With You, Friends

     Boy, has it been a while since I wrote last... or at least that's how it feels. Perhaps there was just a lot going on since the 9th. So, I suppose we shouldn't waste any time. Let's begin straight away. After all, you didn't come here to read about me talking about talking about things, now did you? I consider most everyone as a friend, and I try not to leave friends disappointed. But I suppose I should digress...

     I went home for my birthday. I figured my family would be happy to see me and celebrate my birthday with them, and I also had to get new tires. The weekend was pretty fantastic. Bob also came home for the weekend and Tassi, Bob, and myself went to see Phantom Menace in 3D. It was okay, but Tassi and I both fell asleep in between the second and third acts. I also finally got to catch up on Season 2 of Portlandia. We went to Bob Chinn's Crab House and my mom got me a cake, even though I was there for such short a time. As I figured I would, I got the current iPod Nano to replace the iTouch that got fucked up by being dropped into the toilet. I also got two big boxes of Strawberry Hello Panda and mini snickerdoodle muffins. For those that don't know, Hello Panda are pretty much the current day version of Koala Yummies. For those still confused, I'd just like to say: You've missed out if you've never gotten the chance to have these. They're are tiny hollow cookies with a tiny cute panda drawn on the rounder side and each cookie is filled with filling which is usually chocolate or strawberry, and I am a huge sucker for strawberry stuff.

     My sister gave me a bit money to go towards the tortoise fund, which I was very happy to get because it was looking to be a few hundred more dollars than I had anticipated... But now, I am not so sure about this plan. I was so preoccupied and during the weekend that I didn't really think about the tortoise at all, and I was gradually forgetting about it and losing interest. (Lizz, if you're reading, I haven't spent the money. I'll talk to you about it at some other point). In any event, I started wondering how I had gotten so close to actually buying the tortoise. The idea of it now doesn't seem too wise, as it's very costly, we're not allowed pets in our place, and if I had gone through this loss of interest after I had bought it and everything, I would be deeply regretting it (not to mention I'd be stuck with it for the next like... 50 years?). But why did this whole thing come into my head to begin with? If you read my last blog, which I wrote the night before my birthday, I was in a real negative mood by the end of it. I was feeling angry, sad, and moreover, lonely. In that mood, I think buying a pet tortoise seemed like a quick-fix solution to my loneliness. It was silly and impulsive of me and it could have fucked me over and I'd be stuck.

     So now what do I do when I go into this state again? Well, that's kind of what I figured out this week. If I remember correctly, this past Tuesday was Valentine's Day. Thankfully, my Tuesday actually wasn't that bad, as I successfully masked my loneliness with light humor and being friendly. Wednesday is when things finally got to me. Wednesday is my day off in between heavy class days, so I feel the need to be moving and busy, but with nothing to do or talk to, so I begin focusing in on tiny things that shouldn't matter, I overreact to them because what the fuck else am I going to do? So Wednesday night ended with me going to bed at like 9PM, in an attempt to just sleep the shittiness away. Thursday morning, nothing had changed. In fact, things were getting worse. The weather in Carbondale was rainy and very cold and I was stuck sitting in my car for an hour and a half waiting for ANY spot to open up. Meanwhile, I was live-tweeting my negativity for all others to feel. While I sat in my car, I wondered how one goes about meeting new and similar people. Maybe meeting new people wasn't the issue though, maybe it's how I treat the friends I have now. Sure I try to be nice and polite to everyone as I can be, but I still push people away when it comes to them wanting to be friends with me. I get friend requests all the time from people. I've made tons of friends on twitter that I connect with so very much. All of these people are part of the gaming culture which I have been feeling distant from lately, and a lot of people have tried to be friends with me so that we can play games together, but I just don't want to.

     On Xbox Live, I tell people that if I know them, I'll accept their friend requests, but that still leaves me getting requests on Xbox Live to play games with them. The thing is that I just feel so uncomfortable talking through mics and headsets, or even over the phone. IMing/Facebook chat is the same way. I don't know why, I feel comfortable with texting or twitter, and yet, I can talk to people face-to-face pretty well, I think by now. Face-to-face is more of a transitional thing that I'm working through. In any event, it gets to the point that if I'm playing a game that has multiplayer on it and one of these people signs on, I will go out of my way to appear offline so as not to deal with it. I then have to hold my breath waiting to see if they saw me online in time to send me a request or not... The point is, is that despite me considering these people my friends, I try to be as inconspicuous to these folks as I can be, I imagine, to the point where they consider me as a minor acquaintance, and it's this that puts me into these negative spirals. So it looks like I have to change something, and it looks like it's going to have to be me that changes.

     So now, I am try to make more of an effort to be actual friends with people, be nice to everyone, muscle through the uncomfortable, because more than likely, I'll be happier afterwards. The past few days I've been  occasionally posting tweets and statuses asking how people's days and weekends have been going. I've been getting at least one or two responses each time, but that's all it needs to be at this point. Starting a friendly conversation with someone, and being able to continue that conversation. If, for most of the time, my friends are stuck inside of a computer or Xbox, I suppose I can at least put that effort forward, since I don't get to see them in person that often. Once I put this together, I'll be damned if things didn't start going better immediately.

     Later on Thursday night, I tried to do the same thing with my roommates and Tom (Congrats Tom, on finally getting mentioned, I know it was bugging you.). We sat around in our living room watching various things. Zach had a bottle of wine left from Valentine's, so he poured himself a glass. I was convinced, mostly by Tom, to have a glass of my own. I had it, and it was pretty awful, but I finished it, and then had three more. I was relatively tipsy, since I don't drink ever. So, I went to bed pretty happy with how the day turned out, and on Friday, Dan was coming down.

     Friday started out nicely. I got up at about 8:30 and went to work out. I had to start out with the stationary bike though because I found that my shorts were a bit too big to run in without eventually falling off. I tried re-tying them, but as it turned out, they were already tied as tight as I could get them, to the point of the shorts actually scrunching up on the waste lace. When they were untied, I was pretty baffled by just how big they are to me now. It was like a before and after picture where the person is wearing an old pair of giant pants. So that made me pretty happy.

     I also talked to a bunch of my twitter friends throughout the day as well. I asked about an upcoming Grifgoose tournament on Halo Reach that is coming up and now I am in a team with IGLGrifball and PMS_NightOwl. I think we still need a fourth, but I do not really know right now. I also did my first Follow Friday thing on Twitter. I put up those that I talk to most often and those that I had talked to recently. I would've put up way more than I had, but then I thought I might be clogging people's twitter feeds, so next week, I'll be doing it again. In either case, I was feeling the love from a bunch of people who were feeling it from me. A couple people even decided to do a #FF of their own, both including me on the list. It's a small gesture, but I was feeling pretty awesome after that. And so unlike Thursday morning, things were now only getting better, because Dan was on his way down to visit me for the weekend.

     Dan came in Friday evening. We spent the next couple of hours catching up on things (mostly a more-detailed version what I just explained above.). We came downstairs and started hanging out with everyone else, who had begun drinking. Later on, I was convinced to actually go back to the bar, which doesn't sound like much, but on multiple occasions, when people heard that I was going to bar, they got really excited. Even afterwards, our neighbors heard I went to the bar and they freaked out, saying that they couldn't believe they missed it. I didn't know I held such influence. The bar we went to is called Copper Dragon, and as you may imagine, there is a big dragon, made of copper, that is hanging up over the dance area in front of the stage where a band called 'Mike and Jim' played a bunch of popular songs that I could only get mildly interested in; stuff that is difficult to dance to. Tom was already very drunk by the time we got to the bar, so I ended up drinking half of his Blue Dragon, which is like a Long Island Iced Tea, except that it's blue and sweet, that Zach bought him.

     I'd like to take this time and really congratulate Tom Nitti for not only getting his first mention in my blog (which he has been yearning for ever since I began my blog), but this is now the third time he's been mentioned. So congrats, Tom. Twice in one week, I have drank, which I don't do, all thanks to you.

     So anyway, the rest of the weekend was absolutely splendid. We bought the Monopoly: Electronic Banking, which uses credit cards and a card reader instead of actual bills, and it was awesome and super fun. I can't wait to do a game night again. Dan ended up winning, because for some reason, he has some natural ability to win at board games... Dan was also able to get my Windows 7 running on bootcamp. It was ultimately to get Star Wars: The Old Republic working, but there was one problem after another with it. We did put Steam on it though, and now I have Skyrim on there. I'm going to be switching over to playing it on PC because of the modding aspect of it. So far I'm still trying to figure out if they're working or not, since I haven't gotten to actually play yet... In any event, the weekend is sadly over, but it was one of the best weekends I've had in a long time. Dan, we need to figure out when to do this again.

     Well, that's all folks! Cherish your friends and they'll reciprocate. I leave you with "With you, Friends (Long Drive)," by Skrillex. It's not so much dubstep as his other stuff, but it's still one of my favorite Skrillex songs. Enjoy!

Until next time...

The Happy Birthday Song

     Welp, it's now technically 12:45 right now, making it February 9th, which means I am now 22 years old. And to tell the truth, I'm not too sure if I could be any less excited about it. I don't know if it's just because of how fast this month has been going. Even today (now yesterday), I had to be reminded that my birthday was tomorrow (now today). My family has asked me time and time again what I want for my birthday and the only thing I can think of is a new ipod nano because my itouch fell in my toilet when repositioning my Bose sound dock. Not to mention that other things have been on my mind like the two tests I have in less than 12 hours from now, trying to get our fucking internet fixed, fighting to keep my weight down from the weekend and trying to find a productive way to spend my time.

     I will say though, before moving on, that my thrice-a-week workout has been going well. I missed Monday, but I made up for it today. My last actual blog, which was about my predictions for Halo 4 got a staggering 477 views, which blew me away. The most views I've had past that is like 56, so this was quite a jump. Thanks to Halo.Bungie.Org for featuring it. For those of you who read it and are interested, I did manage to forget a semi-crucial detail in that (SPOILERS): we'll most likely be meeting the Librarian and the Didact in some incarnation in The Reclaimer Trilogy, if not in Halo 4, and that the UNSC Infinity is using a duplicate of 343 Guilty Spark as its shipboard AI, which lends itself to my theory of the Infinity coming in and halting the forerunner defensive systems. But I digress.

     I may be picking up a new family member in the next week or so. The past few days, I've been feeling the need to have something take up my time. I almost went out today and bought a beta fish, just to sort of play around with and keep me busy, but no. We just got rid of our fish tank back home because no one was really paying much attention to it, not to mention the expenses of keeping it up... Don't worry, the fish and the tank now have a new home. BUT, I think I may move ahead with something I've wanted ever since I was a wee lad- owning a turtle. Well, not really a turtle, but a tortoise, because I want to hang out with it and whatnot and apparently turtles aren't the best for that. I've been doing some research and budget permitting, I think that's what I am going to do. In terms of naming, I was thinking of just naming it an everyday colloquialism like "Man" or "Dude." It feels like there's something to it though. A name like Dude is just so anti-climactic and bland that it seems to really fit the nature of a tortoise and, yet, you wouldn't expect such a name, would you? In terms of conventional names, I was thinking something like Chauncey. In any case, I have to wait, research it a bit more, and then actually buy it.

Soon, Dude... Soon.

     In the meantime, I am still trying to find a new hobby to occupy myself. I bought two new games yesterday and the day before and I am already bored and disinterested in both. The first game, Forza 4, is definitely fun in its own right, but I am not a car guy and I can only go around laps so many times before wanting to drive my Ferrari off a cliff. I'm not going to sell it back though, as I feel it's something that just needs to be played when I'm feeling it. The other game on the other hand isn't going to receive such mercy from me. The Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is a new WRPG that came out on Tuesday. It's a single-player third-person type deal, which is fairly typical, but what really drew me to it is how the game is stylized. Everything is very fantastic-looking, where everything glows brightly in interesting colors that blend so nicely and I felt it was worth spending $60 on. I did play the demo prior to buying it, which I felt was entertaining enough, but once I got into the actual game, I wasn't even interested enough to read any of the dialogue. So, at some point, I will be heading back to Gamestop and selling it back. I would just go back to playing Skyrim full time, but jesus, I've played the fuck out of it. So I'm taking a break from that, leaving me with next to nothing to do in my free time. And with no real interest in Halo MP and no substantial Halo 4 news, there is not really anything in the gaming community that I'm even remotely interested in. Yes, I know Mass Effect 3 comes out ...at some point next month I think, but I finally lost my motivation for it half way through ME2. Nothing is calling out to me.

     I feel like I'm going into a vegetative state today in my boredom. Throughout the day I tweeted a bunch, hoping I would get any sort of conversation going, and, as per usual, not much of anything, at least until about 8PM. I don't believe in silly things like curses but god fucking damnit, I seem to have a curse that when I post or say anything on the internet, whether it be this blog, forum posts (especially), or just anything where I'm looking for feedback or just talking to someone, and I get jack shit. Sure, some views here and there but rarely does anyone ever actually say something back, and that is my biggest pet-peeve. You could put the sound of someone chewing food obnoxiously loud with their mouth open right in my ear on a loop and it still wouldn't bug me as much not being responded to. I mean, isn't that what the internet is for? ESPECIALLY Twitter and Facebook? Why does anyone put something on the internet? Because we want to share it with other people and have people respond to us. Or am I crazy on this? If you ever watch Scrubs, there's a scene in the later episodes where Ted, who is the hospital's cowardly and spineless lawyer, is sitting with his group of friends and no one even realizes he's there. I post something, maybe a couple responses, when I comment, all other comments stop. Am I just annoying? If I am, please tell me, because I will stop. This sort of paradigm really makes me hate the fact that it's the one place I always am. It's to the point where I am actually considering living my own version of "Into the Wild," except that I wouldn't go to Alaska. I'd probably end up just moving to Portland or Seattle... or an island in the caribbean, working as a bartender or a deckhand on a fishing ship (and yes, this is an actual contingency plan of mine in the case of all other post-college plans failing). 

     What makes it even worse is that I go to the internet so that I CAN talk to people, but it's a format of communication that I just feel uncomfortable with nowadays. And yet, I don't really talk to many people in real life because I'm surrounded by people that are so unlike me. The people I want to talk to and be with are, for all intensive purposes, inside my computer and in my phone. They may as well be figments of my imagination; my imaginary friends... 

    So yeah... I know, not the most joyful of posts, and on my birthday too, but I don't drink at all and there's not much in the way of gifts that I want, I have to wake up in seven hours and endure my busiest day of the week, which also has two exams, and then another on Friday, after which I am driving six horrid hours back home (mostly just to get my new tires put on my car)... *sigh*

     So, I leave you with "The Happy Birthday Song," by Andrew Bird. Enjoy!

Until next time...