Something's happening here; what it is ain't exactly clear

This is my last post of the year 2010. Coincidentally, it is also my first post in quite a while. I apologize if I have any faithful readers who were disappointed in my absence but I am back.
Recently I made one of the biggest decisions I have made in a long time. I finally changed my major from communications to industrial engineering. It may seem strange or silly to change to something so radically different, but I assure you that I am more confident with this decision than anything I have don in a long time.
For starters, I was really not very happy with the direction my career path was headed in. I've been doing school newspapers since my sophomore year of highschool. I have enjoyed it for the most part but I really don't think it is something I want to do for the rest of my life. It is fun to do it part time but doing it full time would be way too stressful and probably not worth it. I know I would enjoy working with math and science a lot more.
The other reason I am switching my major is because I think it will have a more positive impact on the world. While the world needs good journalists, I think the world also needs good engineers. Right now I am looking at two options I really want to do when I graduate. I either want to join the peace corp for a couple of years or I want to join Engineers Without Borders to go help people. I am still a long way from deciding any of this though.
But enough about that.

Normally I would go through and list all of the great experiences I've had over the year. I probably won't do that here; mostly because I just don't feel like it. I will say it has been quite a year. Surprisingly, it seemed to last longer than I would have thought.
As a gaze down the long and dark road that is 2011, I am surprisingly optimistic, considering how usually cynical I am. I really think things will be getting better from here on out, at least I can't see them getting much worse.
So to all of you, I wish you a happy new year. I wish you all the best.

Goodnight, and travel well.

you were the people that I wanted to know, and your the places that I wanted to go

This weekend was a blast. I wasn't exactly looking forward to a the three day weekend for reasons other than getting out of school but I loved every second of it. Everything worked out.
Last Friday I only had one class. It was a french class and it got out at 11:30. After class I went over to the athletic center and played a game of pick-up basketball. I don't want to brag but I was on fire. I made all of my shots and hopefully earned the respect of some of the hardcore players out there. It was a good way to start off the weekend.
Later that night my roommates had a bunch of friends over. It was great. We have a pretty big house and it is great to actually put it to use. The best part is they were people that I knew so it wasn't awkward. Some of my best friends from high school were there. We went out back and me and some of the guys constructed a pop pong table out of some paneling, two-by-fours, and some wooden horses, or whatever you call them. It was ghetto but it worked. We played a couple games of pop pong and it was a lot of fun. We also went to the front and played cards. That same night we crashed a party at a frat house and went to an Ihop at three in the morning. Overall a great night.
The next day my dad came by at ten o'clock to pick me up to go to Kansas City. I didn't know what time he would be coming so I was asleep and he woke me up. we went to Kansas City and I slept on the way. That night we went to a KC Royals game. It was great because I hadn't seen their new stadium yet and it was beautiful. The royals lost but that's okay, it was kind of expected. I did get to see Kai'ahuie get a homerun though.
The next day we went to church in the morning and then went to the plaza to eat lunch at the cheesecake factory. It was delicious. Not long after that we went home and they dropped me off in wichita. The same night we had another get together involving freddy's frozen custard, more cards, and more pop pong. It was great. My friends stayed the night and it was amazing.
That was my weekend in a nutshell. I hoped you enjoyed reading about it as much as I enjoyed writing about it. Now I have to get ready for class.

August and everything after

I would be less bored in Winfield than in Wichita.
I never thought I would say this. It took me a while to come to that conclusion but I am really bored. I have not accomplished anything in the last two days. I have literally just lounged around my house and either read, done homework, cleaned, or surfed facebook. Here I am at the end of the weekend so I guess I will at least tell you what I have done this weekend.
Last Friday I went to see the Last Exorcism. I still want my money back from it. It was horrible. Later that night me and my roomies stayed up til midnight making pancakes. I still don't really know why. It was incredibly random but it was really fun. On Saturday I did nothing.

wsu so far

This post is going to be short because I have class in twenty minutes.
A lot of stuff has been going on lately. I could bore you to death by telling you all of it but I'll spare the details. School has started up, I've moved into my new house and things are going good for the most part.
So far my classes are pretty easy. I think that I might actually get some get grades this year. I decided I'm going to put forth an extra effort to get good grades. I say that every year but I'm really going to try this year.
Newspaper is probably either going to kill me or take twenty years off of my life. We have to write three stories a week. That is an insane amount of writing considering that I only wrote usually two stories every two weeks for the cowley press. The editor is high if she thinks that all the stories are going to get in on time. Then again I might be high for joining newspaper in the first place. I guess the point I'm trying to make is don't do drugs. It makes you do stupid things like write for college newspapers.

Who says you can't go home

“There are things you just can't do in life. You can't beat the phone company, you can't make a waiter see you until he's ready to see you, and you can't go home again.”- Bill Bryson
I consider this statement to be true. Although you can always go back to the place your home was, you can never go home because it always changes. The people change, the times change, the buildings change. No matter how you try you will never see things the same way you saw them when you were young.
Right now I am preparing to move away from home. The plan is too move away on Thursday, the first day I start classes. I'll be moving into a house with four other friends of mine
I'm kind of depressed about moving to WSU. It's not that I'm not excited, because I am, but I feel like I haven't taken full advantage of my time here. I didn't have the best summer, my grades at cowley weren't the greatest, and my last semester there could have been better. I still feel like there are a lot of friends I should have met and a lot of things I could have experienced.
Right now I am really looking forward to the new challenges a bigger school and a bigger town will bring. I'm looking forward to the people I'll meet and the person that I will become. But at the same time I know that I will never forget where I have been. This place has become a part of me. I everything i am to the towns of Winfield and Ark City and there is no way I could not love this place.

wisdom teeth adventure

You aren't supposed to do certain things twenty-four hours after being under anesthesia. Some of those things are driving, operating machinery, and as the disclaimer from the dentist put it, "making important decisions". I don't know if writing a blog falls under the category of important decisions but I'm going to update any way.
This morning I woke up at about 9:30. Getting ready was hard because I couldn't eat or drink after midnight. I took advantage of the rules and ate at about 10:00 last night so I wasn't very hungry. I got dress, took a shower, watched a special on the science channel about some guys building and tunnel, and then left with my family to go to Wichita.
I won't bore you with all the formalities I had to go through before so I'll just skip to the surgery. Unfortunately the surgery isn't any more exciting since I don't remember it. They hooked me up to the IV, put in the medicine and I was out. I was under anesthesia for about hour and I woke up. My jaw hurt a little bit and I had gauze in my mouth. The nurse helped me into the waiting room where I could recover. I stumbled a lot and barely got there. I recuperated for a while and then went home. I slept most of the way.
For most of the day I've just been sitting here watching TV and playing on my computer. I wish that this story could have been more interesting. You would think that getting teeth cut out of you would be a more interesting story but it was really just like taking an hour long nap. Sorry if I bored you with this entry.

The awkward times of Eric Paul Smith

I have pink paint on my shoes.
Your probably wondering why a manly guy with testosterone throbbing veins like me has pink paint on his shoes. Well I'll get to that later in the story.
I recently found out that a friend of mine will not be going to WSU with me next year but will be going to Cowley for another year. This is sort of a big deal because we were supposed to get a house together. In fact the only reason I found out about the open room in this house is because of the said friend. I respect his decision and I don't blame him for doing what he is doing but I will miss him.
The biggest reason why I am going to miss him is because I don't know anyone else in the house that well. I haven't even met one of the girls yet. I went to high school with all of them and they are all very nice but I do for-see some awkward moments in the future. This shouldn't be a problem because my entire life up to this point seems like it's been one big awkward moment.
Last Saturday we had a painting party at the house. There were probably twelve people there total, all of which I went to high school with. They are all friends with each other and I felt a little left out because they would joke around with each other and listen to music that I had never heard of. It wasn't bad but it did get awkward. The good news is we were able to paint almost the entire upstairs. We even painted a vanity room for the girls. The color was pink. I stepped in some of it.
With all of the being said I am really looking forward to moving into the house. It will be a new experience with new people. I'm sure that we will get along. If nothing else I will have an entire room to myself so I can invite friends over whenever I want and not bother any one else. It will be an improvement from living in the dorms with a stranger.

On an unrelated note, our neighbor is a suspected drug dealer. We live in a somewhat sketchy part of town and my friend Beth said that there are times when a bunch of cars will park in front and then leave quickly. I did talk to him though and he seems like a nice guy.

writing

After a lot of thought over the summer, I feel more confident in my choices regarding the future. I think I have finally decided I want to become a writer. I have been reading a lot of books over the summer and I really think it's what I want to do. I really want to write a book
Recently I just read two books by Chuck Klosterman. He is quickly turning into one of my favrite authors. He is a non-fiction writer that generally talks about pop culture. So far I have read "Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs" and I am in the middle of reading "Fargo, Rock City". They are both hilarious and surprisingly insightful.
Most of the books I have been reading are non-fiction. I have been reading a lot of Bill Bryson and I have also fallen in love with his writing style. He is incredible at using humor.
Since I have been bored for most of the summer I have done some writing myself. I am starting to write my very own novel. It started out as a short story but I decided to make it into a length novel. I am currently at 7,000 words but it is going to be a lot longer than that. To be perfectly honest it will probably take me another year or two to actually finish it but I think that I might actually publish it. I have a cousin who has written a book that is about 70,000 words and I have a couple of friends who have or are trying to write books so I don't feel to weird about this. I am hoping to take some creative writing classes at WSU to sharpen my writing abilities.

I think that people in general are horrible advice givers. Whenever I have a problem people will usually just give me some generic form of advice that doesn't really mean anything. Sometimes it makes me feel better knowing someone has tried so it has some value, but the advice itself is usually meaningless. Here are some examples
A lot of people will say things like "Just be yourself". This might be the worst piece of advice you give anyone, especially if you add "ignore what other people think of you" to the end. First of all, know one really knows who they are. People change all the time and so do their wants and needs. It's almost impossible for a person to know what he or she really wants at any given moment. Also ignoring what other people think is a horrible idea. That is probably what Jeffrey Dahmer's parents said to him when he was a young lad.
Another piece of advice that makes no sense is "do what you think is right". This is horrible advice. It's this kind of advice that makes people stop thinking about what they are doing. If people stop thinking and just start acting, the consequences could be terrible. Jeffrey Dahmer probably got the same advice when he was a kid.
Another saying that sounds good but isn't is "do your best" or "try working harder. It makes sense at first but if you think about it, it is not the most sound advice. Working hard does not always give results. For instance, maybe an athlete tries to hard and gets himself injured. How do you ever know when you are doing your best? Besides, sometimes doing your best is a bad idea if the goal isn't a good one to start with. Hitler probably tried doing his best and look how that turned out.
I think that the only real piece of advice that is always relevant is "be smarter". It might sound to simple but it really is the only thing that makes sense. Whenever someone makes a mistake it is because they were not smart enough to make the right decision. The whole point of this blog is to say that I don't think intelligence is valued enough in society. We value characteristics like hard work that really doesn't mean anything. We should be working smarter not harder.

Appetite for construction

There is a guy I know from my church that I have known for a long time. His wife was my third and fourth grade teacher. He was even a substitute teacher for me in fifth grade.
Recently he has become very good friends with my parents. He needed some yard work done around his house and he asked me to do it. I happily obliged.
He needed help fixing a wall on a shed in his back yard. He says he wanted my help because he was lazy. For some reason he thought that hiring a person who's only experience with wood is a semester of shop class his freshman year of high would be a good thing. He's either really lazy or more senile than any doctor could have expected.
I went to his house at 12:00 in the afternoon. I started tearing up the wall while he went to go get lumber. tearing out the old wall was really easy because there was a lot of water damage and it was very soft. Soon he came back with the plywood. I cut the plywood into the right sizes and then nailed them on. Then I cut the trim to the right size and nailed them on. It was surprisingly easy and I finished the job in two hours.
I left his house covered in a mixture of sweat and testosterone. There is something about using power tools and building a wall by yourself that brings out a certain manliness in you. Now I know what Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor feels like.

Last Friday I finally got enrolled at WSU. I'm really excited and I can't wait for the semester to get started. I decided that for the first semester I was going to take it easy. I'm taking it very easy. I'm only taking 12 hours which is the minimum to be a full time student. I'm taking a biology, french, intro to mass comm., and a weight lifting class.
Also on Friday me and my family went up to visit my sister in Topeka. Right now she is working with the Sunflower State Games. They actually paid for us to get a hotel up there and to watch some of the events. We watched cycling and a 10 K race while we were up there. I left early because I was unable to visit with my sister much and I had work to do at home.

The smith coolness curve

I've developed a theory of coolness I call "the Smith Coolness Curve". It states that the bands with medium levels of musical talent are the coolest because they have the most time to work on their image. This theory explains why bands like N'SYNC can become popular even though they can't play music.
If you were to make a graph with cool as the x-variable, and musical ability as the y-variable, I think you would see a curve where bands and musicians with middle of the road musical talent are the coolest. For instance, look at Elton John. A lot of people think that Elton John is one of the most talented pianist of all time but know one thinks that he is cool. On the other hand look at Michael Jackson. Michael Jackson can't even play a musical instrument as far as I know but he is still considered much cooler (or at least he was considered cool in the 80's) than Elton John. That is because instead of working on things like musical skills, Jackson worked on his image. He put more effort into his dance skills and music videos then his actual music and it paid off big time.
Then there are bands like Marilyn Manson and Insane Clown Posse. These guys have no musical ability whatsoever. They also spent way to much time on their image and whenever you try to impress someone too much then you become uncool.
This theory works especially when looking at some of the greatest guitar players of all time. B.B. King, Joe Satriani, Eric Johnson, and Eric Clapton are not really considered cool, but bands like Green Day and the Ramones are considered cool even though I could play most of their songs.
There are a couple of outliers though. Like Van Halen for instance. Van Halen is one of the greatest (he is the greatest in my opinion) guitar players of all time and he is still considered cool. The only explanation I have for this is that his image propelled him into the coolness sector. He had a fun, party guy image that set him apart from the other great guitar players.

This is a long drive home for someone with nothing to think about

"I'm a grumpy dude and you just pressed my grump button."
The last time that I saw modest mouse live this is what the lead singer, Isaac Brock, yelled at a fan who wanted to hear some old stuff. The fan yelled this right after they played one of their very first songs. Isaac has a tendency to drink before shows and do crazy antics.. On of the bands live albums he yells at a fan for yelling "Free bird" and responds by saying "Life is too short to hear or play free bird". In another show he actually got into a fight with someone who was throwing water at him. Once he came out in a sailor costume for absolutely no reason. And in probably his most famous onstage antic (which is on youtube by the way), he actually takes a knife and cuts himself on stage.
I mention these things so that you can get an idea of why I like going to live shows. Some people criticize me for paying money and driving long distances to go to shows but it's antics like this that make it worth it for me. You get things during live shows you can never see if you just buy the records.
Me and my friends decided to meet in the JCPenny's parking lot at 3. My friend Matt who was driving had to work so we met him there to get a quick start. Me and my other from Taryn who was going met there also. We at about 3:30 we were on our way. We stopped at Chipotle to eat and got to the arena at about 7:30. We wanted to get there earlier so we could get to the stage but that didn't happen.
The venue was not the greatest. It was outdoor and the entire floor was covered in wood chips which made standing uncomfortable. It was also packed and there were a lot of people smoking. It was like being lost in a sea of fog and hipsters.
The opening act didn't take long and Modest Mouse started. They started with gravity rides everything, one of my favorite songs. Their next song was the view which was probably my favorite song of the night.
During the show you could tell that Isaac was drunk. On several songs he forgot the lyrics or just wouldn't sing. He did a great job and he was very entertaining to say the least but it could have been better.
All in all it was a great night. There weren't really any stories worth telling but it was still fun.

explosions in the sky

Here are some pictures of fireworks I took with my phone. They're really not that bad actually.

Obligatory emo post

I've decided that this blog is not emo enough. I've looked through some of my old posts and noticed I haven't complained in any of them. This is different from about every other teen blog that I know of. I think it's time to get some of my teen angst out; ready...Go!
I've come to the conclusion that I will probably never have a serious girlfriend. I think I've finally found the reason why I've never had one in the past too. Don't get me wrong there are many reasons; my lack of maturity, pale skin, awkwardness, lame car, shyness, disorganization, messiness, and general lack of social skills are good reasons but I think I found the biggie.
The biggest reason I will never get a girlfriend is because I can never tell when a girl is flirting with me, and when they are I have no idea how to respond. I've had this problem my entire life but I didn't notice it until my freshman year of college. One time during a class a girl turned around and said something that was a little rude then said "Just kidding". I was confused. I did not understand how someone could go from being rude to just kidding in a matter of seconds. I thought about it later on and I think she was flirting with me. I was kicking myself because I didn't know, and because she was hot!!!
The biggest reason I'm so bad at flirting is because in high school girls never flirted with me. I was terribly shy in high school and not that popular. So whenever talked to a girl it was usually because I started talking to her.
Now that I was in college where nobody knew me and I was no longer as shy as I used to be, I now had girls I didn't know coming up to talk to me. I had no idea how to handle it and I still don't.
I'm not the only person who thinks this is a problem, my friends are starting to notice it too. One time Me and my friend were picking up free pizzas at pizza hut for a Cowley Press work-night. The girl at the counter was apparently flirting with me (I wouldn't know) and when she left my friend said "What are you doing? She was totally flirting with you and you acted like a jerk!" Of course I had no idea what I just did. If I did act like a jerk to her I totally didn't mean it and I just hoped she would come back and say the exact same thing so I could make a witty comeback. Unfortunately I made no such witty comeback and left discouraged. She was not bad looking either. The point is my friends can tell when girls are flirting with me even though I am completely oblivious.
This post so far is fine and dandy, but it's not emo enough yet. So far I've only described my own faults. For this to be emo I have to blame someone else for my miseries. When it comes down to it there is only one person I can blame for not getting a girlfriend...Ryan Gosling.
My entire life I've tried to be the nice guy. I've always thought that girls wanted a polite gentleman so I would always be quiet and not talk much so that I would not seem obnoxious or rude. This strategy obviously has not worked. Girls tend to go for bad boys who can never shut up, even when they say stupid things. They also want guys who are fearless and are not afraid to stand up to other people. This is where Ryan Gosling comes in.
When I talk about Ryan Gosling I really mean his character he play in the Notebook, and yes I have seen that movie. His character first makes a girl fall in love with him by lying in the middle of a road for her, has the patience to write 365 letters to her, and is fearless enough to fight in WWII. I don't have any of those qualities.
As I have already mentioned, for years my strategy with girls has been to talk to them enough to make them like you but not too much so you don't seem like a jerk. This is the antithesis of Ryan Gosling's character in the movie. Now whenever girls see the movie they fall in love with a character that I am nothing like. They then go after the guys who talk all the time even though they usually are jerks. You can see my problem.
Of course it's unfair to blame all of my problems on one person but that is why this post is emo.

Born to run

You begin to look at the world as a much bigger place when you go everywhere on foot. It is amazing to think that no that long ago that is how everybody traveled. Distances seem a lot bigger when it takes two hours to traverse them as opposed to fifteen minutes in a car.
I've been running a lot lately and if you know me or have read my blog before you know that is because I want to sign up for a half marathon in Kansas City in October. I am mostly doing this because a year ago my sister did the same thing. I could probably say something about how she inspires me and makes me a better person but mostly I'm just competitive and can't stand it when she does things that I can't so I want to show her up.
The other day I ran almost the entire perimeter of my hometown. I was so proud of myself because it is one of the farthest distances I have ever run. I decided to go to a website call mapmyrun.com to use their gps maps and see how far I ran. It turns out I only ran 5 miles. What the #@$!%. I almost killed myself and didn't even get halfway to my goal. I have to run the entire perimeter of my hometown two and half times. It is almost impossible for me to imagine this. I imagine this is similar to how Luke Skywalker felt when the Empire built a bigger death star; something along the lines of "I have to do this again?!".
I've been going into overdrive lately. I've been running everyday, I've been eating protein bars, and I've started doing yoga. Even if I don't achieve my goal I'll be healthier and that will make it worth it....I guess.

In other news, last Saturday me and my friends went "Half-camping". Half-camping is something that we invented so that we can have all the fun of camping without the hassles. We will go to the lake, build a fire, cook hot-dogs, and do all the other things you do at a campsite but instead of pitching tents and then going home to watch TV and sleep in our bug free beds. It may be cheating but its comfortable. We didn't have enough wood to burn so we go creative and burned old rolling stone magazines and girls scout cookie boxes estimated to be three years old. God help what ever poor animal has to breath in the smoke from that. Anyway here is a picture of the girl scout cookie box on fire and a picture of the moon I took.
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the internet

It's amazing that the internet is only about twenty years old. There is so much useless information on the web that it boggles the mind. I once had a teacher say "whoever said retirement would be boring didn't know about wikipedia." This my friends is so true.
Since I have so much free time on my hands, I tend to spend a lot of free time reading stuff on the internet. Most college students spend it on youtube or facebook, and while I do enjoy both of those, I spend my time finding useless information. Look at some of the useless information you can find on the internet. Let's say you want to find out how much weight Dick Cheney lost in 2001...BAM. Here it is http://www.doctorzebra.com/prez/a_cheney.htm#obesity.
Let's say you want to know how many rebounds Dennis Rodman got in 1996. BOOM http://www.nba.com/history/players/rodman_stats.html.
It's amazing to me that so many people use the internet for things like this and most people never visit these sites. I could spend all day on sites like google or wikipedia just learning new and interesting things. Did you know that the FBI once tried to kill Fidel Castro with exploding cigars...you do now. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/638_Ways_to_Kill_Castro
The world is full of fascinating information if you open your eyes. Thank goodness for the internet to make this kind of stupid stuff easier. Now if you excuse me, I've got some internet surfing to do.

It's always sunny in Kansas

Things have been looking up the last week. I still a job for the summer but I think I may have founds some part-time helping a guy at my church with yard work. I doubt it will pay much but I'll take anything at this point. Besides, it will get me out of the house and give me something to do.
I also think I found a place to live next year. It's not final yet, I haven't signed anything but I'm pretty sure I've got it all planned out. It is a load off of my mind. I have been worrying about where I was going to live next year for a while and I was afraid I was going to have to get an apartment by myself. This will be much better. I will be renting a house with five other people. I haven't seen the house yet but I'm told that it is huge. It has bedrooms in it so I'll probably be sharing a room with someone which is fine. It is going to be a full house. The others living there are Nick Kadau, Beth Wagner, Kyle Cooper, Kelsi Cooper, and their cousin that I haven't met yet. I’m a little nervous because I’m only close friends with Nick and I don’t know how the rest of us will get along but I’m sure it will be fine.
I’ve been running and exercising a lot lately. I’m probably exercising too much if that is possible because I will get bored and just go for a run. Right now I’m really sore because yesterday I lifted weights and went running. Last week I’m pretty sure I set a new personal record for the longest distance I’ve ever ran. It was close to six miles. I was proud of myself when I finished it.
Also the U.S.A won today. It was the most exciting finish I think I’ve ever seen in a soccer game.

Friends ignore each other's creepy habits.

Last night I did something I have not been doing a lot lately on Friday Nights. I went out. I haven't had much of a social life this summer except the occasional game of basketball or the occasional movie, so I was actually kind of excited about it.
Me and my friends decided to go to the casino. I really don't like gambling that much but I usually have a good time. I'm not against gambling for any moral reasons other than I think it's stupid and your only going to end up losing money. That's why I never bet more than five or ten dollars at a time.
We went to first council first but did not stay there very long. We decided we would go to the Southwind Casino because they have video blackjack. I put five dollars into the blackjack machine, lost it quickly, and quit. My friend Ben put some money in and quit not long after. My friend Nick however kept pushing his luck. He was at one point down to six dollars and somehow kept winning. I begged him to leave once he got to a hundred dollars but he kept winning. He ended up winning $442!!!! I've never been so happy and pissed off at someone in my life.
The larger part of this story is about friends. I haven't seen a lot of old friends this summer and that makes me sad. One of the things I hate most in this world is losing close friends after I spend so much time with and make so many memories with them. Unfortunately , it seems I'm really good at doing this. Not including the aforementioned guys I went to the casino with, I only have two or three really close friends that I kept from high school. There are a lot of old friends from high school that I'm sure would help me out if I called them but not a lot that I hang out with regularly anymore. I don't even talk to any of the friends I had in middle school or elementary school anymore.
The worst part about going to Cowley was being able to meet new people for about two years and then have to go in a different direction than all of them. There are a lot of people I already miss from Cowley and it hasn't even been that long. I'm sure I'll never forget them. Since I'm not working for the summer I'll probably try to contact a few of them and maybe try to visit some of them.

best new bands

The Hold Steady
I first heard this band about six months ago through one of my friends who has a radio show. They are definitely my favorite band right now. They have their own style that only they can pull off that no one has ever tried before.

The band is almost the antithesis of your average rock star. Most members of the band are in their late forties. They look more like they should be doing taxes instead of rocking out. It is the paradoxical fact that the band shouldn't be cool that makes them cool.
They just released their newest album "Heaven is whenever". I haven't listened to all of it yet but what I have heard I love. The lead singer, Craig Finn doesn't sing so much as just talks with a rhythm. It can sometimes be similar to rapping. On newest album he pushes his vocal range to the limits and it can sometimes sound weird because I'm not used to it. That being said, I like the classic "Hold Steady" of him just talking.



Metric


There are not a whole lot of rock bands out there with female lead singers. Most girls if any have solo careers like Taylor Swift or Lady Gaga and there are definitely not a lot of rock bands with female singers.
The band is mainly an electric pop band and reminds me a lot of the Killers which is always a good thing. They have really creative lyrics also such as "I fought the war but the war won".
My favorite thing about the Metric is their ability to be creative without being to weird. There are a lot of bands like the Yeah, Yeah, Yeah's and Animal Collective that get way to weird that their music just starts to suffer but Metric is able to be unique without going off the deep end. I haven't downloaded any of their stuff yet and all I've heard has been from YouTube or Projectplaylist but I can tell I'm probably going to get really into this band.

Pheonix

Pheonix is new to not just me but to most of America. They've released three other albums but their newest is the only one to make waves outside of their native country of France. They have released It has garnered enough attention to be in a car commercial though.
The best thing that pheonix is able to do is bring euro-pop to America without making it annoying. They have really catching songs that are mostly based on synthesizers that are fun even if you aren't dancing to them. They are able to make catchy and intellectual lyrics in English too.

Indecision 2010- Politics as unusual

November is coming up faster than you know it and that means midterm elections. It may not be as important or glamorous as the presidential elections but it's still important. We will be voting on the entire house of representatives, a third of the senate, and a new Kansas governor. I thought I would take this time to talk about some of my political views.
I believe in a representative democracy and that the government is by the people for the people. I think that a basic government's goal should be to uphold basic human rights and to do whatever is for the good of the people.
I used to be very conservative and even though it looks like the Democrats are going to lose some seats this election, I find myself getting more and more liberal as America gets more and more conservative. That is because the conservatives have just gone crazy. It seems that lately Obama has been under some of the craziest criticisms. They range from him not being born in America, to him being a communist, to him being a Muslim, all of which are completely baseless. I rarely hear good arguments from the right which is sad because it drowns out any good arguments that they do have.
The Republicans and the "Tea Party" members seem to always be fighting for the wrong things. They spend their entire time debating about gun rights and fighting against health care, two subjects that really have little relevance. The democrats have made absolutely no laws prohibiting guns in the last two years since they took control and the new health care bill is not as radical as most people think. It will cost only 1/10 of what we spend one year on the military and it won't even reduce the national deficit. Any debt that it does cost will come from America and not any other country. Besides, it is no where near as radical as making people pay social security or even the installment of the medicaid system and is no more communist than the Food and Drug Administration and I don't see people protesting safe food.
Don't get me wrong, I don't think Obama and the liberals have done the best job. I think he has done a bad job regulating Wall Street, I think he should have put more pressure on the MMS like he said he would on his campaign, I think he should have closed Gitmo by now, and I think it was a bad idea to send more troops to Afghanistan. But overall he has done a pretty good job. He has not completely screwed us over like the last president. That being said I think he is the best choice in two years. Mostly because there is no one to oppose him.
But that is tomorrow and this is today. The Republicans want to destroy all progress we've made and go back to their strategy of "doing nothing". That is why I will probably be voting democrat this year, unless I find I third party candidate I like or a conservative person shows me their not crazy. I'm not sure who's running for governor other than Sam Brownback and I'm pretty sure I won't vote for him. Bill Haley looks like a decent choice for senate but not a great one. I don't know who's running the House of Reps. unfortunately. It looks like I have a lot of deciding to do.

This is the new year; and I don't feel any different

This year I did something I don't normally do. I made new year resolutions. I made several of them this year also. Since it is about half-way through the year, I thought I would go through and see how I am doing on some of them.

1. Get better grades
This is one accomplished. I probably still should have done better but my gpa did improve this year. I also got a letter saying I did excellent on the CAAP test, which included doing better than 96% of the people who took the math portion.

2. Learn how to play Cliffs of Dover on guitar
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55nAwmVLQSk
I sort of accomplished this one. I can't play it impressively or as fast as the original version but I think I can play all of it. doubt I could get through it without making a mistake though.

3. Start acting like a genius
I've noticed that over the years I have sometimes dumbed myself down for other people. I realize this is stupid and I'm trying to stop it. I've been trying to spend less time watching tv and on the internet and more time reading books. Right now I'm reading The History of Western Philosophy for no reason other than I think it's interesting and I'm hoping I can learn something from it.

4. Run a half marathon
This goal wasn't actually a New Year's resolution but it's still I goal I want to accomplish. There is a half marathon in KC in October that I'm hoping to be able to run. Currently I'm no where close to being in shape for this. I've been exercising a lot lately. The other day I ran about five or six miles and was pretty proud of myself for that. At the same time I know that's no where near the 13 miles I'll have to run. There is still a lot of time left though and I think that I will still be able to do it.

5. Get a girlfriend?
I put a question mark behind this because I'm aware that this might not happen and I'm not going to go out with someone just to accomplish a goal. If your wondering how this resolution is going...not very well.

"We learned more from a three-minute record than we ever learned in school" - Bruce Springsteen

Music and poetry are really important to me. I tend to express myself in words that other people write in songs. I decided to write some of my favorite lyrics from different songs. These are just a few of my favorite I left some good ones out so this note would not be too long.

"Run, Run, Run, all you do is fucking run but you'll never run away from yourself. I know it's hard but you've been there before and you know your gonna be there again."-
Tomas Kalnoky

"The decades disappear like sinking ships, but we persevere God gives us hope, but we still fear what we don't know"- Killers

"Don't you go to sleep, it's such a bitter form of refuge"-Killers

"It's a luscious mix of words and tricks that make us bet when we know we should have folded"-The Shins

"The universe is shaped exactly like the Earth if you go straight along enough you'll end up where you were."- Modest Mouse

"You were talking about nowhere well it sounds like someplace I'd like to go"- Modest Mouse

"Language is the liquid that we're all dissolved in; it's great for solving problems after it creates a problem."- Modest Mouse

"Just shut, shut, shut your eyes. It sounds so good right now and it came as a big surprise"- shout out louds

"The Bible is blind the Torah's deaf the Koran's mute, if you burn them all together you'll get close to the truth."- Bright Eyes

"Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end." - Semisonic

"Don't kill yourself to raise the dead, It never works you'll only end up joining them"- Kevin Devine

"My dreams, they aren't as empty as my conscious seems to be. I have hours only lonely, my love is vengeance that's never free."- The who

"There will be an answer; Let it be" - The Beatles

I recently wrote a song...sort of. I'm happy that I finally wrote one because I've been trying to write a song for probably over a year and have just never been able to finish one. I have a lot of songs I've started on but have never finished, so I'm glad I was able to actually make a complete song. It's still not technically done yet, it is not that good so I will probably do a lot of tinkering with it, but the point is it's a song. Here are the lyrics. The lyrics are not that impressive but if you look at the early stuff of most bands their stuff wasn't that great either. This is an okay start for someone who isn't trying to get a record contract. It's called "Tonight".

I'm sitting here in this waiting room
Waiting for all the things I'll see
Will i see you tonight?
Will we make history?

Chorus
Our dreams are like a runaway train tonight, tonight
We'll look for an escape to the pain tonight, tonight
The impossible will be possible tonight, tonight
The unaccepted will be acceptable tonight, tonight
Tonight we are gonna live

The night is almost here
and we all have the same thing on our mminds
We all dream of making it
We all hope fate is kind

Chorus

self-control

I've been making a conscious decisions lately to stop judging people. I've always tried not to but now I'm trying not to do it at all. They say you never know what is going on in other peoples heads but now there is scientific research to back that up.

http://scienceblogs.com/cortex/2007/03/selfcontrol_is_a_muscle.php

This story scares me a little. Think about all of the decisions you make in a day. There are literally billions of them that range from what socks should I wear to what college should I go to. The fact that something as little as trying to memorize numbers could change the course of your day, let alone life, is not something people might want to believe easily but whether you like it or not it's true.
This is not the only small thing that affects our lives. There is research done that states people with names that start with the letter A are more likely to get good grades then someone with a name that starts with F. The reason this is is because a person's favorite letter is usually the first letter of their name and the brain subconsciously rewards itself whenever something happens with that letter, whether good or bad. It might sound crazy but there are a lot of studies that show people named Aaron are more likely to be successful than people named Fred
It is things like this that made me give up judging. If we can't even tell when things like memorizing numbers and the first letter of our names affect our actions, what other things affect what we do that we are not aware of?
Imagine someone is at a party and they have to memorize a bunch of phone numbers. They then lose self control and get really drunk and mess things up. Their life is than ruined because they had to remember numbers. Is it fair for everyone to look down on them for the rest of their life simply for something they were not aware of?

Books

I saw that I friend of mine did this so I am doing it also. These are in no particular order.

Rules: Don't take too long to think about it. List 15 books you've read that will always stick with you. They should be the first 15 you can recall in no more than 15 minutes. Tag some friends, including me, because I'm interested in seeing what books my friends choose. (To do this, go to your Notes tab on your Profile page, paste rules in a new Note, cast your 15 picks, and tag people in the Note, upper right hand side.)

15. Bible [various authors]
This book has probably influenced me more than any other book. Even as I grow older and my beliefs change, I'm definitely not going to forget this one. I don't want to get all preachy so that is all I'll say here.

14. Harry Potter Series [J. K. Rowling]
All of the haters who don't like these book can suck it. They are awesome. I really felt that I grew up with Harry Potter. Even though they are set in a whimsical dream world they still convey a great sense of human emotion. I can't pick my favorite so that is why I combined all seven into one. From the very first book I was hooked. Not only did these expand my imagination they also taught me things about friendship (as corny as that sounds) and about myself (which also sounds kind of corny).

13. Yes Man [Daniel Wallace]
This book inspired the Jim Carrey movie if you were wondering. The book is much better. This is the true story of what happens when you say yes to everything. After reading it I actually tried saying yes more. I didn't go overboard like in the book but I did experience a lot of things I normally would not have.

12. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime
This might possibly be my favorite book of all time. I had to read this book in school and was not looking forward to it but I fell in love. I could not put it down. The book tells the story of an autistic kid and does it so well. It is so realistic its amazing. It doesn't use emotion like most books but uses logic because that is how the character thinks. I learned so much through this book.

11. 1984 [George Orwell]
One of my favorite books that I was forced to read in school. This book really made me think. A lot of my political views were formed through this book. It is also about a lot more than politics, it is also very philosophical. This book is a timeless classic.

10. The Watchmen [Alan Moore]
I don't know if this counts because it's a graphic novel but I am counting it. I don't read a lot of comics but this one was awesome. I wish more people have read it so that I could have more conversations about it. There are so many symbols and motifs in it that you can read it 10 times and still find new things. Probably the best comic ever.

9. Lord of the Rings [Tolkien]
I'm aware of how nerdy it is to put this on the list. Again I can't pick a favorite so I'm combining all of them into one. It's one of the most exciting books I've ever read.

8. I am America and So can you [Stephen Colbert]
This is probably the funniest book I have ever read. This book has made me laugh more than most movies and TV shows I've seen.

7. Wigfield [Stephen Colbert, Amy Sedaris, Paul Dinello]
Most people have probably never heard of this book. It is incredibly well written for a comedy book. It prose is actually really impressive. AT the same time it is probably the second funniest book I've ever read.

6. To Kill a Mockingbird [Harper Lee]
Another great book I read in school. It is just a great tale of morality set in the south.

5. The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America [Bill Bryson]
Bill Bryson is probably my favorite author at the moment. I was tempted to put more books by him on the list but since most of his books are similar I decided to stick with this one since it is my favorite. In the book Bill travels all across America and writes about it with a wit that makes it so exciting to read. Although he complains most of the journey you can't help but agree with him. At the same time you want to visit the places he's complaining about. To see him rip apart the only country I've ever seen was a surprising delight.

4. Motherless Brooklyn [Jonathan Lethem]
The book tells the story of a detective with tourettes trying to solve a murder. It's amazing how well written it is. You really get to know the character and get a sense of what it's like with tourettes.

3. A Brief History of Time [Stephen Hawking]
Yes I actually read this book. No I did not understand most of it, but the things I did understand I thought was amazing. I love learning about science and the cosmos and that is why I picked up this book. I know more about black holes and neutrinos than I thought I ever would. The world is an amazing place if you look and this book showed me that.

2. Outliers [Malcolm Gladwell]
This is a non-fiction book that tries to show who becomes successful and how. It really changed the way I look at the world. I not only view success different but I view myself and other people differently.

1. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy [Douglas Adams]
One of the smartest books I've ever read, surprisingly. It is also hilarious. It really makes you think about things differently.

Forever young

I have failed at keeping up this blog already. I was really cramming hard the last couple weeks of school and AI was trying to avoid distractions so I did not get on my blog much. I thought about writing but never found anything interesting enough to write about. Anyway, here we go.
I'm finally done with Cowley. I'm taking a statistics course over the summer but that is all. Next year I will be going to WSU. I'm exciting about it because it seems like a great school but I was kind of hoping to move farther away. Not that I hate Winfield or the place that I grew up or anything, I just was something new.
I must say though, I do think that I am going to miss Cowley. I made some great friends here and I still feel like there are a lot of cool people I did not get to know. Before I went to Cowley I had a friend say he really wished he had gone out and made new friends. I told myself I wouldn't make that mistake but it looks like I did.
I had some great times at Cowley. Granted most of them involve working on school projects, specifically for the newspaper, but I still enjoyed it. That mostly had to do with the people though.
AS for right now I am living the bum life. I have no job but I have picked up but I have talked to people with the Traveler and Courier so hopefully I can get one of them.

"May the best of your today's be the worst of your tomorrow's" Jay-Z

"I bet you look good on the dance floor."

About three months ago I discovered that the Arctic Monkeys would be in Tulsa. I contacted my friends Chad Buttram and Caleb Johnston to go with me and we got out tickets. After about three months of waiting it finally arrived. I was weird waiting for something for so long and finally having it happen to you.
We left Ark City at about 3:00 o'clock and entertained ourselves by talking about music and telling stories. We went to Collinsville first which is a small town north of Tulsa. I wanted to eat somewhere we couldn't get back home so we ate at a place called The Silver Dollar even though I think the other guys did not want to. It took longer then we thought and we started to run a little late. I liked the place even though Chad compared it to me holding his hand "through the gates of Hell".


After that we went to Caleb's sister's house so she could drive us to the venue. We didn't know where we were going and didn't want to have to deal with traffic so we asked her to drive us there and she agreed. We got there at about 6:30 and stood in line until 7:00when the doors opened. Then we quickly got to the stage and stood there for an hour until the opening act started.
While we were waiting, Chad met up with a Russian foreign exchange student that came from Arkansas that he met on the internet. It got a little awkward from this point on. I'm sill not that sure how they found each other online to be honest but we met her there.
The first band started at almost exactly 8. They were a psychedelic rock band from San Fransisco that was surprisingly good. They were one of the best opening acts I have seen at a concert.
After the first act we had about a half-hour break before the Monkeys started. In the meantime we jus tstood there trying not to collapse from standing for so long. Finally after all the sound checks, they took they stage.
As soon the show started, a large group of the most obnoxious British people came up and up and basically pushed me and Caleb back three or four rows. Caleb, being the scrappy and lightweight fellow that he is was able to actually push his way up to the very front with his Russian gal pal where they stayed about the whole concert.
The concert was awesome. The only album of theirs that I had listened to extensively before the show was "Favourite Worst Nightmare" and they played a lot of songs I was not familiar with. They started off with "Dance Little Liar" which I didn't recognize but is now one of my favorite songs. It has a hypnotic three chord progression that is great live. After that they played "Brainstorm" which is one of my favorite songs and is great to watch in a huge crowd of people with a strobe light.
My favorite song of the evening was "A View from the Afternoon" which I had not heard before the concert but have listened to probably thirty times since. It has an awesome dueling guitar section in the middle that is really difficult to play and awesome to hear.
When they finally left the stage I was really disappointed because they had not played two of my favorite songs. I assumed they would be coming back because almost every concert I had been involved an encore of some type. When stage hands went back on stage to change the guitars I knew either they were coming back or someone was playing the cruelest practical joke ever.
They finally came back and play my favorite song "Fluorescent Adolescent". I was really excited. They even added a new verse into the middle of the song that was awesome and I want to find the lyrics to it because I can't remember all of them. They didn't play "When the sun goes down" or "Teddy Picker" which I am still disappointed about.
The only downside to the concert was, as I have already mentioned, the obnoxious group of British people. They entire time they were pushing people and yelling so you couldn't listen to the music. Most of them were smoking and one of them opened a can of beer and threw it in the air and got beer on everyone. I left the concert smelling like weed, beer, and British sweat.
After the concert was over, me and Caleb found Chad again. It turns out that during the end of the concert a security guard handed him one of the set lists as a souvenir and the Russian girl, Lilly, found one of Alex's picks on the floor after he threw it in the crowd. Chad wanted to try and get the set list autographed so we set off outside to where we were waiting in line. We went to the gate that lead to the parking lot behind the venue and in an ill advised attempt to meet them climbed under a gate to get through. A security guard stopped us and we asked if we could talk to the band because we could see some of them. He asked them if it was alright but they said no and we went away. Lilly decided to go back on her own and flirted with the guard. She came back about ten minutes later with an autographed set list.
When that was all said and done we left again for Caleb's sister's house and spent the night there. We left for Ark City at about 6:30 in the morning and made class the next day. All in all it was a great evening.

Quote of the day "Your wearing a Paul McCartney shirt and you don't smoke weed?" random stoner talking to Caleb.

Video Game Tournament

The Media club finally put on a video game tournament last Thursday. Nobody wanted to do anything so I had pretty much most of the responsibilities thrown on me. I set the date, reserved the jungle, acquired all of the x-boxes from my friends, advertised, got sponsors and got the prizes all with little to no help from the rest of media club.
When I finally arrived I started setting everything up. I set the TV's up in different corners so that competitors can't see each others screens. The entire time I'm doing this I'm assuming that we can get on x-box live and hook up the game that way.
I should probably mention at this point that I don't own an x-box. Nor do I know how x-box live works. Nor do I even know the rules to COD for that matter. I didn't even have that much planned for the tournament because I did not really know how the game worked or how many people were going to be there. I was completely winging it at this point.
People start asking me how I plan to hook up all of the x-boxes without a router. I don't have an answer because I didn't think I needed a router. This is when it starts to get bad. Apparently we can't play over x-box live. This is when Richard mostly takes over because he knows more about this than I do. We have to move all of the TV's and x-boxes to the other side of the room and most of the stuff gets jumbled up so I don't really know which x-box is who's anymore. Long story short it takes about an hour and a half just to get started. After much debating over the rules, I finally decide on a tournament format and they get started.
During the final match, a campus security guard comes in and tells us we have to leave. I didn't even know when the place closed. I just assumed we had it the entire night because I reserved it. So we had to post-pone the team tournament.
This really did not go the way I wanted it to. I'm just thankful that Richard was there to help. I'm pretty sure I got all of the chords and chargers mixed up and to the wrong people. Hopefully I can fix that. Also I still have to put on the team tournament in the next couple of days.
Moral of the story: Don't get put in charge of anything involving technology you never use.

Here we go again

I'm starting this blog up. I don't know what I will be writing about yet. It will probably just be whatever is happening in my life plus whatever view I have on whatever subjects. I don't know how much I will be updating either since I don't think many people will be reading it. I'm excited about the possibilities though.