And then I looked over the edge.

I just passed the last point in my life I had planned. I moved out, went to Dallas, and went to my sister’s wedding. Now I’m back in Malibu and realized I haven’t even thought about school starting. I haven’t looked at my schedule since I chose it 5 months ago, and I didn’t even know when school started until yesterday. Those events were so big and important my mind couldn’t really think past them. Now the future has suddenly opened up in front of me, and it’s a big empty void I have to fill with plans. It is sort of like when you sit down with a big blank piece of paper to draw or write, and until you put ink on that paper, it could literally become anything. I like planning, control, looking forward to things, but it is sort of exciting to not know where you’re headed. Anything could happen.

Something weird happens when you fly. When you get on the plane you feel like you’re all from the same place, and as you fly everyone seems to switch from where you’re coming from to where you’re going to. A plane that seemed to be full of Los Angeles people coming to Dallas seems to change into Dallas people leaving Los Angeles. It’s like accents and attitudes appear out of nowhere. I had a pretty interesting flight from LA to Dallas. I was fortunate enough to be on the flight with the West Covina little league team travelling to Irving for a championship game. I was fortunate enough to sit right behind them. I was fortunate enough to sit across from the girl a year older than them that they instantly became obsessed with. Age 10 or 25, boys competing for a girl use the exact same techniques. Even among close friends, the go-to move is to throw everyone else under the bus. As the boys talked to the girl (who was mostly ignoring them (but clearly loving it)) they would get loud and obnoxious and eventually turn around. Every time this happened one of them would lean around the seat and quietly apologize for his friends who are “immature” and “really stupid” or “so embarrassing”. I eventually became more entertained than annoyed, and enjoyed all the material I was getting for future stories.

The flight got significantly more awkward when our flight stopped to let some passengers off. The 13ish-year old girl, clearly feeling like a player, got up from her empty row on the other side and moved right next to me, smiling. I quickly but I think politely moved from the middle seat to the window, crossed my legs and buried my nose in “Slaughterhouse-Five”, which I had bought in the airport bookstore before I left. It took about five minutes before she leaned over to me.
“These boys are pretty crazy right.”
“Haha… um, yeah I guess. It’s pretty exciting back here.”
“They’re pretty cool, I just met them.”
“Yeah um, you probably have a few more years of this coming.”
She laughed and the mothers of the boys, sitting in the row behind me, laughed as well. I continued, “Just remember, you can’t trust boys. Well, you can’t trust boys from California, find a nice Texan boy.”
I thought that was funny. The moms behind glared at me and sat back in their seats. I forgot they were California moms. Oops.
Having been polite enough in my mind, I ignored the girl for the rest of the in-between process until a pleasant lady who knew nothing about baseball sat in between us and started asking the boys questions about Puerto Rico.

Without being too specific, in Dallas I spent time talking with old friends, and that is one of the most wonderful things in the world. I consumed absurd amounts of coffee and pushed several restaurants to the limit by monopolizing a table long after we had finished eating. Me and Wes created hundreds of new jokes, which is sort of a problem, because they are already hard to keep track of. It was good and refreshing and exactly what I needed from Texas.

Flying into Lubbock for my sisters wedding was like culture shock. I was 1 of 30 people in the whole airport. The airline worker at my gate when I arrived quietly pulled open her drawer where she had a gossip magazine open to the middle and read while pretending to type on the keyboard. We went to my grandparent’s house and suddenly I was in the land of floral arrangements and relatives I’m supposed to recognize. Pretty much everyone in Lubbock is connected to my family somehow, so I’m used to spending most of my time there pretending to recognize people I’ve never seen before, who met me when I was 10… or 19, my memory is just as bad. I haven’t been with my family for awhile, so that was very good. We played Wahoo, a family tradition that involves more smack talk than a championship boxing match, and for the record me and Tucker dominated in the semi-finals. Dominated. I gave my little cousin Brett my tub of Legos from my childhood, which he loved, but if I was smarter I would have waited and given them to him for Christmas.

My cousin spent 10 minutes showing me each shiny button he had taken from my grandmother’s supply while my aunt was fixing a dress. They were shiny.

My Aunt Nicole, my cousin Tucker, and I spent a good hour of intense concentration trying to transform a Transformers toy for Brett that I had given him. I’ve done calculus that was easier than that. That’s a lie, I can’t do calculus.

Everyone says Lubbock is a grid, which is a lie. Grids don’t dead end and pick up later. Don’t argue with me, I’m decided. I got lost in Lubbock a whopping 4 or 5 times within 2 days. I think Lubbock knows how much I used to complain about going there and is getting back at me for being so whiny. At any rate I now have a very slight knowledge of the city, and plan on forgetting all of that immediately. Oh and my sister got married. I think my sister has done of those weddings girls go to and decide to get married at, because everything went so smoothly and turned out so well. It was as close to perfect as you can get and… well I suppose that’s all that should really be said about it.

Now I’m back in Malibu and I’m getting ready to… I don’t know. I guess we’ll see.

Tonight we’re having leftovers.

I’m moving in 2 days, going to Dallas in 5, going to my sister’s wedding in 17, and NSO starts in 26 days. So I’m sort of busy right now; I apologize for my lack of rambling. As it turns out, I have to have a blank mind with nothing important to think about in order to pick up all those tiny things that I complain about, and I’ve been to busy to notice anything. Ummm, squeaky shoes are annoying? See, I got nothing. I do have one story though, that I’ve been waiting for a rainy day (it’s actually bright and sunny outside here in Malibu) to whip out.

When I was in Argentina I was pretty lucky because my parents and sister got to come out and visit me. In Buenos Aires I lived with homestay parents, Carlos and Ana Maria Pinto. They had two kids who are moved out and they spoke like 10 words of English. Five of those were, “We are the crazy Pintos!”. On the flip side, my parents and sister speak no Spanish. None. Like hola and gracias and that’s it.

The first adventure was that my sister arrived early and I sent a driver that I knew to go pick her up. Argentines do this thing where they don’t care what language you speak, they will talk as if you understand Spanish. So the whole way to my house the driver was talking to my sister, who understood pretty much nothing. It’s about an hour long drive. She arrived with no mishaps and stayed in my room. My parents were going to arrive in the morning so I left my phone on and right by my face so when they called in the morning I would let them into the house. Apparently they arrived and I didn’t wake up. Crucial fact: Ana Maria never ever ever came into my room if I had the door closed. She didn’t even really knock. She would just kinda ask if I was in there and if I didn’t open the door she would just leave. She was very respectful of my privacy. So when my parents arrived she let them in and she knew they were coming and she had seen pictures so she knew who they were. But she never thought to wake me and my sister, and I had no idea they were here, I was asleep in my room waiting for them to call and say they had been picked up from the airport.

So apparently Ana Maria got them tea, coffee, and breakfast in the living room. My parents told me later that they had sat in the living room with her for about 15 minutes, trying to figure out how to ask her where I was and if they could go wake me up, while Ana Maria said hi, asked them about their breakfast, and said I was sleeping. This is of course, what my parents think Ana Maria might have been saying, because they actually have no idea. I woke up pretty confused to find my parents who I hadn’t seen in 4 months standing over my bed in South America waking me up and asking me to hurry up and get up because they had no idea what Ana Maria was talking about.

The trip was really fun, and on the last night my homestay parents had my real parents over for a traditional Argentine asado. We sat down over some huge chunks of beef, chorizo (sausage) and lots and lots of wine. Since no one but me spoke both languages, I had an intense translating job to do between the 5 people eating dinner. It’s a bit tiring, so eventually I stopped translating everything and would just make up something more basic to translate. Long joking stories became, “He told a funny story comparing chickens and young men. It’s funny. Laugh.” My job started getting easier, however, as we went through more bottles of wine, a bottle of celebratory champagne, and the traditional after dinner shots of lemoncello. My homestay parents and my real parents and sister began to talk English and Spanish as if they understood each other, but they still didn’t. They wouldn’t wait for a translation but instead both parties would go on with the conversation as if the other person had said something that made sense to what they were talking about.

Carlos: “A veces tenes que gritar un poco en un restaurante, cuando no hay servicio…”
Mom: “Yeah, haha, we loved that reustarant yesterday.”
Laugh laugh laugh…

They would tell each other jokes and the other person would laugh really hard. They may not have understood each other but it didn’t really matter, and it made my job a whole lot easier.

Right now my office smells like onions and the stairwell smells like wet dog. I wonder why wet dog smells differently than dry dog. That’s rhetorical, don’t actually tell me.

I have also prepared this small offering, knowing I would eventually run out of things to say. The past couple of weeks I have had to occasionally search for stock music on the internet. Stock music is music you don’t have to pay royalties on, you buy it and it’s yours to do whatever you want with it. Think on-hold music or elevator music. Some of the names and descriptions get pretty awesome. These are all 100% real from a professional music site. Enjoy.

“Bee Hive” – Insane bees with laser beam eyes take over the Earth as they communicate with ultrasonic synth squeals. Includes 10 looped sections.

“There’s Nothing Wrong With You” – A hopeful and inspirational piece that could actually convince you that you are okay.

“The Acid Lounge” – Inspirational break beats will make you twitch in your chair as old school meets the new school. Together they swing and groove with tenacity and authority.
(How does one groove with tenacity and authority?)

“40 Something” – Acoustic guitar with a positive feel-like your dog came home, your wife never left you and your truck works again.

“Love Hate Party World” – Party club-fluent styles play with funky lines and grooves. Retro 80s synths combined with cutting-edge neo-techno rave lines.
(Neo-techno rave lines?)

“Flying” – Soaring above a mythical land on the back of a phoenix.

“Nature’s Dance of Joy” – Joyful without screaming about it-happy without laughing.
(This title is extremely accurate, scarily accurate, trust me.)

“Acoustic Dreams” – Ambient acoustic guitar, strings and bongos layered with synths and uplifting piano. Highly melodic and memorable stylings break into a super-smooth-ass groove.
(Super-smooth-ass.)

“Freakin’ in the Land of Phat” – Supremely freakin’ electronic hip hop groove that will make your body spontaneously convulse.
(Is that like… a good thing?)

New movie reviews for: (500) Days of Summer, Public Enemies, Harry Potter, and The Hangover

We (we?) have some big plans (plans?) for between the wedding ending and school starting, so stay tuned.

Coherence is for squares.

My sister is getting married soon. Someone else getting married makes everyone think about whether or not they should be getting married (the answer is no, you should not (especially if you’re my age (don’t do it!))). Girls however, have been thinking about this since they were -5 years old. But they think they we (males) don’t understand. They think we don’t understand the ideals, the longing, the planning, the fantasies.
They are dead wrong, because we men have been thinking about something similar for just as long: the honeymoon. Girls (and their mothers, aunts, cousins, friends, etc.) frequently get so caught up in the details of wedding-making that they forget the actual point of it: the love. Women, you should take a lesson from men here, because no matter what goes wrong with a honeymoon, we never forget the point.

I walk way to fast in confined spaces. This is okay out in the open, where there is room to maneuver. But in hallways and offices, I have become a hazard. Almost daily now I have a near-miss with someone in the hallway. They always apologize, but I’m pretty sure it’s my fault each time. Colin visited last weekend, and that dude walks fast. I imagine he runs into people all the time.

While he was here we went to Point Dume to walk around and Colin started exploring. I, being lazy and 40-at-heart, sat down on a rock to enjoy the view while Colin climbed all over things. This led to me frequently yelling things like, “No Colin, don’t climb that, you’ll fall down and die.” He would look at it again, and then look at me, and then look back. “Colin… no.” Then he would make an angry face and go play somewhere else. Also, we met a family of sea lions. Sandy kept yelling at us and I almost touched Sock Puppet, but sea lions don’t like people (and apparently they’re dangerous?) so we let Sock Puppet be.

The other day I was driving down the highway and I ended up cruising next to this nice cream colored Caddy. I looked over to see two Hispanic thugs and I could hear their music and bass (the two are separate) coming through the windows. They both had fancy looking bluetooth headsets on, and the one in the passenger side was making minute adjustments to his eyebrows in the pull-down mirror. I’m not gonna write a joke here.

I was at a gas station here in Los Angeles waiting for my car to fill up. It was probably 10 or 11 in the evening and there were all sorts of crazy people running around. It seemed like I could tell what people were up to just by the way they were acting. The SUV next to me was full of teenagers, definitely getting their one older friend to buy alcohol, and definitely on the way to a party. You could tell because they were way too excited, and all sort of looked nervous. The only other thing that gets that reaction is the Jonas Brothers and they had just left town, so I’m pretty sure it was underage drinking.

On the other side were the scene kids, probably about my own age. They all had cigarettes (because cigarettes are so cool). Most of them were wearing sunglasses or had them ready to go on their head (because sunglasses are so cool) and pretty much all of them were wearing V-necks (because v-necks are so cool). These people pretty much ooze cooler-than-thou like a high schooler oozes hormones, and I could literally smell in the air how cool they were. I was surprised though, because some how I couldn’t imagine cool kids getting gas. A menial task like gas-getting just didn’t fit the image. It would be better if when cool kids drove their cool cars that they just had an endless gas tank fueled by fashion and cigarette butts.

The best, however, were the two guys standing outside the little shop, talking. One was about my age and the other was probably in his 60s. They looked like that had been standing there all day, and were probably just gonna stand there for the rest of the night. It was like the gas station was their front porch. They were talking pretty loud so I could hear what they were discussing. It was an in-depth discussion about the ethics of Michael Jackson not attending his concert in England… Yes, the Michael Jackson that is no longer living. Now these are two straggly looking guys (I don’t think I needed to mention that necessarily, do people outside gas stations usually suit up?) but apparently they hold themselves to a higher moral standard than you or I, which includes attending our prior commitments from beyond the grave. And don’t tell me they didn’t know, because they mentioned it, in a this-isn’t-a-valid excuse way. Plus, if you think MJ coverage was bad where you are, try living in LA. I literally heard nothing else (not literally) for a week.

On an absolutely serious note:
The mayor of Los Angeles refused the idea that anyone should help pay for the city costs of Michael Jackson’s memorial (police, fire protection, overtime, road closures, etc.) and that the city should foot the bill. This is the city that just laid of thousands of teachers and cut summer school entirely. That man is an idiot. It takes all of my energy not to go on hateful rants about how this city and entire state are run by oompa loompas.

Some people don’t have this problem but most do. When you are waiting for someone. No one is ever on time anymore but we aren’t all equally late. So it always ends up with someone waiting for someone else. Like I said, some people handle this really well and they have no problem just standing there. Most of us, however, cannot handle this quasi-state. We think everyone is looking at us and wondering why we are just sitting there by ourselves. I mean, not very many people go out and do things on their own anymore. I can’t remember the last time I saw one person go alone to the movies or out to eat.

In order to prove all those judgmental people wrong, we all pretty much do the same thing. Pull out the phone, text someone, call someone, or my favorite, pretend to text someone. I know I’ve definitely gotten some “I need to kill 10 minutes” texts from people. They don’t say that, but you can kinda tell when out of the blue someone who doesn’t really talk to you texts you something like, “Hi!” or “How r u?”. You know it’s that, because the text contains no information. They don’t want to hang out with you so they can’t ask you about your plans. They don’t need to know anything, but they will probably try and come up with something that they crucially wanted to know. I will admit I’ve been guilty of this a few times, but generally opt to just stare at my phone as if something is happening. I don’t even fake pressing the buttons, I just stare at it. Surely… eventually… something will happen. You were probably doing that on Facebook when this popped up. Surely… eventually… something will happen.

Movies: I post an extremely late review of The Hangover.
Music: I feature one of my all-time favorite bands The Cat Empire.
Books: I update you one how badly I am failing at my reading list.

P.S. In the library the Humor & Wit section is followed immediately by “Modern French Literature”

P.P.S. It took me an absurdly long amount of time to type ‘P.S.’ because I kept putting the letters and dots in the wrong order.

P.P.P.S. I’m coming to Dallas at the beginning of August and I can’t wait to see all you Texans.

P.P.P.P.S. That made it sound I no longer include myself. I do. I am a Texan excited to see fellow Texans.

Most of the time suprises suck.

We live in this absurd world now, and I think usually we don’t notice it because most of us grew up with the pace of technology. It is hardwired into us. Not just the ability to use a computer, but the ability to learn how to control every new piece of technology. If you hand a piece of totally new, unique technology to a senior and to a teenager, the teenager will figure it out faster every time. We’ve spent our entire life adapting from button to joystick to mouse to touch screens. It’s such a part of our lives that removing every piece of electronics from out lives would be like removing a limb. We would have trouble performing normal functions, like meeting in the same place at the same time. My parents swear it’s possible without a cellphone, but I just don’t believe it.

Even though I’ve grown up in this culture, sometimes it still shocks me. That’s an understatement, it shocks me a lot, but this time I think I actually thought, “I’m shocked.” It was when Michael Jackson died. I wasn’t shocked because he died, people I don’t know dieing doesn’t really bother me. But he had a cardiac arrest, someone called 911 and he went to the hospital. Five minutes later, everyone in the developed world knew. That is… amazing, and kinda scary. I was at work and I usually try and stay off Facebook, but I popped over to take a look and literally everything on the page was about his death (except for the persistent friend requests from people who went to my old high school that I NEVER MET… quit it). It’s like Facebook doubles as a new organization. I’ve learned more than that from Facebook. I didn’t know about how well the US was doing in the Confederations Cup. I didn’t know Billy Mays died. In fact I regularly use Facebook as a well to keep up with sports/sports teams I’m too lazy to follow myself.

“Facebook-as-news” has created a few different types of characters. Like a horoscope, you can judge the personalities of your peers based on their Facebook response to a major event.
(Disclaimer: all statuses and names are purely fictitious, and any resemblance to real life is probably coincidental. Or maybe I’m talking about you)

First there are your basics, the people who without shame post whatever is happening. Some take it further than others, adding a thought or a comment, “Jenny Apple OMG Legolas died!!! WTffff I’m so sad!!”, something like that. Other’s keep it simple and just let you know what’s going on, “Timmy Von Timothy USA is up by 2″. This person probably doesn’t put to much thought into their statuses (which is fine) or really thinks that you should be informed, and knows that Facebook consumes 90% of your time, cutting out news, newspapers, magazines…

Then you’ve got the people who act like they are indifferent, but you know, you know they want to say something, but everybody else already did it, so they can’t. These people are easy to identify. They haven’t read any of the most popular books, seen any of the most popular movies, and scoff frequently. They probably like foreign films (which sound really interesting when you talk about them, but are in fact, mostly boring). These people frequently post extremely obscure song lyrics so that you will know exactly how little you know.

After that you have my favorites. The self-reflexive, critical of society status posters. There status will reference what everyone else’s (that’s not a word) status says in a “holier-than-though” fashion. Then they might include a profound critique of society as a whole. “Fez LaChristopher wants to know why everyone has to talk about Jon and Kate+8 -_-. Our media is so shallow <3"

As I type this my computer spell checks me, something people are age are reluctant to admit we are absolutely dependant on. My penmanship is awful now, because I hardly ever have to write on paper, and unfortunately when I do the notebook paper doesn't put a squiggly red line underneath words I've misspelled. Google is working on this new spellcheck that can distinguished context. The example they use is you could write, "I've bean using the wrong can in my been soup,". Their spell check would be able to distinguish between the meanings of the words and correct it accurately, "I've been* using the wrong can in my bean* soup,". Now I might be the only one… But that creeps me out. Don't get me wrong, it's exciting that I can look forward to a future of doing LESS work than I already do, but spellcheck being able to understand my meaning, I have a feeling I'm going to be typing and it is going to correct it from what I'm trying to write to what I'm actually thinking. It's taking Freudian slips to a whole new level.

Old people sometimes have trouble adapting, and there are some more subtle signs than that they can't get the TV to turn on. Next time you are around your parents, listen to them talk on the cellphone. 9 out of 10 parents talk WAY to loud on cellphones. It's like they don't know that the signal can go that far, like they need to talk loud enough for the signal to reach all the way to Texas. After realizing this you notice it a lot. It was similar to when someone pointed out to me and my friends that if a group of girls gets excited and starts talking, they sound exactly like a group of chickens. Try it, I swear it's true.

I wanted to switch all the public computers I use at Pepperdine to Pirate English on Facebook. Immediately after having this thought, the next computer I sat down at had Pirate English. I'm so proud. I wonder who did it…

By the time I have kids, everything is going to be in 3D. Eventually it's going to be hard to tell a difference between screens and real life. I'm already preparing my "back-in-my-day" speech for my children. I'm gonna tell it every 10 minutes, they are gonna love it.

Pop tarts don't fit in the toaster right. They are specifically made for toasters, but to be able to remove them easily you have to put them in the tall way, so part of the Pop Tart doesn't get toasted. The other way you have to reach in and try not to burn your fingers and sometimes they fall apart on the way out. This is clearly a major deficiency in either Pop Tarts or toasters, and I love Pop Tarts so much that I'm going to blame toasters. I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with this problem.

The other day I went to get a burrito, and this group of 10-year old girls was picking up their sushi order. Since when did 10-year old girls like sushi? But then again, here in Malibu grown men wear Ugg boots and shorts to go to the grocery store. If all hell is breaking loose, I think the cracks started in Malibu.

If I could grab a quick second here.

The Details.

I had other things to write about, but this importance of this point has been recently brought to my attention, and the fact that it supersedes the other things I wanted to mention should help illustrate how important it is. Girls, women, ladies… when you smell good, you blow minds. I was trying to make sure to say that right, because the point isn’t that girls really ever smell bad. The point is that when you smell good, we go crazy. Everyone knows how much smell is tied to memory and that can have pretty intense effects on a guy. The other day I was in a library (taking a nap, not getting a book) and a girl sat down in the chair next to the desk I was using. As far as I can remember I never saw her face, but I’m pretty sure that girl was the love of my life. I mean it wasn’t Abercrombie strength perfume, where when you walk by it tries to suck you into the dark abyss of electronic music and dimly lit rooms full of high school. It was just a subtle, average strength perfume.

Maybe I’m just not around girls who wear perfume very much, but that was like 5 days ago, and I have the memory of a fish. The point could be argued that don’t really have sufficient fragrance knowledge to make these statements. The extent of my information comes from a very passionate saleswoman at Perfumania who launched into a fragrance manifesto after Colin told her he usually just let people choose his cologne for him. In fact I would recommend you go see her if you are near the Firewheel Mall in Garland, but sadly she has re-located to New York. She had to move because she had been in Dallas to be near her boyfriend, but they had just had a pretty bad falling out. She was going to move to New York and see if that city could get her back on her feet and Perfumania was just a stop on the road. And no, I didn’t just make that up, that’s all true.

A Three 6 Mafia song came on Pandora.com (check it out) the other day and made me laugh. If you don’t know Three 6 Mafia is a gangsta (you can’t say gangster, it’s weird) rap group that won an Oscar for their song in “Hustle & Flow”. So now, their songs start like this: The beat started, you could hear the typical unintelligible talking at the beginning of the track. When the vocals finally come in, it starts with, “Three 6 9… Academy Award Winners!” I guess you can get street cred for that now, which means Lord of The Rings is ballin’.

I think I saw the most ridiculous looking idiot that I have ever seen yesterday (that’s a lie). I was driving home from Hollywood and I got behind a Z3 BMW convertible. Let’s start there. It was cold. Like, when you are driving you need a jacket cold, because the sun had gone down. To be fair, I was in a topless car, but that’s because it’s a huge pain to put the top of the Jeep back on so we just suffer through the cold and bundle up when we drive in the evening (translate: lazy). So I started noticing some other things, like his vanity license plate. Now if you get a vanity license plate, it better be hilarious, because otherwise you just got +10 jerk points. I guess it could be nice as well, maybe if it was a gift from your Mom and said LUV MOM. I think that could slide. Everyone loves their mother (except Eminem). But this said PRE MBA. I believe it was to indicate that he had purchased his fancy car before getting his MBA, and would like everyone to know that if he got that then, he was gonna be sooooo rich afterwards. Ladies, line up. Does that sound that ridiculous, no, pretty typical. But wait, there’s more.

We were on an access road, and access roads sometimes have funny lights. We were sitting at one (I was behind him) that had another light maybe 100 ft. in front of us. So our light turns green, and the second stayed red. You can literally take your foot of the break for 5 seconds and roll the distance. Not PRE MBA, he’s gotta fast car and he’s gonna go fast. For .3 seconds. For less than 100 ft. So he could slam on his awesome brakes in his awesome car with his awesome license plate. To be fair, he probably couldn’t see the light through his sunglasses at night. That’s right, sunglasses at night. At least he sticks with the classics. So with all of those pieces, what was missing? That’s right, pink button down.

Now I have theories on this, many of which were developed at a high school lunch table. In fact most brilliant things I know were developed there. No guy just wears a pink shirt. I’m not so closed-minded that I think it’s illegal or anything, but you’re definitely saying something. There are a few options. You can wear a pink shirt to show how above the opinions of others you are. 9 out of 10 guys think pink shirts are idiotic, and every guy knows this, so wearing a pink shirt is like saying, yes, I know you don’t like it and I don’t care. And that’s not a bad statement, rock on unique pink shirt guy. The other good reason is if you run out of laundry. Everyone has a few shirts, maybe they were gifts, uninspired purchases, whatever, that you don’t wanna wear. But you don’t throw it out because that one day you wake up and you forgot to do laundry, you can suffer through that day with that one shirt. You gotta do what you gotta do, totally valid. The final reason is you are a prick who has PRE MBA as your vanity license plate and you wear sunglasses at night.

My friend Landan showed me this service, vark.com. Aardvark is a service where you go in and select things that you know about. Then people can ask you questions like about those things, and you can do the same. Aardvark automatically directs questions to people who are knowledgeable about it. The idea is to have a more humanized way to search for answer that are too specific for Google. Questions can be anything from, “What do I get a 43 year old man who has everything?” to “Does anyone know where to buy a single grocery cart?”. I’ve been copying down a few of my favorite questions that have come up, in the open category, meaning the service didn’t know who to assign them to so everyone can give it a shot. I’ve fixed some language/grammar mistakes to make it readable…

[From ______ /38/M/Athens,GREECE
*getting even to a crook*
Does anyone know...a good way to get even to somebody who steal lots of money from you in a bad way?]

[From ______ /30/M/BuenosAires,ARGENTINA
*business*
Any success story on how to start to delegate your tasks and build a successful company by doing so?]

Forget University, why do you need a degree? Anytime you need to know a job skill, just ask Aardvark! It works for everything, from business to organized crime. Apparently in Athens there are good and bad ways to steal from someone. I bet PRE MBA guy went on Aardvark and asked how to be a tool.

Sorry this was late. Well it probably wasn’t late to you, but I’m trying to publish every week. So another is coming soon. No new movies reviews, but you can expect some soon. It’s actually a kinda expensive habit.

On the other hand, I’m adding two specific episodes of the podcast “This American Life” that you need to listen to. One is a report from Afghanistan from a boy who grew up in LA whose father becomes on of the new provincial governors. It is an amazing up close look from a kid our age who lives in both cultures. The other is about a girl who unwittingly becomes pen pals with then dictator of Panama, Manuel Noriega, basically the Saddam of that time. Please, listen to these, that are pretty amazing true stories. Check them out here.

New note: If I could grab a quick second here.
New podcasts: Teenage Embed
New music: Talib Kweli

You learn something new every day.

You know what’s nerve wracking? Watching someone watch or listen to something you love. You don’t realize it until you do it, but you realize as soon as you turn it on… What if they don’t like it? You’ve been gushing about this song/video/movie for minutes/hours/days and what if they don’t like it? Then if they do, suddenly your whole life is validated. If not, you have three options. You can make an excuse for why it’s not good. The lighting is bad, you can’t hear it as well, it was a magical moment, etc. The second is you can throw your beloved under a bus. I didn’t really like it that much, I was really bored, something like that. The final option is to throw your friend under the bus, who clearly, if they didn’t like it, is just an idiot anyways.

Guys and girls express excitement in totally different ways, and I don’t know about you, but I think guys make a whole lot more sense. When a guy gets really excited about something, the typical reaction is something like a fist-pump, some quick pacing, maybe a growl and flexing every possible muscle at the same time. To me, this makes total sense. You get excited about something and you gotta burn off the energy you just created, so you walk around flex your muscles and make animal noises. Perfectly reasonable.

Now girls, on the other hand, are weird. I know there are lots of ways that girls express excitement, but I’m going to focus on what I think is the strangest: the self-fanning face tense-up hand-wavy thing. We never really think about this because you know, we’re excited too. But what exactly does taking your crazy hands and fanning your face like it’s about to explode have to do with being excited? Now that I’ve noticed this, it’s kinda an excitement killer for me. If I’m excited about whatever just happened and I see a girl doing that, I suddenly lose focus and wonder exactly what it is they are doing. What are you doing? Is your face hot? Is the best way to cool your face to wave your open fingers frantically in front of it? Does the clenched teeth have anything to do with the fanning, or is that just a side effect of the heat? How come in other heat-related situations you don’t perform the same ritual? See, excitement gone.

I work in an office full of cubicles where we pretend we can’t hear every word the other people are saying. There may be people one cube over talking about something, and conclude that they need to check in with me about it. But unofficial office protocol dictates that I can’t stand up, look over the tiny thin wall and say, “What did you need from me?”. Instead I have to pretend like I didn’t hear it and wait for them to finish. Then the person will come into my cube and ask me a question. I will then have to pretend like I don’t know what they are talking about until they explain the whole thing to me. Then I can actually know, and can act on what I already knew I had to do based on the overheard conversation 5 minutes ago.

I think my office bought some sort of magical cellphone killing paint for the exterior of the building. It really is amazing. One step inside, no service. One step outside, five bars.

Also, our water dispenser squeeks. It squeeks in the same way your teeth do when you have that perfect sized gap. It gets me every time. I get water and then I’m absolutely positive I’m somehow whistling on accident. Firefox wants me to spell squeek like squeak, but I’m not okay with that. Squeek is exactly what it sounds like. Not Squeak.

This doesn’t really have any sort of justifiable background to it. I don’t think I like any sort of music with steel drums. I was going to say I only like steel drums in Caribbean music, but then I realized I didn’t actually like Caribbean music. Steel drums are a cool idea, and I would have a blast playing with one, but in actual music, steel drums suck.

I do have sort of a topic for this, and that’s music. Mostly the suckiness of it. Of course this is a common topic for music snobs, but I don’t think this is a music snob issue anymore. Now don’t get me wrong, there is tons of really inventive and cool stuff out there, and a lot of it is popular. I’m just continually kinda shocked by exactly what takes the top spot. For example, Kanye’s new CD, widely regarded as his version of phoning it in. Let’s see what that actually takes…

Zane’s School of Musicolojizzle

Just take a listen to any of those auto-tuner filled songs. Next go to the nearest Mac (ugh). Pull up GarageBand. If you have a computer with a microphone, you have all of the tools neccisary to replicate Kanye’s new CD. What’s that you say, you don’t have much of a voice? Oh, that’s no problem, you’re gonna auto-tune your entire voice so you sound like a robot anyways. And great news, robots are awesome singers, and never go off key. What’s that you say, you’re a good singer? That might be a problem. You see for an auto-tuner to turn you into a robot, you actually have to sing bad. So do yourself a favor, and become tone deaf if you wanna have a hit single. Oh wait, you aren’t very good at rhyming? Well that’s the best part. The BEST rappers have several ways of coping with this, most of which involve raping the english language. That’s raping, not rapping.

Say you want to rhyme the word toaster with urban: “My best friend is my toaster, he is straight street so urban”.
Clearly they don’t rhyme. Try it. Toaster. Urban. Nope.

There are several ways to fix this.
1. Don’t say urban! The best and easiest way to rhyme is to rhyme the same word! It’s great.
“My best friend is my toaster, he is straight street so toaster.” Easy.

2. Mispronounce the word so that it sounds the same. This takes a little skill, but I’m sure you can master it with a little practice.
“My best friend is my toastuuuh, he is straight street so urbanuuuh.” You’ll be a pro in no time.

3. This is one of Kanye’s favorites, just rhyme the middle of the word. It doesn’t matter how silly this usually sounds; you’re a pop rapper! You sound silly anyways! Just toss the extra syllables into the next line, or say them under your breath.
“My best friend is my toaster, he is straight steet so very uuuuuuuuuuur…” Ban. See, works like a charm.

4. This is personal fave, and by far the easiest. Just tack on a rhyming syllable to the end of both words. There are many ways to do this, but it’s best just to copy someone else. That’s pretty much how rap works anyways. If you get good at this, you can freestyle for hours! Ladies will love you. If you are a lady… hood rats will love you!
“My best friend is my toastizzle, he is straight street so very urbizzle.”

Now with that last one you run the risk that people might not understand the original words. You could change it to say urbanizzle, but that sounds stupid, changing words is for squares. Leave it how it is! If you like your toaster so much, you probably like your toast and your urb too. Plus who cares about your audience, they’re all squares anyways.

That concludes your bachelors, masters, and doctorate in musicolojizzle, which is just like music, except it makes way more money.

You never thought you’d see Twitter compared to Swine Flu.

Do you ever just look at a page of Tweets and think, “who cares?”
-Anonymous Twitter User

Twitter.

It’s time.

For too long I have listened about it in the news. I have heard 30-somethings and above embarrassingly chuckle when they mention that you can follow their “tweets”. I’ve read articles that cite Twitter as just short of the second-coming. I’ve seen a news story about Oprah’s Twitter faux paus run over a Iraq war piece. And worst of all, I’ve had to endure the creation of a myriad of idiotic new words: Twitterer/tweeter, tweet, twitterzine, twoosh (really?), friendapalooza, tweetaholism, twittcrastination, etc. These are my three favorites. And when I say favorites I mean things I hate the most.
Twiterati, defined as a new A-list twitterer whose tweets the twittosphere loves to watch.
Tweeple, defined as the “twitter-people” or people who use twitter. There are about 400 terms for this. I actually made a face when I read this term.
Dweet, this one I actually like. A dweet is a drunken twitter message. I like that because that to me seems to be a viable use for twitter: preserving drunken thoughts that no one should see, for everyone to see.

Here is the most major issue. For all the 24/7 buzz about Twitter being the best thing since the flood, we don’t use it. Our generation, which for this note is going to be ages 15-24, does not use Twitter. While different surveys and studies cite that 70-99% of our age group has some sort of social networking membership, fewer than 15% of those come from Twitter. Considering the buzz it gets, and the resources companies are putting into it trying to use aggressive social marketing and advertising, they are falling flat on their face with one of their most important demographics. For the record, no one in the Twitter poll out of the massive amount (sarcasm) of people who responded, use Twitter. Not one.Very soon it will be our age group that determines what web content fails and what is a success, and it looks like Twitter will soon be joining ExpressPage, Geocities, and Xanga, if we have anything to do with it.

All of the news stories about this gap in usage have a really hard time understanding why we don’t embrace twitter, but it makes perfect sense to me. We have Facebook. Twitter has taken status updates from Facebook and made an entire service of it. Status updates, while occasionally interesting, are usually the most idiotic part of Facebook. It’s where people who break-up write vague messages about their happiness, hoping the other person still stalks them. It’s by far the most artificial part of Facebook, and you can tell immediately who someone is trying to be based on the cliché, quote, or song lyrics they innocently post in their status, ravenously hoping that everyone who reads it will glean the secret of how oh-so-cool-and-understated you are.

The difference is the ability to subscribe/follow. If they added a subscribe feature to status updates on Facebook, I don’t think Twitter would be seeing the growth it is. And it’s the follow button that makes Twitter so ridiculous. Facebook’s status updates go out into the universe, and you know that it will mostly be ignored. Twitter users write their thoughts, thinking that their 25 followers are sitting eagerly at the computer hitting refresh, waiting to see what type of bagel they are eating, and 5 minutes later if it tastes good. You would think that knowing your thoughts are delivered to other people would make you think about them a lot more. But that is just not the case. Or maybe the mistake I’m making is thinking that with careful thought these peoples’ “tweets” would be more interesting.

A few more twitter tidbits:
Twitter is dangerous.

The people on Twitter, don’t actual use Twitter.

Twitter is a black hole of money.

Even MySpace is better.

It’s trivial by definition.
twit⋅ter
/ˈtwɪtər/ [twit-er]
–verb (used without object)
1. to utter a succession of small, tremulous sounds, as a bird.
2. to talk lightly and rapidly, esp. of trivial matters; chatter.

Okay, I’m done. Next week it goes back to normal. I don’t necessarily have a topic, but I can say I’ll mentioning a lot of music… and the overall degradation of everything. Everything is up and down as far a busyness goes, so I might not be consistent, but I’m trying to keep a lot of fresh stuff going up on the site.

This week:
New blog (you just read it)
New movie review “Drag Me to Hell“
New book review “Blink” by Malcom Gladwell
New musical artist “Ratatat“

Twitters own recommendation: “If you aren’t familiar with Twitter, it is one of those things, like MySpace, that sounds totally ridiculous and stupid when you first hear about it. But once you start using it, you realize how much fun it is.” and “When I first started doing it, I thought, ‘geez, not another website to worry about updating and checking’, but now I’m glad I did it.”

Look what summer has done to me.

(NEW STUFF at the top and left of the page. Look at it. See how convincing I am?)

Work has been pretty busy lately. We had a redesigned website to launch (it launched), so everything had to be checked and double-checked, but the entire office is in a meeting right now. Interns don’t go to meetings. And I had something I was working on, which had to do with looking through a bunch of international programs pictures, making me all sad and nostalgic, but then the internet went out.

This bathroom outside my office and I have issues. If you remember from before, there was a guy I always ran into, and I’m really hoping for comedy’s sake that I run into him again. But I cut my hair, so I don’t have anything to embarrassingly fix (you probably don’t get that). Yesterday 3 Asian men came in the bathroom right after me. Not together, with just enough of an interval for the door to close. They all had the same haircut (hair cut? hair-cut?) and style of clothes, but I’m pretty sure they didn’t know each other; there was no greeting or anything.

But then again, greeting in the bathroom is kinda weird. I never know if it is exactly appropriate or not. I feel like when you are in a bathroom the level of relationship necessary for greeting is higher than in the outside world. For example you might say “Hi,” to a coworker who is an acquaintance outside the bathroom, but inside the bathroom you are strangers. There is good reason for this awkwardness. What if you spark a conversation? Conversation with acquaintances is awkward already, and all men know that any sort of bathroom conversation should be kept to the absolute minimum. Double awkward.

For some reason I always feel guilty coming out of the bathroom. Like being seen in the hall is okay, but being seen coming in and out of the actual bathroom is somehow obscene. I’m paranoid. This coming straight from Argentina, where when the sun goes down pretty much anything is the bathroom.

You know what else is awkward, especially in California: doors. Well, opening them for someone else. I think it is less awkward in Texas because people are slightly more accustomed to it, so they know how to handle the customs. But people in California kinda freak out when you open a door for them, and then there is a big mix up, like a 4-way stop where no one wants to go.

I mean, sometimes you don’t know how far away someone should be for you to hold the door for them. There should be rules about that. Otherwise you end up holding the door so long, you would have been halfway around the corner and down the stairs, or the door slams right in their face. You can tell when someone opens a lot of doors, because they’ve got it down to an art. For example, if you can master this technique: You open the door forward and someone is coming right towards you, but you don’t have time to get out of the doorway. You have to push the door hard enough to stay open long enough for the person to get through, while you slide by them and catch it on the other side. Pros only. Otherwise, you could get bad bounce-back and take out the other person. Although that could be useful…

Another tough situation is coming out of a crowded restaurant or church. You’ve gotta hold the door through an endless stream of old ladies, but you can’t get stuck there all day. There is a perfect timing you have to get, either finding a small gap and disappearing, or wait until another male’s hand has touched the door, and transfer the responsibility to him with a nod. Otherwise when you have to go your gonna have to bite the bullet and slam someone in the face. Just try and keep your head down afterwards, maybe they won’t recognize you.

Next week: I assault Twitter.

Anyways, check out all the new content at the top of the page!

Movies, music, books, podcasts, about… Well not about, nobody cares about about, especially the person who wrote it. If you want to know about me, Facebook is your best bet.

Leave me comments please, let me know what you like, don’t like, or want to see added. I’m all ears.

And suddenly the world slows down. I’m forgetful.

This is so long that it has a prologue mixed with a disclaimer. This is long, and I don’t care whether you read it. But I WOULD appreciate you scrolling to the bottom if your lazy fingers can manage it, and answer the questions, because I need suggestions. Gracias.

I’ve been absent recently from the… I don’t know what to call it. Internet-y people call it the blog-o-sphere, which sounds awful to me. I’ve been absent from the thingy, because I’ve been out-and-about in the world, experiencing new things and growing as a person and all that tedious stuff. But now it’s summer again, and I hate to come out and say this, but I loathe summer. I understand why people like it and why we are supposed to like it. It’s a break from school, classes, the day-to-day (I’m gonna go ahead and try and use as many hyphenated words as possible). But I like school. I don’t like homework or studying hard, but outside of that, I really enjoy it. And really summer is the beginning of my day-to-day. We shouldn’t discount the fact that during school you have a bunch of different classes on different subject and regardless, you have some variety in your day. Summer means 9-5, working to make up all the money from the fun I had during school.

But, considering I live in Malibu and more people are here this summer, and that I actually have a job, I won’t mention it again (I probably will).

Actually, 8/10 of the responses I got when telling people I’m working the same job I did last summer had something to do with me “complaining/ranting/writing again”. While I refuse to take it as a compliment that someone noticed I might be “complaining again,” I am a college student, and we love attention. I feel like this could almost be the college student anthem: We’ll take what we can get.

Um, update on everything: This summer. The plan is to work all summer until sometime around August 16th when my sister is getting married in Lubbock, Texas. Sometime around there I’ll be in Dallas, and honestly I’m looking forward to Dallas more than I ever thought I would. I’ve been home twice since coming to California and each time I’ve had a lot of fun, despite being sick, sleeping on a tile floor, not having a car, and causing blizzards (I should have hyphenated some of those).

I don’t have a reading plan quite yet, so I would love some suggestions. Last summer I read the dystopian future novels “1984”, “Brave New World”, and “Fahrenheit 451”. Before and during Argentina I read “The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt”, “Theodore Rex”, “Till We Have Faces”, “Out of the Silent Planet”, “Perelandra”, “That Hideous Strength”, and “The Illustrated Man”. Out of all of the books I read I would say the Theodore Roosevelt books and Perelandra were the best. I don’t know if it would be worthwhile to write short reviews of what I read, let me know if that is something you would be interested in reading. Right now, on the recommendation of my father, I am reading “Blink” by Malcolm Gladwell. It is a continuation of an article he wrote in the times about the way our unconscious makes startling accurate snap-judgments. So it is a book that totally validates the way I already think, and that’s always nice. I still need a reading “theme” for this summer though, so give me suggestions if you’ve got them, of either individual books or any sort of series.

As far as other projects there is a lot of really exciting stuff I’m working on with my various partners-in-crime, but Candice has rubbed off on me, so now I don’t like talking about them unless it is a sure-ish thing.

I don’t really have any major goals for this summer. In the back of my mind is to go to the beach more, something Pepperdine students constantly say they take for granted.

I just realized how long this is gonna be, so let me make my disclaimer again. It doesn’t matter, if you don’t want to read it all, fine, it’s not for you. It’s for me. Because I’m selfish.

I’ve been watching a lot of TV lately and calling it “research” for a future career, so now I feel like a kind of connoisseur of television (that word is really hard to spell). But because I can get them so easily, I go through them really fast. So right now everything is on off-season. So if you’ve got a show you love, let me know if I should check it out.

I’m starting to love commercials. Mainly because they get more and more awful every year:

I saw a commercial on TV for HD sunglasses. That’s right, sunglasses that allow you to see the world in HD. I’m guessing you had no idea the world you’ve been seeing wasn’t high quality.

Wes is hanging out with me here in Malibu this week. We were driving to Santa Monica and we passed a truck whose back windshield was decorated with both a clasped hands prayer symbol right next to a nasty looking skull.

I’ve found myself falling in love frequently. With a song, or a person I don’t know, or a food item. It lasts for about an hour, and it will be all I can think about. But then it’s gone. Nothing good lasts. Especially when it’s cheesecake.

My Dad’s birthday was today, and reading his wall of birthday well-wishers is like reading a list of people I wish didn’t have Facebook (no offense, if your one of those people, I’m impressed you made it this far).

I like it when people write their status like it is referencing no-one particular, but it clearly is. The status is today’s cry for help. Or wolf, it goes both ways.

How you type your laugh indicates what type of laugh you are doing, so be careful. Here is a guide in case you are lost:
Hahaha – Standard, generic, probably fake laughing. People pleaser.
Ha Ha – The two capitalized Hs definitely means sarcasm. This person is a jerk.
Heeheehee – Up to no good, but it probably is more like mischief than evil.
Hee hee – Cute-sy, date this girl. Avoid this guy.
Heehaw – Donkey.
Heh heh – Usually trying to be clever. Imagine GW laughing and you got this one.
Lol – Definitely not laughing at all. Probably not paying attention to you.
Rofl – Still not laughing, but really wanting too. They have a good heart or a bad sense of humor.
Bwahaha – Evil, up to no good, and generally un-trustworthy.

I used 10 hyphenated words, but I’m pretty sure 9-out-of-10 were illegal. Bwahaha.

P.S. As a reminder, or for people who skipped, I need your help. Give me:
1. A book/book series/book theme for the summer.
2. Suggest a TV show (and why!)
3. Give me $10

My lifestlye has been affirmed.

I haven’t written in awhile. Go figure, my writing suffers from me actually having a life. This kinda explains why the typical writer is a recluse, with few friends, who doesn’t do much but obsess of their ideas. This makes sense to me now, because who wants to sit down and write when they can go to Brazil? Answer: recluses with no friends.
So I went to Brazil, chalk that up to me thinking I have friends and attempting to fight my incredibly reclusive nature I’m known for. I’m gonna write about Brazil a little now, which I’ve already realized is death to people’s interest, for whatever reason. I’ll just give you a quick summary of my travels since I last wrote. I’ve been for a week to Ushuiaia, Argentina with the entire Buenos Aires group. We stayed in Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost city in the world and the “end of the world”. This trip feel during my birthday, and really made it one of the best I’ve ever had. I hiked in some beautiful hills, had all of my friends with me in a resort hotel, and didn’t have to plan a single thing. Sounds like a birthday to me.
Then for Spring Break this year we decided to go to Brazil. Me and six of my friends went to Ilha Grande, and island nature preserve off of the coast of Rio; Buzios, an amazing beach town; and finally Rio to see the sights before we left. Ilha Grande was beautiful; we took a sailing trip around the island to various more secluded spots. In Buzios we rented a house (the best/cheapest way to go) 5 minutes walk from the best beach I’ve ever been to in my life, with perfect sand, perfect weather, and water that was always cool but never cold. Then in Rio we smashed one day full of everything you can possibly do: hang gliding, city tour, and going out at night. Top to bottom, an amazing, fantastic trip.
Now I’m back in Buenos Aires and in two days Rynn will get here and then my parents the next day. I’m really excited. I don’t have a punch line for that, that’s like, real excitement.
Before I left for Brazil I saw a lady trying to go through the turnstile with a spear, to get on the subway. I looked over to make sure I was seeing what I thought. A lot of things could appear spear like: a small flag pole, a curtain rod, a bo staff, or any sort of construction equipment. This was none of those things. It was a long, polished wood shaft with a gold, sharp, spearhead on the top, about a two feet taller in total that the woman carrying it. For some reason the security guard wouldn’t let her through…
When young people make-out in public, the usual reaction is embarrassment or disdain. What are these ridiculous young people doing showing off, get a room, with a chaperone, they’re too young, that’s gross, how long have they been doing that. Something like that. But then you see an old couple making out. As in senior citizens. All of a sudden you’re like: How cute, look how long their love has lasted, how romantic. It is like we are impressed they can still manage.
Pepperdine is the #2 small college contributor to the Peace Corps. I think that says a lot of interesting things about the students.
I’ve talked about these massive dog walkers before, and about the dangers of texting. I thought my Public Service Announcement was enough, but apparently I have to spell out every situation. I saw a woman walking at least 15 dogs, texting while conducting the dogs down the street. Ridiculous, so glad we have laws for that sort of thing in California.
This is just a general note to all music video producers, youtube videoers, videographers, TV directors, etc. Don’t half crossfade. If you start a crossfade, finish it. In case you don’t know what a crossfade, it is when one camera fades out with the image from the next camera behind it, until you can see the next shot. A half crossfade is where they stop in the middle, with two semi-transparent images, where you can see absolutely nothing but a jumble of color of movement, and you want to punch someone. Don’t do that. Nobody likes it. And if they do they shouldn’t.
They have a Starbucks here really close to Casa Holden (where we go to school). It is one of two in the whole city, it didn’t really take off here. But sometimes I go there to have coffee that doesn’t take two hours to make and two more to get the check. The thing is, Zane is not really a name here in Argentina, so I get some interesting responses when they write my name on the cup. I used to just say it, and see what came out on the cup. One time I ordered for four people and got four different names: Zen, Zone, Zan, and Sane. Zen is definitely the most common. Now I spell it out for them, which created a new game, when the worker tries to pronounce my name without and reference. Occasionally they chance it and I get some odd S-ahn or something like that, where they draw out the first letter, hoping I’ll notice before they have to try the rest. Most of the time they don’t bother, they look at the name, get scared, and just hold the drink up and look around for someone who would have a weird name. I guess it fits me, because they usually guess right. Or they guess a girl. I wonder what that says about me.
Oh! Also, I finally picked a major. I’m gonna be an Advertising Major with a Spanish Minor. Seems pretty interesting and I might be able to use my creative skills and Spanish. I’ve told quite a few people, maybe 10-15. Literally, 90% of the time the exact response is: I think you’d be good at that. I’ve decided to take that positively as in I’m creative or something, and not that I’m slimy and well adapted to manipulating people into what I want them to do (but I’m pretty sure it’s the second one). Oh well. At least I’m not a theater major.

P.S. Boom, roasted.

P.P.S. I studied really hard for a test and still missed the most important question based on a misunderstanding. This is not the first time this has happened. What does this teach me: studying is useless. I’ll return to my happy lack of effort now.