some of the networking protocols associated with it really sets me back. Oh well, I hope to learn as much as I can so I don't have to feel like I'm keeping everyone back with my questions.

OK YOU CAN START READING AGAIN

Oh well. And I asked to only be put on Tuesdays during the week at SportsWorks, so that shouldn't be too bad. Tuesdays are going to be fun as I like the people that work then. Halapy's starting next week and hopefully we'll be getting some hours together... ya know, showin him the ropes and stuff (haha). It's a joke, really. A half-dead, blind-folded, retarded chimp can do the shit there... it's just having the will power to put up with thousands upon thousands of people a day without cracking. Though you should like it, Halapy. It'll be good times.

And speaking of work, I'm going to Rick's daughter's wedding at the beginning of June. I'm really looking forward to that. Nothin like spending the evening with a bunch of awesome work people, sippin on some drinks, dancin terribly (especially considering the girl I'm going with is like 5'1" haha.. I <3 you Amanda!). Oh well.

Working tomorrow 6:30-10:00. Goin out to dinner beforehand-- should be fun times. Then work all weekend, which will probably suck, but maybe people will be around to do stuff. And then next week probably goin up to Allegheny to visit Em! I miss her bunches and it should be fun to spend some time with her.

Gah why can't all your colleges suck like Pitt and let you out 2 weeks before everyone else?? Oh well. I don't know how much I'll be updating this summer. It's probably gonna be uneventful. I'm hoping we can go somewhere.. Haley and I were throwing around the Montreal idea again, though I'm not sure if that was joking or what. But we need to go do something this summer.

Oh well. Until next time kiddos!

Update (Warning: Very introspective post ahead)

2006-04-19T21:48:00.000-04:00

So I'm sitting here in the dark since my desk lamp makes a shit load of heat and my room is already baking despite the air conditioner being on full blast. (Which reminds me, anyone know why there are 2 knobs on the thermostat? I have them both set to the lowest it goes... yeah.) Perhaps it's my computer-- in fact, I know it's my computer. Video card temperature idle right now is *checks* 73 degrees Celsius. That's insane and I probably should turn my computer off, but meh.

Anyway I suppose there's quite a bit to update on. I'm a boring person though... I was sick as a dog all today and I still am. I'm pretty sure I had quite a fever as I woke up extremely delerious and sick to my stomach. Despite that fact, I went to my classes today and then slept from about 1:00 - 5:00, went to this psychology research thing for 10 minutes, and then slept again from 6:00-7:30. I felt better after I woke up for the last time, probably due to the exorbitant amount of coffee I had. But now I'm sitting here doing nothing even though I have beaucoup de choses de faire: 2 Psych papers by Friday, one 1000-word essay for English for Tuesday, 2 revised 1000-word essays for English Tuesday, one French journal for Tuesday, and my 7-10pg PolySci final paper for next Friday. Luckily, however, this is my LAST WEEK OF CLASSES BITCHES! Yeah. Pwned. :)

Meh and then there's the pot issue. I've had my few weeks of fun I suppose, but I think I'm drastically cutting down now-- this time, for real. There's no real reason other than the extremely hallucinagenic high I got last night didn't sit too well with me. I dunno how anyone (eh and I know "killer's" gonna dispute this with me) can really deem that fun. It's a control thing, I think. I don't like not being in control of myself and what I do / think. And it kinda also opened to my eyes regarding who I am and how I am perceived. I don't believe this is me and I don't believe those I know want to perceive me as such.

Maybe it's all due to upbringing. I've talked with Johnson about this quite a bit and he tends to agree: When we (me and the rest of you guys from around here) were growing up here it seemed like we did our occasional things here and there at each other's houses (some stuff we may want to put behind us due to the uber-geek factor, others we look back and laugh on, and so forth) but we were never truly introduced to those things that "typical kids do" until we made it to college. I kinda wonder to myself why, but then I realize that we had good times without it. Granted now that we're here you need not do much more than ask Halapy if he could have half the fun he does without a certain something (don't worry Halapy, we know you're not an alcoholic *wink wink* :P) and he'd probably say no. Not saying that's a bad thing-- it's a new thing. It's a new fun that kind of replaces the old fun we used to have back in highschool. Now don't take this as me reminiscing and wishing shit was back to the way it was in 10th and 11th grade, because I'm not. I've moved on, we've all moved on-- it's part of life.

However with that "moving on" comes more of a push towards conformity. "You're in college! Start living!" Away from parents, away from the conservativeness of living at home, one can't really argue the drive for independence and a good time doesn't spark inside of you. For some it sparks a lot more intensely than others, which is the point I'm trying to make. For us, living our adolescence in the confines of the North Hills, the fear of staying out too late, and the ever-growing urge to please / not disappoint our parents (be it through school work or what not) seemed normal. Thus coming to college where we began experiencing almost a diametrically opposed way of life, the will to conform and try new things really began expressing itself strongly. However looking at someone like Johnson's case, where half the shit I've done here at school my Freshman year he's been doing since he was 12, there really is no conformity with him. What he does is his way of life and he's set in that notion. It's him. It's how he describes himself. It's how people describe him.

I guess a good part of me wants to define myself in that way. I want to fit in, I suppose, but at the same time I don't. And I'm not trying to pull an emo-"I don't know where I belong because I'm unique"-type thing... I'm just lacking a definition. I guess with starting to smoke pot regularly I never really thought I'd adopt a perception, but I can tell I did. I find myself hiding it from more and more people-- not because of how they would react, but because I don't want people to change their views about me. I'm content with how people see me, and, again it's an issue about upbringing. Johnson said there were only 4 or so people who didn't smoke pot in his graduating class on a regular basis, so he was kind of forced to due to society. In my graduating class of 404 (was that the number?) I probably couldn't name very many who did simply due to the fact that I never associated with them (and because they probably didn't graduate / get into a decent school). I remember simply dipping on the back of the bus in Jr. year was considered taboo. I'm sure you can imagine how big of a change it was then, for me, rooming with someone like Johnson, who came from a totally different area with an already defined personality. (Don't get me wrong, buddy. Couldn't've asked for a better roommate my first semester.)

So I guess all in all, while I don't believe I led a sheltered life through high school, I wish I could have done more in defining who I am. I feel I wouldn't have these strange conflicts between concience and desires that's forcing me to look at myself this way. Worst part is, the only way one is able to truly find their place is to continue experimenting with new things. And that, in itself, tends to be more difficult for those who grew up with such a pervasive conservative attitude.

We'll see what develops.

:-)

2006-03-16T20:12:00.000-05:00

I found something fun...

Bleh I suppose I should update this...

2006-01-17T18:47:00.000-05:00

Since everyone else is and since every day I put it off I know I'll have more work to do when I eventually update, I might as well take the plunge.

So hi guys. What's up? Not sure what all I'll put in here as too much has happened and I'd be lucky to remember it all. But hell, let's start with X-mas break, shall we? First weekend we got back we got to hit that keg at Haley's I mentioned in my last post. That was enjoyable I guess. We spent that night playing mondo beer pong and watching Donnie Darko and then crashed in his living room around 4. I was rudely awoken by his family at 6:30 leaving for work / school, but meh, suppose they have lives to take care of. Heh yeah. So I eventually made it home that morning and then slept all day.

Next eventful occurance? X-mas eve. Went over to my grandfather's (new) house (on my dad's side) and sat around for the good part of the evening. My grandfather, however, was recently diagnosed with severe Parkinson's disease and has very little inhibitions... so around 9:00 he kicked us all out saying he'd call the cops if we didn't "get the fuck out of his house now." Yeah. It was sad. :(

So I got home, wrapped presents and such, and then went to sleep. Xmas day was pretty fun. Opened presents at home (got a bunch of skiing shit, madden 06) then at my aunt's (got a roethlisberger jersey). Probably the highlight of the night was playing a 4 hour trivial pursuit game with my entire extended family. Heh.. yeah....

Then like nothing else really interesting happened. I went ice skating with Jess (and got lost in North Park) and that was fun. Great seeing her again. But alas, all good things must come to an end. January 3rd was my first day of classes (which is entirely too fucking early) and such. But meh, this semester's gonna be better than the first I think. I have significantly more classes, but they're fun.

I start skiing next Monday and I can't wait for that. Johnson is in my class and he has a goal to get as fucked up as possible before going... that should be entertaining. :D Other than that, nothing really exciting. My english class is getting retarded already. It's entitled "Post 9/11 Dissent" with a gear toward analyzing America post-9/11. It's okay... the general theme appeals to me, however the assignments do not. Just did a writing exercise last night on how the image of the American flag has been distorted post 9/11 and don't get me wrong, it wasn't hard... just I think I can only bash Bush so much. :) And my ideas tend to turn sucky when I'm FORCED to write about this kind of stuff. Most people know I frequent political sites and am pretty strongly anti-the way this country is going and I don't shy from those issues. However, it's clearly going to be different when I'm not making my own opinions "recreationally," if you will. Not to mention the professor is one of those douche bags that doesn't take anything but his own garbage as truth with no room for debate.

Oh well. I'm having fun so far.. it's a lot quieter in here without Johnson (no offense buddy). :P Other things besides school: Had my year end eval at work with our boss who's never over at sportsworks and has the mindset of a 2-year-old. It went surprisingly well, though in the sense that I didn't get as sucky as a lot of other people got. That's not the best way to look at it, but meh. Terri says I have a future there (OH BOY! -_-) implying a promotion in the near-future, but I don't see it coming with baby face holding us by our balls.

Went up to Erie on Sunday night. It was fun. Didn't have the best night in the world, probably because I get really frustrated at drunken stupidity *cough* Haley *cough*, but it was fun driving up there and back. I flew up, averaging around 93mph on 79... but meh, there weren't any cars on the road sunday night anyway. On the way home I didn't go nearly as fast (more cars / cops), but still made it home fairly quickly.

Oh and most importantly, WOO FUCK YEAH STEELERS!!!!

:D That'll probably change by next Sunday, but I'm cheering them on til they lose. :)

Anyway, yeah, I missed a lot I know. Like that whole LAN party thing we had, but meh I'm getting tired of thinking. So until next time kiddos.

Semester is officially over!

2005-12-15T20:10:00.000-05:00

Yeehaw! Just got finished with my last final (French) and what a way to go out! All of my finals were a lot simpler than they were made out to be, and especially French. It was all just reflections... you just had to write for like an hour and a half on different prompts that they gave you. And my prof loves me so I'll probably get a damned good grade in that class. I'm happy.

This week was pretty ridiculous. My two finals on Monday were OK. Web design was a joke, as always. We had to navigate to a website that the instructor made and told to replicate it. It was 6 or so pages with some "intense" JavaScript on one of them, but I managed to finish in a little over an hour. Honestly, there's no way the n00bies in that class could have finished it in time... it was way above the level that was taught in the class. But oh well, I'm pretty sure I passed... and that's all that counts, right? :D

Astronomy was difficult, as usual. I kinda crammed for about 2 hours prior to the test and I felt I was a little unprepared for it, but not entirely. I knew how to solve most of the problems and I didn't get whacky answers like saying the distance between 2 stars in the same galaxy is greater than the diameter of the universe... yeah it's happened. My answers at least made sense. :D But even so, I'm going to need a pretty high grade to pull me up from my 76.5% that I have-- and I don't see that happening.

Tuesday was probably my busiest day. I didn't have any finals, though I spent the entire day prepping 3 things: My French oral presentation at 6pm that day, my Comparative Politics exam at 8am the next day, and my Comp Sci final project for the next day. I got up pretty early and began working on my presentation. Got the bulk of it done and then Ryan called and asked to study for PolySci. So we ate and studied for a few minutes, then got sick of studying and played ping pong... then I went back and finished up the presentation and presented it at 6. It went really well as I got a 96/100 on it. :D After French I came back and just began cramming like mad for PolySci. I spent about 4 hours in the library and then came back and crammed some more in my dorm. I got to sleep around 4:00 and woke up at 6:30 to run down and get a bagel before the test. Then I got the test and it kinda sucked. I knew 4 of the 8 terms we had to define and I kinda bullshitted on the rest. Then the essays were all opinionated, so those were easy. Best of all, though, was after the test. We got our big papers back... I opened up to the last page and there was written "v. good 95." My jaw hit the floor. As I was walking out just gawking at the grade, people were like "pretty bad, huh?" "Yeah, I got a fucking 50!" "Yeah, a fucking 57!" I'm like O_O. Yeah I was happy.

So then I got back and passed out on my bed until about 1:30 when I realized I had my compsci project to finish. So I quickly (read: 10 minutes) put it together, burned it to a CD and ran it over to the comp sci building. Then I got ready for work as I had to work a special event from 5:00-9:00. It was the Steelers Kid Zone event where all the Steelers rookies come and cheer on kids as they do little competitions that are taped. Dec. 24th and Dec. 31st before the Steelers game, turn on KDKA and you'll see me. :P

Anyway that wasn't too bad. After that I went to Eat 'n Park with Haley. He had extra "DineX"... and they can use it at CMU, so I forced him to buy me dinner. :P That was pretty fun and such as we discussed plans for the break and such. Hopefully we'll be able to hit the keg that his parents have Sunday. Got back around 11:30 and I went down to McD's and got ice cream with my roommate. There it kinda hit me: Fucking massive fatigue. I realized I slept probably a total of 8 or 9 hours the previous 48 that I was awake. Put that on top of finals and mental strain associated with them, and you have one tired son of a bitch. So I got back and pretty much just passed out on my bed.

I slept til 2:00 and that was pretty nice as I didn't have anything but the French final at 6:00. My roommate had a final at 2:00, but he didn't get up... again. So that was the 3rd of 4 finals that he didn't go to. *shakes head* Oh well.

As for tonight, I was hoping to get a bit of al-key-hawl, though I really don't have the energy to go anywhere. I have no meal blocks or dining dollars left so I'm fucked as it comes to food and looks like I'll just have to sustain myself on the subway that I had at 3:00 today and maybe a quick midnight run to mcd's.

Tomorrow I gotta get everything together to go home. I'll be home around 4:00 tomorrow I figure and I have a feeling I'll just be sleeping as I'm still rather exhausted. Oh well. But what a semester... college is fun as hell.

Don't know if I'm going to be updating over x-mas as most of you that I blog to... I'll be hanging out with. :P So yeah, hope everyone has a good "holiday" break. Will see a good portion of you soon.. and the others I will see when we return! 'Til next time kiddos!

[19:23] Mike Halapy: update your blog

2005-12-07T19:24:00.000-05:00

[19:23] Mike Halapy: I am bored
[19:23] x2Xtreme21x: alright
[19:23] Mike Halapy: ty

Yeah yeah. Anyway update? Hmm.

There's not too much new. This is the last week before finals so I had a lot of shit due project-wise and got a bunch of stuff on my plate for next week. Though compared to some other people's final schedules, mine's kinda easy, I think.

My first final is this Friday and it's part 1 of my web design class. It's going to be so cake, but meh it's still important.

Then I have 2 on Monday (2nd half of web design and astronomy). Astronomy will be hard as I haven't gotten a higher grade than a 78% in the class. So I'm kinda fucked there. Tuesday I don't have anything, but I have to present my oral exam for French which should be easy. Wednesday I just have my Political Science final, which I'm scared to death of as that class will require the bulk of my studying...

And then Thursday at 6:00pm will be my last final, and that's french. That should be cake as well. Then the semester will be over! Predictions for grades:

French - A (I had a 94% as of yesterday)
CompSci - A (It's web design...)
PolySci - B (This might be hard to keep, but I have an 82% based on my ONLY grade which is my midterm)
Astronomy - C (Unless I really pull something out of my ass on the final, I have a solid C for that class.)
Freshman Studies - S (Pass/Fail course)

Well that's about it I suppose. There's some interesting shit going on with my roommate right now so he's going to try to drown his problems with alcohol. Yeeah, not too good.

Oh well. On tap for tonight I don't really have too much. 9:00PM I'm watching LOST (which is such an awesome show), I have to go over and register a server / domain with Ryan for this site he wants to do. I have to get something to eat sometime, but I'm thinking I might just wait til midnight and go to McD's again as I have no desire to eat anymore Sodexho today. Right now I'm just waiting for Halapy to get done with his damned GW installation so we can play! I kinda fell back in the addiction that is Guild Wars, which is good, but I gotta convince my friends to go back too. ;)

Oh well, good luck on finals and shit everyone. Probably won't be updating until next week when I'm home, so feel free to hit me up if anyone wants to catch up. 'Til next time kiddos!

Huh. Yeah, quick recap.

2005-11-30T01:32:00.000-05:00

Yeah sorry for the lack of updating. Nothing really interesting has happened like AT ALL. Let's go back to Thanksgiving:

Tuesday was at school for the whole day, went to my 9:00AM class and just chilled until 7:00PM when my dad picked me up. I actually researched a shit load for that paper, which I will discuss later. Anyway, yeah, woo. When I got home, Jessica was there, and she's cool as fuck so ya. Then Carol and Bill and Christina came up at like 10:00. For those who don't know, they are our friends from North Carolina who we've been going to the beach with in the summer since I was like 10. So yeah, good stuff.

Wednesday I got up early (too fucking early) and went to the Pancake House for breakfast with the gang. Then after we went to the highschool and George and I went around talking to old teachers. We only really talked to 4 though: Lieb, California, Levine, and Wukitch. Each remembered me, which is rather surprising. I guess I made lasting impressions. ;) Yeah then I came home, tried to sleep for a bit, then Halapy came and picked me up around, what, 2:00? Yeah and me, Haley, Halapy, and Em hung out at the mall for a bit before she had to go to work.

Thursday we went to my aunt's for Thanksgiving. Food was amazing, and so was the Atlanta / Detroit game, heh. Then like that night we all went to Haley's and watched Family Guy and sucked at Trivial Pursuit. It was great seeing Laura and Melissa, who I really don't get to see that often anymore... Definitely miss them. :P

Friday was my work day. I spent the majority of it doing my paper. Didn't get a whole lot done on it, but I got a decent start.

Saturday I went to work til 2:00 and then came home and worked on the paper. Repeat for Sunday except I worked til 5:30.

Since I stayed at my house Sunday night, I got up early and went to classes Monday morning. When I was done I bussed it back and spent the whole day (2:00 - 10:00) working on my paper. I must say, I think it is actually pretty good for the amount of knowledge I actually know about the topic. If anyone wants to read it, they're more than welcome to... my dad thought it was interesting. :P

Got up early this morning, got to school with all my shit around 8:00, and then just chilled til my 9:00. Turned in my paper and I felt the weight of the world fall off my shoulders, heh. Yeah, that's probably a bad thing, because I fell into a spell of not caring about anything today. In Astronomy, thankfully, we talked about like the most interesting shit ever... else I'd be passed out on my desk. Supernovas + Black Holes = PWN! :D Then French tonight was interesting. Got this huge ass assignment which is going to involve me going around and like interviewing people and taking pictures of places. It's due like next Tuesday which kinda blows. Then the Thursday after it is our 3rd oral exam which is actually a presentation of our brochures (other assignment), though what we say needs to be completely independent from what is written. Yeeeeah.

So I walk out of French and Riina stops me. "Your roommate says to come back with you." Shit. Yeah, Riina is a cool girl, and I like her a lot, though she's very much into getting drunk and high. So, naturally, she fits very well with my roommate. I guess it's not a bad thing... I was kinda pissed off tonight though because I felt she'd be used as another one night stand type thing. Though I give Johnson a lot of credit for not and actually thinking about like a relationship. Good luck to them, I suppose.

Well whatever, I got back about an hour ago from playing pool at Haley's. Good stuff, I suppose. Alright, roomie says bed time... heh. 'Til next time kiddos!

OH! ERIE THIS WEEKEND! BOOYA!

So apparently I had a party last night...

2005-11-22T08:24:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I walk back in to my dorm this morning, all the chairs are strewn everywhere, all my sheets messed up, beer cans on the floor, trash all over everything... big signs: "Will Robb's BDay bash!" Heh, yeah...

So yeah did nothing special for my 18th. Got pretty drunk Sunday night and then about 10:30 one of the roaming RA's knocked on our door. Me and like 4 other guys were in here just chillin so we all hid the beer and let the RA in. He took one look around and saw a near-empty 40 on Johnson's desk (but didn't manage to see the other 20 or so bottles) and 2 empty 24oz. cans on my desk. So they confiscated them, took our ID's, asked us for all this information and shit and said we'd be hearing from the RD. :( I don't really want to sit through a meeting. Oh well.

Then Riina came up and we WERE going to go to CMU to watch a porno (heh) but she decided to go smoke instead, so whatever. I hopped on a bus and went to cmu myself. Haley and I played pool and DDR, which sobered me up, and I got back around 1:30. My roommate comes in at like 4:30 and him and Elsila just crash on the floor... whatever.

Yesterday my dad picked me up around 3:30 and took me back home. We then went out to dinner and stuff and they gave me a hard drive I didn't know I was going to get (pfft) and lottery tickets, heh. I won $12 + 3 free tickets on 10, so I'm happy. Anyway, then I went to sleep after helping Lani with physics for like... ever.

Now it's 8:30AM and I'm doing this because I have nothing else to do between the time I got back to school this morning and my 9:00 class. So yeah, today will be spent working on a good deal of homework... especially that paper that's due in 7 days. :( 'Til next time kiddos.

Hrm, stuff

2005-11-15T14:53:00.000-05:00

Well Sunday marked the beginning of the last week in my life I will legally be a minor in the eyes of the federal gov't. Heh scary... but I'm young, so whatever. :P

There's nothing much to really report. I went home last Wed. to work on the webpage with my dad and then back again on Friday since Halapy was in town. We went bowling and that was fun. Friday night kind of sucked once I got back to the dorm, however. Everyone started filtering back in around 1:30 or so from parties and everyone was being really fucking rowdy... banging on doors / walls and shit, but meh. Saturday I worked then came back and slept pretty much for the entire rest of the day. Went out Saturday night with Haley, my roommate, and some dudes from my floor... we went to this party and it really sucked, in my opinion. Too many people in one place and the beer was eh. I didn't drink all that much because I wasn't feeling too good to begin with.

As is reported in both Hanley and Haley's blog, the hour or so following the party where I managed to convince Hanley that Haley (or who I thought was Haley) was in my closet was just fucking hilarious. Heh, good times... sorry Hanley. :)

Anyway, after that my roommate brought a fat chick back (he's in a competition with his friend regarding how many fat chicks he can sleep with by the end of the semester) and kicked Haley and I out. I figured I'd just crash at his place since it was around 2:00 and I'd be able to get to sleep. So we went down and played pool and such and then decided to hit the hay around 2:30. I layed there for a little while but I definitely couldn't get comfortable (Haley your floor is too hard and cold, bitch) so I snuck out and walked back to my place at about 3:15ish. When I got back my roomie was still with the chick, but I decided to just go to sleep anyway. They, unfortunately, weren't tired (go figure) and proceeded to keep me up. Finally around 4:00 I got up and went up to the 6th floor lounge to hopefully sleep there. Yeah... turns out 10 or so Asian dudes were pulling an "all nighta!" watching stupid-ass anime. Yeah I was too tired to care so I pulled a couch all the way to the other side of the room, but definitely couldn't get to sleep because they kept fucking SHOUTING in some language I didn't understand.. :(

So around 5:30 I dragged myself back to my room, but, alas, they were still up and talking. WHAT THE FUCK -_- I'm like, fuck it guys, and layed in bed. I must've fallen asleep somewhere between 5:30 and 6:00 and then my alarm goes and wakes me up at 8:30. Bleh, I had to go to work on Sunday. So I downed about 3 cups of coffee completely black and met Ryan so he could drive me to work.

Work wasn't actually that bad for the amount of sleep I had. I was dead tired the whole day, but I was still functioning fairly well. TLC came in and filmed some kind of reality type show while visitors were there on Sunday so there's a good chance I'll be on TV sometime in the near future. Oooh boy. :
After work I got back, did a little bit of homework, went to this 6:30 "class" I had for Freshman Studies where we did nothing, but it was our last class so we got pizza and stuff. Not too bad. Then I got back, watched the game up until about the 3rd quarter or so and then I must've fallen asleep as next thing I know, my alarm is going off and it's 9:30. Huh. Oh well.

Yesterday I got up and had this splitting migraine. Definitely is teh suck. So I went to comp sci, came back and napped, got up and went to my poly sci recitation (and fell asleep in it, which isn't good because it's the 2nd of the last recitation I'll have before the big term paper is due) and then caught a bus back home. I had a doctor's appointment at 2:30 which I made (thankfully... almost missed the bus back to NH.. the bus driver wasn't an asshole and actually stopped for me :D) where they gave me a physical and stuff and then they gave me a flu shot and a prescription for migraines. ^_^ Fun stuff... took one of those when I got back and I was out cold, but when I woke up the headache was gone! Yay.

So I spent the night last night too because my dad was out refereeing hockey until real late and my mom had to go shopping... and since she can't really see too well at night, I drove. I saw Vanessa at Shop 'n Save and I haven't really seen her in a while. So we got to talking and stuff and she reiterated exactly what Haley told me about her (you dog, Haley... you dog). Came back, did nothing... watched the eagles / cowboys game (keke silly eagles) and then went to sleep.

And now we're here-- present time. Nothing is going on really. My roommate's real sick and I have a lot of work I need to be doing for French tonight. And then there's that webpage that needs to be done by next Friday and that paper that needs to be done in 2 weeks. :\ Yuck. Oh well, but anyway, 'til next time kiddos!

Life be good

2005-11-06T20:17:00.000-05:00

Yeah, life's not too terribly bad. Nothing really exciting happened between last Sunday and today so this'll probably be boring. But oh well.

Thursday I got to pick my classes for next semester and I got all but one of the ones that I wanted. I don't know the exact times and such (will get the hard copy tomorrow), but I'm taking: American Political Process, French 4, Skiing (:D), Some Intro to Piano course, Intro to Psychology, and my english class-- Analyzing American vs. World opinion post-9/11. :D Should be fun.

Friday night, Haley and Ryan and I went to the waterfront to pick up chicks at Target... or something. It was weird and we didn't end up doing much, but we made it back to Ryan's outstanding, expensive house and watched Final Destination 2 on his big screen in his 2nd living room (yes, I know). :P

Yesterday I worked, came back and crashed until 6:00 or so, and then Ryan and I went and played ping pong and then decided to go down to the South Side to find out where the damned hookah bar was. So we found it (with a little help from Haley... thx :D) and then went back to his place and played Madden. Got back around 2:00 or so and my roommate and I went chick searching... heh. Yeah, don't really remember that too much, but meh.

This morning I got up early and went to work. It kinda sucked as I *still* don't like work. Got back and watched the Steelers game but I fell asleep cuz it was boring. Eagles game is on now and I need a shit load of points from McNabb to win this week in fantasy football. Not gonna happen though, but meh... my roomie and friend are coming back and chillin in here for the night, so might as well bond or something.

Yeah, have a lot of work to do on my PolySci paper and that stupid webpage... will have to do that sometime I suppose. Oh well, 'til next time kiddos.

x2Xtreme21x: shit I gotta update my blog

2005-10-30T18:55:00.000-05:00

Yeah, woops. It's been a long week, so sue me.

Let's jump all the way back to last Friday, shall we? Friday my roommate's best friend was out of town, so I played backup. 8:00pm rolled around and we began downing cans of Pabst Blue Ribbon. After about 6 or so, we headed down to Atwood to where the "hub of the parties" were. Well, there weren't any. Damn. Alright, so we hopped on a bus down to Centre Ave. and probably walked around for 1/2 hour before we found this frat throwin' down. We walked in, paid the $5 cover, and squeezed our way into the kitchen where the keg was. Then my roommate and I proceded to run the keg the entire night (when I say the keg I mean all 3)... I put down 4 beer bongs and many more than 8 shots of this really horrible vodka on top of the shit we pregamed and drank from the keg. Heh, yeah.

I can't really remember the end of the party but apparently I got back in one piece as I woke up in my bed at 8:00am Saturday morning to my dad calling me. Yeah, I couldn't see straight and apparently I told him I was "so fucking plastered." The thought, however, never crossed my mind that he was going to pick me up from school at 10:00 so I could get to work and stuff at 2:00. Yeah...

So skip ahead to my parent's car (it's honestly the first event I can remember that morning) and I was soooooo dizzy. Yeah, skip ahead to me driving to work (again, can't remember), I'm surprised I even made it there. I was literally shaking I was so sick. So I got to work and fucking sat in the bathroom for like 20 minutes just puking like mad. Once I started working, I couldn't go on... it was just horrid. Luckily the supervisor that day was nice enough to let me go home. Yeah, it was bad.

Then the week was rather boring. Wed & Fri were my Comp Sci midterms; Thurs was my Astronomy. My astronomy I don't think I did too well on, but meh. Wednesday I went to this Halloween Party thing at work (which was just a guise to rip us new assholes and tell us how horrible we were in a "fun and friendly atmosphere"). Saturday I went to work and then went to this car dealership in Canonsburg to discuss making a web page for this dude's car company. Apparently they're going to pay me $1500 to design this dude's webpage. ^_____^

Then I picked Dan up Saturday night since he was home and drove back to Pitt. He spent the night here... and what a crazy fucking night it was. We all bought 40's (I only had one because I didn't want a repeat of last Sat.) and Dan kicked things off by downing an entire 40 in a beer bong. It was VERY impressive... despite the massive puking that followed. I give him credit though. Then when the roomie and his friend left, me, Haley, and Dan went down to cmu to play pool. We did that until about midnight, then we went back to towers and chilled there until my roomie came back with 2 bitches... I was like score. He sat them down and then proceeded to pop shrooms with them for about 20 mins. Then he went back out and somethin happened in regards to his wallet falling out down at a party he went to and blah, I don't even know. Some dude just IMed me saying to get in touch with my roommate regarding his wallet. I proceeded to do so and he's like "DUDE! ELSILA IS GETTING CHASED BY COPS! OMG THEY PINNED HIM DOWN!" So like... yeah, my roommate's friend got arrested out in the quad, heh. Cops were surrounding him with guns drawn, apparently.

Then he got back and proceeded to tell us about his tripping threesome he had with the 2 chicks. And he was like, so fucked up dude. Randomly he goes "Let's go get pussy." It's 3:30AM, so I'm like, you're not gonna get anything. So, whatever, we went down and chilled in the lobby while he was tripping. Then he just randomly decided to walk up to people screaming "N*gger" at everyone. W/e. So Dan and I went back and passed the fuck out.

Alarm went off this morning at around 8:30 and I was perfectly fine. Dan was hungover and we both had to explain EVERYTHING that happened to my roommate last night. Yeah, whatever. So I was all set to go to work and my roommate's like "hey lemme go with you to see where you work and I'll just take a bus back." I was like sure whatever, so my roommate came to work with me. He stayed ALL DAY! All he did was fucking talk to me and Ryan. ALL DAY! WHAT THE FUCK!

Bleh, and then he came home with me and made my parents make him food. Sigh. Now I'm sitting here, my roommate and his friend (he got out of jail around 5pm tonight) are drinking... and I'm tired as fuck.

The end. Sigh. Until next time kiddos.

Busy busy

2005-10-20T15:23:00.000-04:00

That describes life to the tee, especially this past week. I just had my Political Science mid-term... which was very tough. I spent 90% of yesterday just trying to take in as much information as possible (the required readings were 18 books + lecture notes we had to know for the test)... and then when I got the test this morning, most of the identification terms (think Wukitch's Euro tests) were shit that I didn't really look over. I'm pretty confident that I bullshitted enough to get by, however. But I'd be thrilled with a C. :
Blah, other than that, things have just been exhausting. I really haven't been getting as much sleep as I should... I go to bed around 2:00 each morning and get up at 8:30 or 9:00 depending on the day. Bad thing is, I stay up til my roommate goes to bed, which is about that time, but he ALWAYS sleeps in til around 1:00pm everyday. So I don't get very much sleep. That's alright though, I suppose.

Monday I went home to see Em. We spent the day bored and snippy at each other (what else is new? :P), but despite all that I really missed her and was so happy I could spend time with her. I came back Tuesday morning real early and pretty much have done nothing but work since. Come 11:00AM tomorrow, I will be free of all kind of mental exhaustion, and it will feel wonderful. :D

Right now I'm actually writing a French paper that was assigned Tuesday. They really just don't let up, I swear. But meh, I don't know if I expected any less, I suppose. It's tough, but it's still toughness that I enjoy. I love it here. Granted, my roommate's a big pothead, but we've been definitely getting closer and shit. It's kind of a mutual respect for eachother's habits and stuff, which I definitely like. Though there are some weird ass conversations that go on from my bed to his at 2:00 AM heh. "Shit bondage." Enough said, no? Haha.

Anyway, tomorrow after my 11:00 class my roommate and I are going out to Sam's Club to buy an Industrial Size package of KY warming gel, condoms, plastic rap, and an inflatable kiddie pool. I think I'll just leave it at that, but it's definitely going to be a little "giggidy giggidy." :D

Until next time kiddos!

So how's everyone been?

2005-10-12T11:09:00.000-04:00

I've been dandy. I just finished my last paper (of four) that I had to write before today. :D

Anyway recap. Thursday evening I went home because I had to work all day Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Sunday was HORRIBLE! It was free admission day at the CSC so we got allllll of the shitty bums that came in just to be somewhere. Man... Oh well.

Sunday night I came back, Miglino and I played ping pong then I went back to my room and worked a bit on one of my papers that was due. I had fuckin 3 in French and one in Freshman Studies. Bleh.

Monday came and went. I pretty much devoted the whole day to homework and got a lot of it done. Went to dinner and sat with like 15 girls of whom I kinda knew one. Giggidy giggidy lol. :P Then Haley invited me over for pizza and the Steelers game. The game was very good and I stayed for the whole thing to see the Steelers regain the lead with 10 seconds remaining in the game. Then I walked back at 12:45, dead tired. Ah well.

Yesterday was spent working on my homework as well and going to classes. I got my Astronomy "tri-term" exam back and I fuckin got a 72% on it! I did all of the problems exactly right, but I missed 3 multiple choice questions. Who the hell makes MC worth 6 points a pop?? It's bullshit. Anyway then after my final class I rode with Haley and Andy down to the waterfront to drop off the movie we rented. On the way back Haley and I harassed the shit out of whipped Andy who was too afraid to tell Holly that he'd call her back. Sigh.

Today I think will be spent studying for my Political Science midterm, which is going to be so damned hard. There are so many topics that I have to know, and worse yet, only TEN PERCENT of what's covered in class will be on the test! The rest will be through extra readings that we were assigned (that I have yet to read one of). Bleh. So better get a jumpstart on that.

Friday the 28th I'm probably going to fly to Philly with a few of my friends to go see the 30 Seconds to Mars / Audioslave / Seether concert happening there. I really can't wait and I hope we do end up going. So, until next time kiddos!

{No Subject}

2005-10-05T15:58:00.000-04:00

Yeah, no subject. Ah well.

Anyway, things have been going pretty well I guess. I was up 'til 4:30AM last night because my roommate decided to have 3 friends come over after they were done with their nightly pot/illegal substance smoking ritual and they watched Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure with the volume at 50. I was borderline pleading with them to go elsewhere, but they were too blitzed to realize, so I got up, threw on a pair of pants and my hoodie, and headed up to the lounge, slamming the door as hard as I could on the way out. Why slam the door, you ask? Simple: RA hears it, tells them to STFU. And, as I predicted, my roommate was in bed when I got back 20 minutes later. :) I'm too smart for my own good.

Anyway, I'm tired as hell and running on pure caffeine today. Naps just aren't helping, heh. We started something new in Web Design class (*GASP*) and I am so psyched about it. I love learning new things, especially in stuff that I'm uberly interested in already. I spent all of Monday pretty much working on my webpage homework and making it so much better than it had to be. I think I'm really starting to get back into web design... and apparently there are some internships offered next semester for it. I might go into one of them and see if I can make some cash off of one of my biggest interests.

Had two mid-terms yesterday: Astronomy and French. Astronomy, despite it being hyped up as being really hard, was alright. Wouldn't say it was easy, but it was a lot less difficult than I expected. The math is just so simple in that class (especially after taking 2 years of physics), and the only challenging part is knowing the concepts-- which honestly, how hard can that be, right? :)

French was okay, too. It was an oral exam... meaning we had 30 minutes to come up with a 3 minute dialogue which we had to record. It was somewhat difficult coming up with what I wanted to say, but when it was all said and done, it was pretty easy. Thing is, I'm baffled with that class. If you walked into my class and heard my prof talk for 15 minutes, you'd say fuck it, I'm dropping. He sounds so intimidating (mostly because he uses huge french words and knows absolutely no english whatsoever), yet when we get our tests / papers back, your grades are always SO high! For example, I got a 198/200 on my first big portfolio I had to make. It was like 2 pages, and I can tell you I didn't work too hard on it. But it came back with comments all over the place praising me for doing a "bon travaille!" I mean, I'm not complaining by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm just so baffled at how the lectures can be SO hard to understand, yet the work we do is so incredibly easy.

Heh, yeah, there are so many fucking interests I have anymore, it's nuts. I'm still really interested in Political Science (can't get enough of American Politics) and French, but just recently web design has taken a large precidence of my interests. I discussed this all with my advisor who kinda looked at me funny and said I had better decide soon. ;) I don't know... I gotta wait to come up with somethings that aren't so incredibly mutually exclusive, and that don't come and go, ya know?

Ah well. Hangin with Andy and Haley tonight, which should be fun. Home tomorrow for a dentist appt. and work. So, until next time kiddos!

Yes, it's been a while. So shoot me.

2005-10-02T01:41:00.000-04:00

Heh yeah. So it's 1:41AM and I'm sittin here waiting for my retainer to be finished cleaning. Yeah, bleh. Haven't really done anything worthwhile... Thursday night I got really fucking drunk and I greatly regretted it Friday night. Bleh, then I went home Friday to get my laundry done and work 5-9. I'm assigned to work the House of the Future exhibition they have down there now which is pretty damned cool, if you ask me. If you have a chance to go down to the CSC within the week, I suggest you take a look at it.

Today I worked until 2 and then got back and Haley and I went to the shittiest Giant Eagle ever in Oakland, hoping to find an Iggle Video because fucking Blockbuster needed a credit card to sign up for a card. Oh well. So we went back to my place and watched Anchorman and killed a 40 I had lying around. Then we went hunting for pizza which was a treck because Haley didn't know his Dinex number or w/e.

Yeah then we watched SNL which is really fucking shitty anymore. Theeeeen, I played CS and now I'm writing this blog entry! Heh, yeah I'm boring.

Work tomorrow all day, and then a shit load of homework that I blew off. Until next time kiddos!

Sorry for the lack of updates

2005-09-23T20:54:00.000-04:00

Yeah I apologize. Too much stuff has been going on to be able to update as frequently as I'd like to, but I thought I could just summarize somethings that have occurred in the past 10 days or so.

Well, I'm not going to the anti-war rally. Turns out I don't support the cause enough, and it's hard for me to get off work. Emy did say she's going to be home so I still might want to go do something with her. And Halapy's home again, which is cool.

Speaking of that, when he was home last week, we went to go see Lord of War. GOOD movie. It really made you think as it didn't seem to be a "good guy vs. bad guy" movie that everyone knows and loves. It almost made you pick sides in it. Damn it was good. Then Saturday Halapy and I went to Oakland and hung out with Haley. That was fun too... killed a weekend I suppose. Sunday work-- typical.

Skip on over to Wednesday. During my 10:00 class, my phone rang. I answered it and it was my mother saying that I was selected for a room and was assigned in Tower B. That's like, amazing. So I got ahold of my roommate, who's pretty cool, and we talked a bit. Yesterday was spent packing and getting stuff and I moved in today. The move in was a little hectic, as it involved 2 trips home and carrying things on the bus, but yeah, I'm settled in now-- got my room arranged the way I want it and such.

Heh it should be fun, I suppose. Idk, here's that big transition period that I have to get used to. Alrighty all, will update later with more details.

Until next time kiddos!

... Huh.

2005-09-14T17:26:00.000-04:00

Yeah, two in one day, I know. But this kinda deserves it.

Yeah so I get this email today on my school email address from P.A.W. (Pitt Against War) saying I'm "good to go" on some Anti-War demonstration in Washington DC next Saturday. It's definitely the first I've heard of it, but heh, I might just go (though I don't see the purpose of protests like these, plus I don't agree with any immediate-drop-everything pullout of Iraq as these people want). Unfortunately it's on a Saturday when CSC is already way under-staffed.

Oh well.

Educate Yourselves

2005-09-14T14:52:00.000-04:00

Bravo Bush?

Sorry for the political post, but MSNBC, one of the more conservative news stations out there today, put this out. Definitely quite moving.

Nothing really to report on the home front. Classes are going okay. So far I have a 39/40 in French which is good considering it's hard as hell. Computer Science I'm showing up the prof... PolySci is hard, but interesting. Astronomy is my nap time.

I gotta work tonight 7-10, and write another paper. Joy. Until next time, kiddos.

Yeah bored

2005-09-11T12:21:00.000-04:00

Heh just realized what day it was:
Insert obligatory September 11th memorial post

Anyway, I know this is typically a girl thing, but yeah...

*TELL ME ABOUT YOURSELF - The Survey*
Name:	William H. Robb III
Birthday:	November 21st, 1987
Birthplace:	Pittsburgh, PA
Current Location:	Pittsburgh, PA
Eye Color:	Varies
Hair Color:	Brown
Height:	6'0"
Right Handed or Left Handed:	Right
Your Heritage:	English, Irish, German
The Shoes You Wore Today:	Um, boots to mow the lawn in
Your Weakness:	Erm..
Your Fears:	Confined areas
Your Perfect Pizza:	Peperroni
Goal You Would Like To Achieve This Year:	Make it through my first year of school with a decent QPA
Your Most Overused Phrase On an instant messenger:	-_-
Thoughts First Waking Up:	Fuck you alarm clock
Your Best Physical Feature:	Uh... my middle finger bitches!
Your Bedtime:	12:00ish anymore
Your Most Missed Memory:	Really don't have that many memorable experiences... I suppose Williamsburg with the NH Symphony Band
Pepsi or Coke:	Pepsi
MacDonalds or Burger King:	Burger King
Single or Group Dates:	Single
Lipton Ice Tea or Nestea:	Lipton
Chocolate or Vanilla:	Vanilla
Cappuccino or Coffee:	Coffee
Do you Smoke:	No
Do you Swear:	Yes
Do you Sing:	Sure
Do you Shower Daily:	Yes
Have you Been in Love:	Yes
Do you want to go to College:	Am in it bitches
Do you want to get Married:	Yes
Do you belive in yourself:	I don't think I do...
Do you get Motion Sickness:	No
Do you think you are Attractive:	No
Are you a Health Freak:	No
Do you get along with your Parents:	For the most part
Do you like Thunderstorms:	Yes
Do you play an Instrument:	2 -- Bassoon & Clarinet
In the past month have you Drank Alcohol:	Yes
In the past month have you Smoked:	Yes
In the past month have you been on Drugs:	No
In the past month have you gone on a Date:	No
In the past month have you gone to a Mall:	Yes
In the past month have you eaten a box of Oreos:	No
In the past month have you eaten Sushi:	No
In the past month have you been on Stage:	No
In the past month have you been Dumped:	No
In the past month have you gone Skinny Dipping:	No
In the past month have you Stolen Anything:	No
Ever been Drunk:	Yes
Ever been called a Tease:	You don't call guys teases I believe...
Ever been Beaten up:	No
Ever Shoplifted:	No
How do you want to Die:	In my sleep
What do you want to be when you Grow Up:	Want? I want to rule the world. Realistically? Probably something involving international travel
What country would you most like to Visit:	New Zealand
*In a Boy/Girl..*
Favourite Eye Color:	Green / Blue
Favourite Hair Color:	Blonde
Short or Long Hair:	Long
Height:	No matter
Weight:	Moderate to light
Best Clothing Style:	Normal
Number of Drugs I have taken:	0
Number of CDs I own:	I DL all my music.
Number of Piercings:	None
Number of Tattoos:	None
Number of things in my Past I Regret:	Why lament on past things?
CREATE YOUR OWN! - or - GET PAID TO TAKE SURVEYS!

Periodic Update

2005-09-06T20:23:00.000-04:00

Well things have been interesting these past few days, I have to say. Let's begin with Friday: I worked 12-5 after class. There were some people at SW, but not enough to call it busy. Around 3:30 or so, the F18 fell off its posts and came plumetting to the ground while it was in the air with people inside it. Yeah... so me and some other people literally had to roll it upright again to be able to even open the canopy. Thankfully the people were okay, but as I was in trying to get them out, the canopy jerked causing it to fall forward onto my arm. We got them all out and such and everyone kinda breathed a sigh of relief. I filled out an incident report and put an ice pack on my arm and everything was alright.

Then I was supposed to relieve my supervisor at the next exhibit and I was a little late due to me having to fill out reports of what happened. He began flipping out when I relieved him late and I wasn't in the mood for his shit so I told him to shut up. Big mistake, heh.

Saturday morning I get called in (surprise, surprise) and have to sit down and explain how since I was in a tremendous amount of pain at the time the incident occurred, I wasn't thinking clearly. For the most part, everyone understood, though they still recommended I reduce my hours to something "less stressful." Essentially they cut my hours, but at this point I don't really care.

I was so peeved that I kinda went home and ranted to my parents about all this, and then, unbeknownst to me, they sat me down and proceeded to explain how I need anger management therapy. Yeah, um, ok. Apparently they called and set up an appointment 2 weeks before this incident occurred without letting me know. I love my parents.

Then Sunday after work (Drew's last day *tear*) I went out with some friends who were back for the weekend. We went to Wendy's, then to Trader Horn to get zippos (but it was closed), and then back to one of my friend's houses where we sat and BSed with his neighbors for about a 1/2 hour. I had a really disgustingly tasting cherry dipped in rum (cherry bomb?) and then we went back to my house to shoot some pool and talk about fiscal conservativism! Yeehaw.

Then they left and I went straight to bed as I was tired. Woke up the next morning with a THROBBING headache. It was so bad that I slept for easily 80% of the day and I debated asking my parents to take me to the hospital. Finally I took 3 ibuprofin and drank 3 cups of coffee which eased it up enough that I could some of my french and astronomy homework. Then around 11:00 my dad came up and asked if I had too much to drink last night. I kinda looked at him confused. He goes "yeah, someone threw up in the toilet downstairs last night. And you had one hell of a headache today. Drink too much huh?" I was kind of speechless because he couldn't have been more wrong, but I just sat and wondered what the fuck happened last night. So I finally looked at him and explained what I did Sunday night and was like "man, if one cherry dipped in rum made me puke and not realize I did, I feel real sorry for myself." He chuckled and then walked away.

Sigh, and now my parents think I'm a deranged alcoholic with a violent temper. My appointment is this Friday, but I can refuse to go if I wish (they legally can't force me to go). I might go, though, just for the mere fact that I'm not sure what the hell is going on in my head these last few days. It seems like I'm completely sane when it comes to knowledge-based ideas, but bring in common sense and everyday situations, and I just really feel weird partaking in them for some reason-- like it's somehow not me controlling my life. Honestly if I was diagnosed with some kind of mental illness, I wouldn't be a bit surprised. Maybe they can even pin down exactly what is making me feel like this and techniques to help.

My only guess is stress. I'm just really praying that I get a place on campus so I can get away from, dare I say, one of my main stressors in my parents. Also, I got an email in regards to a part-time csc tech position opening, though they require a resume. I going to try my absolute hardest to get in on that as I hate my department with a fiery passion (yay for anger management).

Until next time kiddos!

This gettin up early sucks!

2005-09-01T22:59:00.000-04:00

Heh, but yeah, today was a pretty good day. I think the only reason why I was so down these last few days was because the weather was so shitty. I hate bad weather. (More on that specific topic later).

Yesterday was boring. Today was fun though. Political Science was hard as usual, but I kept up. I had 6.5 pages of notes this morning from the lecture, and methinks that's way too much. =\ Then I had time to blow until 1, so this kid and I went to breakfast, and then chilled in the library. I did my French homework and then I schooled him in chess. We ran back up to his dorm and chilled there for a bit and then I went to Astronomy. It is so boring. -_- I had to correct the teacher today because she really didn't know what she was talking about. She wrote what she thought the speed of light was, and I knew it wasn't like 8x10^9 m/s so I'm like, yeah, it's 3x10^8. She's all "... oh." Yeah, incompetance.

Anyway, then I came home and slept a bit, shot a little pool, and drove back to Pitt. It is so crowded and there's like no where to park at 5:30PM. Luckily some dude was pulling out right in front of Soldiers and Sailors so I parked (woo parallel) there and this bus comes zooming by me with, no lie, like a 1cm clearance from my mirror. I was so fucking scared. So then I went to French and like, the size dropped to about 1/2 what it was on Tuesday... sadly, most of the hot chicks left, heh. After class I met Haley and Andy and we went to Joe Mama's for dinner. It wasn't too good... I got the chicken alfredo or w/e and it was reeeeeeally bad, so Haley gave me some of his ravioli. Yay. Then we drove to CMU and played ping pong for like 15 minutes, and then Haley and his roommate took me down to the racketball courts and we played there for about an hour. That was fun and quite a workout. Then we played more ping pong, got in a game of DDR, and then I went home. It was an eventful day and I'm hoping I can find some kind of nice rec. center at Pitt like the one at CMU.

Anyway, about the weather. Yeah, I'm sure you've all heard about the hurricane's devastation of the Gulf Coast. I don't care who you are, do something to help them out. Send money, food, clothing, blood, water-- whatever you can spare. Hundreds, possibly even thousands are left homeless and stranded down there. New Orleans is a wasteland. Think how you would be if your home were completely destroyed and you had nothing but the clothes on your back. With that said, I'm going to try to get to the blood bank sometime tomorrow, though I doubt they'll let me donate as I just got off of anti-biotics. I'm gonna give a little to the salvation army though, I think. Keep them all in your prayers.

And please conserve on gas. It hit $3.00 here where I live and there's no reason people should be out in hummers with their AC on. Only drive if you need to. This is the perfect time of the year for biking if you're going within a mile or two, and public transportation isn't bad either. You can get to pretty much anywhere within a 50 mile radius of the city with about $2.00. That's nothing.

And, until next time!

And the second realm of classes...

2005-08-30T20:44:00.000-04:00

Well.... yeah.

Comparitive Politics is hard. Like, take what you think hard is and multiply it by 5. :( First day of lecture was spent trying to keep up with what the prof was saying because he talked so damned fast about God knows what. It was fairly interesting when he made it interactive with like "name a country that exhibits _____ " because I can do that! Other than that, it's going to be hard. Already got my first paper assignment. :(

After that, I killed 2 hours by BSing with a friend I know from work (that was coincidently in my politics class) and then went to Astronomy at 1:00. It's going to be a cake walk, I hope. Judging from my score on the "pre-test" she gave us all today (in order to see if the math/physics is too challenging for you), yeah, I think it's going to be. The only interesting that about that class is there's an optional lab that you can take for one credit. It involves going down to the Allegheny Observatory every Monday night and look / take pictures of various things in the night sky. I think I'm going to do that because that's pretty much my only interest in Astronomy. Unfortunately I gotta enroll TOMORROW to be eligible for it. :
Then I came home and slept for about an hour and then played pool with my dad. Then about 5:00 rolled around and I drove back to Pitt for my 6:00 French class. I'm one of 2 guys of the 38 people in the class, which is a great thing, but the class itself is going to be bad. Prof talked completely in French (didn't even understand very much English) and he didn't seem very approachable at all. Toward the end of class he partnered everyone up and gave us an assignment that's due on Thursday and it was to encourage partners to meet outside of class and get it done. The girl I was partnered up with was UBER cool and I thought "wow what a great opportunity to meet someone new and sharing my interest!" Well yeah, she decided to drop the class. Sooooo I'm now the odd-man-out in the group and have no idea how to complete the assignment (it was to interview your partner and present them to the class on Thursday). Blah. Guess I gotta somehow email the guy.

Got a lot of studying that I gotta do in Politics and that will be done in my free time tomorrow! I'm going to enjoy my last night of nothingness for like.. ever.

Yeah so um *bang*. Oh here's one for you: Weatherman: STFU BITCH! And Halapy, stfu right now with your God damned liberal joke. ;)

Ugh

2005-08-29T18:03:00.000-04:00

What a shitty day, huh? I hate rain. Worst thing is that it's going to be like this for the next 5 or 6 days. That BLOWS! Days like this always give me headaches and make me depressed. Ah well.

Today was the first day of classes and it was alright. I only had two. I got to Pitt this morning around 9:05, and with my first class starting at 10:00, I had a bit of time to kill. So I sat in McDonalds drinking coffee and reading the paper until about 9:45 and then I hiked it to Sennott Square for my first class: Web Design and Development. I was all prepped to learn how to enhance websites and build on my already pretty good knowledge of server side scripting and such when the professor walks in and goes "Okay, Good Morning. I want you all to login and open the internet." At that point, my jaw kind of hit the floor and I began smacking myself. Somehow "Web Design and Development" must mean "Find the Big Blue E 101." The rest of the class was spent tuning out the prof because when he showed us the syllabus, the only thing I don't know how to do too well on there is the very last chapter with cascading style sheets. Sigh. Easy credits I suppose, but I was really looking forward to this. :(

And then at 12:00 I had my Comparitive Politics Recitation which was eh. It was in the Cathedral of Learning and that place is so stuffy that you feel as though you should crawl out of your skin. The graduate student leading the discussion was from Uruguay and had the biggest French accent I've ever heard in my life. It was so hard to understand him because you could tell at certain times he was at a loss of words: "blah blah... uhhh.... umm.... blah....... uh...." Ah well, at least when I actually have the COURSE tomorrow, it'll be a little less lecturing and a little more discussion next time I meet with him.

And that was my day pretty much. Around 12:30 I caught a bus back into town and then I waited for about 1/2 hour to catch a bus home. I had such a headache too and all I wanted to do was sleep. It was raining like a mother too. Did I mention I hate rain? I felt so yucky when I got home so I just crashed and burned.

Tonight I'm going to go to Best Buy to buy new headphones since mine mysteriously decided to die last night on me. Makes me sad. Tomorrow's going to suck.

Oh, and God speed those affected by Katrina. :\

In 16 hours and 25 minutes...

2005-08-28T17:34:00.000-04:00

I will have my first college class and will totally embark on the journey that is adulthood. Heh, kinda freaky when you look over it like that. Anyway updates? There aren't really any.

Saturday I worked 8am-7pm. From 8am-10am was mandatory Safety training, where we essentially learn how to put out fires, work A.E.D.'s, break up fights, etc. if, God forbid, we ever would need to do something like that. It was a really small class, which was a surpise, because the last one I went to had over 40 people in it. This one, I can count, had 8. It was kind of nice having a small class, though it was reeeeeally awkward because Sat. was the day the director of the Science Center, Ms. Jo Haas herself, had her safety training. She is actually a really awesome person, and I definitely scored some nice brownie points by talking to her like the entire time. Heheh... what was the dude running it going to say? "HEY YOU GUYS! SHUT UP!" I mean, it was with the big boss herself! And I mean, everyone who works for the science center, no matter if you're a presenter, janitor, cook, whatever; you are under her. Heh, fun stuff.

Then Sat. night I rode with this dude I work with up to Pitt and we hung out for a few hours. There wasn't really anything going on, so I went home around 10:00 and then to sleep around 10:30.

Today I worked 10-5, which wasn't too bad actually. Was kind of funny because a really famous person was there as a visitor today. I put the dude on the roller coaster and said to myself, "hey he looks really familiar." Though I couldn't match the name to the face, ya know? So when I was on my break with 4 other people, I brought it up and EVERY ONE of them said they did the exact same thing! Luckily the name clicked into my head: Turns out it was Tommy Lee Jones; ya know, the dude who played opposite Will Smith in Men In Black? Oh yeah. He was the CSC today. So as we were closing, he walks back in (him, 2 kids, and this other guy... Tommy Lee Jones is gay, you heard it here first :P ) and literally every one of the staff just like begins staring at him. Finally when he was near the rock wall, this one chick I work with goes up and is like "Are you Tommy Lee Jones?" He kinda pauses and doesn't really say anything. Then I do my thing where I'm at, and I look back and he and this girl are just chatting it up. I ask her after work and she goes "Yep. Was him!"

So there you have it folks! The CSC isn't that bad of a place to be... *cough*

Comp Sci tomorrow at 10! Wish me luck!

Last Weekend

2005-08-26T18:33:00.000-04:00

Yup. This is the last weekend before classes start. :
Anyhow, when was the last time I updated. Wednesday, OK. Wed. night went over to Emily's and we watched an episode of Family Guy and the Daily Show before we were kicked out. Bleh, what a way to end it, huh? Well not end, but ya know.

Yesterday I did nothing. Today I went to Pitt for some required orientation things. I met with my advisor at 9 this morning and then went to a Political Theory class from 10-11. Talk about hard shit. It was to try to prep you for taking notes in college and such. It was really interesting, though I think after just an hour in it, my brain was about fried. Ah well. After that, Darby and I walked to Starbucks where we sat and BSed a little. I haven't seen her since 5th grade, and all that... heh. Fun times. Then we rode up to the 36th floor of the Cathedral of Learning for the hell of it, but we couldn't get any higher. Wrong elevator or something and neither of us had the initiative to hop on another. Then we walked to the library, which is REALLY nice. I'm going to be spending a lot of time there, methinks.

Then about 2, Haley called and asked if I could meet them (him and Andy) for lunch. I definitely obliged. So I bid farewell to Darby and met them at Subway. We sat and BSed while Andy told us horridly sick stories of Holly sleeping over his dorm one night that week. EEEEEEW. Yeah, just about kicked his ass then and there. Then we walked back to Haley's dorm at CMU, which is actually a lot further than I thought from Pitt, but it's because I didn't realize how far Pitt actually extended in that direction. Pitt is HUGE. :( So that was about a 10 minute walk. I met his roommate. Nice kid. But he's a lucky bitch because he gets a big ass dorm and a BATHROOM! Blah. Then we went down into his lounge thing and I schooled them both at pool. :)

Then, since Andy was coming home for the weekend, he asked if I wanted a ride. Since I really had no desire to ride the bus I agreed and got dropped off back where I parked my car and got home around 5:30 or so. All in all it was a pretty good day, I suppose. I just wish I could have went back to a dorm tonight rather than coming back here. The second I stepped foot in my house, my mom just began berating me and telling me how to run my life. This time it was about band, and when I CALMLY said, Mom, if I want to do something, I'll do it. Yeah, shit hit the fan then as she began accusing me of telling her off and what not. Screw this man. I don't care what's offered to me in 2 weeks, I'm taking it.

Now I get to sit here all weekend with nothing to do but work my ass off. Fuckin 14 hours tomorrow and then 7 on Sunday. It really isn't worth it anymore.

The Days Keep Ticking Down

2005-08-24T13:51:00.000-04:00

Ain't that the truth huh? I'm bored now so I'm going to update. Yesterday was just work. Uneventful. Today is also shaping up to be a boring day.

This morning I got up real early (6:15) and caught a bus into town. There I caught one to Oakland and got to Pitt around 7:15ish. From there I went to where they have the Housing stuff and filled out an application for student living. My rationale is that even if I don't get one this semester, I will be one of the absolute firsts to receive my room next semester. And since today is move-in day, that's the reason why I got up so early heh. It wasn't crowded at all, but The X was broadcasting from Towers. Yeah I went up and waved to Alan Cox. Freaky kid.

Then I caught the bus back into town and took the slow bus home (no "express" one running out of town that early in the morning). I got home around 8:30 and went back to bed until 11:30. Now I'm kinda just sitting here waiting to hear from my friends with whom I'm going to do stuff tonight (another last hurrah, heh).

I definitely envy my friends who are already in their dorms and I wish I could be there heh. Ah well.

I'm cold. The end. :)

Stuff

2005-08-22T16:21:00.000-04:00

Heh, the weekend was pretty much uneventful. Since Thursday, nothing really has happened. Friday-Sunday I worked 10-5, and after it was done yesterday, I couldn't be happier. That was my last big stretch of work until possibly next year. Now I just work tomorrow 11-7 and I will be done with weekdays. That's something I'm quite happy about.

Anyway, today I go to my old homepage (www.willsubersite.com) to find it hacked by some kind of Muslim extremist. My friend managed to catch a screen shot (Will find a host somewhere). It was kind of, erm, surprising, considering it was placed on a left-leaning blog, heh. Oh well. Something similar to that was placed over Infoceptor a little while ago. Oh well, must be doing to a lot of insecure sites. Then I got an email from 1and1 saying that my site will be taken down shortly due to warez files getting hosted... right. But I knew it'd happen eventually. After all, it was free.

On Friday, I think it was, this dude from work and I were talking about living on campus (he's going to pitt too) and it was brought up how he had a single room and how he was looking for a roommate. I figured I'd look into it, because, after all, I really would much rather live on campus. So my dad called Student Living early this morning and they said that I'd need to fill out a bunch of paper work and have him sign a bunch of paper work agreeing to move to a double room, and then I'd be able to live there. Cha-ching! That's always a good thing, I suppose. I'm just hoping I can get in touch with the guy tonight, because I DO NOT want to be up there when people start moving in. 15,000 people crammed in Oakland = NOTHX. Yeah, it always helps if the person you're talking to about this whole thing IS WILLING TO GO THROUGH IT. Ass...

Also Thursday night we had a LAN at Haley's. It was kind of spur of the moment, but despite that, we had 14 people or so! Most ever I think. It was fun-- Hot, but fun. Spent the night gaming and talking to people that I won't see for a long time (i.e. the Haley Family). I started packing up around 12:30, and Halapy and I talked outside of Haley's driveway for a good hour and a half. Just bullshitting about the future and the future of everyone we know and such. It was fun. We said our goodbyes to everyone as they drove off, wished them all luck, ya know. I'm gonna miss them all, though a large get-together like that was definitely better than not having anything when people you knew very well are all going their separate ways. But it's expected, and we'll all move on to bigger and better things. I'm just hoping that it's not the end, ya know? We still have weekends and holidays, and I'm sure we'll be keeping in touch online.

And last night was my last big hurrah with Dan. We've been damned good friends since 8th grade when he moved to Montour and since he's going to PSU Behrend, he'll be rather far away. So we partied and both got a little too intoxicated. Heh, fun times that I can't really remember. Today kind of hurts, but it was rather worth it, in my opinion.

Well we're in the home stretch of a huge transition period. Good luck everyone!

Meh

2005-08-18T20:47:00.000-04:00

Well with college fast approaching, I'm kinda starting to look forward to it. What sucks is not having friends readily available first thing, ya know? Like we were trying to get some kind of last hurrah together, but it kinda fell apart due to everyone working and the fact that 2 of my friends need to be up at school this fucking sunday. But oh well. We'll hopefully have more time to hang out and it will be valued more and what not.

Anyway I started taking the bus to work this week since I can take it free with my Pitt ID. It's not a pain by any stretch and it saves a bunch of money on gas which I'm thankful for. My only quam is the fact that I have to get up 1/2 hour earlier and I end up getting to work 1/2 hour earlier too, due to there being no bus that leaves downtown later than 9:20. But hey, I actually get home faster since the bus just hops on the HOV lane, as opposed to me sitting in traffic on the parkway during rush hour, which is not fun. Other than that, I have no beef at all. I mean, the bus that takes me downtown stops at the exact stop that the bus that takes me to the CSC picks me up. No walking or anything, and it surprises me how efficient the Port Authority is. For all those knocking it, try riding a few busses.

Other than that, nothing really interesting going on. I'm in the middle of an 8 day straight work week. I work every day til next Wednesday, all day each day. But meh, it'll get me some money, which is always a plus. On that issue, I discovered last night that with the big things I want to plan for over the school year / next summer, I will probably need to find another job. I figured I take home about $195 every pay when I work solely weekends, which is okay, but when all of it sans a few goes toward college stuff, it amounts to a not-so-flexible spending budget. So I was discussing with my parents some other stuff that I could do. Freelance computer technician came to mind. With my mom being a secretary, she meets and gets to know quite a few people, and could probably put a word out for comp help or what not. Since most of tech support on computers is pretty much running ad-aware-type programs, it shouldn't be that hard I don't think. It's stuff that I have to work out the logistics of, but it shouldn't be too bad of a thing to do I don't think.

But my parents did say they'd have no problem signing a loan to help me study abroad. I'm really thinking of doing something that would get me travelling the world, especially in a government-type position. Ambassador, translator, etc. I might really push myself through French in college to see if that would help any opportunities open for me. Other than that little inkling, I still have yet to know what I really want to do with my life. Bad thing? I think not.

So how 'bout them gas prices? Sheesh... ah well. That will be a discussion saved for another day.

À la prochaine, mes amis...

And, a kick in the balls.

2005-08-11T22:19:00.000-04:00

My Aunt's car broke down 2 miles from her house. She's not coming. We're not going to New York. Fuck the world.

An Update... Finally.

2005-08-10T19:38:00.000-04:00

Yeah haven't had very much time to update as of late as I've been working my ass off. Before yesterday, I worked 7 days straight, with no less than 7 hours on each day. Last Tuesday I had 12 and Saturday I had 13.5. Those are INSANE hours to work and I'm an idiot for choosing to work them, however I did manage to get overtime that week. It's small, but $10.62 per hour for 3.75 hours is a nice addition to my paycheck.

Anyway I got home at around 3:00 today from Cedar Point. I had a blast. Lines were horrendous, but we rode every roller coaster in the park (sans one which was broke). My personal favorite was the Millenium Force, however the new Top Thrill Dragster, came in a very close 2nd. With the Dragster, it was definitely one of the most interesting experiences I have ever felt in my life. 0-120MPH in one second and then spiralling up 420ft. just to spiral straight back down again at ~120MPH is just so awesome. We were so enthralled by it that we spent the next 5 minutes just shaking from the adrenaline.

Anyway, then we spent the night at a kinda crappy hotel. It was alright. Only one bed, which I managed to get. No 'beverages', unfortunately, as my contacts didn't come through. Oh well. I definitely loved the freedom though, and it made me wonder why I didn't go on trips with my friends any other time.

College starts in a little over two weeks, and I don't think I'm quite ready yet. Wanna try and get at least one more thing in with my friends before we go.

Ah well. My aunt's coming in tomorrow night and then we're heading to New York early Friday morning. Hopefully this weekend should be wonderful as NYC is supposed to rock hard.

Until next time compadres!

Backz0r

2005-07-31T20:29:00.000-04:00

Yeah I got in yesterday around 4:30PM. Not bad for leaving Raleigh at 9:00AM. Heh, my dad was flying. Anyway, vacation was alright. It was relaxing, but that's about it for the good things. My family and I were all together inside a condo for a week, and really it wasn't good. They insisted on the typical protectiveness that they always do when I'm with them. I swear, when are they going to let me go do things by myself WITHOUT bitching me out about them first? "Mom, nothing personal, but I WANT TO GET AWAY FROM YOU!" Jeeeeez...

Anyway, yeah my parents were pretty much at my throat the whole time, but you can't say it wasn't expected. I mean, I went to the beach with my parents the summer after I graduated from high school. WTF? Blah whatever.

So we get back to Raleigh where friends of the family live on Friday night and I check my work email, and there's a message from my boss saying that I should be at work (Monday) and that I was scheduled for Mon, Tues, and Fri of that week. It was the big schpeel about how I was scheduled and didn't call off and I'll get disciplinary action for it and what not. I'm like wtf? I requested off for those 10 days way back in June and I find out today that they misread the paper. Gonna smack them, I swear.

Well I spent tonight mapping out bus schedules to and from Oakland as that may be my only mode of transportation down there some days. Joy. Tomorrow I resume the slave labor: Mon 12-5, Tues 11-10, Wed 5-8, Fri 10-5, Sat 10-10, Sun 10-5. Wish me some fricking luck.

Oh and I got an email from my Aunt who lives in Cincinatti today. She apparently wants to take me to NYC the weekend of the 12th. That's gonna make my bosses real happy... I'm already taking off the 9th and the 10th for my trip to Sandusky (which will rock hard ass) in addition to having made my boss pissy with the NC trip. Ah well, they'll have to suck it up. I'm just hoping to God I can get coverage for those days on such short notice. 10-7 is a hard shift to give away, heh...

Typical Updates and Upcoming Abscence

2005-07-20T19:37:00.000-04:00

There's nothing to really update I suppose. I've worked every day since last Friday all day, every day. It really wasn't pretty, but I managed to get through it.

As I said nothing really to update. Yesterday Bush announced his nominee for the United States Supreme Court: The Honorable John Roberts. He's a conservative, albeit more moderate than his other picks. He shouldn't be too bad of a guy, I don't think, for what Bush could have picked. The only problem I see with it is his strictly pro-life viewpoint. I don't see him going and making the US a theocracy, which I guess is a step in the plus direction (or I should say NOT a step in the negative direction). We'll have to see how it plays out, as both Democrats and Republicans are rather in agreement with this guy as of now.

Let's see, more personal. I'm leaving for the beach early Friday morning and not getting back until Sun. July 31st. It should be a good time, as I need the relaxation, even if it is with my family. Then, it's 99% finalized, two friends and I are heading up to Sandusky, OH on Aug 9th. What's in Sandusky, you ask? Why, Cedar Point is! Heh, yeah but that should be awesome. What could be better than spending quality time with your best friends before you leave for college? Nothing I don't think. I'm hoping that goes off without a hitch, as I'm going to be needing all the stress relief I can get with college JUST on the horizon.

Speaking of which, Aug 24th begins the orientation process. First day of classes is the 29th. :\ It's hard to believe that in a LITTLE OVER A MONTH, I will be in college. Ah well, I'm hoping to God I can survive (both mentally and socially, heh). Meh, I'm excited and worried.

Oh well. Oh and I got a 4 on the AP Euro test! :D I'm happy as it was pretty tough. That's an easy 4 credits right there.

Anyway, I will probably not be posting until I get back in 2 weeks. So until then, mes amis!

Edit: So it looks like gay marriage may, afterall, become a possibility during Bush's term.

Facebook is Godly

2005-07-14T14:55:00.000-04:00

Sign up if you haven't done so already. It is the GOD-SEND for all sane college / college-bound people. It's nuts who you can meet on there. Hell, a random search yielded a girl I haven't seen / talked to in EIGHT YEARS! As in, from my old old elementary school. And it rocks so hard.

Anyway, nothing really new I suppose. I wish I could bring myself to get into this Karl Rove scandal, but he's a little twat so I don't bother. I'm sure it's bad on the administration, but I really just don't care enough.

Let's see. Tuesday I found out that my supervisor is like the best person in the world. She sat me down and we worked all the problems (there was a major investigation going on against me) out together, off the record, and it was wonderful because before that, I saw her as a complete, strict authority figure and found out that she's probably the nicest person I've ever met at work; mostly because she took time out of HER day to make me feel better. Ah I love people.

I'm kinda pissed off that I can't see Anna before she leaves for Oregon. That makes me real sad. Just the distance factor we have working against us NOW makes it nearly impossible to do anything. Oh well, I'll still have a pen pal that we can write kinky, badly written french to each other. That shall be fun.

Tomorrow I work all day and then Saturday I start work at 7AM and end at 7PM. That should be a fucking TREAT! Sunday is all day again too. I'm not sure about my schedule for next week because Thursday will be my last day here before leaving for NC for 10 days. Part of me is ecstatic about it, yet the other part of me wants freedom from my parents. It makes me sad that I'm probably not going to be able to go on a sr. trip with my friends this year. We were tossing around the idea of Cedar Point, but as far as I know, it was just an idea.

Ah well.

Fear mongering?

2005-07-11T18:13:00.000-04:00

Before reading this post, read this. Essentially, there's very credible evidence that Al Qaida has nuclear weapons inside the United States and ready to strike major cities at a moment's notice. Granted, it's from one source and can't exactly be considered fact or anything in that regard, but it's very probable.

The only blame I'm placing here on the administration is indeed their lack of wanting to seal the Mexico-US border. They've cracked down a bit, but it's very possible and very likely that enemies could sneak across bombs and other WMD-type devices undetected. We're said to be fighting terrorists abroad, but what's the use if terrorists are able to simply walk into the country? And, okay maybe not the only blame, but maybe they should start looking for bin Laden again, don't ya think? ;)

Anyhow, on the politics forum I frequent, there are a bunch of hypothetical threads about this. "What would happen as a result of a terrorist network detonating nukes in the US?" Just judging from 9/11, where a thousand or so were killed, patriotsm soared. Bush was at near 100% approval rating, everyone was looking for retaliation, etc. etc. If an entire city or cities are destroyed with the projected "4 million dead", I truly and honestly believe that a large majority of US citizens will immediately give up all freedom to the state while Bush (or whoever the president is as the time) is granted emergency dictatorial power. Since a terrorist organization rather than a sovereign country was responsible for this, we'd most likely wage full scale war against Iran, Pakistan, and Syria. The Middle East, with the exception of the Saudi Kingdom, would be levelled. On the home front, our economy would collapse, the world market would collapse, arrests would be made at whim, and most of all, Muslims would be persecuted and most likely executed without a care. Utter chaos would insue with another approximately 1 million dying as a result of our own government's will to stay in power.

In the following months, civil arrests will lessen, the economy would begin to stimulate again, and the US would resume its place in the world, albeit significantly looked down upon based upon recent attrocities to its own civilians. The newly formed European State will take charge as the forerunner of world politics, while the US remains almost wholly in isolation. The US will not, however, succomb to changing its domestic policy as the position of president will remain the sole absolute leader of the country. The US will then continue growing and spreading its influence and domestic policy among other countries until its empire encompasses that of 1/4 of the entire world. The colonies made will eventually rebel leading to more and more of a tightening grip by the centralized federal government until finally, 250 or so years after the empire reached its apex, it will crumble from the inside.

A lot of that was taken and combined from previous imperial histories, though quite honestly, I will not be surprised if that is the path the US will eventaully take. Every civilization will collapse. All it takes is a chain of events and some costly mistakes. It's really funny what stuff you can learn from history.

{Insert Subject Here}

2005-07-09T19:51:00.000-04:00

Well it's been an interesting however many days. Wednesday me, mike (x2), and greg went to Kennywood for the day. We all had a blast, but figured it gets old and lame after so many years upon years of going, heh. But that's okay. Around 8:30 we went to Haley's house and watched Airplane. Funny movie. :)

Thursday I did a whole lot of nothing. Friday we went out and got a bunch of DVDs for our trip to NC and I managed to figure out a way to stream video from one computer to another (useful for linking 2 laptops in the car on the way down, one without a dvd player :) ). And then Haley had his party at 5. I had a great time. We all sat around and BS-ed for about 4 hours while Haley and a few daring participants played in the pool. It was too cold.. :\ Anyway, then we started to watch the South Park movie. That's some funny shit. And then I had to go home at 11 because, yes, rub it in more, I'm not 18 yet. Stupid curfew.

Then I got home and talked to Emily for a little while. Then Jess invited me to her party today after I said hi to her online. So today I went to work, which was a BUGGER because it was 10-7 and we were so short today it wasn't even funny. And, of course, today decides to be one of the most crowded days ever in that place. So I worked my ass off for 9 hours straight with a crappy break that was split up between two half-hours (because we couldn't afford to keep people off the floor for more than 1/2 hour at a time). Then on my way home I stopped at Jess' party, said hi to a few people, then, since she was opening presents and stuff (and I felt awkward there) and I didn't tell my parents I'd be stopping over after work, I went home. It was nice to see her and her family again as I miss them all very much.

Well tomorrow begins a hard week. Working 7 hours tomorrow, OFF MONDAY (rox), Tuesday 7, Wed 7, OFF THURS (rox x2), Fri 6, Sat 9. Yeeeeah...

Later kiddos.

Yeah, another daily update

2005-07-05T18:34:00.000-04:00

Meh, I'm bored so why not blog, eh? Let's make it political because I have a lot of stuff that I want to try to organize.

I'll start off with the Supreme Court Eminant Domain Ruling (New London v. United States). This I have mixed feelings about. It's clearly a case that, without delving deeper into it, on the surface looks like the government is able to seize any land at any time for any reason they see fit. Now, very loosely, that is correct. However, before this ruling, local governments were still able to seize any property they wished at any time. Any private property, before you own it, must go through some kind of governmental process before it is approved. A deed, for example, is simply a contract between you and a local government. If we didn't have this (extreme example coming..) you could literally say that your house or your property was henceforth not recognized by the government and therefore secede from the United States. There needs to be some kind of order and this case merely reinforced this principle. Before you sit there and think communism, look at the fact of the matter: This law existed way before this S.C. decision was made and no one had any trouble with it. On the flip side of the coin, however, this decision did allow governments to seize property and turn around and sell it to private enterprises. THIS was the part I didn't like. Now granted, this was also in place, but the ruling still stood as constitutional.

Well while we're on the topic of Supreme Court, let's talk about the Retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor. She was a moderate conservative who was appointed by Ronald Reagan and was often the swing vote in large cases involving women's rights, namely abortion. With O'Connor now out, Bush is free to select anyone to replace her. Of course, he's going to want to pick someone who supports his own policies, and thusly it'll most likely be a hugely conservative Christian. A lot of pro-choice supporters find this to be a large slam as Roe v. Wade will most likely be brought back up again. Though, surprisingly, a recent poll showed that overturning Roe had a very small following in the court, with 6-3 in favor of keeping it. With O'Connor gone, though, it could dwindle down to a 5-4 in keeping it the way it is, though we all know Rhenquist is about to go as well. Still, many cases revisted in the Supreme Court often maintain their rulings as very rarely do they want to challenge laws already in place. Even if Roe is revisited, I don't think we have very much to worry about in regards to it being overturned. HOWEVER, with at least two new C.C.'s on the court, we can be sure to see a lot of church influence in the coming generation. I will not hesitate to speak my voice if something drastic happens due to a conservative controlled presidency, congress, and supreme court. (There were rumors of abolishing the two-term limit of the presidency, and such). Though we all have to remember, the Supreme Court is a "neutral" party and it has the sole responsibility of interpreting the Constitution. It does not make laws and has no power whatsoever, without a case in front of it, to change the way the government operates. There was an article I read about how the court changes you. If you're a justice on it, regardless of your affiliation going in, the influence of the people and the institution itself oftentimes change your mindset. You're there to be a neutral, mediating party and nothing more. That mindset changes you.

Lastly I'd like to talk about the mainstream media. Anymore who can you trust? I recently read a very large post in regards to how the U.S. media is anymore and it astounded me. On one hand you have CNN and its "let's bombard you with way more celebrity gossip than anyone can ever care about." On the other you have Fox News where partisan idiots demand biased coverage that make them feel smart. But you know what? They're not going to change because they're getting exactly what they want: Ratings and money. That's all media outlets are out for nowadays. Why do you think they've been covering this damned Natalie Holoway story for THREE WEEKS NOW? Okay, she's dead. Get over it. But ya know, every newscast now has at least one 10 minute segment on her life and her family and how Aruba is safe and blah blah, go SHOVE IT! There are kidnappings every day and you don't see them reported on the news. You just see a smart, young, beautiful, (rich) girl being plastered on our TV's everywhere! It makes me sick. When people are dying in Iraq (or, I'm sorry, "making progress") and large government decisions are being made, we have this kind of shit.

But I blame people. People don't want in-depth, complex stories, because it makes them feel dumb. A survey was made a while back and it was something like 79% of Americans could not find the country Iraq on a map and the same amount did not know where the "Middle East" was refering to. That disgusts me. How can you be so ignorant and unknowledgable in the face of a war that we're currently fighting? 9/11 occurred, people became suddenly patriotic (rightfully so, I suppose), they streamed to Bush for his guidance and realized that we're at war with terrorists. 1/2 of them could probably not DEFINE terrorists except by saying "Arab" and "Islam." "We're in Iraq fighting terrorists" is enough for most people. But hey, they're sure up on the latest happenings! We all know what Scientology is thanks to Tom Cruise. We all know that there is such a place as Aruba, thanks to Natalie Holoway. And we all know that there really is a legal system in the United States thanks to Michael Jackson. Sigh.

But meh, I guess it explains why Bush's ratings are falling. It's typical, really. People are just flat-out losing attention. Why care about that when "I wanna be a Hilton" is just picking up? Obviously we, as Americans, are very good at prioritizing. Just tonight, with these huge rainstorms passing through. Every local news channel from 4 til 7 were covering BREAKING NEWS of these storms! It's RAIN! But ya know, the world has to stop, and we all have to be told not to drive fast or through water. Though, obviously more people watch this during these "BREAKING NEWS" times than anything else. More people watching = more money. That's what it is, anymore. That's what it is.

Apparently in Europe there are a variety of news channels to pick from. BBC, CNN International, Al Jazeera, and probably local channels as well. They broadcast news. They broadcast what happens in the WORLD. You can argue all you want about the liberal bias or the conservative bias or whateverthefuck bias; American news blows. Once people stop being so incredibly dumb, we'll begin to see the demise of CNN as a tabloid show and of Fox News as the $2 slut of the GOP.

And I know no one reads this, but if someone does, try the US Citizenship Test. It won't prove my point, because people that read blogs are at least semi-competent [ :) ], but know that most US Citizens FAIL this test.

"Happy" 4th of July

2005-07-04T21:44:00.000-04:00

Wouldn't call it happy, by any means. Fourth of July, this one in particular, brings back happy, yet ultimately sad memories from last year. I won't go into it, just the fact that I wish it was last year. Meh whatever.

I worked today and people don't truly respect the meaning of holidays. It's not "line up at the door at the science center at 10:00 AM." Fuck people I swear. Everyone acts like they're fricking entitled to something. Screw it all.

No fireworks or anything for me this year, even though they definitely could've cheered me up, heh. Ah well. I'll just lull in my life of SportsWorks, AIM, and WWE Wrestling.

Yeah, and RIP Mrs. Fisher. :\ That was definitely a huge shocker to find that out tonight...

Sorry, it's been a while.

2005-07-03T17:45:00.000-04:00

Mm it has. Sorry for not updating. There are a bunch of personal things happening that I felt really no need to be ranting about.

Anyway, last week was eh. I worked Monday and Wednesday which stunk because those are the days groups come in massive droves. But meh, it's alright. I think I've finally got past the whole caring mind-set which is good. Yesterday we had 6 people running the building the last 4 hours of the day and there are 9 staffed exhibits. Put 2 and 2 together my friend. :) Today was OK. 10-5 is long when you're constantly working, but the day kinda flew by today. I don't know why, honestly. There's just so much fricking political strife going on between departments anymore and, as before, people are just out to screw over as many people as possible. Oh well, don't care.

Let's see, last Sunday Anna, who I met once prior when she was with Lani, came down to the CSC toward the end of the day and she said we should do something. I was cool with it. Nothing better to do. So we go up to Eat n' Park and then we saw Batman Begins again (not as good the 2nd time). By that time it was like 9:00 so I drove her home... but she lives in Mt. Lebanon so it was kinda far. My parents were rather flipping when I got home as I didn't call and tell them I'd be late and such. It sucks, but oh well.

Then Tuesday (Wed.? Yeah I think it was) I was a bitch to Mike and Em. I apologize. The whole thing was over them wanting to go see a movie and me wanting to do something, just not up for spending money on a movie. Idk, I'm not sorry for wanting to save my money for another day, but I am sorry for being an asshole about it. Heh, if you guys read this.

Wednesday (I don't know dates) went over to Dan's. Thursday (Let's just call it "Thursday") Anna called again and we went to go see War of the Worlds. GO SEE IT. It's real good. Tom Cruise is a pansy which is uber, because Tom Cruise ruins movies as a hero. And the date was good... free, which is always good (got free tickets for a theater in Bridgeville. But she lives out there so that's good). She left today for Oregon or whatever and will be gone 'til the end of summer so that makes me sad. :( She's a cool gal.

Um, Friday I don't know. Nothing I don't think. OH, yeah I had a surprise root canal done on Monday. I say surprise because I went to the Dentist for a checkup thing Monday morning, they're like "come back after work and we'll get that [cavity] taken care of." So I go back and they're all "hmm, that's deeper than we thought." ROOT CANAL! Yeah, it wasn't pretty. I was pissed... and in pain. But the pain died by Tuesday which was great.

Anyway, in all hopes that the Mikes and Em decide they still want me part of their group, I got Wednesday off this week and they're planning on doing Kennywood. I <3 Kennywood.. especially with uber people.

Work tomorrow kiddies. All day and probably even the night as the CSC is open before, during, and after the fireworks. Happy 4th of July ya'll, even though I kind of give up on the sanctity (look it up) of America.

Edit: Ahh, I just wanted to tell you all about my fantastic server that I set up without a HITCH. So Monday on my way to the Dentist in the morning, I'm driving up a street by my house and an old Compaq PC is sitting in the trash. I figure, meh, worst that could happen is it couldn't work. So I pick it up. When I get home, I boot it up, it boots fine... but it's spyware infested like mad. So with a quick format + installation of Windows 2000, it's as good as new.

I figured I could use it for at the very least a ventrilo server (since we use ventrilo when we play Guild Wars :) ). Well I set up ventrilo, people can connect to it without a hitch. So I set up Counter-Strike Source server; again, without a hitch. I figure why stop there? So right now on this server that is sitting in the spare bedroom (with NOTHING connected to it but a power cable and a network cable) is a Ventrilo server, CS:S server, HTTP server, FTP server, and a SHOUTcast server! And I can change settings at any time with a nifty program called VNC which let's me, essentailly, operate it as if it were on my desk with my mouse / keyboard and everything. Call me a dork, but can you say you have an Internet "Radio Station" broadcasting your MP3's constantly from your computer for ANYONE in the world to listen to? I think not. :)

Yeah...

2005-06-24T14:39:00.000-04:00

Yeah the phone call didn't take place. Yesterday sucked. Dan invited me over to his house at like 9:00 last night, which is kinda late for driving to his house, but at that point I didn't care. So I went and called my parents from there and told them where I was, but as I said, I didn't care.

We went out and rented a movie and did something malicious to an ex-gf of his, got back to his house around midnight, got bitched at by his parents, stayed up late playing pool and watching Old School, went to bed around 3:00.

Woke up this morning around 12:00, helped them set things up for his grad party, left around 1:00, got stuck in traffic coming into the city, got home around 1:45 and now I'm talking to people I'd rather not be talking to. I would go out and just drive around by myself, but it's hot as a mofo and I have like no gas. So I'm sitting here online listening to shitty music and finding out various things that are occurring today and I'm unable to go to.

Not to mention our government blows chunks.

Finally a day off

2005-06-23T11:56:00.000-04:00

After 11 consecutive working days, I finally get a day off. Yeah, yesterday my boss called me at 9:00 AM and is all "WE NEED YOU TO COME IN AND WORK 12-9!!!111" Mmmm hmmmm, so I did. This paycheck will be really nice, though it's split between two. :\

Anywho, this day will either rock so hard or suck so badly. It's a toss-up and it all depends on one phone call that will either take place, or will not take place. *crosses fingers*

What? An update? BUT IT'S ONLY TWO DAYS SINCE THE LAST ONE!!

2005-06-21T18:17:00.000-04:00

Har har, tricked you all. Yes, a two day update.

Yesterday was alright. I worked 10-3, but I got a pretty bad migraine around 2:00, so my last hour was hell and half. Not to mention afterward, rush hour was just starting and it took about 35 mins to get home.

Anyway, today was pretty good. I worked in the Main Building for a change and I loved it, for the most part. It's a lot of standing around and pretending you're doing something, but when you have awesome people that you work with standing around pretending to do something WITH YOU, it becomes like the best thing in the world. The candy exhibit is so easy to work as basically all you need to do is pick up papers on the ground and enforce the "one warhead per person" policy at the little warhead-fisher thingy (essentially you "fish" for a warhead, which oftentimes takes kids forever to do, and you're supposed to put it in your mouth and a camera takes a pic of you with your mouth really sour) which no one, naturally, does. Everyone's all "OOO FREE CANDY" and fishes out like 17 before they leave. But meh, not my candy, but when people are in line behind them I gotta layeth the smacketh down. Then this girl Bridgette came in at 1 and I've seen her before around (she's a volunteer of, what, 1.5 years?) but never worked with her. Yeah, the last few hours of the day never went faster, heh. Awesome gal, though it sucks because, again, I won't see her like ever again. Pisses me off. :(

Ah well, tonight I get to go over Mike's as we're going to watch some really cheesy Star Wars Christmas Special that came out about a year after Ep. 4 came out and it, supposidly, flopped like MAD. So that should be an entertaining, mind-numbing end to one hell of a day.

Been a while

2005-06-19T22:32:00.000-04:00

Heh, yeah sorry for not updating in like forever and a day. I've been rather busy as of late and that mixed with not feeling any urge to update this has, well, not driven me to do this. :P

Anyway, right after the last post... no I mean like, right after I hit the Publish Post button, my parents called me down, opened up the front door and yeah, car. Car car car. Car in the driveway. Car. Mine. Car car. Yeah, so my parents bought me a car. :D It's not the nicest, sportiest little thing ever, but it gets me from point A to point B WHENEVER I WANT. This whole graduation thing rules. I'm thinking about doing it again.

And lots of money from people at the party. LOTS. $1500+ is a great number. I'm a wee bit happy about that too. Oh yeah, and if you were part of that $1500+, you'll be getting your thank you soon. Just finished all 39 of them... 20 tonight. :P

Tuesday and Wednesday I worked. They were okay. If I remember Tuesday blew because it was crowded as hell but Wednesday rocked because awesome people work Wednesday and there wasn't much of a crowd. Thursday there was a work meeting where a bunch of my big bosses went up and acted like they knew everyone in the crowd personally, even calling on me but not knowing my name because I conveniently turned my badge backward so I was "yes, you in the back." But oh well, we love our superiors! Almost as much as the staff members!

Anyway Friday was eh. I went to Pitt for "Pitt Start" where basically we pick our classes and get acquainted with the campus a bit. It was alright. I didn't know anyone from the beginning but after a little group session with a bunch of the advisors we were given a time when our individual meetings were to begin and then let loose. My meeting was at 1:30 and we were let out at 10:00 AM. So I kinda wandered around. Pitt's a nice place... it's really big. A lot bigger than I thought it was, actually. Then I met up with Meghan Gloff and Katie Connor and we got Starbucks and then went to Panera for lunch. Pitt gave us each $6 on our Pitt ID's that we could use toward meals and such, so I used that and bought some kind of REALLY GOOD chicken noodle soup. It was awesome and I would never had bought it if I hadn't have been given the money. Later on this girl that apparently Katie knew from somewhere (wasn't paying attention) came and ate lunch with us. She was from Johnstown, couldn't tell you her name, but she was pretty cool. We were in the same school (Arts and Science) while Meg and Katie were in Business, so when Kat and Meg went to their meetings which were earlier than ours, we walked around a bit and chatted. Wish I would have gotten her number or something, but, then again, she lives in Johnstown. Ah well.

Anyway the meeting went eh. I picked out some REALLY AWESOME classes that I wanted to be in, like a class which was literally called "Debate on American Foreign Policy" and I was like WHOLLY SH!T. Yet, apparently many other people had that same reaction, as that class was totally booked. As was all of the other Political Science classes I wanted to take. Yet alas, I got in "Comparitive Political Ideologies" or something like that, which should be pretty interesting. Time to act my part and be the uber socio-communist I am.

Let's see, I got a Comp Sci course in web design and database management using SQL and PHP. That class should rock.. if I get in it. Apparently Lieberman forgot to send my CHS credits for Comp Sci last year in... because Pitt never recieved them and as such, I don't fulfil the requirements for that course (the Java course I took last year in high school) and then cannot take it. I will be doubly pissed if they don't get sent in though, as not only did I lose out on 4 credits, but the chance to take an UBER class. Ah well, NH should be able to do something about it.

Also I took a Freshman Studies course, which was suggested for all freshmen to take. Should be fun as it's like all about going out to dinner and field trips and stuff. :D

Um, oh French. Yeah so I placed the highest I could on the French placement exam which means I could even skip out of it entirely if I wanted to, yet I didn't really want to. I took the level 3 french this year (out of 4 possible) which should be rather easy, I hope. I'm just looking for enough french to keep me semi-fluent as I'm planning on going abroad next year. It should be a good class, though the catch is, it's at 6:00 PM ON TUES AND THURS! Hmm that's going to suck majorly. But oh well.

And I took Astronomy. Should be so incredibly blow off, I love it. I took it in 10th grade and managed to pull off a 99%, and that was with no physics knowledge at all. Now, after 2 years of physics, one extremely rigorous, I should have NO PROBLEM solving any problem. Plus it fulfills my natural science requirement to graduate! Yay.

And that's it! 13 credits 1st semester of freshman year. All electives. Class everyday but 2 on Mon, Wed; 3 on Tues, Thur; and ONE on Friday. Should be wonderful. I can't wait.

Yeah, that was the extent of my week. Yesterday I worked and it was a lot better than today. Nothing like getting left stranded alone at a 2 person exhibit because someone wanted to go talk to one of their friends. Yeah it happened twice to me today. "Oh no, just go ahead, I don't mind." Fucking ignorant bitches.

Work Monday and then I'm on exhibits Tuesday! Hopefully, then, Friday Kennywood. Can't wait. Have a good one, all.

Well it's official!

2005-06-11T16:50:00.000-04:00

Yep, last night the Superintendant of the North Hills School District proclaimed me graduated! Woot, I'm so happy that I'm done with it. My parents are clearly treating me different too and it's really weird. Last night I had NO curfew. They're just like "be responsible" and after handing me my new cell phone (:D), they let me go without a hitch. Wow, freedom.

Anyway tomorrow's my graduation party and we're having so many people come that I haven't seen in so long. But it's so culturally "diverse", we were joking. We're having not one, but two homosexual couples come, an African-American family, a Chinese family, and a whole lot of Conservative Christians. :) Oh it'll be fun to see my relatives (Con Christians) react to our party. Especially after sitting at the dinner table numerous times with them while they bash gays and blacks and people that are "under" them. Blah, it's my party and how dare they not get along. :)

Heh, I'm so giddy. My aunt and uncle from Ohio are coming up today, actually in about 5 minutes, so I should probably cut this short. But I love 'em to death, even though I haven't seen them in ages. Yeah good times.

But yeah, last night was kind of sad in some aspects. Despite all the bullshit people said, a lot of it sunk in. There's no more hand-holding and babying. This is it, folks. This is the damned real world. And despite all my quams about high school, I really enjoyed 95% of it. Thanks to all of you for the great memories and the friendships that made it worth it. You guys are all truly one in a million.

*raises glass* To a great life!

Na na na na... na na na na... hey hey hey... GOOD BYE!

2005-06-08T16:29:00.000-04:00

Yep! Today was the last day of school and I can't believe it. I'm finally free of the hell hole known as North Hills High School. There went the first 1/3 of my life. It's really scary when you put it into that perspective. Ah, it still hasn't entirely sunk in yet.

Anyway, heading over to Haley's tonight to celebrate kinda. Should be fun. Then tomorrow and Friday are both graduation practices with Friday evening (or Saturday pending rain) being my actual graduation. Then Sunday is my party (which whoever knows me is allowed to come... I really didn't invite anyone, per se). Monday back to the hell hole to return cap/gown and get diploma and that's it! Then I kick back and relax until they put me on the work schedule again. Oh I'm hoping to God this summer kicks ass.

Hmm, I promised myself I wouldn't do this...

2005-06-07T17:49:00.000-04:00

But I'm doing it anyway. I came across this post on forums that I frequent... it's a really good post dealing with the status in Iraq.

A Simple Analogy
... [T]hose brutally slaughtered people include (who many seem to forget), the thousands of Iraqi soldiers that were defending their homeland from who most Iraqi people consider to be an evil invader. They were NOT in the wrong to take up arms against us, regardless of Hussein being their leader.

Hey I could not despise the evil piece of crap infesting the White House, George horrific piece of scum Bush, any more. He is the most significant danger and threat to me, my family, my community, my nation, my freedom, my liberty, my safety, my environment, and my planet. Easily one of the worst threats in the history of the nation. I will be the FIRST to throw a massive party the minute he is impeached, imprisoned, executed, or assasinated. If he ever crosses my path, I will not hesitate to bury my fist DEEP into his face for the extrodinarily evil attrocities he has committed.

HOWEVER, should some foreign nation (say China) decide that they fully agree that Bush is a horror and danger, and chooses to premptively invade our nation (for their own safety and to "SAVE" me and the rest of America from the terror of George W. Bush), killing my friends, my family, my country men, our soldiers who are defending our sovereignty and president (as disgusting as he may be), I would ALSO be one of the first to take up arms to kill as many of those invaders and push them out of our country.

So, as tragic as it is that Iraqi insurgents are killing MY fellow country men and women because of Bush's evil folly, they are not in the wrong. WE are invading their nation, against the will of the people in that nation. They HATE us. They love their family, friends, and countrymen, who may be part of the insurgency. No legitimate government there will be friendly to the United States. We have just slaughtered, without cause or provocation, TENS of thousands of their mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, sons, daughters, aunts, uncles, grandmothers, grandfathers, grandchildren, and numerous other family, friends, loved ones, and countrymen. They have every reason to despise our nation.

Sadly the ignorance of people like yourself, believed the propganda that "my WE our so loved around the world, everyone understands that WE are the most moral, ethical, wonderful, always right, beautiful nation EVER, that those Iraqi's just can't WAIT for us to invade their nation to get rid of Hussein (who we created), so that they can greet us with flowers, chocolates, kisses, and hugs." (link)

I honestly never really looked at it that way. I'm strictly opposed to the war, both in the beginning and now. I can't honestly think of one good thing that came about as a result of it, and seeing people die left and right from the insurgency was just making these feelings worse. So, yes, I fell into the web of hating this insurgency... this, "terror threat to our troops" if you will. I wished the insurgency would stop either by force or by their own will because death is never good, especially in what I deem a pointless war.

But now, looking at it in another light, this "terror regieme" merely consists of people like you and I, fighting for their sovereignty, their way of life, their pride and tradition, faith and customs. Would you deem them terrorists? If you even dare to, you then must believe the United States is then 10 times the terrorists they are, for fighting to destroy all the unity and sovereignty of this nation that posed "no immediate threat to the United States (Colin Powell)."

Well, I'll leave you to ponder, or to just be ignorant about it. It's really gone on far too long to have any other position.

Hot and Humid

2005-06-06T17:55:00.000-04:00

My God, was it hot today. There's nothing like sitting in school with it muggy as hell outside and no real air circulation, and NO AIR CONDITIONING. Man it just made my day drag and drag and drag some more.

Anyway, I got all of my finals done except my essay in French. But it's a partner activity so that's always good. The Calc test I took today blew just because of the temperature. My brain like shut down half way through as I was drenched in sweat. But meh, 2 more days left... I don't care...

Tonight I plan on doing nothing. Gonna sit at my computer, maybe play Guild Wars a little bit and then go to bed early. My jaw is killing me today. My orthodontist is having me wear rubber bands again, though these ones are much stronger than the previous ones. And like, I can feel my jaw like ripping and tearing if feels like, I swear. When I take them out and open my jaw up, it literally pops out of place (or so it feels) and then closing it pops it back in, each time sending searing pain throughout my face. So dinner tonight was a bitch to eat and my parents were kinda pissy as to why I wasn't eating. I'm hoping it goes away sometime soon.

Other than that, nothing. Fun fun.

Heh, an update

2005-06-05T09:26:00.000-04:00

Wow didn't realize it's been a few days since I updated. Anyway, the low down:

Friday was hell. We presented our Physics projects, which ours blew because at the last minute, the magnet decided to crap out on us. So we embarassed ourselves in front of the class. Oh well. Also had the first part of our English final, which actually wasn't too bad, considering I only read one book throughout the entire year. In addition had the first part of our Calc test, which could have been MUCH better. So all in all, Friday determined my final grades.

Yesterday was so bad. Work was just so long and so stressful that I was ready to kill myself after it. All of the staff members there, I swear to you, are about as mature as 3-year-olds. Everyone's out to get everyone else and it's the dumbest thing ever. It's the Science Center for Christ's sake! So yesterday was spent with me having to act professionally toward superiors who come in going "wahh wahh (crying sound)" to me in my face (for some stupid reason they think I told on them or what not, I don't even care anymore). Not to mention it was busy as hell, and 99% of all visitors who walk into that place lack the common sense to function. After 9 hours of explaining to people how to put on seatbelts and how to step on scales, it really gets to the point where you're ready to gouge your own eyes out.

So I'm going to start looking for another job. Not something necessarily to replace the Science Center, just something I can work IN ADDITION to. "Isn't that more work, Will?!" No. I'll simply ask the CSC to put me on maybe one day a week, depending on the other job. That way, the new job won't be so monotonous, as is the case with the Science Center now. That's probably the biggest reason I'm fed up with it, I think. It's never anything different.

Ah well, more on that later I suppose. I called off today as I have a migraine, so today will be spent sleeping and possibly picking up some kick ass Poker Chips that KMart has for $5. :D

One step closer to graduation, I suppose

2005-05-31T22:23:00.000-04:00

Today we went back to school after our Memorial Day "break," which for me ended up being a Memorial Day "work your ass off." I ended up working a total of 25 hours Friday-Monday. And it wasn't easy either. Yuck.

Oh well, school today was pretty uneventful. Physics and Comp Sci I'm working my ass off to get my project done... which are both due Friday. I'm going to really need to start busting my ass for these things. In English and Calc we reviewed for our Finals which will be tomorrow and Thursday-Friday, respectively. Calc I'm kinda scared about. I'm not studying at all because I don't have the review packet that he was supposed to give us. But meh, I think I may have a GPA so far around 95% anyway, so really, I can do poorly on it and still make an A. Though it is for Pitt Credits... :
Anywho, nothing really eventful today. We ordered our condo down at the beach tonight. I really don't wanna go. Sure it's relaxing, and I might not think the same way in a few months after I'm working consistently 40 hours a week, but I just find myself getting so incredibly bored down there. I just kind of mope around when we're not actually *on* the beach. Oh well. I still would love to go to Canada this summer, especially to Quebec. Kinda getting shot down by friends, though.

Yeah and a bunch of people RSVP'd for my grad party that I haven't seen in ages. People like that used to live on my street before I moved up here, that I really can't remember too well, but I kinda hung out with ALL THE TIME. And it'll be great to see a bunch of them again, I think. The idea of a graduation party still doesn't appeal to me all that much. And as much as I can't wait to get out into the real world, there's still a part of me that's pretty insecure about a lot of it. Not so much in handling myself, just I don't quite adjust to change all that well. Especially huge changes that happen all at once. And it's like, this'll probably be the biggest transition of my life thus far, and I'm pretty sure I'm ready for it, just the idea of going from living under the roof of my parents and them always being there within just a shout, to life... where my money doesn't just go toward weekend movies and dinners, but to survival. And where the decisions I make with my life in the next 4 years will affect me until the day I die. Just so monumental...

Eh, with that said, gonna call it a night. I've been playing with my stupid Comp Sci final all night and I'm starting to see in Java. You know it's not good when...

Is it Friday the 13th?

2005-05-30T15:29:00.000-04:00

No. It's Monday the 30th. Happy God-damned Memorial Day.

So I'm driving to work at 9:30 this morning and not 100 feet from the building, I hit this MASSIVE pot hole. This thing was huge. Like, think 2 feet deep, 3 feet in diameter huge. I'm cruising at a steady 35 MPH and when I hit this thing, my entire right side of my car sinks in and then flies upward when I get out of the hole. By this time I was ready to piss myself. Everything's still semi-working, so I figure I'll just pull into the parking lot (which is like 30 seconds away mind you) and check it out.

I get into the parking lot and Alex and Mark were there in their respective cars and they're all "holy shit, I saw that... you alright?" on me. I go I'm fine as I'm walking out to inspect the right side. I get over there and LUCKILY all I can see is a flat tire. Phew. So I call AAA and they're all "We're sorry. We're closed due to a holiday." Bah. So I call my dad and he's all grumpy because he feels obligated to come down and help me out (which I'm glad he did).

He gets there and we take the tire off and he goes "yeah we're gonna need a new tire." By this time, I look at my watch and it's 10:03... and I'm 3 minutes late. So I go in and start working. I peek my head out around 11:00 and he's still there messin with the tire. I didn't really have much time to chat, so I just asked if everything was alright. He said he had to go out and buy a new wheel well... which is like $90. :( Now I feel like shit. Not only did I wake my dad up, but I had him fork $90 over because I hit a god damned pot hole.

Anyway, I go out for my break and it's done and he's gone so he must'nt have stayed long after 11:00. Still, I feel horrible. But what can be done I guess. My dad said he went after he fixed it over to the main CSC to tell him about the pot hole (which is kinda on their little driveway thing entering SW so be careful if you're going there :P) and he said they might be able to pay my dad from the insurance they have. If not, I gotta pay it, because if not, I'll feel so damned guilty. Oh well.

I'm tired. It was a long day and I stupidly signed up to work Monday-Sunday the week of the 19th. Rox0rs.

Why do they force you to put a title?

2005-05-29T19:07:00.000-04:00

Seriously. For days like this I don't have one title that I could use to sum up everything...

Anyway, today. Got up early and went to work. Work rather sucked. We had a bunch of people because it's Memorial Day weekend and it was all hot and stuffy inside. Plus, bunch of call-off's is never good.

Got home around 5, parents weren't home but since they were on their way they picked me up McD's. Yum. I had the craving for a McFlurry so that's all I got. Boring, yeah.

But I've been working on my Comp Sci final, and despite my previous thoughts about not ever getting it done, I figured out a crap load of what I needed to do (and previously didn't know how to do) and put it in my program and it works! I'm so incredibly happy because I just might get it done.

Anyway, Happy Memorial Day everyone. I'm going to reiterate something I heard on the radio yesterday. Kinda like, despite what you think about the War in Iraq and the way this government is taking us, always remember those who died to defend this freedom that we enjoy and probably, more often than not, take for granted. It's because of the loyalty of and dedication to the fundamental principles of this country that we all are able to live in freedom. Now despite my own personal views, and even the most liberal of people's views, I don't think anyone can deny any of that. God Bless America, I s'pose.

Work tomorrow, yuck. Have a good one all.

If you're going to discipline, at least know who you're disciplining

2005-05-28T14:49:00.000-04:00

So I'm at work today and big, big boss walks in (let's just call him John). Now John typically comes in our "division" of the Science Center maybe once every four months or so, typically because we're the "less important, more slacking" presenters of the CSC. Though, recent statistics have shown that because of SportsWorks, the CSC makes over double its revenue of 3 years ago. Anyway, we were sure lucky to have him come in today!

It's about 1:00 and I'm sitting at one of the simulators. John comes up behind me, kinda does the "hard tap, something's urgent, I really need something badly" tap on my shoulder so I turn around. It's him, and I'm rather, erm shocked... instantly thinking to myself if I was doing anything wrong, etc. Before I could say hi, he shouts "The parachutes are stuck on the rafters. Get them down." (The parachute drop is an exhibit where the visitor can make a parachute, lift it all the way up to the ceiling and have it drop down to see how well it works.) Now I'm on a simulator, and we're not allowed to get up and leave for ANY reason, let alone while the simulator is in motion. So I say, "I'm sorry sir, but I'm unable to go get them down while the simulator's moving. If you want I can call the supervisor for you." He stops me kinda half way through and goes (in an extremely aggressive tone), "You didn't listen to me. I want you to get them down." Once again I go, "I'm really sorry sir. If I were to get up and leave and something would go wrong with the simulator, visitors could be seriously hurt. If you want--," and he begins storming away to where the back offices are.

By this time, I'm feeling that "Oh shit, I'm so screwed" kind of feeling as I just told off the BIG boss. And wouldn't you know it, I get called in the back not 15 minutes later to "have a meeting with he and my supervisor." He didn't say a word, but my supervisor handed me a slip of paper. On it: Disciplinary Action Report. Reason: Insubordination. Without saying a word, I sign it, John takes it, gets up and leaves. By this time I'm like ready to burst into tears, heh, Nicole says "don't worry about it. I know what you did was right and really this won't go any further." Now I feel inclined to believe her, but you don't get how much power this guy has. With a snap of his fingers, he could have SportsWorks torn down. So what's to stop him from putting that write-up in my permanent record? NOTHING! All because I chose not to endanger paying customers instead of complying with his wishes.

I kinda felt better when this other dude later told me as I was getting ready to leave that a bunch of people got written up for really stupid things. Like things that no one, let alone the person who got written up, has control over: The carpet is ugly, the skylights are too foggy, the roof is leaky, a wheel is loose on a wheelchair. There were even rumors circulating that my supervisor got MAJOR disciplinary action against her because of some of this stupid shit.

So yeah, big boss walks in, doesn't know anyone's name, doesn't look around and see thousands of kids / parents having a blast, doesn't see the presenter's being GREAT presenters. All he sees are tiny, miniscule negative things and unleashes hell upon us.

Welcome to the politics that is Carnegie Science Center.

Back in Action!

2005-05-27T21:55:00.000-04:00

Inspired by a butt-load of friend, Will's Uber Blog is back. I decided to make it all pretty at blogspot because they rock and I didn't feel like coding the backend of my blog again (after I took it down from the old site). Other than that, boom. New blog. Hopefully I'll have the motivation to continue it... again.

Eh, school's been sucking as per usual. Only 7 more days left and then I'm out of the hell hole for ever. I can't fricking wait. Although in those 7 days I need to cram 3 final projects, 2 final exams, and a trimester exam in Calc. Did I mention I have none of my projects done, no desire to study for finals, and have no idea what I'm doing in calc? Oh yeah.. fun times. :D

Hmm. I'm not sure how political I'm going to make this one. I'm kind of leaning toward not bothering at all, as my certain political ideology is frowned upon by a great number of people. And, I'm sick of the insults, snide comments, and just downright immaturity when it comes to arguing politics. Kind of trying to adopt the whole "I'm not going to change your mind, you're not going to change mine: Deal with it" outlook if I can.

Anyway, I worked at the CSC tonight (as opposed to SportsWorks where I usually work) and it was fun. A lot more guest interaction and less priorities, I guess you could say. Definitely a lot more laid back than my typical job (yuck). BUT AMY'S GONE! BAHHHHH. :(

But yeah, did I mention I'm ALMOST DONE WITH SCHOOL!? Graduation is right around the corner and then I'll never again see 99% of these people that have made my life a living hell the last 4 years. Hah, definitely can't wait.

Weekend: Work, work, work, and more work. Every damned day. But the paycheck will be nice... always look forward to that.

Oh, and here's a good one for ya.