"I hope you're as happy as you 're pretending..."

So here's a proper blog entry about what I've been up to lately. Well I went to see Metallica a few weeks back with DJ and Dennis. We drove all the way down to Tucson to see them. Got tickets for only $35 each thanks to Tami. While there some chick wanted to sit on my shoulders. I honestly was skeptical if I was even strong enough to lift her. Not that she looked heavy at all, I was just unsure of my strength. It was actually surprisingly easy though, and she was up there for a good 15-20 minutes before I had to put her back down. Apparently she was flashing people, but of course, her being on my shoulders, I couldn't see shit. Then while getting in line on our way out, some chick backed into me with her PT Cruiser. Just a tiny scratch though. Mike says it can probably be buffed out. Took us 2 hours just to get out of the parking lot. I'd planned to go to work that night, but I would've been late, and LaDonna said to just take the night off.

For memorial day I went quadding up at Saguaro Lake with Daniel, Alicia, and some other people from work. Flipped my quad in the first 10 minutes of riding and scraped up my elbow pretty bad. It didn't hurt much though, and I got right back on and continued riding. Unfortunately I was out in the sun for about 8 hours or so that day, and no sun block, so my arms and knees got burned real bad. Add to that the 4 hours or so of riding around on a quad, and I could barely walk the next day. Still had crazy amounts of fun though. I'll have to remember sun-block and gloves next time. It'll make the whole experience quite a bit more enjoyable I'm sure.

Saw Indiana Jones. I read that a lot of people didn't like it because of the whole 'alien' thing, but I liked it anyways... granted, aliens aren't exactly what I would ever picture in Indiana Jones, but the movie as a whole is definitely worth seeing I think. Also saw the new Chronicles of Narnia movie, and liked that quite a bit as well. Seems like they did a better job of acting this time around.

Just signed up to take Spanish 101 at GCC in July tonight. $260. Hopefully it ends up being worth it. Thankfully it's only a month long, 3 hours a day, 4 days a week. I figure I need to start getting back into the idea of school and shit. Would've signed up for photography, but they won't have any classes until next semester. Also went to the eye doctor, and the cardiologist. Contacts should be here any day now, and I go back to the cardiologist for more tests on Friday. I need to sign up for a dentist appointment now as well.

'Wasting words on lower cases and capitals...'

Wow, it has been a while hasn't it? Lots have happened since my last entry, but I'll go over just a few recent things briefly.

Saw Foo Fighters last weekend, and they kicked ass. Bought a new car, 2008 Mazda 3 s GT. You can see the pictures here. Sold the BMW to Emilio for $3500. Started seeing a girl from work a few weeks back. Her name is Shannon, and it seems to be going quite well so far. Went to the Renaissance fair on Sunday. Saw some comedy shows there which were hilarious, but otherwise mostly just walked around and checked out shops. It's proxy season at work, so I'm working 50+ hour weeks. I've gotten quite good at Rock Band, and play all songs on Hard, and about half on Expert, all on the guitar. Re-signed my lease at my apartment complex for another year. I'm really enjoying living there. It'd be tough to find something better at a similar price. Helped Ron move about a mile and a half away from me, so I should be hanging out with him quite a bit more, especially since he has weekends off now. Haven't really taken any pictures lately, but hopefully that will change soon. I need to get out on the road and go somewhere.

That's all for now.

'How long? Not long! Cause what you reap is what you sow!'

So, I saw Rage on Sunday, and they played a damn good show. We ended up getting there perfectly on time to get a half decent spot (about 200 feet from stage). We’d actually left an hour earlier than planned, but ended up arriving about 40 minutes before the show was supposed to start. There was a lot of people there, but looking around, it wasn’t quite what I was expecting. I figured there’d be like 20,000 people all in front of the main stage, but there were probably only a couple thousand. They also didn’t seem nearly as excited as they should be for a band that hasn’t played together for seven years. I was expecting the place to explode once they came out on stage, but I think I saw more excitement at the Static-X concert last month, and it seems like they’ve played in Phoenix like four times in the last two years… That’s not to say people weren’t excited. A co-worker pointed out that most people were probably too drunk, high, and tired by that point to have as much energy as if they’d just arrived 30 minutes before, as we had.

The one thing I was disappointed with was how long they played. They only played for about an hour, almost exactly, which isn’t bad for your standard band playing a standard concert, but when you’re a band that had potentially broken up for good, hadn’t played in seven years, and have four albums of which 95% of the tracks are downright excellent, and now you’ve gotten back together, and are headlining one of the biggest concerts on the west coast… I expected a little more… maybe I’m being negative. I thought Zach would’ve made some sort of speech about the concert, the band, etc, but the best I got was him talking about the current presidential administration needing to be hung and shot. It made a lot of other people happy, but for someone who doesn’t give a fuck about politics or the current administration… Still, what do you expect from Rage Against the Machine. Their music is all about politics.

So when we got to the area where the main stage is, Dennis and my brother wanted to get something to drink. Problem is there are a few thousand other people wanting to get something to drink as well, and we have 30 minutes to find a good spot before Rage comes on. Also, because it’s not a 21 and over show, they have a designated drinking area, so you can’t take your alcohol with you to watch the concert. So I try to explain all this to Dennis and my brother, and I’m getting pissed off as I’m doing it because I don’t understand why it’s necessary to be drunk or even buzzed at the concert to enjoy it. They both had just downed a 40 each at the gas station just 20 minutes earlier. Anyways, somehow or another they give in, and decide to find a spot in the crowd rather than trying to get alcohol. My brother probably wasn’t happy at all, because now he’s without alcohol ‘or’ anything to smoke. So we make our way into the crowd, weaving around people until we finally come up as close as we can get before we begin pissing people off. As chance would have it, the guy standing next to my brother pulls out a joint, and after a few words, my brother is smoking with him. Not 10 minutes later, my brother is telling me he is “too high” to be in the crowd when Rage comes on.

I can’t believe my fucking ears at what he’s saying. I spent a lot of money (I paid for both his concert and plane tickets) and vacation time to bring him down here specifically for this concert, and now he’s saying he can’t even enjoy it with me. Surprisingly I keep my cool and tell him to wait by the fence and we’ll find him after. About half-way through the concert, however, I get a text message from him telling me to stick my phone in the air and wave it around so he can see where I am. Although he never makes it all the way to me, I can see him about 20 feet behind me, with a pretty rough mosh pit going on in between us. So, I feel a lot better that he decided to join us after all, but even as I’m writing this, I can’t completely forgive him for it. Even though I smoke on rare occasion, I still get angry that he always seems to have to get high before he does anything. He claims that he doesn’t actually smoke much back in Washington, and that it’s just because he’s on vacation, but the entire week he was here he would get high before we did ‘anything’. Before lunch, before hanging out with friends, before hiking, before watching a movie; the list goes on. It’s pathetic. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. Earlier he had made the statement that “sober concerts aren’t fun”, but how is it fun to get high and not even be able to be there to see it. Sure, he could see it from the sidelines, but he may as well have just come by himself doing that…

The trip back was tough. I’d been awake since probably about 9am the morning of the concert, had driven all the way there, wore myself out walking to and from the concert, and jumping around while it was going on, and now it’s 2am and I had a 3 hour drive back to Phoenix. I made it, but not before nodding off a couple of times, at one point driving half way into the neighboring lane before waking up. Both my brother and Dennis were asleep though, and the highway was virtually empty, so all was good. We got back to Phoenix just after 5am. I dropped Dennis off, and then headed home to get a few hours of sleep before waking up at 9 to wake my brother up so he could get ready to catch his plane at 11. Only his plane wasn’t at 11, it was at 10:20 according to the email that I double-checked while my brother was in the shower. So we now have an hour to get down to the airport. The drive alone, with good traffic, takes 30 minutes, and it’s 9:30 am on a weekday, so we’d be just catching the end of rush hour.

We actually ended up making it by 10am, and I dropped my brother off and headed toward the nearest gas station, having about 5 miles of gas left in the tank. While on the way there, my brother calls and asks if I can pick him up, as he’s missed the flight after all, and they’ve rescheduled one for him at 7pm. So I fill up on gas, and start heading back, only I notice my car has a slight shudder to it that hadn’t been there before. As I’m driving to the airport, I can hear that something is definitely wrong with the engine, and by the time I pull up to the drop-off point, my car is shaking like crazy, and sounds like an old muscle car that nobody bothered to take care of. I can smell burning oil or something, and there’s a definite loss of power. I pick my brother up, and tell him we have to take my car in to my mechanic, which thankfully was only a few miles away from the airport. I drop the car off, and have them get me a rental car, which ends up being an ’07 Chevy Malibu… not my 1st choice for sure, but at least it was blue…

We start heading home, and I give Stefanie a call to see if she wants to have lunch with us, and we decide to go to The Olive Garden near my place. After lunch, she came over and checked out my semi-new apartment, and played some Tennis and Bowling on the Wii before taking off. I get a call from my mechanic, and he explains what’s wrong with my car (spark plug blew out, stripped the threads, bunch of other stuff I can’t remember) and that it’ll cost roughly $800 to fix, not including tax and my car rental. L Thank god I happen to have some extra money in the bank. Was supposed to be used to buy a new bed, but that’ll have to be pushed to the side for now. My brother and I decided to spend the rest of the time watching episodes of Firefly before heading back down to the airport. After having my brother there for nearly a week, it felt a lot different being by myself in my apartment. It was nice having someone to hang out with every day, but I know from having roommates that eventually it gets on your nerves as well, and as good as my brother and I get along, we can occasionally get on each others nerves. So now I’ll look forward to going up north in a few months. My brother wants to do a road trip to Montana again, possibly in July, though we’d have to rent a car this time, as taking mine isn’t much of an option, and his has a ton of problems as well. I go to bed to get 2 hours of sleep before going to work, and life goes back to normal.

'I got my head checked, by a jumbo jet, it wasn't easy, but nothing is, no...'

Woo hoo! Moving day has finally arrived! Well, ok, it's not until tomorrow, but seeing as my PC will be disconnected tomorrow, and won't be back online until at least Monday, I decided to write this today, even though I should be packing and cleaning my apartment.

So anyways, started cleaning a couple days ago and discovered that half my belongings really belonged in the trash, and that's where they're headed. The hallway leading from my front door to my bedroom is piled high with shit that needs to go down to the dumpster. Should make moving a lot faster, and a lot of it is shit I've held on to for some stupid reason or another for the better part of three to five years. Unfortunately the office to my new place doesn't open until 9am, but that will give me time to finish throwing things away or do any last minute packing. I don't know when I'll be able to get the U-Haul truck tomorrow either, which I'll need for the large stuff at any rate.

On a side note, I went to an airshow at the local Air Force base this last weekend, and spent five hours under the Phoenix sun. The result was not in my favor. So now I'm dealing with the consequences. Thankfully most of the pain has gone away, though the skin is now cracking and peeling. It's not a pretty sight, but it could certainly be worse. Hopefully it'll all be done in the next week or so. Once I get some time, I'll post up some pics from the event.

April has also (almost) arrived. This could honestly become the best month of this year, due to a number of things, most importantly being that Rage Against the Machine will finally reunite and headline the Coachella Music Festival. My brother's coming down for the concert as well. We may also be going over to California for a few days before the concert to visit a friend of ours that recently moved there to continue his education as a helicopter pilot. I've also purchased tickets to see Static-X next Wednesday, and Sevendust two days later. Should be a great start to a potentially excellent month. Hopefully the weather stays (relatively) cool.

Now back to packing...

'Come on over, roll on over, I just need to feel you breathe...'

Had a good weekend. Bought Chevelle tickets on Saturday at a mere $25 each for myself and DJ. That night I went with Dennis to see the band "Hurt" at the Marquee Theater. They put on a great performance. I think they sound better live than their on the CD myself. Especially liked when he broke out the violin for the song "Danse Russe". Always cool when rock bands break out instruments normally not used in rock. Korn and the bagpipes, for example.

Tickets were cheap, like $17 after taxes and 'convenience' fees, etc. That's the least I've paid for tickets so far next to the $12 P.O.D. tickets. Got to love Marquee Theater. Cheap tickets, and it's standing room only, so you're pretty much guaranteed a decent seat. Especially because there probably wasn't more than 100 or 150 people there at best. I noticed that the lead singer of Hurt really looks the part of a rock musician as well, in the same way that Sully from Godsmack does. They both just really look like they were 'born to rock' if you will. The band stayed after and signed autographs etc. I should've bought a CD and had it signed. Oh well...

Sunday I didn't do much during the day. Mike called in the late afternoon and invited me over to his place. Tiffany was going to be studying all evening, so we decided to leave her to herself, and drove out of town to some hills to the west of Phoenix and hiked around a bit. I should definitely get out hiking more; I just hate going by myself. While there we had a good long talk about relationships, etc. After talking to him about Brandee, and explaining why I was so confused about the situation, he brought up that basically something I might find intimate might just be a 'Hallmark Card' to the other person, and while this wasn't totally new to me to hear, putting it with my recent experience gave me a different view of it, though still didn't quite answer my questions. He did remind me that relationships are mostly a 'total mind-fuck', which is certainly true...

After hiking, he asked if I had any plans that evening. I'd originally had plans to have dinner with Stacy, but she had to cancel so she could study for a test. I'd thought about calling in to work to see if they needed some additional help, but decided against it. So instead we decided to barbecue over at his house, so we went to the store and got some steaks and a few other things, then went back to the house and he cooked them on his grill. It was some damn good food. Certainly beat whatever I would've got on the way home if I hadn't eaten there. It's too bad I'm so lazy, or I'd cook for myself more often...

So I went home and surfed the net a bit, then fell asleep listening to music. Woke back up around 2am because the music was still playing, and decided to play Tekken 5 for a few hours, and then went back to sleep.

I can't wait to finally move out of my apartment. I should start packing things this week, and throwing stuff away. I imagine I could probably get rid of half the stuff in my apartment just by throwing things away that I've kept for years, like the three or four computers sitting in my closet, and clothes that I never wear. I need to contact SRP and set up my electric at the new place, as well as call Qwest about getting the internet set up. I'm holding off on getting any kind of TV service until I get moved and see how finances go with the added expense of a bigger place. I never watch TV anyways, so the $40+ a month could probably go to better use.

'It's something unpredictable, but in the end it's right. I hope you had the time of your life...'

I've been putting off this entry for some time now, seeing as it's been over three weeks since my last 'proper' entry. I kept telling myself I should write one soon, and then whenever I had the time, I just didn't feel like it, nor do I now, but I'm bored, so why not.

Things with Brandee took a sharp downturn a little over a week ago. I'd taken the weekend off work so we'd have a chance to hang out, as working and sleeping opposite each other left little time to do so. However, when I called her Sunday morning, there was no answer. I assumed she was probably still sleeping, so I went about my day. Later that evening, with no return call, I called again to see if she'd ended up making other plans. Again no answer. It's now over a week later, and I've yet to hear from her.

I had lunch with Stacy last Wednesday, and gave her the news, which she was fairly surprised to hear, as before I met Brandee, Stacy had mentioned that she wasn't the type of girl to do act that way (as we'd been discussing the whole Brittany thing at the time).

The thing is, both Brandee and Brittany were in similar situations in that they'd both somewhat recently had bad breakups with ex-boyfriends, and it's highly possible that Brandee was simply using me to cushion the blow, and make herself feel better about herself.

So, anyways, I'm trying not to think about it too much, which is a hard thing for me to do. The thing that pisses me off the most is that things seemed to be going very well, and then all of a sudden she basically just disappears. We'd even had lunch the Friday before, and when I dropped her off at work, she told me to call her Sunday. What caused the sudden change of mind? I may never know. Even if Stacy talks to her and finds out what happened, she'll probably never tell me the truth, or at least not all of it, regardless of the fact that I've known her for far longer than she's known Brandee.

Well, anyways, I had a great time while she was around, so there's always the positive side, however short it was.

Finally got a new apartment. I've been in my current 450 sqft box for much too long, and I'm moving to a new apartment that's nearly double (800 sqft) the size, and only costs about 50% more. It's also a much nicer complex, and I'll finally have my own laundry machines in my apartment, so no more having to lug baskets of laundry to the laundry room for my complex, and no more need for rolls of quarters.

I'll still be lacking the garage I wanted, but it's not like my car is worth so much that it would benefit from being in a garage, it just would've been a nice place to keep things, and work on my car away from the heat, not to mention keep it clean. I don't move out until the end of March unfortunately, but until then, you can check out pictures here.

Should be getting back into the concert scene again very soon. Chevelle comes back to town at the end of March to promote their new album, and April will bring Static-X, Staind, and the concert that is likely to go down as the best concert of my life... Rage Against the Machine.

Busy season at work has been going well, though I was expecting to hit 80 hours this week, I wasn't able to quite make it. I think I pulled in close to 72 hours though, so that's not too shabby. The check should certainly be nice, even after the IRS takes a third of it. I'll try to get a ton of overtime this week as well. I don't "have" to work this weekend, or next, both to my surprise, but I likely still will anyways, as I'd like to be able to save up enough for a 65" HDTV by the time I move into the new place.

'And be a simple, kind of man. Be something, you love and understand...'

Well, I've finally reached my 100th blog entry. The first entry was nearly a year and a half ago, and my life has changed quite a bit since then. Not like "I'm a new man" kind of changed or anything, but it's certainly not the same, thanks to a new job, new friends, and all the things that come with them. I've actually been kind of slacking on the entries lately, due to a few reasons I won't discuss, otherwise I would've written blogs about them

Hopefully more things will change in the future. I plan on moving at the end of March. Not out of state or anything, just to a new apartment. It'll definitely be something bigger than my current 450sq ft box I live in at the moment, and hopefully with a garage, and laundry machines. I'm also seriously going to try and get rid of my debt this year. I've already been in Arizona for over six years, and the need to get back to school is really in my head lately, but I can't do it without getting rid of the debt I'm in, so I don't have to constantly work overtime to pay for school.

Anyways, this weekend was a good one, I can definitely say that much. Dennis' daughter had her 2nd birthday party on Saturday at Peter Piper Pizza. After that I went to dinner at Garcia's with Stacy, which included Fried Ice Cream, which is the shit. Not quite as good as Oaxaca's in Sedona, but good nonetheless. After dinner we hit up Harkins and saw "Children of Men", which was excellent. Definitely a unique theme for a movie.

Sunday I hung out with Dennis and his family as they went shopping at Wal-mart, and Arizona Mills. I'd originally signed up to work that night, but nobody ever told me that they would need me, which turned out great because Tami had free tickets to the Trapt/Shinedown concert at Westgate Center. Trapt wasn't very good at all, but I didn't really expect them to be. I enjoyed the stuff that I'd heard on the radio, but after downloading their CD, I wasn't impressed with the rest of it, and the concert wasn't any better. Shinedown, on the other hand, made up for Trapt's lacking performance, and then some. I'd probably pay to see Shinedown again.

This was actually my 2nd time seeing them, as they played the Godsmack show last September as well, but they made a much bigger impression on me this time around. Especially loved the songs "Shed Some Light", and "Simple Man", which is actually a Lynyrd Skynyrd cover, and where the title of this blog comes from. I've always had a soft spot for acoustic stuff though, especially when it's from bands that are normally accustomed to playing harder music, like Shinedown and Staind. It's a nice break in the albums from all the hate music

After the concert Tami, her cousins, friends, and myself, headed over to Six Shooters to get drinks and play some pool. Had a great time there, but they closed around 1, so we headed over to the Metro Sports bar to hang out a little while longer. Ended up getting home around 2:30 in the morning, and didn't feel like sleeping, so after browsing the net for a bit, I popped in "The Beach", which I've probably mentioned before is a great movie. Didn't quite get through all of it before going to sleep around 5 though.

Going over to Dennis' later today for a barbecue, and to watch Ohio State kick the shit out of Florida. Sometimes I wonder why I don't follow football... I love the sport. I guess I already have too many hobbies to try and keep track of another one, especially one that has so many people and stats to keep track of.

Edit: Well... the game didn't quite go the way we wanted it... That was a great first touchdown though Ohio! Way to stay #1

'Theres only one sure way to bring the giant down...'

Well, after a string of great weekends, this one tops them all. Starting with Saturday, I go to arguably the best concert I've been to yet, consisting of downright perfect performances by Shinedown, Rob Zombie, and Godsmack. Dennis, DJ, and Dennis' cousin came with me, and Tami came separately with friends and cousins. We all had pit tickets. There's no better way to go to a concert than to be in the pit. Before the concert itself, I wasn't real excited about Rob Zombie, but I've got to hand it to them, they played a kick ass show, even throwing in some 'old school' White Zombie shit that the crowd went crazy for. Before the show I'd even told Dennis that there was no way they were going to play anything from White Zombie. Guess I have to eat my words on that. During the song "More Human than Human" they brought out a giant 'robot' on stage that danced around on stage and tried to attack the band members as they played. That's got to be the coolest stage prop I've ever seen. After Rob Zombie came Godsmack who kept ripping out kick ass songs, one after the other, and nearing the end, Sully rode out on a 2nd drum set, complete with bongo drums, and he and drummer Tommy Stewart played a kick ass drum solo (duo?) while the remote controlled platforms would move around on the stage.

After the concert we were supposed to go to Macayos down the street to hang out with friends, some who went to the concert, and others who were going to show up. Sort of for my birthday I guess, but I just wanted to hang out, so I wouldn't have to go home. So we dropped off Dennis' cousin, and then went back to Dennis' place to pick up my car. Dennis said he wasn't going to go. I figured it was because he had work in the morning, and/or just because it would be a bunch of people from work, who he didn't really know. I'd originally planned on going home real quick to change clothes, but we were already running kind of late (it was already 11:30pm) and we still had to pick up Daniel and Alicia from their place. They were going to ride with us so they could drink, and not have to worry about driving home. Besides, the temperature at the concert had been really cool, so I wasn't really sweating at all. So me and DJ got in the car and headed over there. They actually only live a couple miles from my place. When we pulled up, Alicia said to park the car. I asked her how long we were going to be here and she says all night, and laughs. So I'm like, whatever, and park the car, get out, and follow her toward the house. Daniel's standing out in the front yard, along with Nicola and a couple people I didn't know (Daniel's Uncle and Aunt). I didn't know why Nicola was there, but figured she was just waiting there until we all headed down to Macayos, and would follow us.

So I walk in the house, and Angi's sitting there at the table with a friend, and Alicia turns and explains to me that they're throwing a party for me, which apparently was the plan all along. Nobody was waiting at Macayos. Angi had brought Taquitos, and there was chips and nacho stuff, soda, and their fridge was packed with alcohol. I was in a bit of a shock at first. I'd never have guessed this was going to happen. They'd kept it a very good secret. DJ said he thought I might have known, and was just playing around at first, but when I said I didn't even know we were supposed to "pick up" Daniel and Alicia, he knew I didn't have a clue. Tami and her friends took a while to get there. I guess they'd waited at the concert until everyone had pretty much cleared out of the parking lot, and then got lost on the way to Alicia's house. A few more people showed up, including Yvette, Shawn, and Lisa. I kind of wish I'd known about it, just so I could invite friends that weren't related to work, but then there'd be no surprise.

Everyone was talking for a long while, and then around 1:30 or so, I was sitting by myself, as I'd been on my feet for the last 6 hours, and Lisa came over and asked me if I wanted to join the party in the other room. I complained that the party kept moving, but she grabbed my arm and dragged me to the living room where most everyone was sitting and had me sit down in a chair against the wall. Then out of the corner of my eye, I see a bunch of people in the hallway, and I look over and theres a girl in a police uniform, and I realize what's going on. So she comes out and asks who's birthday it is, and everyone points at me. So she comes over and sits on my lap facing me, takes off the uniform, and the next hour is filled with an innumerable amount of lapdances and 'games', most of them for me, but she also gave other people dances as well. People kept giving me bills for more dances, Tami in particular, who was the one that ordered the dancer in the first place. She was damn good looking. No complaints from me at all. Apparently Tami had actually picked someone else, but for whatever reason they'd sent this girl. At one point Tami yelled "Just wait until you get married!", so if your reading this (and I know you will), I'm going to hold you to that! =P.

After she'd left, Tami was telling me how nobody was sure if I'd be cool with getting a stripper for my birthday. They thought I might walk out or something. I told them I'm not sure why. I'd been to a strip club before, it just wasn't my thing because you drop tons of money just to see naked chicks tease the shit out of you. It just doesn't seem like a worthwhile way to spend my money. Every once in a while is fine, but some people go f'ing crazy, going to strip clubs every other weekend or more. They also thought I might be uncomfortable with it, since it was around a bunch of people I knew, but I was actually much more comfortable in that situation than at a strip club.

DJ had to be home by 3am, and most everyone else left by 4. I went home and tried to sleep, but since I'd slept right before the concert, I wasn't very tired, and ended up waking up around 7 or 8 in the morning. Daniel and Alicia had invited me over to watch football at their place, so I headed over there around 11am. I had softball at 4, so Alicia and I left her place and picked up DJ on the way. We lost both games this time =( . I still ended up scoring a run, although I was running for someone else. After the game, I went home and took a shower before Stacy came and picked me up to go to dinner for my birthday. We went to The Cheesecake Factory and had a great time talking about various stuff. I told her about the party, and about my brother, who's thinking of moving to Hawaii next year. After that, she wanted to go play pool, so we decided to go to Six Shooters. She called her boyfriend; who, until that moment, I wasn't even aware of; to see if he could come, but he was about to go to sleep. So we started driving to Six Shooters, which was some ways away, but on the way there, she decided she just wanted to go home. She said she was feeling kind of sick, but for whatever reason I didn't really believe her, but I didn't say anything about it.

So I took her back to my place, which is where her car was at. We'd taken my car because her tags were expired. I opened her gift, which was a Blockbuster movie pass, microwave popcorn, sprite, and candy, which was pretty cool, cause I love movies. I have a monthly rental subscription pass at Blockbuster, but I told her I could still use it to buy some movies. I also not too fond of popcorn, because it's pretty much all I ate the first six months after moving to Arizona (that and ramen noodles), but I didn't mention anything about it, cause it's hardly a big deal. So then she left. It was around 10:00. The weekend supervisor had called me the night before about working this weekend, but obviously I wasn't going to work Saturday night, and I didn't really feel like going in Sunday night, as I'd been up since 7am already. I might start working again next weekend though. I could really use the money, especially with Christmas right around the corner, the IRS breathing down my back, and the PS3 / Wii launch in November. GameStop is starting to take pre-orders for the PS3 the first week of October as well, so I need to get in on that ASAP.

So, that ends this weekend. Most of the pics from the party are NSFW, so I can't post them here, but there were a couple that I could, including this one below. The quality's pretty shitty, as it came from a photo sharing site (I wasn't able to take many pictures with my own camera). I'm hoping to get the higher quality originals later though. I didn't take any pictures at the concert either. I did get some video with my phone though, and may upload that in the near future if it's half decent looking.

Edit: Pics have been removed, as I seem to have deleted them from the server at some point...

'und keine eier...'

Well, I think my streak is wearing off... This weekend had the potential to be great, and it ended up only about average, though I did have a lot to do, so I suppose that's better than just sitting around all weekend.

Saturday I went to softball practice in the morning. Yeah... decided to play softball, which is like the first sport I've played in at least 15 years or more. I need the exercise, and it's something to help get out of the house, etc. Practice was ok I guess. When I first got up to bat I was actually hitting pretty good for the first 5 or 6 pitches, then I just kept missing them one after another. I'm not sure if I got too cocky or was just trying to swing harder or what.

Later that evening I went to see Tool play at Cricket Pavilion. Tool has been one of my favorite bands for years, so I was really looking forward to this concert, but unfortunately, was disappointed in the end. We got into the venue just in time for Tool to take the stage. It was just me and DJ this time. Dennis was off in Flagstaff for his and Nicole's Anniversary. Anyways, when Tool came out on stage, I was pretty hyped up, along with everyone else, and then partway into the 2nd song some idiot threw a plastic water bottle and it hit Maynard right in the head, and he walked off stage. The band kept playing though. I don't even know if they were aware what had happened actually, except they must've known something was up cause he wasn't on stage anymore. After they finished that song (which I believe was "Forty-Six and Two") they started the next, even though Maynard was still off stage. Didn't matter much to the crowd, cause they started singing it themselves! Anyways, on the last verse of the song, Maynard came back out and started singing again, which was a big relief cause I thought for sure they were going to stop the concert for a second there. Even though he came back though, I never really got hyped up the rest of the concert because they kept playing songs with long instrumentals in them, and/or songs that weren't really big hits. In fact, I don't think they played any songs off their first two albums at all, even though they played for two hours.

The next day I hung out with Mike & Tiffany. Went to the mall for a little bit, then Chipotle for lunch, then back to Tiffany's parents house for a little while. Wasn't there for very long before I had to go pick up DJ for softball. Didn't do terribly bad for my first two games. Hit the ball 3 out of the 5 times I was at bat, though two of them were caught, but that's still better than striking out, which is what I was pretty much expecting to do.

Yesterday (Monday) I pretty much just sat around watching movies and playing Oblivion. Got a registered letter from the IRS telling me I owe them money, and they're going to repossess my car if I don't pay them $1.5k in the next 30 days. Thankfully I just happen to have some extra money. I was kind of hoping to be able to hold out until February, and just have them take it out of the taxes they're going to owe me, but I guess I won't get that lucky.

Stacy called in the afternoon to say hello, cause we haven't talked in a while, and as per usual, she didn't talk much. Even when I was telling her what I'd been doing lately, she didn't really sound interested in continuing any conversation I tried to make, which is why I wonder why she bothers calling to begin with. Talked to Stefanie again as well, albeit through text message still. I wonder how long she's going to keep this up... maybe she's wondering the same thing about me, heh...

'Calm down, come down, cold resides with me...'

It's been a couple weeks since my last entry, but a lot has happened since then. Went to the Red Hot Chili Peppers concert on the 21st. Had an excellent time, and I'd probably consider it one of the better concerts I've been to had they played more well known songs, but i suppose that's partially my fault for not really listening to all of the songs on all their albums. Either way, they played a ton of music, so that made up for it. Even when the band left the stage after playing for probably an hour or more, the stadium was nearly pitch black, and deafening with the roar of the crowd for a good ten minutes or so, they came back to play at least another five songs or more, starting out with my personal favorite, "Under the Bridge". I've posted a few pics below, along with the live video of "Under the Bridge", including yours truly in the background. Please don't hate on my voice =P

The next weekend was Dennis' youngest son, Dennis George's birthday. I'm pretty sure he turned six. I've yet to get him his gift, which will probably be New Super Mario Bros. for the DS, since he just got a DS Lite. After the party I went to see a monster truck show with Mike and Tiffany thanks to some free tickets Mike got from his employer, who sponsored the event. We couldn't have bought better seats. We were right up front, and could see the whole event fairly well. I enjoyed going, but was a little put off by the amount of talking the presenters did, and the lack of stunts from the motocross guys, who were also there. The trucks themselves got pretty messed up though, one of them crashing right into the wall of the brand new Cardinals Stadium (video and pics also below).

That Sunday I caught up on some sleep, probably more than 14 hours in all, after which I headed over to Macayo's downtown for a birthday party for a bunch of people from work. A lot of people showed up, and everyone had a great time relaxing and talking to people outside of the work environment.

This weekend is going to be a three-day weekend thanks to the holiday (Labor Day). I plan on cleaning my apartment (yay) and hopefully taking a little road trip up north, probably on Monday.

Note: The videos below are extremely poor quality, particularly the RHCP video, as I was using a cell phone, it was very dark, and I was about 100 yards from the stage. On the other hand, they are also fairly small. Also, the RHCP video has about 2 minutes of just showing the crowd, or, more appropriately, the black where the crowd would be. I didn't remove it just so you could see how crazy it was before the band came on for the encore.

Monster Truck Crash - 560kb - 0:27

RHCP: Under the Bridge - Live - 4.79MB - 5:31

The images below are also available with pointless comments here.

'Roll the window down this cool night air is curious...'

Went to The Family Values Tour last night. The Deftones kicked ass. They're the reason I really wanted to go, as they've been one of my favorite bands for years, ever since I started listening to metal, etc. They played a lot of great songs, though I thought their opener was a little soft. Korn was the final band, and they did a great job as well, but they took waaaay too long to get their shit started. There must've been 45 minutes at least between when the Deftones left and Korn finally got on stage, and then they took a long ass time between songs to. That shouldn't happen, especially for a band that tours as much as Korn does.

Anyways, I got to Cricket Pavilion (the venue) around 5pm in order to see Flyleaf perform. Turns out the Japanese band "Dir en Grey" was just barely getting started. That is one crazy ass band. For one, all their songs are in Japanese, so that's a little odd to begin with, but the lead singer had fake blood all over his face, and he was reaching in his mouth with his finger, and then like... flicking it at the crowd... kind of hard to describe, but it was weird.... Then at one point he dumps a bucket of water on his head, only he leaves the bucket on his head and starts running around the stage. All of this to some very hard music, which actually wasn't that bad.

Then Flyleaf came on. They did a decent job, although much of the time I could barely hear their lead singer over the music, and the sun was shining right in my eyes the entire time, so I could barely see. The heat, being 5:30 in the evening in Arizona, actually wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. It was still quite warm though, and actually got warmer as the evening went on, and more people showed up.

By the time Stone Sour came on, I think he said there were like 16,000 people at the show. Probably no more than the last time I was at Cricket Pavilion, but still a lot of people. Stone Sour wasn't too bad. I don't really listen to them, so I wasn't real hyped up about their music, but they performed really well, and the singer was really energetic, and got the crowd excited, much more so than they were with the previous bands.

Overall I had a good time. I'm still not real happy about losing $100 trying to sell extra tickets on eBay. Not sure if I just waited too long or what, but only one person bid, and got all three tickets for a total of $100. They originally cost me just over $200 to purchase. I thought for sure I'd get more than my money back, seeing that they were in the front section. I'm thinking I'm not going to do too well with the Godsmack Tickets either, which is at the end of September.

'I hate you so, but love you more I'm so elastic...'

Well, I've now been working seven days a week for over a month, and will be working every day at least for another week, if not the week after that as well. Still managing to hang out with friends though, or at least trying to. Have a busy weekend ahead of me. In between sleeping and working, Friday I'll be heading to The Family Values Tour, featuring Korn, The Deftones, Stone Sour, Flyleaf, and a bunch of other bands. Saturday I'm going to see Pirates of the Caribbean. Sunday I'm going with some friends to take a tour of the new Arizona Cardinals (NFL) stadium. I guess the tickets for the tour were free, which is pretty cool. Hopefully I'll be able to check out a game this year as well, as I've never been to an NFL game (or NBA, for that matter). Hopefully either Saturday or Sunday I'll be able to make some time to hang out with Mike and Tiffany as well, as we haven't hung out in a long time. Monday is the Red Hot Chilli Peppers concert. I also have to re-sign my lease this weekend. I didn't really want to, but I'm not really sure where I want to move yet either, so I'll sign another 7 month lease. That should give me enough time to look around some, and it'll be cooler temperatures by the time I move.

Put some subwoofers in my car the other day. Dennis had a Kicker 120w amp, and three MTX 10" subwoofers in a box that used to be in his Cavalier. When he traded in his cavalier, he didn't really have any use for them anymore, so I bought everything off him for $100. We installed it ourselves, and it went fairly easy, as the previous owner of my car already had the car wired for subwoofers, so we just connected the wires, and it worked. OK, well it sounds simpler than it actually was, but it wasn't too difficult. I need to do a little better job at connecting the wires together though. Right now they don't have the strongest connection, and are sort of just hanging around. The box is also about 1.5" too long to fit all the way in the back of my trunk, which sucks, but it fits, and I can still fit my toolboxes back there, as well as a few other things. Here are some pics if you want to check it out. 120w doesn't sound like much, especially when split between 3 subs, but it sounds damn nice, so I'm happy, especially for a mere $100.

'Peel me from the skin, tear me from the rind...'

Another boring weekend gone by. At least I got paid well though. This paycheck was my biggest yet, and I ended up taking home $1,973.45 after taxes. My normal paycheck is about half that, but I had tons of overtime on this one, 21 hours of time-and-a-half, as well as 12.5 hours of double time. Plus I claimed exempt on my taxes, so they only took out a couple hundred for Social Security, Medicare, and my medical benefits. My next check probably won't be quite as large, but it'll have quite a bit of overtime as well, so it'll still be nice. At some point I need to find out exactly how much money I've saved. My bank account says $4,500, but that's not accounting for bills, etc for the next two weeks. Dennis still owes me $400-500, and a couple other people owe me a little bit, so $4,500 is probably fairly correct. I'll need at least $5k to get the car I want (likely a BMW 325i or 325is) and another $700 for 6 months of insurance, as well as any money for repairs, etc. I'd like to get a stereo right off the bat as well, but that may have to wait.

I can't remember what I did Saturday. I may have hung out at Dennis' in the morning, then probably slept all day, as I had to go to work Saturday night (more overtime!). Last night I went to see Chevelle and Taproot. The concert was excellent. The opening band (The Black Maria) wasn't too bad either. Kind of similar sound to AFI. Chevelle probably had the best light show during their performance that I've ever seen. The lead singer of Taproot came down and walked all through the standing-room-only crowd while Taproot was playing the song "I" (excellent song BTW). That was really cool of him, and thankfully nobody tried anything stupid to fuck it up. Unfortunately I have no pictures. I thought they would pat us down at the entrance like they did at a previous concert, so I didn't bring my camera, and just my luck, they didn't even search us.

Went to work after that, though by that time it was already midnight. I'd originally told the supervisor I'd be in no later than 11pm, but he didn't seem mad that I was late. So then I sat around for the next 8 hours doing practically nothing. In fact, I was so bored I went back and read every one of my blog entries from the very first one, and after that, read a bunch of other peoples =/. Ah well, brought back memories, some that I wish I'd written down in more detail.

Got my $60 rebate from my 120GB hard drive in the mail today. I always think of rebates as free money, since by the time I get them, that's basically what it is.

Anyways, haven't posted any pictures lately, and I don't have any new ones to post quite yet, so I went back through my pictures folder and decided to post a few older ones. The first is a hill on the way to Montana from Washington back in 2003. The snow being only on the one side made it look pretty weird. The second is a picture of the beach on Whidbey Island in Washington where my parents live, and where I grew up. The third is a picture from Fort Casey, which is also on Whidbey Island. The fort was built during WWII for protection against the Japanese, as there is a major naval base on Whidbey Island. Although there were soldiers there, it never had to be used during the war. Only a couple of the cannons remain. The Fort itself is quite interesting to walk around in though. A few years back I posted some video footage of me and my brother there. The fourth is a pic taken around the same time that the first one was. This one near the Columbia River in Washington. Number five was taken on Lake Washington when I was up there last summer. The weather was excellent while I was up there, and provided some nice sunset pics. None quite as good as the last one though, which was taken at Rosario Beach, on Fidalgo Island, also in Washington. I went there on the last day of my vacation that summer specifically to get some sunset pics. I took six or eight, but I think this one looks the best, as the light goes all the way down the water to the camera.

'To live and burn, is tug of war...'

Yep, a new entry already. Nothing new's happened since the last entry other than I just bought tickets to see Chevelle! I absolutely love this band, and when I heard they were on tour, I got really excited, and then disappointed when Arizona was nowhere on the list of tour dates. Then Dennis calls me today and says he heard on the radio that they'll be in Scottsdale on the 18th. After visiting TicketMaster.com, it still had no locations in Arizona listed. But then when I went to their website, there it was. Tickets were $28 to go see them and Taproot, another good band. There doesn't seem to be any "special guests" either (usually local bands acting as fillers) which is good, because the last couple concerts I went to the "special guests" weren't all that great. So anyways, that's probably going to be the best birthday gift I get this year, and I gave it to myself =P. It should at least slightly offset the pain that will come on my birthday when Stefanie doesn't call me =(.

'Happy and free inside a world of misery...'

Time to catch up on yet another week, this one happened to be particularly busy for me. We'll start at the beginning...

Last Monday night was great. I went to my 2nd concert, this time which happened to be Static-X. The three opening bands were a chore to sit through..particularly because we were forced to stand, since there were no seats. All three bands were basically heavy metal or death metal, not sure what you would call them. Basically a hell of a lot of screaming that made absolutely no sense at all. All of the songs sounded quite similar to each other, and the only reason you could tell you were listening to a new song was because of the short pauses in between each one. The 2nd band was actually a Hispanic death metal band, and all their songs were in Spanish, not that it made any difference, because as I said earlier, you couldn't even understand the ones that were in English. Had we have known there were going to be three opening bands before Static-X, we probably would've came later, but oh well. Once Static-X came on, things got much better. They played quite a few songs from their previous two albums, Wisconsin Death Trip, and Shadowzone, as well as a couple of tracks from their album that came out that night, Start a War. Every song was damn good though, and what made the show even better is that the band actually performs really well, in that they didn't seem like they were there to just play a few songs and then get the hell out of there. I went to the show with my friends Dennis and DJ for Dennis' 26th birthday, which was on the 15th.

Tuesday and Wednesday passed without anything extraordinary. When Thursday came, I went with Stefanie to school early in the morning, around 7:30 I think, to help her with her CIS 105 work. She had to take a test on Excel later that morning, and didn't have a clue what she was doing. Unfortunately we didn't get through too much of the practice exercises she had to do before the time to take the test came around. Eventually she convinced the teacher that she didn't have enough time to take the test anyways, as she had to be at work by 9. The teacher agreed to let her take the test the following Monday (today) instead. Later that day I went to The Cheesecake Factory with Stacy for her 24th birthday, which was actually a week earlier on the 8th. We were there for about two hours, and there wasn't too many long moments of silence, so hopefully she wasn't completely bored.

Friday was really fun. Started off playing tennis for the first time in my life with Stefanie. I sucked ass at it of course, and kept hitting the ball much too hard, or not hitting it at all. We didn't play for very long because Stefanie said I was going to give myself a heart attack, so we went swimming instead, which I haven't done for a very, very long time. Unfortunately that didn't last very long either, as the maintenance man came and said he was closing down the pool for the day to clean it, so after changing, I went back to her apartment and just hung out until Dennis called. He was having a barbecue at his house, and was on his way to pick me up. Stefanie wasn't too pleased, and she told me I shouldn't go, and I should just hang out with her instead, but I'd already told Dennis that morning that I would.

Saturday morning, Eddie (friend from work) and I were going to go to Fry's Electronics as soon as it opened up at 9am. Since we got off work at 6am, we just hung out at my apartment for a couple hours talking, and showing him my apartment, computer, etc. Then we went to Fry's and he returned a few things, then we just walked around the store for a little over an hour just looking at stuff. After that I went home and sat around the house for a few hours until around 5:30pm when DJ came and picked me up to go to a restaurant called Fuddruckers, which is basically just a sort of "homestyle" burger joint. We were going there for Dennis' birthday party. The food there wasn't all that great, at least not for the $10 it cost. I could've got better, and more food, at any fast food restaurant for half the price. It was fun hanging out though. I got home around 9:30pm and called Stefanie to see if she might be bored and wanted to hang out, but I couldn't get a hold of her. I really didn't want to go to sleep so damn early, but I'd only had roughly 8 hours of sleep in the last three nights, so I was extraordinarily tired. I'd just finished downloading roughly nine or ten Pearl Jam albums, so I added them all to my playlist and fell asleep listening to it. I woke up once or twice during the night and tried to stay awake listening to Pearl Jam as long as possible, so I wouldn't have to wake up at 6am from too much sleep. Not the easiest thing to do, as much of Pearl Jam's music is a little on the slow side. Somehow I managed it though, and didn't wake up until 10 or 11am the next morning.

Sunday is usually the day I try to hang out with Mike, so I gave him a call. We ended up going to the mall, along with Tiffany (his girlfriend). Usually we just end up walking around looking at stuff, but we actually did a bit of shopping this time. I probably spent much more money than I should've, but I needed the clothes just as much as I needed the money. One of the stores we went to was JC Penney, where I used to work. Only one person recognized me, which doesn't surprise me since I worked nights there. He actually didn't even know that I'd quit my job there, even though he hadn't seen me for more than 3 months.

After that we went to Fuddruckers yet again, although one in a different part of town than the one I'd went to the previous day. The food wasn't any better, and this time it was with Tiffany's parents rather than a bunch of my friends, so it wasn't quite as fun either. The day only got worse from there. We went to Best Buy so that Tiffany's parents could buy her sister and her sister's kids cell phones. The fact that her parents had to buy her and her boyfriend and kids cell phones pissed me off enough, but the fact that we spent three hours at Best Buy waiting for them to pick out their phones was fucking ridiculous. This is of course, one of the many things that won't happen once I finally have my own car. After that, we went to Tiffany's parents house, and nearly everyone went swimming. I wasn't really in the mood, so I just sat in the living room watching TV until Mike and Tiffany were ready to leave. Dennis had called earlier in the day and was having another barbecue for Father's Day, but I told him I wasn't going to be able to come because I was hanging out with Mike. I really should've gone. Other than the fact that it was hanging out with friends, the day was a complete waste of time.

When I finally got home, I called Stefanie to see if she wanted to hang out. Couldn't get a hold of her again, but she called not too long afterwards and wanted to know if she could come over so I could help her with her CIS work again. Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, we couldn't get her software to work, so instead we just ended up talking and listening to music for 4.5 hours, which made me forget about the horrible day I'd had earlier.

Finally we come to today. I woke up around 8am because Stefanie wanted to go to the computer lab at the college to see if we'd be able to get the software to work there, and she could practice for an hour or two before having to take the test. Unfortunately the software still didn't work, so I tried to think of stuff on my own to try and teach her to use Excel, but I couldn't think of much, so we just went and ate breakfast at Jack n' The Box instead. She got a 100% and 70% on her last two Excel tests though, so hopefully she'll do relatively well on this one. I told her to call me as soon as she was finished with it, but it's been a couple hours since she left to take the test, and no call. We're supposed to go to the optometrist later today to see about getting me new glasses though, so I don't have to wear my contacts all the time while at home, which would be really nice, particularly at night, and when playing games, so my eyes don't dry out.

I really should start doing these blog entries on a semi-daily basis so you don't have to read all that text at once =P

Yay! Projekt Revolution!

Just got back from the Projekt Revolution Tour a couple hours ago. Had a great time. It was my first concert, and I bought pit tickets for me and a few friends. There was a bunch of bands and rap artists at the show, but I pretty much just went for Korn and Linkin Park, who were the last two bands playing. Korn was pretty good, and they didn't play too many new songs, which is a good thing, because I'm not too fond of their new album. Linkin Park was incredible though. Everyone got really hyped up when they finally came on stage. The only thing I didn't like was that people were starting mosh pits during songs like "Numb" and "Breaking the Habit", which really arn't moshing songs at all. The last song they played was "One Step Closer", and at the end, Jonathan Davis of Korn did the bridge from the Re-Animation version of the song, which was damn cool. I'll definately be buying tickets the next time they come to town.