Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Halloween

Dear, whoever-the-hell-is-reading-this,

Today was Halloween. I was Luigi, Ashwin was Mario, and Macy was Wario. The other two guys shoved a bunch of pillows down their shirts so they'd be fatter- it was funny.

This is probably going to be an RSP, since I'm kind of dazed right now...

Anyway, Caitlin and Tyler came with us. Tyler wore 7 layers of clothes and 2 hats...but it made for an AWESOME hobo costume. We had pizza, and Tyler's brothers entertained us with their little-brother-ness. It was fun.

Before that, though, we went to the Caterpillar plant in Montgomery (though they call it CAT Aurora), and had a long walk around the buildings. Everywhere, there were REALLY large pieces of steel and people moving and welding parts. There were a lot of giant machines cutting and fashioning the parts, and these robotic forklift thingies that RAN BY THEMSELVES! They were basically automatons moving parts from place to place without direct human control! I was like DAAAAAANG.

The bus was like 40 minutes late though. I got up at 7:30 for nothing.

Ths z m mtrn. Y cn chr t dkd ut f y wnt bt n tht ts ntfr y tu reed.

Translated:

This is my muttering. You can try to decode it if you want but know that it's not for you to read.

N th bgust hlt v th day znt fr y t n newz. Bt t md me xtml hpy.

So there's your information for the day!

Saturday, October 27, 2007

Figures. The day we decide to go to the haunted house, there's a freeze warning.

Oh well.

So that whole "nine clouds" thing on facebook...what's that about? I'll tell you what it's about..

It's finally official! Caitlin and I are going out now, and it RULES! She is SO cool...this is AMAZING. I could go on and on.

I got a bunch of stuff for the quad for Halloween. They had better go along with it--my mom will be pissed if she spent all this money for nothing. I hope I can get the quad to come trick-or-treating back in my neighborhood. It would be fun. Hooray for Halloween falling on an I-day!

Party City really makes "Halloween" into exactly what Carlos Mencia says it is: "Dress like a Whore Day." They have SO many skanky and uncreative costumes. Ugh. Advice: For the most awesome Halloween costumes, come up with your own unique idea, and buy supplies at the thrift store and the craft/fabric store (Hobby Lobby works great) and PUT IT TOGETHER YOURSELF. Oh-- and give yourself some time to put it together, unlike what I did.

I started writing a song...but it's not piano. It's acoustic+vocals, neither of which I am able to do. I always DID want to learn guitar...

I wonder if I'll ever learn to play my songs perfectly enough to record them. I might annotate it like Tay Zonday did once in his Chocolate Rain video, but I would do it many times. Maybe I'll be the next Tay Zonday! HAHA! Sure....

Last week went by really fast. It might have been that I spent so much time with Caitlin.
It's amazing how friendships and relationships can change. There really isn't anyone I was good friends with before whom I don't talk to currently at IMSA...except maybe one person, who is just extremely awkward in general, but even she will exchange greetings with me.

I don't understand how someone can have 300 friends on facebook. Maybe it's just me? Nah...I hope not. I know I'm not Mr. Popularity, but shit!

I wonder if I'm the only one who cleans out my friends list every few months or so.
Honesty is the best policy.

I want to play Portal now. That game looks awesome.

What's really odd is that 4 couples broke up the day I asked out Caitlin (Thursday, 10-25, I shall not forget!). Like I said, it's amazing how friendships and relationships can change.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Paul's latest fads

The end song from the game, "Portal"
Powerthirst- a spoof that shits on energy drinks everywhere!
Mad TV- Kenny Rogers' 'Jackass'
A really terrible and profane car commercial
Imogen Heap- Hide and Seek

The Imogen Heap song is from the SNL Digital Short entitled, "Letter to my Sister." That would be on the list, but those stiff copyright-whores made youtube people take the video off the site. Thanks to Michelle for turning me on to the first 2 things on the list.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

Thursday was death. I worked until I felt like I couldn't work anymore, and then I kept on working. Fucking project, and all of its small little details that I forgot about. I spent like 8 hours of Thursday on that project.

But last night, Michelle and Joey visited! We talked and played taboo and stuff. Michelle goes to Case, so I don't get to see her much. The next time she'll be around won't be until Thanksgiving, so I was really happy to see her. Joey goes to Northwestern, so he's come back to IMSA like 3 times already.

Joey came back today, too, along with Jake, and we played football; me, Jake, his friend, Macy, Joey, Connor, and Schmidty.

I need to stop playing AoE2 and start that last essay for the CommonApp. Then all I have to take care of is Teacher Recs, and I'm done applying to colleges!

Our quad needs a new activity. I think we should all play tennis together when it's warm and swim when it's cooler. I think we all need to get more exercise; I know I definitely do.

Joey came up with an idea for an IMSA band t-shirt. It goes like this:
"At IMSA, the boys are sharp, but girls are flat."

He also came up with another saying about getting girls at IMSA: "The odds are good, but the goods are odd."

Thursday, October 11, 2007

10 11 7

So lately, I've been trying to figure out who I am, what my purpose is, what I should do with myself, that sort of thing. Happens to all teenagers. I think that up to age 16, people try to define themselves but are too immature to know how to go about doing it, thus the existence of preps, goths, emos, etc. But I think I'm getting some things straightened out, and it's nice.

It's cold, damnit. Monday, it was 85 degrees. Now, it's 50. And I haven't gone shopping for any winter-type clothes. Ah, piss.

Amazing how your friends can change in a year or two. It really is.

When it gets closer to winter, the air gets drier, and so do I. This is the first day I've used carmex since April.

I played Age of Empires 2 today with Jimmy. It's a VERY involved game, and we made a great team. I love playing video games cooperatively; it's a really good skill to know how to work together, and it feels good when I do it right.

Monday, I went to Tanner's Orchard with the Dopps, Tyler, Colin, and Fishbag. Picking apples was fun; I punted a half rotten pumpkin and slipped on the remains, almost resulting in a fall. I climbed apple trees to give Garrett some apples, we played apple dodge ball (which is exactly what it sounds like), and hay bale tag. There were a bunch of hay bales organized into a maze for the short people to go through. We're big kids, though, so we ran ON TOP of the hay bales and jumped the gaps. Hay bale tag was the shizz. Then I got in a random retired school bus and acted like a pissed-off old bus driver.

I learned that I'm a massive introvert. But that's not as bad as it sounds; sure, I'd rather be able to ignite conversations than just build off them, but hey. An extrovert is someone who creates energy in a conversation; introverts are people who take energy from conversations. It seems to me that introverts build off of what extroverts start. It's hard to explain, but it fits me damn good.

The hypnotist is coming to our school tomorrow! I can't wait! HIS SHOWS ARE SO HILARIOUS! Tomorrow looks like a good day to die.
Laughing.
I'll be sure to post at least part of the show. (I hope I remember.)

Current personal fads:

-Making references to 300
-Imogen Heap
-Team America: World Police theme song
-Get Fuzzy
-Yugioh the Abridged Series

Current one-word interjections yelled out during super smash brothers (and derivations):
1. Streets-- "I'm from the streets, bitch!"
2. Denial!
3. Egypt!--"Denial! It's not just a river in Egypt!"
4. Face!--"Owned in the face!"
5. Owned!
6. Bitch!
And other profanities...Some of which are totally random and make no sense.

Btw, I've got my 5th song in the works. It's in E flat minor. That's right. Six flats. No clue why. It's more of a theme that loops, like something you'd find as a background in a video game.

Off to bed.

P.S. Happy birthday Fishbag! Well, yesterday.

Sunday, October 7, 2007

Homecomings

So last Saturday was IMSA's homecoming...I went with Erika. It was a TON of fun...first we went to Chili's to dinner with J.P., Ivy and Monica. J.P. got us all kids' menus and crayons YAY! Then was the dance, which was mostly Erika and I making up random dances and doing them in circles around the dance floor with people looking us, half laughingly and half wondering, "what the HELL are they doing?" Erika and I made up the Shark and the Swimmer, the Fisherman, the Waddle (a.k.a. awkward slow dance) and who knows what the hell else to call the others!

Last Wednesday was the robot arm competition, which went a lot better than I had feared. I had to put most of it together Tuesday night at the workshop; I worked until I was kicked out. And it was only me, because Ashwin and Connor both had other commitments, and it was only then, because the workshop hours are very limited. At that point, it was put together, but there was nothing to move it. But then the three of us met in the DDQ, finished it, and the next day, we placed 3rd or 4th in the competition out of 12. I was surprised. Our ideas were good, but our time was lacking.

So Jimmy and I refer to "ordering Chinese" as "killing ourselves." After all the stress of working in the workshop and not getting nearly enough done, I went up to Jimmy and said "Jimmy...today looks like a good day to die." And so we "killed ourselves." I got beef lo mein. And, holy shit, did I get beef lo mein. You know those white boxes that Chinese food comes in? I swear, the one that I got was 9 inches wide and 9 inches tall, or like the size of a volleyball. That came out to be dinner that night, lunch the next day, and dinner the next day.

Tyler's at a concert right now. He's in Chicago seeing Of Montreal, which is like his favorite band. Jason says they suck, but he listens to screamo-metal-type stuff, so what he says has no meaning whatsoever.

Then there was OHS homecoming, which I went to with Crystil and Sergio. It was pretty fun...I don't think I've danced for that long of a streak ever before. It was kind of odd seeing people who were my little brother's age there. It was even more odd talking to people I hadn't seen in 3 years...But hey.

Tomorrow we go to the orchard!

A new Buffalo Wild Wings opened in Oswego, and I went there today. I tried the hot wings, and OH, shit are they hot. I can't imagine what the blazin' ones taste like. My lips were burning for 15 minutes.

I've had Imogen Heap running through my head for the longest time. I kind of wish she's run out of it for a change, but her music is just so interesting...

That's right. I find certain music 'interesting.'

Here's a quick run-down:
Rock- Love it
Country- I respect it, it's just not what I like
Hip-hop- Okay
Rap- I don't classify it as 'music'
Metal- Has music in it...but if I wanted to listen to someone screaming and crying, my best friend has a baby sister.
Emo- I just don't understand this at all. I swear, people aged 12-15 will join any clique just to fit in somewhere.
Classical- The most boring classical music is the worst music on earth. But the most exciting classical music is the best music on earth.
Oldies- Well, I guess this term refers to all music that isn't recent, and that's a LOT of music. I prefer not to use this term...too broad.

Movies don't entertain me so much. It might be nice to have it in the background as a last resort for when the conversation hits a dry spot, but meh. Horror movies are exceptionally boring. Nothing really happens, except the movie tries to scare you. And sometimes they try so hard to scare you, that it doesn't make any sense at all. Come on. If you want to pull something that scares me, at least make it believable! And the whole try-to-scare-me thing gets old pretty fast. The Ring Two actually made me laugh.

Some movies just aren't meant to take seriously. Like Napoleon Dynamite. It got shitty reviews. But I laughed my ass off! Come on. Do you actually think they were trying to impress you? No, they just wanted you to laugh! And I hope you did. If you didn't, I'll just assume that you felt like you were made fun of by watching it, since you're probably just as stiff and nerdy as Napoleon is.

That's enough of that.

Orchard tomorrow! Apple cider, here I come.