Minnesota nice.

Today at work, I was talking to two guys who grew up elsewhere. One guy was born and lived right outside New York City til he was in his early teens, and at this point he moved to just outside Miami. He resided there for a decade before migrating to Minnesota (he let a woman take him off the beach and into the Minnesota winters, this guy deserves a medal or something). The other dude is from Boston, and lived there the majority of his life. He spent time in Texas after he got out of basic training as well. His girlfriend also dragged him to our wonderful state. We talked for almost an hour about how we each grew up, the climate, prices, things to do, etc. The general consensus was that Minnesota is awesome because it's a slower life, everything is cheaper, and everyone is nice (I'll get back to this). They also hate it because it is cold as something that's really, really cold, and there really isn't much to do.

Besides incessant bitching about how their vaginas can't handle the winters, the most brought up point was how people are all so nice. In NYC and Bawston, everyone is always in a hurry, they say, and they never slow down enough to think about others.

Hearing things like this make me happy I grew up in Minnesota. I never really realized how nice everyone here is, I guess because I've never been anywhere else for an extended period of time. But hearing first-hand accounts of the inter-state difference of niceness is enough confirmation of the stereotype to tap into my thankful-reserves.

Yesterday, I was on my way to work plenty early. I work at 5pm, and I was in my car at 4:35pm for the approximately 12 minute drive to SpeeDee. I had just picked my car up from the shop that afternoon so I assumed all would be in ship shape. Well, my battery was dead, and I don't want to point fingers, but the dumbass mechanic had my lights on (not saying it's completely his fault, but he killed my battery). So I'm home alone with a dead battery and was very late to work twice just last week, meaning one more tardy in such a short span would land me on the tippity-top of the shitlist. We'll call this a pickle.

The first thing that comes to my head is to go to my neighbors. No one home. I run to the next-next-door neighbors. No one home. I run to the next-next-next-door neighbors. No one home. At this point, I am freaking out. I call my mother to check her ETA. She's in Clearwater, so that isn't an option.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

My driveway (we don't have a garage), with a significant hill in the back half, and between two granite walls bordering the sidewalk. The only way to get a jump is to get the car out of the driveway, and no one is around to help me, so I had to make a bold move. I put the car in neutral, gave it a good running start, sprinted to the door, jumped in, closed the door (just barely scrapping the door against the granite wall), and slammed on the break with the end of my vehicle in the street. Executed to perfection.

Now I just needed someone to jump my car. Luckily, my accident-prone self has jumper cables in my trunk. Quickly I grabbed em and ran into the street, jumping around and waving for a jump. The second car that passes stops. It is a very elderly couple who offer to jump me. Well, their battery is behind the back seat of their car (wtf!?!?!), and being the automotive savant that I am, I can't figure out how to open it. The wonderful old couple offers me a ride to work since they can tell I'm in a major hurry. I politely declined since I need to get to the exact opposite side of town, and this senior isn't going to drive fast enough for me to get there.

So now I gotta find another person to jump me. I go back to my jump/raindance in the road, hoping for another good Samaritan to pull over. Two cars later, a 20-some year old guy in a big truck slams on the breaks to come to my rescue. The guy is just a blue-collared, average joe, farmer-type guy. He pulls up over the curb and onto the boulevard, and saves the day. He refuses payment and drives away after I showered him in praises (I snuck up as he pulled away and dropped a 10-spot in his window, no worries, I always tip).

At this point, it's 4:51pm, and I have a 12 minute drive to the parking lot, with about 70 yards and two gates from there to the clock-in thingy. It was time to channel my inner N.Gin (yes, I just made a Crash Team Racing reference). Like a bat out of hell I raced across town. Eight stressful minutes later, I pulled into the parking lot. The mechanics out on their smoke break laugh as they watch some lanky ass kid sprinting as fast as possible across the parking lot and through the gates. I reach the machine, swipe my card, and I'm on the clock. Literally three seconds after I clock in, it strikes 5:01.

This was the most epic-est of scrambles of my life, bar none. Narrowly dodging the shitlist, I felt like an absolute champion. Remember in Hercules (the awesome cartoon Disney version) when Hercules is swimming after Meg's soul in the Underworld, while the Fates are about to clip the string? Every child in the audience is on the edge of their seat ready to burst into tears as the scissors are about to end his life. But it doesn't cut! Hercules entered god-mode. That was me, in a less theatrical sense. I made fate my bitch and entered god-mode.

But what really matters about this story is the case-and-point encounter with Minnesota nice. It just seemed so normal for me for people to be so eager to help. I mean, how cool do you have to be to be willing to take time out of your day to give a stranger a ride to work? I asked the guys at work from out east if that would have worked out so well for me over there, and they weren't optimistic about it. In fact, my question was met with a resounding "hell no".

So that's my first hand account with how Minnesota nice saved my life. Tunes!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn6iU_c2cM0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dg7K-5BHnGY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGQvKU8Iaz4

iTunes update: 2286 songs.

There is a positive in everything, you just have to find it

Here is my list of things that are lame that I found a positive in this weekend.

Lame: Have to get up early after a late night of work to go to a family gathering 3 hours away that starts at 11:30am at my uncle's house.
Awesome: Blueberry pancakes and bacon for breakfast, and a nap in the backseat.

Lame: It's not only my extended family, but my uncle's girlfriend's extended family. Too many new people to meet that I will never see again.
Awesome: Uncles who force feed you beer.

Lame: Being the DD for your parents after the party.
Awesome: Uncles who force feed you beer.

Lame: Car troubles on the way home, have to pull over at a gas station to look under the hood. Takes at least 30 minutes.
Awesome. Gas station is right next to a Dairy Queen!

Lame: Staying the night at my aunt's house in Albertville rather than driving 35 minutes further to sleep in my own bed.
Lamer: Aunt's next door neighbors are throwing a raging party with the bass quite loud, making sleeping a challenge (especially when combined with an uncomfortable couch and couch pillows to sleep on).
Lamest: With my parents and straight-arrowed aunt, making any effort to just go next door to join them ill-advised, if not futile.
Awesome: My mother's iPad with Netflix and 3G for a "Sons of Anarchy" marathon, and a fridge filled with delicious midnight snacks.

Lame: Van breaks down in Monticello, so we have to cram into my aunt's little car to get a ride back to St. Cloud.
Awesome: Still looking for the positive in this situation, but I'm quite certain it will come to me shortly!



Lesson learned: Patience and optimism are great virtues to live by.



Music time!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPVz5p4FvTg&feature=player_embedded#at=198

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypDPaw7115E

I met the girl of my dreams last night.

She may have been in my dreams, but now I know what she looks like! I know what I'm looking for. If anyone cares, we went on a date to a museum. The cool thing was that the museum was outside in the wilderness, and we saw a grizzly bear. Then we looked deep into each other's eyes in the rain.

And then I woke up.

I don't like I've ever woke up at a worse time in a dream in my entire life. It's never good to start out the day mad, so after the initial animosity, I realized it was Friday. This is enough to turn around the darkest of moods. Hopefully I meet this lovely lady again in the future.


So anyway, my NBA Draft review. Ladies, it's probably OK to stop reading now.

To sum it up, I hate David Kahn a lot. Here is an excerpt of a Bill Simmons article summarizing Kahn's two years as GM:

"A quick recap of Kahn's 24 months in charge: his Timberwolves lost 132 of 164 games; he used the fifth and sixth picks in the 2009 draft to take a Spanish guard who couldn't come over for two years and a point guard who bombed so badly that he's probably getting traded tonight; he drafted three point guards in 2009 and three small forwards in 2010; he locked down a center combo of Nik Pekovic and Darko Milicic for a measly $9.3 million a year; he gave Ramon Sessions $16 million over four years, decided he didn't like Sessions, dumped him in a trade, then gave the exact same deal to Luke Ridnour (who didn't deserve it either); he starred in a YouTube clip called "Chris Webber Clowns Incompetent GM David Kahn"; he whiffed on Steph Curry and DeMarcus Cousins in back-to-back drafts; and he hired and fired a head coach. Other than that, things went pretty well.²"

There's room for improvement.

Derrick Williams is an obvious pick and he's going to be a stud. But after that, we did nothing but trade down, and down, and down. We passed twice on what seemed like an obvious choice (Marshon Brooks. But we did pick up a future 1st and got rid of Johnny Flynn, both positives. Kahn sold a lot of second round picks we received in trades, hopefully money he plans on using on a Brad Miller buy out.

Overall, I thought we deserve a B-. We made a few good moves, and a few poor moves (in my not-so-expert opinion). It wasn't the typical Minnesota draft debacle. Hopefully Davie is working on a few trades, otherwise we have quite the clusterfuck at the forward position. We could throw out an entire lineup with 3's and 4's (Beasley, Wes, Love, Williams, Tolliver). Some moves have to be made. One of these years, the Wolves will get a good player at a position they aren't already loaded at...

Tunes. The first link is a mixtape download. I highly recommend it. The dude is a poet.

http://www.djbooth.net/index/mixtapes/entry/skyzoo-great-debater/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoW3bqnr7tw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amOGnQpYWmM

I will be spending this weekend at a family gathering, I will try to contain my excitement. I hope you all make the best of your free time as well, and if you don't have weekends off... suckers!

Why cold is better than warm.

I just had an argument at work with someone about how they hate Minnesota because of the cold and wished they lived somewhere where it was hot year round. Freezing cold winters aren't fun, I agree, but you gotta look at it from all sides here. I have a three part argument on why hot climates suck.

I. Clothes

The title is misleading, because I am obviously an advocate of the less clothes the better. There is just something about short shorts and a tank top that make girls' faces look so much prettier and their personalities much brighter, but I can't quite put my finger on it... But that isn't the point of my argument. When it's hot, you take clothes off to cool down. But what happens when you get to the bare minimum? You are out of things to take off! Once it gets to that point, you have to start putting clothes back on to combat the heat, and that's just a paradox. But when it's cold, you put more clothes on. And when you are still cold, you put more clothes on. And if you are still cold after that, you put more clothes on. You can always put more clothes on, but you can only take off so much.

II. Bugs and shit

In Minnesota, we have mosquitoes, flies, smallish bugs, and a few snakes. Those are annoying, no doubt, and in fact, I find even those small spiders and centipedes terrifyingly creepy. But if you live down South, you better be OK waking up with this, this, and this in your house or yard. And if you go swimming (coasts), you better watch out for this. Or if you are inland, watch out for these bastards. So, when you are freezing your figurative (or literal) balls off walking to class in -20 degree weather next January, think about this: the only living things in Minnesota that can kill you are other human beings. I mean, unless you find a mosquito with some awesome disease, but that's beside the point.

III. It builds character!!!

Turns out I only had two real points, so I am going to throw this one in there. But that doesn't make it any less true!

EDIT - I decided I will write a draft review rather than preview.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgNnL1rB9NI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xjdkc14-zwQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Q8x36DSPNI

Three awesome songs. And I credit all of them to Kevin Bonnema.

Why cold is better than warm (and my NBA draft preview)

Meals-that-smell-so-bad-so-I have-to-drive-with-my-windows-down-On-Wheels

I did my Boy Scout good deed for the week this morning, I know it's a big deal. I had to get up early and everything! OK, it was like 10am, but that's pretty damn early for me. I had to do a route for Meals on Wheels, where you drive around hot meals and beverages to people in need, who at least for me all turned out to be weird, super old ladies. It wasn't the most comfortable thing I've ever done. Weird old ladies, while being incredibly nice and thankful, have smelly houses. And often cats. I know how bizarre that sounds, but trust me on this one, I was shocked too. I only had to deliver to five houses, so it didn't take too long, or at least it wouldn't have if I didn't have to backtrack twice because I failed to deliver the right meals to the right house... But there was one thing that really irked me. The food smelled like a funny simile that is eluding me at the moment. It was like detox food, just gross. These old ladies deserve food better than that. They deserve something that I can stand to smell, and they don't deserve meat that I would call questionable at best. But, they probably don't care though, they probably just enjoy a hot meal. And that's good for them, because I'd be raisin' hell if that was my lunch every day.

So overall, it wasn't a bad experience, it was kind of rewarding and all that jazz. But it's definitely something I'm glad I only have to do once in awhile, since in all honesty, I am probably still a little too selfish at this stage in my life to give up an hour every single day to a charitable cause. If you aren't, then you are a great person. Better than most, and definitely better than I.


In other news, I was upgraded to an apartment for next spring, hip hip! While I was truly looking forward to Complex Round Two, Arborview definitely wins out. Gotta love a basically off campus apartment! While I should probably follow my ideals here and celebrate the future and not worry about problems, I'm going to run on a hypocritical digression here real quickly.

ABOUT DAMN TIME RES LIFE! If Res Life wasn't so stubborn and irrational, we would have been off campus about 3 months ago, and a school official would have never told us we lacked integrity. Blah blah blah! Argh! I'm mad! Blah blah blah!!!

Alright, got that off my chest. I feel better. Now that that's over, I can go back to being happy that we got the upgrade.

I was thinking about what our (I keep saying our, I should probably specify who "our" is, and it's Kevin Bonnema, Derek Ikeogu, Andrew Meder, Nick Bertness, and I) lives would have been like if we were in North again next year as opposed to being in Arborview. We would be hanging out with different people on a frequent basis. We probably would have made a lot more sophomore friends in North. We will probably hang out with mostly the same people we hung out with this year. Who knows how much our lives would have changed based on a simple change of location, only a few blocks away. I was pondering upon this point while at work today listening to Common Market (returning readers will know my infatuation with Tobacco Road). In the song bearing the album's namesake, there is a quote about how life isn't what you make it, but rather it's life that makes you. I thought about this for a solid half an hour tonight. I didn't quite realize how accurate that statement really is until I started writing this post tonight.

I started thinking about how different my life would be next year living across campus, but then I broadened my introspection. What if I had ended up at Marquette University (my first college choice, money didn't work out) rather than Gustavus? What if I had gone to the U? What if my current friends hadn't ever attended Gustavus? What if my friends from home and I all decided to go to the same school? #mindblown

I would like to think that life is what you make it, and it is to some extent, but to deny how much your life depends on situation and circumstance is ignorant. That doesn't mean you still don't have control over your life, but I just found the original point was very interesting. I am going to leave it at that, as if I went much farther I would probably type a few thousand words of redundancy. I try to catch myself from ranting before I get too into it, because, as I'm sure as my friends will testify, once I get on my soapbox it is a slippery slope. I will just sum it up with this: life is what makes you, but everything is still your choice, choose wisely (for any former Madison Mustangs, yes, I did just quote Mrs. Nelson).

That's all I got for tonight methinks. I will try to not be serious very often, but that was just something on my mind, hope you enjoyed it as a little change-up. Tonight, I not only have a song, but an entire mixtape! The first song is just an awesome Macklemore jam (awesome and Macklemore as synonymous). The second link is a safe download think, I promise. Do it up, you won't regret it. And the third link is a song I found on some random blog that I kinda dig.

Peace.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPIqDBM0zd8

http://www.ohsofreshmusic.com/2011/06/download-kickdrums-ghost-mixtape.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OhgWBLOe3Tw&feature=player_embedded#at=26

Father's Day running blog.

It's Father's Day but I am spending the day home alone, as my parents and brother are at a basketball tournament for another hour or so. So, I am spending this cloudy day inside by myself. What am I gonna do? I'm gonna write a detailed running blog.

• 1:23pm: I arise from an 11 hour slumber. My first move is to roll over and call my mom and ask when they are getting home. Not til around 6 or 7, she says. Neat, nothing better than a house to yourself on a family "holiday".
• 1:30pm: I finish my shower, brush my teeth, and get dressed. The best thing about being home alone is "getting dressed" has loose standards. Today I chose just a pair of basketball shorts, it was a conservative decision, aided by the fact the neighbors have their entire family over, so my typical home alone outfit would have been a little scandalous.
  
• 1:45pm: This is normally a little early for my breakfast, but I was hungry this morning. Eggos are delicious.
  
• 1:55pm: It doesn't take long for me to migrate to my "kickin' it" spot, which is the man chair in the living room, with the TV on and my laptop up. Gotta love afternoon baseball, so I turn on the Twins. Also, gotta love playing the Padres.
  
• 3:07pm: I had one helluva sneeze, just about knocked me out (sadly this is noteworthy).
• 6:00pm: I moved. Briefly.
  
• 6:15pm: I'm out of things to watch. The Twins won in walk-off fashion. Rory destroyed the US Open. Time to flip through the channels.
• 6:16pm: WNBA basketball on FSN. Lol. I will just watch college baseball.
  
• 6:30pm: Family gets home.

As you can see, I take full advantage of down time. I am very productive, and even had time to write a lengthy running blog! (Also, I may be exaggerating a bit, as I did get up somewhere in the middle to try and play Xbox, but the video cord didn't work, and I didn't feel like trying to fix it, so I promptly returned back to the man chair.) Turns out my life is too boring for a running blog. Whodathunk it?




Sunday signals the eve of the new week. The new week means 45 more long hours of work before the weekend. I could be disappointed or upset about this, but I choose to focus on the positives, like my 14-day Dota ban which expires at midnight WOOOOOO!!! Now, all the time I would be spending on fixing my iTunes and reading will all be spent playing a stupid video game that I am barely above average at. Is this a good thing? Hell no. Am I going to do something about it? Hell no. Do I regret it? Hell no. In fact, I am counting down the minutes til I can spend more time wasting time. T-minus 151 minutes as I type this sentence...

Anyway, this is really funny.

http://img847.imageshack.us/img847/8458/davidthorne.jpg

Here's a few good songs to start the week with.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TIgnYBOxEz0&feature=player_embedded#at=85

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otPxoVQiIGo

Everyone already knows the second song, but it's awesome and I don't think I've posted it yet. Enjoy.

Payday is the best day.

It's Friday! Well, technically it's Saturday, but it's my Friday. That means I get to celebrate the best day of the bi-weekly calendar. Two weeks of blood, sweat, and, well I guess a bit of slacking, finally pay off. Everything I have slaved for over the last two weeks no longer feels like slavery, but an actual job.

While most people may go on a spending spree with a new paycheck, I, on the other hand, put it straight into the bank. I like to think I am fairly fiscally responsible and financially literate. I live by the motto "a penny saved is a penny earned." I call it smart, not stingy. And when I see a nickel on the sidewalk, you can bet your damn boots I am gonna pick it up and put it in my piggie bank (actually it's shaped like a giant Tootsie Roll).

I mean, if I don't save my money now, how am I going to drink and travel in Europe for four months (well, I guess I need to eat and stuff too)??? For this summer, I have adjusted my motto to "a penny saved is a penny I can put toward buying a beautiful Danish woman a drink next fall".

So while paychecks are awesome and all, but I am trying my best to save the rewards to be reaped at a later date. Out for lunch now <<< drinks at a bar with a hot European date. It's simple mathematics, just ask Mos Def. Don't worry, that doesn't count as one of my two songs for the night, it is just me thinking I am clever. Typical.

The second best thing about payday, behind getting paid, is that it signals the long-awaited weekend. And this weekend will be dandy. It's gonna start tomorrow afternoon with some throwback ping-pong. Brent Scheopf, Kevin McGuire, Andrew Benson, Joe Pekarna, and Jeff Theismann will hope to avoid the business end of my paddle. Some of St. Cloud's best reconvene around the ping-pong gridiron in what promises to be nothing less than an epic display of table tennis prowess. Results will be posted at a later date. I promise not to lie to make my results sound better than they actually were too much.

Also on the weekend agenda is Father's Day. No, you probably don't need to buy your dad anything like you do on Mother's Day because men don't dig that stupid sentimental shit like that, but you should probably grill steaks or something. Maybe split a 6-pack (or 12 or 24 depending on your family's culture) and watch the Twins game. I don't really care what you do, but I personally will be offended if you don't show pops some love on on of the two days of the entire year that the wife can't nag at him.


iTunes update: 1290. I've been lazy lately, I gotta get back on my horse.


Speaking of horses, enjoy this song by the greatest rapper alive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CaEupYr_Z0

Still speaking of horses, enjoy this song by the greatest band of all time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhwwCWkmYoc

And since it's the weekend, I'll throw in a nice calming song for the hell of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMrd5ikoaIs


Have yourselves a weekend.

When it comes to days, you can't win 'em all.

Have you ever had a day at work so incredibly shitty that when you got home you took a bottle of Captain into the shower with you?

Until tonight, I hadn't either. I don't want to get into extreme details because, ya know, e'erbody got problems, but to sum it up I got soaked from the shoulders down in paint thinner and got yelled at by a truck driver and my boss for something I had no involvement in. While tonight sucked a lot, it got me thinking about something: a bad attitude spreads like wild fire, one person can really ruin a day for everyone else.

Being mad sucks. When you are mad, you aren't happy. When you are mad, it's pretty hard for people around you to be happy. It's a no-win situation. Why do we need to feel the need to bring ourselves and others down? If there is one kind of people I can't stand, it's people who are always angry or always in a bad mood. I try as much as possible to not surround myself with anyone like this.

You left your lights on and your car battery is dead, get over it, it isn't the end of the world. Your professor gave you a half a letter grade lower than you thought you deserved, who cares, get over it. You got your ass kicked at work, it happens, get over it.

When you let yourself get down over small shit, life isn't great. Personally, I want my life to be as great as possible in every aspect, so in order for this to happen, I try and limit my "mad time" (there are a few situations where being mad is acceptable and I don't count those as mad time, i.e. a video game beat down, Kevin when he loses a four pound bass just as he is about to pull it in the boat, sucker).

I have a proposition to make. From the time you read this, make a conscious effort the next day to be as joyful as possible, even in the shittiest situations. When you see someone who is in a bad mood, try to cheer them up. Make the best of every situation.

Obviously it isn't possible to be happy all the time. Your basic human emotions win out in most situations. That being said, there is always room for improvement. With simple conditioning, the human mind can literally do anything, so let's condition our mind to avoid bad moods, and let us all be happier people.

This is something I need to personally work on. No longer will I let work get to me like it did tonight, and I will do my best to always keep my composure. It will all work out in the end. So tonight, I will drift to sleep to the enlightened words of the best rapper alive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4O3q5veXTxE

Good night all, I hope everyone has a happy day.




iTunes update: 1112 songs. Slowly but surely...


The fact that the new version of this song is so popular on the radio is a shame. Long live rock n' roll.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ww5GXbk58R0

Aaaaaaaannnnnd one more song for good measure. And because Kardi rules.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mo2EOai3CF4

If I told you who I got this from, the Colonel will come for you.

EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT! KFC CHICKEN SECRET FORMULA DISCOVERED!!

Blend ingredients together for about a minute, make sure it's pulverized into a powder-like substance. Cover your chicken in this and then fry. Best results = Pressure Cooker

KFC Chicken Spices

Ingredients:

* 1 tablespoon rosemary
* 1 tablespoon oregano
* 1 tablespoon ground sage
* 1 teaspoon powdered ginger
* 1 teaspoon marjoram
* 1 1/2 teaspoons thyme
* 3 tablespoons packed brown sugar
* 3 tablespoons dry minced parsley
* 1 teaspoon pepper
* 1 tablespoon paprika
* 2 tablespoons garlic salt
* 2 tablespoons onion salt
* 2 tablespoons chicken bouillon powder or 4 chicken bouillon cubes, crushed
* 1 package powdered tomato soup mix




I was going to go to bed early tonight (like 3am-ish). In my last few minutes of bullshitting on the internet before I bid the world adieu, I came across something that didn't got me so excited that sleeping was not a plausible option. It was this alleged KFC chicken recipe. As a man who loves his chicken, I was ecstatic. I had two paragraphs typed up in this blog about how awesome and groundbreaking this was. Here is a snippet.

"Oh my gosh, KFC chicken in my own kitchen, only not old and mass produced! Remember how big of a story it was when Osama died? After this, I don't. Chicken >> evil villain."

Yeah, I was really excited for this post. But then, I decided I should double-check myself. I Googled dat shit.

http://www.google.com/search?q=kfc+chicken+recipe&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

Google is such a buzzkill sometimes (though it did save me some embarrassment). I hadn't been this disconcerted, disappointed, and just let down since that time the Twins got swept in the playoffs. No not that time. No, not that time either. No! The other time. Yes, that one. Or the others, too, they meet qualifications.




iTunes update: 829 songs. I got up an hour earlier today so I could spend some time working on my music library, but I ended up reading for a few hours instead. Let this be a lesson any kids out there, reading books is a waste of time. You could be doing something so much productiver and awesomer with your time.


Good night/morning, whichever you consider it to be.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xIXx-sa0S0 (For the love of all that is holy, just listen to the song, don't watch the video. You can thank me later."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShdwgIoIKpU

I think I may have already posted this song earlier, but I can't stop listening to it, so a double-post is warranted.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwSAh66ESk8

Anything the Kickdrums touch turns to a sweet remix.

Flat tires and Fat Tire

So my car has a flat tire. Two problems arise from this, and I don't know which one is worse:

1) I have no clue how to change a tire, and will have to wait until I see my dad tomorrow to change it.

2) With my car out of service, I have to drive my mother's minivan to work.

Driving your mom's van was acceptable in high school, but driving a gold Town & Country to a blue-collared, second shift, warehouse job is not. I am embarrassed already. I should probably have my mom pack my lunch tonight too. She could throw in a Lunchable, Capri Sun, and a Snack Pack. Any Spee Dee street cred I may have had or had potential to have in the future is now negated, which is unfortunate, because I was really hoping to impress that one girl who sells cigarettes to the minors... I have no choice but to embrace my role as the momma's boy college kid in the eyes of my co-workers. Time to put on my corduroy slacks and go to work.


10 hours later....


Work is over. Time for a cold Flat Tire and some more writing.



The recent development discussed above brings up a bigger issue at hand, the issue of manhood. As a young adult, all of 20 years old, there are a few things that pride myself on that I define as necessary criteria for manhood. I am a deep, independent thinker. I am dependable. I am ambitious. I'm a pretty good cook. I have male genitalia. Obviously, my definition of manhood is contorted to encompass my personal traits in an effort of self-enhancement, but I would consider those important traits for any man (though they are all up for debate, I guess except for one, but that is for you to decide).

But there is one thing that is missing from my otherwise flawless repertoire of awesome manly traits, my lack of car know-how. It's the one chink in my ultramasculine armor. Putting me under the hood would be like putting Lebron in the fourth quarter, there would be much failure, and probably a few tears. Who would ever marry me knowing I couldn't change the oil on their expensive car that I will buy for them with my quarter-mil salary? No one, that's who (I know, women are shallow like that, how annoying). But I will not remain stagnant, I will learn, and if there is a will there is a way. Ambition provides the will, and I don't quite know the way yet, but it may start with some form of "Cars for Dummies" literature. But it will happen! By the end of the summer, my goal is to know how to change a tire and the oil. I feel like this is a bold goal, but what's the point of a goal if it's easy? Any words of encouragement will much appreciated, and advice will be more than necessary if this experiment is to be destined for successful and injury-free completion.





















So which one of these is the engine??






iTunes update: 583 songs. Only like 5000 songs left to go. We can build on this.




Good night all, I hope you dream lucidly, and your imagination knows no bound. And download Donnis' mixtape in the morning, Southern Lights (all my shameless plugs are on my own accord, I like to share joy with the world).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rySQqcsXL9s

And listen to this song just because it's awesome. It combines two of my favorite things, hip hop and musicals.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY12WaHIMiU

And listen to this song because everybody who's anybody is doing it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHLyPdt-Fi4

Fishing and Lebron hate.

Being that I am a middle-class white dude from Minnesota, you would think I fish more than I do. I fish infrequently to say the least. A few times in a summer is a good summer. But I do love to fish. In fact, I love to fish despite the fact that I am a terrible fisherman. You wouldn't be out of line to say that I do things better than fishing, and apparently, I am no Randy Moss (see, above). Just today, I tangled a line, lost a hook to a dock, almost hit Kevin in the face with a cast, dropped my rod mid-cast and threw it in the lake, and had a treble hook and inch deep into my hand (which took a few minutes to remove surgically via fishing pliers and some dirt). I wasn't kidding when I said my fishing skills lack. Give Peter a fish and he eats for a day, teach Peter to fish and he still won't catch shit (please forgive the lame third person usage). So what happens when you pin angling ineptitude against the first born son of the fishing legend himself, the one, the only, the Minnesotan Ahab, Scott Bonnema? Nothing really exciting. Kevin caught a bunch of bass, I caught a few pike. Kevin had a monster bass that he almost got all the way into the boat. He was like super close to almost catching a mega fish, like for realz. It was so close that you could almost taste it. Luckily, Kevin is such a good fisherman that this didn't phase him. It takes more than to throw the emperor off his groove. He hauled in a 7-ounce monster only minutes later. There are plenty of bass in the lake, Kevin, but that was the one that got away...


One of my northerns was pretty big. It was neat, especially for someone who doesn't catch many fish, much less ones with any size to them. Kevin took a picture, but I don't know how to put it onto this blog yet. As you can tell from my last post, I am not the most tech-savvy person around. But anyway, it is on Facebook if you actually care. The only thing that matters is that I beat Kevin in his own game! A stopped clock is right twice a day, and I can catch a fish once in awhile. Anything is possible. In a few weeks we will return to our maritime grind iron, with presumably Andrew Meder and Ryan Schmidtman (unless he is 99% sure, which means he is gonna flake like he ran out of Head & Shoulders). I will probably have a better recap of that trip, as I will have more competitors to kill, which means more bragging rights and better/more exaggerated stories.



But anyway, fishing is cool and all, but Lebron losing is super awesome. That is all that I really cared about during this day. I will digress from this subject though, as I may start an hour long rant.

Good night friends and followers. End your night tonight with the first song, and make sure you start your day tomorrow with the second (or vice-versa, it works either way). You won't have a bad day if you do, I am 99% sure of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UW32D_Y4Bhg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI2IJ9FBb-Y

Super 8 is epic.

I don't mean epic in the lame nerd definition of the word. I mean epic as it's dictionary definition, like heroic, majestic, impressively great. I went to it out of spontaneity with a friend, and had no clue what it was about going in, with a completely open mind. I came out of it with a completely blown mind. If everything awesome that has ever happened in a movie had a baby with everything that was ever corny or cliche that happened in a movie. Any cinematic element you can think of was in this movie. It was action-packed. It was touching. It was suspenseful. It was awesomely sci-fi. There was an unhealthy amount of theatrical knowledge involved in the production of Super 8. The child actors in this movie were unbelievable. The special effects were awe-inspiring. It was, quite simply, epic.

I haven't enjoyed a movie this much in a long time, yet I still have mixed feelings on it. I think it was too much for me. I don't know if I can handle that level of cinema. I may not be sophisticated enough to like this movie as much as I should. Maybe none of this makes sense. Either way, if anyone reads this review, you ought to watch this movie in theaters. I was just trying to write my thoughts down on this movie to see if I could figure out my opinion. I have to sleep on this one. I will leave you with a song, good night.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkOEBFYO4_Q


EDIT - After a day to try and gather my thoughts about this movie, my effort was all for naught, because I still have no idea how to summarize my opinion.

What is your most prized possession?

I am talk about things you personally own, not your family. Of any single item you own, what would it hurt the most to lose? Would it be your phone? Would it be your car? How about your iPod? Or would it be something more sentimental, like a childhood blankie, your dog, or your beloved small-mouth bass pillow? In light of certain extenuating circumstances, I have had to do some thinking on this subject. After much deliberation, I decided that it would be my music library (I admit this may be revisionist history). I owned well over 6000 songs, and my collection was growing daily. While 6000 may not be the gargantuan number that some people seem to have, I actually liked all the music in my library. There were very few songs on it that I hadn't listened to.

What do I bring this up you may ask? Well, my computer was getting a little bogged up with files. All of my music downloads were taking up too much room, and it was lagging a lot in Dota, which is absolutely unacceptable. I deleted all of my files off of Vuze to clear up some hard drive space. Well, my dumbass accidentally clicked "remove files from computer". Well done, Peter. There goes 80 downloads (mostly albums, a few discographies). Now my iTunes can't play these songs since there isn't a file to locate them. Sweet. I had all this shit backed up on an external hard drive, so all wasn't lost. I plugged in my external hard drive and restored my files. I opened my iTunes, planning on just dropping these files back into my library and all would be gravy again.

Fuck.

For some reason restoring my music files deleted every song out of my iTunes. I went from 6000+ songs to a fat zero. I swore a few times loudly, but I didn't completely lose my composure. I found all my files restored on my computer, so I started to go to each album and click all the songs to my iTunes like I always do when I download music. So I put a few hundred songs in my iTunes before I had to go to work. After work, I came back and was going to continue the long process of going through every files and clicking songs into iTunes. To save myself a few sentences of details that will only upset me further, the 80 albums I deleted still weren't able to be located after I restored them. I currently have a zero song music library.

So to wrap up my disastrous iTunes journey, I started out with 6000 songs, for roundness's sake. I lost 1500 of them. I tried to recover these 1500 instead of just redownloading them. I ended up deleting the other 4500 in the process of trying to recover them, and then ended up not even being able to recover them. So now I still have to click those 4500 back into my iTunes, and then re-download the rest of the songs that I failed to recover. I have a treble clef shaped hole in my heart

Hold onto what you have. Your most prized possession may be there one day, and two clicks later, it could be gone forever. Technology - 6000; Peter - 0.





To wrap this up with something lighthearted and hilarious, here is the second top comment on "Under The Bridge" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers on Youtube: justin Beiber does lines of coke off boners......just saying

Lol.

Common Market rules.

I love Common Market. Tobacco Road is one of my favorite albums currently.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1MUpZAWuFI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JnylpWkwOto

Da bomb. This whole album is music to my ears. I crack myself up.

I just started a blog.

This morning in the shower I thought to myself that I update my Facebook status a lot, like a bunch more than most people do. Does this make me obsessed with people always seeing my name in their news feeds? Do I talk too much? Do I think I have more cool things to say than I actually do? Meh, those are all too self-loathing for me. I decided that I like to document my thoughts. I feel as though I think of some cool shit. Maybe others would think it's cool too. If they don't, then whatever, I would get to look back at the cool shit I thought of. From here I decided that I should go out and buy a diary. But diaries are for little girls, so I would have to call it a journal. But I hate writing and my handwriting sucks anyway. Half the stuff I would write down would be illegible. Plus writing takes too long. I type much faster. So I just let that thought go for the day. When I got home from another long night in the SpeeDee Delivery warehouse, I realized that the answer I was looking for was as simple as starting a blog. I am always looking for excuses to spend more hours on the internet anyway, blogging could be my thing.

So here I am. This is my first blog post (except for a few that I had to do for my FTS fall of freshman year, but those don't count. I plan on just writing down random thoughts, stories, or just anything that I think is cool that I come across during my days. Want to hear a story? OK.

At work tonight, I received a cage full of baby ferrets. Who the hell sends ferret babies in the mail? That seems like it should be protected under some sort of PETA act or something. Baby ferrets are quite entertaining though, even if they are in a sealed cage. I have another thought/story! This entry is getting longer than I planned.

People send a lot of flowers in the mail. I load/unload/sort dozens of boxes of flowers every night. I had a sad moment the other night while loading a truck with a shit ton of flowers. I thought to myself "I wish I had a girl to send flowers to.." I got all depressed and stuff for a few minutes, but I don't really dwell much on anything, so it was a fleeting melancholy. Before work I was remembered this brief feeling of loneliness and decided to do something about it. I googled "send flowers in the mail" and searched for some flowers. I sent them to a friend. On Tuesday, one lucky girl will be the beneficiary of my woebegone. But I'm not really sad. But I do feel pretty well about myself right now.

Three more things for the night/morning:

1)
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-g3hMBF35cNY/Te4r_D3MXpI/AAAAAAAAEMk/rcOe-TkgTW0/ThomasSedinHit2.gif

I hate the Canucks a lot. And Timmy T is a boss.

2) I saw Lebron before the game asked him for a dollar and he gave me 75 cents, I asked him where's the rest? He said, "I don't have a 4th quarter."

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmk55vwoEN1qjxqawo1_500.jpg

http://29.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmk4ymhmE91qch4l4o1_500.jpg

Lebron sucking when it matters most makes me happier than a pig eating bacon.

3)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ShdwgIoIKpU

I just like this song a lot. Skyzoo is legit, just downloaded some of his music the other day, and it is worth your time to do the same.