Saturday, July 25, 2009

Changes

Today's blog is going to be a short series of summaries. Here goes!

I went to Otakon. Friday sucked. Saturday rocked. I got back in touch with a few cool people from my DDR days.

I hung out with my "close" female cousin on wed., who came out to the bar with me. The entire time, she was on the phone back and forth with her girlfriend. I felt pushed aside. How rude!

I can't really go to Ocean City this year, so one of my primary major events of the summer is canceled. My ride is leaving on the date of my cousin's wedding, which I happen to be a part of. I'm happy, but also a bit distraught. I miss Ocean City! It's been a while!

I've been practicing harmony with my voice. It's actually coming along a bit better now, but it's actually a difficult skill to master, even for someone who's naturally good at singing!

I'm having money issues, but I should have my GED soon. The money for that is prepped and ready. Almost everything else, however, is on hold until I start my job at Comcast.

My computer is having a hard drive failure, so I'll need to buy a new drive sometime in the near future. Yet another expensive/nuisance.

I've been less into playing video games lately because I've had so much stuff on my mind; I'm stressed as hell. I could go for some cuddling with someone I trust right about now. Such a simple thing would help a lot, but hey, I can't expect that when I'm not dating. Hahah. Ah well!

I have more to say, but I just don't feel like writing more right now.

Steve out! Take care!

-S

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Balls.

There's not much else that can summarize everything in the world that quickly. "Balls" always does the trick.

So, what's the point? Well, I'll tell you what the fucking point is! People are ridiculous!

All I want is for people to be honest and respectful. I'm pretty god damn easy to get along with if you can follow those two golden rules, but apparently people don't know the meaning of either, which means that I'm pretty much stuck.

Don't get me wrong here! I do have a ton of friends, some of who are the best friends that I could have ever asked for! I'm just sick of having to cut people out of my life because they're not who they claim to be.

Now look, I'm not trying to be preachy here or claim that I'm completely innocent. I know that everyone does things that they dislike, myself included. It's hypocritical, but sometimes it's necessary. If anyone understands that, it's me.

So, the whole situation with that "crazy" friend of mine just set me over the edge when combined with the Kristy and Chrissy situations. That's a total of 3 people who I've essentially cut out of my life lately. Chrissy is too flaky and drops her friends the second her boyfriend pops up for any reason, even if it's a simple phone call. Kristy acts interested for a few days, then starts her same old bullshit routine over again. Throw in this recent situation with that crazy friend of mine and you have a recipe for disaster. This whole thing is driving me nuts and eating away at me because it's just so stupid!

I'll be fine and life will go on, but I just had to vent for a moment about the same ol' shit...

Moving on, I've been pretty bored the past few days and I think it's by choice. I just haven't felt the gaming vibe much, although I do hop onto Xbox Live for some Modern Warfare from time to time. I also broke out good ol' Final Fantasy X International for around an hour and a half. I may actually go through the entire game and consider it a break from reality for a week or so. It's as close to a vacation as I'll get right this minute...

BUT! Otakon is in just over a week! July 17-19 at the Baltimore Convention center here in Maryland, I'll be making my return. It's been 3 years since the last time I attended the convention. It's overwhelming to think that I'll actually be going back. So much has changed. Even the people who go to the convention are different to an extent these days. Most of my friends have given Otakon up, so I'll be left to myself and a handful of others who may go with me. For the most part, I'm flying solo, unless my little cousin actually decides to come along with me, but that's still up in the air. At any rate, this is the first of two major summer events.

Event number two is Ocean City on August 8. I'll be going for the entire week this year because I simply need the break. Even if I just sit inside of the trailer or on the beach all day, I'll be happy to get away from everything. No internet, no video games, no bullshit. Just me, the beautiful east coast USA summer weather and the endless ocean. Of course, tons of family and perhaps some friends will be going, but I can completely avoid them if I so choose and turn my stay with them into my own personal vacation until it's time for us to leave. No matter how it works out, I'm extremely hyped for this trip this year. I just need to enjoy my summer and I need to get away, even if it's only 3 hours away.

Once I start making money from my potential new awesome job, I'll definitely turn the rest of this year into the best one of my life. It's time for me to take the stage, move on with life and get my shit together. If all goes well, I'll be out on my own in just over a year. Until then, it's work, walk the track, journalism and then fun on the weekends. That said, I'm done rambling for now. Maybe I'll actually be able to feel invigorated today after some sleep; enough to walk the track for an hour or so. I need to break myself into a routine, but it's difficult to do without a partner.

Before I take off, I'd like to touch base with myself for a moment about something: AVATAR; the MUD I've become very involved with over the years. I've really been thinking about it lately and I really don't understand it. Very few people even know what it is, much less actually care about it's existence. Those who play it do so obsessively, but some of them take it too far, getting way too involved with the people in reality to the point that it rules their lives. That part is one thing that I simply don't understand. In comparison to other people out there, those people really aren't that great. Only an extremely small selection of them have made their way into my life as people that I pride myself for knowing. Bellorum and RagingBoar are the 2 honorable mentions that I'd like to point out here, but truthfully, I think people who branch out from AVATAR need to really expand their search to that of other areas. Maybe local RPG meets, video game tournaments, bars, clubs, tournaments, Darkon; whatever, ya' know? There are tons of other places to meet real people from the real world and I think that's a necessary social experience, but so many people are being deprived of that experience. Either way, I'm actually rather tired of the people who run the game. They try to force players into promoting the game and they get pissy if you talk the game down. They try to ruin the fun for others constantly by adding all sorts of rules and restrictions just because people find a way to do things in a different way. Innovation should be encouraged, not punished. I haven't really played the game for a few months now and it's been many years since I've actually enjoyed the game, but it's just falling apart. It's a lost cause and within' the next few years, it'll die. What happens to those people then? Not only do they lose hundreds or even thousands of hours that they can't ever get back, but they also lose everything they had to show for those hours, which isn't even any sort of merit in the real world anyway. Even more stitll, when AVATAR dies, they have no common grounds of interest. A handful of them may remain friends, but the rest will stop talking to one another and wont see one another again due to lack of association. It's a sad thing, really. The owner runs his own convention and doesn't even put his full head into the game because he's too stubborn to take a good idea when he hears it. His convention could be making him rich, but he chooses not to let that happen and instead, it dies off more and more every year. I was once a part of that group, right down to the center of the core group, but each and every year, I grow farther and farther away from these people and almost loathe them to a certain extent, yet I still care too much about their wellbeing. Oh well. I just hope they wake up before it's too late...

For now, Steve out! Take care!

-S

Monday, July 6, 2009

Crazy...

The only word I can think of to describe the past week is "Crazy"...

First of all, I went out to Mac's on Wed. for the usual $10 all you can drink party night. I recently re-acquainted myself with a childhood friend who I had not seen for over a decade. She's always been cool with me and as such, I decided to invite her out. She accepted and although she showed up very late, we had a great time just reminiscing and enjoying the drinks. She's grown up and out of her siblings, she's the only one who turned out to be a decent human being. Because of her, that was easily the best night at Mac's that I've ever had.

While we were at Mac's, Crazy Kim came up to me and kept trying to get my attention. I was busy every time and honestly, I'm not very interested in more than an extremely casual friendship with her, but she seems like the type of girl who's looking for an easy lay and that person most certainly is not me. Not only am I against one night stands in general, but she's a slutty alcoholic mother of 2 children, whom she does not seem to care enough about to take care of. Either way you slice it, I truly felt a bit empowered by the situation. She was jealous because she was not getting my attention, while other people were getting plenty of it. Ah, it was great.

Next up, we need to step back in time just a little bit. The wed. before last, I ran into a few good frineds of mine at Mac's. While we were all talking and hanging out, I finally had the chance to get my cell phone number to one of the girls I'd been wanting to get close to. Before I go any farther, here's a brief warning: She's married and she's not my type, so don't get the wrong idea. I just always thought she was cool and prior to that night, I hadn't been able to talk to or see her very many times at all.

So, throughout the rest of that week, the following weekend and this past week, we were talking quite a bit. She seemed rather excited to have me available to converse with at all times and we even walked the track for over an hour to get more acquainted, where I also ran into 3 other friends of mine, who also joined us for the trip around the track. Likewise, at first, everything was cool, but it quickly got old. She started spamming me MySpace IM and if I didn't respond, she would try calling me several times, texting me and even blocking her number in an attempt to trick me. Most of those times, I was simply busy or sleeping, but even when I was actually at my computer and having a conversation, she would spam the hell out of me and question me if I did not respond to her within' 10-15 seconds. This is not an exaggeration. So, I started intentionally avoiding her, which wasn't very hard, considering I have plenty of other good friends and tons of other stuff to do these days. That caught up to me, though. I invited her to a family cookout before things started getting creepy, so she showed up. Her and her husband sat in the corner of the yard until I finally made them come over to join me and the others for some conversation. She didn't say much, but her husband took the floor for some gaming conversation and eventually, they left. They showed up late, so they weren't there for very long anyway and things were a bit on the awkward side.

So, after all of that crap, I finally got sick of it and told her the truth. I did not sugar coat it and I came completely clean about everything on my mind. She was not very happy about that and took everything the wrong way, despite it all being in plain English. I had to reiterate my points several times until finally, I snapped and just told her that I was willing to continue our friendship and just forget about these problems if she was willing to follow the one simple rule that I had set for her: Stop spamming the shit out of me. Calling me a few times or sending a few text messages is okay, but the way she was going about it was all wrong and I explained that to her, but ultimately, she didn't see things my way and basically told me that we can't really talk anymore. She doesn't want to associate herself with me unless she "runs into" me or something if we're out somewhere and she's at the same location. After she told me that, I basically summed it up to this: She doesn't want to be mature, work out problems and hold onto the friendship that she claimed she so dearly cared about. In her eyes, she has to be right and she can't deal with the fact that I called her out on this stuff. Oh well. I don't tolerate that shit and if she doesn't come around within' the next week, I'll give her a final curteosy call and see if we can't work it out, but that's it. If she doesn't accept it then, I'm not beating around the bush.

With that out of the way, I only have a few things left to talk about, all of which involve this past weekend and potential plans for the future.

On Friday, I hung out with one of my best friends here at home. GameFly sent me both "Need For Speed: Undercover" and "Tomb Raider Underworld". I added those to my game queue because the afforementioned friend is obsessed with both series and hadn't played either of them, so it was a double whammy favor kinda' thing. Plus I wanted to try them, so it worked out.

Anyway, that was a fun night with lots of laughs and a bit of gaming, but very little sleep. I had maybe 2 full broken hours of sleep before it was time to get ready and around 45 minutes after that before we left the house. On the way to the party, we picked up one of my other best friends, who I haven't seen for a very long time. That was a very big moment because I hadn't ever hung out with him at any point in time when we were not around other mutual friends. He came as my guest, as my friend and wanted to spend time with me; no one else. I was extremely happy about that because it proves that we're bonding as much as I'd hoped we would. He's always been an awesome guy, but he lives a little far away, so it's difficult to see one another very often. Thank goodness for Xbox Live! That's honestly what gave us a chance to really get to know one another and get close.

At the party, I basically ignored one of the people that I convinced to attend, but it wasn't intentional. I was sidetracked and kept getting pulled into every situation and conversation there was to be had. I couldn't help it and as bad as I felt, she's not a very close friend, anyway. She's just a cool person that I wanted to get to know better before she moves away for a few years. Not much else happened, although my sister did destroy my "Apples To Apples" box, a group of people stole the table I was going to use to play the game and I had a few lengthy video game conversations. Oh, and I drank a bit, but not enough to get trashed; just a bit of a buzz, which I kept rollin' all day.

So, the guy I brought to the cookout called his best friend and had him come pick us up. From there, we went to the liquor store, where I was treated to a 40oz bottle of King Cobra, which I personally find to be fucking delicious, regardless of what anyone else says. It's the same thing as Bud Ice! After we were done there, we headed to our destination: the home of the guy who came to pick us up. I'd never been there, but he's leaving for Florida in 2 weeks, so I figured I'd drop by there and hang out at their cookout, meet his mom and all of that other good stuff. We downed our King Cobras within' a very short time and many laughs were had throughout the night. My childhood friend even dropped by for around 2 hours, which was an awesome surprise.

Eventually, everyone aside from my buddy and my childhood friend were in the house, so we finished our conversation, cleaned up and saw my childhood friend off to her car. She only had 2 very weak drinks over the course of her 2 hour stay and was not drunk at all, so we let her go without much restraint. After we went upstairs to our friend's room, that's when things went downhill. A really bad movie was playing, my buddy fell asleep very quickly and I was bored as hell.

What happened next was a bit fucked up. My buddy's friend and the girl he hangs out with started having sex right next to where we were trying to sleep. They tried to cover it up, but it was extremely obvious. Not only did the room suddenly start to smell like dirty sex, but the sounds of sex were flooding my ears and I coud see them fucking one another not more than 3 feet from where I was trying to sleep. So, I sent one of my other best friends a text message; the guy who I rented "Need For Speed: Undercover" and "Tomb Raider Underworld" for. Luckily for me, he's an awesome guy. He didn't hesitate. When I told him what happened, he rushed out here with the neighbor's SUV and picked me up within' minutes. I woke my buddy up before I left and he followed me out after I explained the situation, so he could lock the door behind me. I left while the 2 fuckbuddies were in the shower and I didn't make a single sound, so it all worked out. And for the record, I left because I find that extremely disrespectful and very tasteless. You can talk about it or do it in another room all you want. I don't care how much noise you make or if the walls are paper thing and you're in a room directly next to where I'm sleeping, but don't fucking do it where I can see, smell and hear the sex itself.

The entire weekend rocked, but the following day, which I guess I'm technically still awake from, was extremely boring. I woke up around 2PM from a very odd series of nightmares, sent a message to someone, then contacted one of my friends to come over for some burgers. I cooked up 4 black angus 3/4 pound burgers, 2 of which I ate. The other 2 were given to the friend who came over. He played some more "Need For Speed: Undercover", but left shortly after, took a shower, changed his clothes and then came back around 6 hours later. When he came back, we talked a lot, he played the game for a while, then he left. When he left, he was supposed to head out to Dunkin Donuts and then come right back, but I suppose he was just too tired and fell asleep. That happens a lot in his case, though. He gets tired easily and when he's tired, he has trouble functioning even more so than most other people.

And there you have it. Aside from a few tidbits like my brief conversations with Kristy, the fact that I have not seen or heard from Chrissy and a bunch of games that I've recently obtained, there's not much else to talk about. At least, nothing that I care to get into right now. So for now, I'm going to attempt to get a bit of sleep. Steve out! Take care!

-S

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

One giant leap for..well, me.

I'm going to get my GED sometime very soon; it's in talks and I'm going to go take the test, ace it and bring it home.

I'm going to start a new job making $15-20/hour full-time with amazing perks after I get my GED; it's a guaranteed position once I get my GED.

I'm going to talk to doctors and see if I can get approval to get my license. If that doesn't work out, I'll be annoyed, but I wont let that stop me from moving on.

I'm working out full-time. I walk for an hour or longer with a friend of mine around 7PM every day.

I'm starting to cut back on food a bit and I drink far more water again by comparison.

I'm going to start lifting weights on the side, but not too much until I slim down more.

I'm going for a complete hairstyle and clothing change sometime very soon to make myself more appealing and also more "professional" as a bonus.

Chrissy is no longer a part of my life. We had a very short-lived reuinion, which she totally fucked up by doing the same shit all over again within' the first 12 hours of spending time together. That's it, for good.

Kristy and I have been talking again, but I really need to control myself. I don't want to fall for her all over again because of the whole distance thing, among other reasons. We're good friends, though and that's fine fo rnow.

My sleeping schedule is totally fucked right now. I go to bed between 7-9AM and sometimes as late as 10AM. I need to fix that sometime very soon.

My vacation to Ocean City is coming up in August. That's going to be a hell of a badass getaway this year. I need it.

Otakon is coming up in 2 weeks as of this coming Friday. I'm attending that for the first time in 3 years and I'm very excited about it! Yet another awesome event for my hot summer calander!

The big family 4th of July cookout is this Saturday. I invited a ton of friends, most of which who are actually going to show up. I finally found my true friends; ones who don't bail out on me or make excuses for things.

I'm motivated enough to truly clean and rearrange my room, but I'll need help for some stuff. 2 of my friends agreed to help, but I'll need to plan it in advance to get it taken care of properly.

I did some number crunching and if all goes well with my new job, I could seriously move out and live happily within' the next 12 months. Note: That would be TOTALLY FUCKING AWESOME, so long as there's a bus stop near by so I can get to work!

I don't play any MMORPGs right now and I canceled NetFlix. I'm cutting costs until I get my new job to save money for the bus trips and lunch breaks when I need it. I'll have enough money to go to Mac's every Wed., but that's it.

I got back in touch with a childhood friend of my sister, who was a pretty cool chick back then and apparently still rocks. It's been about a decade or perhaps longer since I've REALLY spent any time with her. We're going to hang out soon. I'm excited about that!

I'm not taking love or anything of the sort very seriously right now. I'm looking out for myself and focusing on getting my life straightened out. My head is in the right place for the first time in my life, I think. I kinda' feel in tune with the world, if that makes any sense!

I've been making plans to spend a lot of time with many different familiar faces over the summer. I know who I can really count on and those people have my utmost attention!

I feel genuinely happy for the first time in many years.

When I get a chance, I'll write more in-depth about whatever pops into my head, but for now, I need to get some sleep. Thanks for reading! Take care! Steve out!

-S