Three and a quarter years ago I wrote a blog post that outlined the previous 4 years of my life, mostly how they related to my level of physical fitness and how when I was in shape it made me uncontrollably happy, I then proceeded to predict what I'd do in the following year. Recently given the challenge to write in this here hypernet web log once again, I thought it would be fitting to re-visit said post and examine how I've fared in the years since then. Reading back on it now I'm left to ponder a number of things. One of those things of course is the skill with which I wielded the written word back then and my lack of confidence in doing the same currently. Also, it's definitely time to move away from LiveJournal, or learn how to manipulate the layout better, but as I wrote here it's essential that I stay true to my roots. Also, as an addendum to the post I just linked to, I think WordPress has overtaken blogspot as the blog world's current provider du jour. I think it's open source. Oh open source stuff, you're so openly sourced. Blogs have changed a lot in the last 4 years since I began this intermittent journey.

Also, I was completely enamored with Sports Guy back then, enough so to include meeting him in the then coming days as a fulfillment of a life goal. I did meet him. I was a nervous Nelly (not Don “Nelly” Nelson, then I would've had to be soooo drunk. What a great coach, for comedic purposes mostly.) Now, though I still read most of Sports Guy's stuff and appreciate him for what he is and was, he has grown stale (to me, even though he's probably the most read/powerful sports writer on the Internet) in comparison to the lively world of sports blogs, which he should be and/or is considered the Godfather of, even though he gets ripped mercilessly on them (NOBODY DENIES THIS! - Copyright KSK). Wow, this paragraph could not be more outdated and unnecessary. This is what happens when you stop blogging for three years.

So, onto the list of goals and predictions I laid out for myself to achieve in the Summer after I graduated from college, and the results after nearly 3 years:

Get some type of amazing job working at Wieden + Kennedy in Portland – This has not yet happened. If you're a regular reader of my blog, which you aren't because that would be impossible, you'd know that I hate looking for jobs. When given the opportunity to look for a job working at WK, I did so poorly. I did briefly pursue this, but too briefly.
Write a TV show, book, movie, rap CD – I have continued to occasionally write terrible rap songs, but no TV show, book, or movie. Though I do have a good movie idea (complete with clever pun title) that should be made relatively soon, before the punny title is no longer current. I can't give you many details on this widely read forum as someone would surely take my great movie idea.
Work for LSE/TSM – Most of the people I worked with at this establishment split off and began anew. I do keep in touch with some of them and appreciate my time with them, but I have not worked for them directly in any capacity.
Become SG Intern – He doesn't even do this anymore. I don't know if there was ever another opportunity to become the SG's intern.
Sign a major record deal – Unfortunately, Terzetto had to turn down most of our major record deal offers because they had too many stipulations that we felt would infringe on our artistic expression. Obviously, this is true.
Work as literary agent – I should be blamed for this not happening. We still on, Cory?
Read tons of books – Though they probably don't add up to a ton, in weight, I have read a good amount of books, but I could always read more. Man, books are great.
Go to grad school, law school, and med school at the same time (wait, what?) - Not yet. Some of these options are still on the table.
Write a book of poetry – I don't even want to do this. I don't think I "get" poetry. I once had to read "The Waste Land" by TS Eliot for a class. I couldn't even get through the thing until I found an audio recording online of him reading it.
Visit Africa/Asia/Europe/the Penguins on Antarctica on my parents coin – You can cross Europe off the list, but if I wish to visit the rest, I think I'll do it on my own coin. Also, I spelled Antarctica wrong in my original post. What an idiot.
Play online poker for a living – It's possible that I attempted to do this (see two below), but it couldn't be proven. I'll have to settle with living vicariously through a friend on this one.
Wait tables – I did work at a restaurant and wait tables. This isn't much of an accomplishment.
Drink heavily – I have accomplished this on a number of nights/weekends/weeks/months.
Stop drinking – Not permanently.
Run another marathon – Accomplished, twice. Plus, I devoted a solid portion of my original post discussing a nefarious character who had “thoroughly trounced” my PR at the time, and I beat his time, twice. That, along with the fact that a physical ailment prevents him from running much more than 10 miles at a time assures me that he'll never beat my PR. As we speak, I'm training to run another (Vancouver, May 2009) and hope to again lower my PR. Training is not fun – but I do it to maintain my roller-coastery weight fluctuations as noted, again, in the original post.
Do a bi/triathalon – A number of friends of mine have achieved this, and the brief popularity of triathlons among those friends has discouraged me from wanting to do this at the current time. How can I explain that, you ask? I can't.
Meet the woman I decide to marry, have kids – Not that I know of. Highly unlikely. I have however gone to a few friends' weddings and have other known associates who plan on getting married in the near future. I'm way behind on this one, and that's not necessarily a bad thing
Teach – We're all teachers, always teaching, in one way or another. That's deep.
Develop a product that makes me a millionaire many times over (most likely a Pringles can that has easier access to the last couple of Pringles) – That Pringles can idea is still great and should be looked into by the executives and product development team of Proctor & Gamble. I have the basic idea already developed. Will it make me a millionaire many times over? Probably not. Will it help increase their sales? Probably not. Am I likely to ever eat another Pringle? No. All that being said, this is all still developing. Also, can we agree that there is a global conspiracy amongst three or four corporations to run everything? Have you ever been to the Proctor and Gamble web site? 
Get a job using blog entries and two rap cd's as portfolio – I do believe that I sent an interviewer a link to this very site once when applying for a job. Did it help me get the job, no probably not. I also sent some blog entries to a recruiter looking to fill a junior copywriting positiion once and he responded by saying soemthing like "the content of these documents is not acceptable," or something equally derogatory.
Never create a resume – Given the negative nature (not negative in that it's a bad thing, but negative in that the goal is to NOT do something) of this goal/prediction, by creating a resume once, I can no longer accomplish it. Whereas many of the goals have not been reached in a given time frame, they still coul, this could not.
Eat tons of Ritz with tuna/celery/pickles – I don't do that enough. Man, I could go for a Rit right now, not to be confused with a writ, of course, which I don't know what one is. Writ of habeas corpus, that's a thing that was destroyed by our Government, right?
Suffer from liberal guilt – Obviously, yes. Had I gone further and defined it as “white liberal guilt,” it could be doubly so. Because I am white. And liberal. And guilty. Of many things. LIke doing that stupid short sentence that's not really a sentence thing just then.
Listen to the "I Have a Dream" speech – I must have. Interesting note, I once had the idea to manipulate Martin Luther King's famous speech into a rap song, much like the way Will.I.Am (whose music I don't typically like) did with the “Yes We Can,” song during the election cycle. That song was great, but let's not forget I deserve most of the credit for it. What with my idea to do that some 2 years earlier and never telling anyone about it and never following through with it.
Learn to write speech (the word, not "a speech") without fearing that I spelled it wrong – I'm pretty sure I just spelled it “speach” before my OpenOffice (OpenSource!) application automatically corrected it for me. Also, I have not written a speech.
Do the same with Michael – Somehow, with little to no conscious effort, I have established a fairly consistent spelling of the name Michael.
Cook great meals – More so than I could ever imagine. Sure, they're probably not great in the world of high-cuisine, but I enjoy them. Take a look:

Write for a newspaper – I didn't realize this was a dream of mine until recently re-reading the original blog. I better hurry up before they cease to exist.
Blog – Barely. I've written five (six including this) blog posts since the original post. Actually, that's not quite true. A few friends and I write a private, password-protected blog where we keep in touch and tell great stories that allegedly won't fall into the hands of internetting trespassers. It is within this private blog that I can tell stories without fear of legal and professional ramifications and what not. I may have to search through it to see if there's any content that could be seen by the rest of my reading audience.
Make a movie – Depending on your definition of “movie,” I've either made very many, or none at all. I'll let you be the judge:
Hitchhike across the country and back – My dad must've had huge balls back in the day, figuratively.
Eliminate the worldwide use of adjectives -  I'm not sure this is a good idea. I haven't come close to doing it. I'm using adjectives all the time.
Buy/download/listen to tons of music – Yes. I love it. What do you think I'm doing now, aside from procrastinating?
Procrastinate (gee, I wonder what I'm doing now) – Gee, I wonder what I'm doing now.
Come between a kid and his candy, spaz like Bobcats on booze – Oh, MC Pee Pants.
Watch Seinfeld and Curb – Sure, great job, Zack. You're so great at watching TV. Nice goal, idiot.
Listen to Groundation and other music that is most high (in a non-drug related sense, although probably in a drug related sense as well) – Um, yeah, about that drug thing.
Completely disregard rules of english and tense agreement – I are going to did probably were. Will are you saying, could was isn't.
Hangout with friends (in no particular order: Ranch, Hawaii, Ad Club, C-City, Family, Kaitlyn) – Not nearly enough. Sad. Now I'm getting sentimental about all my friends. How convenient (see below)
Be really really really senti – You see “senti” is a shortened version of the word sentimental.
Learn how to use Photoshop – There are so many ways to do so many things in Photoshop that I don't know I could really say I “learned how to use” it, but I can use it well enough for my purposes.
Overuse parenthetical comments – I'm constantly overusing parenthetical comments. If I knew more about proper English and writing, I'd probably find that there is never a place for them. Why do they exist? When should they be used? I don't know. I once read a book that claimed it's very dumb of people who make statements like, “I wish I knew how to properly use semicolons.”  Something about if you want to learn how to use them, just learn how, it's not hard. I disagree. I did not include any parenthetical comments when talking about them just now. I did this on purpose. It's like a thing that I did with my writing to be ironic or something. Irony is so in. I also overuse commas all the time.
Make a crappy video on my computer that blows up – Though the computer did not blow up, per se, it did become unfunctional. Not a word. Yet, it does function as one.
Buy a laptop/ipod/digital camera – All this stuff happened.
Wait until I can no longer reasonably fear the next advance in technology and actually buy all three in one product the size of a quarter – Can the iPhone be considered a laptop/ipod/digital camera all in one product? That didn't take too long. No, it's not the same size as a quarter and yes, there are probably better products out there that some technology-loving, Apple-hating person could enlighten me about, that are so much better than the iPhone, but people are just in the cult-of-Apple and brainwashed to buy their overpriced products. Those people are so high and mighty. I wish I was one of them. Also, I don't own an iPhone, but the fact that this advancement in technology has occurred is pretty cool.
Write a good creative writing piece on my own terms – I think I was in a creative writing class when I made this statement. It was in reference to my inability to write a short story with a beginning, climax and resolution. You know, that whole thing with the storyline. I should've made this statement more reflective of that goal, then I could inform you that I hadn't done it. If it's just in reference to any writing, that is in turn creative, I could probably include several text messages as proof positive that I had accomplished this.
Turn $11 into $124,00 in a week – Did somebody do this? Is that something I should know about? Like some famous story where somebody did that? Tell me.
Discover some usage in Facebok for the greater good of the world – I don't know if it was quite in it's infancy at the time of this writing, but Facebook was not what it is now. That being said, with it's expansive growth, has anybody discovered some usage for the greater good of the world with it? Did somebody do this? Is that something I should know about? Like some famous story where somebdoy did that? Tell me.
Work for Sims – Oh hilarious. I'm doing this.
Listen to soul music - “Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of funky, secular testifying." - Wikipedia. Lately I've been listening to a lot of Jackie Wilson, he's the shit. Luckily, nobody is around when I scream my lungs out and absolutely butcher a song like “Lonely Teardrops.” Last night I went to a concert by a Stevie Wonder tribute band, it was the shit. Funky as fuck. Does Stevie still tour? I saw him performing on the weekend of the inauguration, but I believe I read a blog a while back about someone seeing one of his last shows. Stevie Wonder is considered neo soul, according to Wikipedia. So is Donny Hathway, also the shit. Current favorite songs by Stevie Wonder and Donny Hathaway, “Maybe your Baby,” and “I Believe to my Soul,” respectively. Funky funky shit from Stevie and just a great great song from Donny: “Last night while you were sleeping, I heard you saaaaaaay/”Oh, Ronny”/When you know my name, when you know my naaaaaame, when you know my name is Donny/I belieeeeeeve.” Obviously, my textual re-interpretation of this song does it no justice. Disclaimer: The lyrics and meanings of these songs are not be used to make judgments upon my mental state. I can assure you they are not representative of anything going on in my life, they just kick a ton of ass. Also, I purchased most of these songs via MP3 download, fulfilling a previous goal/prediction.
Not have homework in the sense of it being for school – Some of these are so worthless.
Do something that gives me worldwide credit as the first to do said thing – I don't know, not that I know of. I think I'd know if I got worldwide credit for something.
Go to sleep at a reasonable hour – I rarely, if ever, do this.
etc. etc. - Umm. These etceteras surely provide me with quite a launching pad to wax poetic on whatever subject I deem necessary. But, I think I'll save that for a future post. Assuming there is one.

(Ed. Note: This was a fairly well thought/fleshed-out idea when the author accidentally hit the 'shut down' button located in the top left corner of his keyboard. He was not happy about that, but instead of scrapping the idea he tried to replicate it and ended up with the following.)

    In case you didn't know, Dr Pepper is the oldest widely-sold soft drink in America. It was developed in 1885 in Waco, Texas. Despite numerous myths and folktales, it doesn't have a flavor that can be identified by any one person. The urban legend that it is a prune juice based soft drink is untrue and I think we're all better for that. Apparently, and by apparently I mean after 12 seconds of internet based research, it is the only, to use the parlance of our times, suicide-mix soft drink that is actually sold in the world (a suicide mix being when you go to the fountain and put in every type of soda that they have, also termed graveyard mix, apparently this was once a big cause of fatalities). The other of course was the wildly unpopular OK soda (coke, sprite, orange soda), brought to you by the Coca-Cola company, which I actually enjoyed so much that I continued to make it myself at the fountain for a number of years.  Dr Pepper is a mixture of 23 different types of flavors.




    Apparently 23 wasn't enough. The makers of Dr Pepper have recently added two flavors, cherry and vanilla. Unfortunately for them and the rest of the world, they're stupid. While the addition of supplemental flavors is not unprecedented in the world of soft drinks, the idiocracy of what Dr Pepper has done is indeed unprecedented. They not only refused to make solitary Cherry Dr Pepper and solitary Vanilla Dr Pepper, but they even had the gall to include Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper, creating the stupidest product in the world. Cherry Vanilla is the first of many in an ongoing series of "exciting Soda Fountain Classics," (which, until now, I didn't know was possible). 




    To make matters worse and a possible sign of the impending apocalypse, somebody was actually drinking it in one of my classes today. The diet version too. The stupidity of the name alone should force people to boycott the drink if not the brand itself. If anybody has tried Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr Pepper and enjoyed it, don't bother telling me because I'll undoubtedly insult you. To those of you that have heard me complain about this before, I'm sorry, I've been away for a while. Plus, somebody was actually drinking it.




    And to end on a tangential note, has anyone ever noticed the tagline for Diet Dr Pepper. I believe it goes something like, "Tastes more like regular Dr Pepper." Wow. Saying a lot there. It tastes more like regular Dr Pepper than what, than human urine? If so, congratulations. Although I'm sure somebody is in the market for said liquid, I doubt it's the same people buying Diet Dr Pepper.

    As I'm sure most of you have noticed, despite the hiatus, my blog has improved drastically in the past two months. I got bored and changed the theme, thus changing the colors and I added one and only one link. Perhaps most importantly though, the biggest improvement has come from the fine people at LiveJournal, a group of people with whom I have nothing to do with, have no knowledge about and ultimately, no interest in. In their desperate attempts to keep up with the Joneseses (the Jones of course being blogspot). They have allowed their URLs to become almost acceptable by putting the user name before a dot that comes before livejournal. This is infinitely cooler than the previously clunky necessity of backslashes, extra words and so on. Of course when you have a site like, say, freedarko.blogspot.com (only my favorite site on the internet) or even this site it comes off as  respectable. But freedarko.livejournal.com still looks stupid. It has something to do with that "j" entering the lower half of the writing lines. The sole letter daring enough to enter the depths of the writing lines. Blogspot has two letters that do so, thus refuting my claim and making me look like an idiot, but before I looked at blogspot, I was sure I was onto something.



    Maybe it's me, maybe it's not, but livejournal just doesn't have the credibility that the online world truly needs. Sure, any and everybody can say anything they want without censorship, limitations or requirements, but livejournal still sounds like an online diary. And what's stupider than an online diary? A rhetorical question (is it rhetorical?) in an online diary thats what..By capturing the buzz word "blog" in their URL, blogspot immediately has the upper hand on livejournal which becomes a 7th grade child in comparison to the older, tech savvy 10th grade blogger.



     But LiveJournal has more problems than being compared to a pre-pubescent with emotional problems. More than anything they don't offer cool layouts like blogspot does. However, in an effort to stay true to my roots and in effect, "shit on the whole industry," I must stick it out with my figurative internet mother. Their efforts to improve my site (and nobody else's we must assume) undoubtedly come after the incessant clamoring of my excessive fanbase, without whom I'd be a nobody. Some two-time felon with an itch for the written word and access to the internet. I think we all know what the point of this is of course.

NOTE: The following entry was written by a complete moron. When he went to check his registration eligibility he looked at Spring 2005, thus was a year late and had the wrong date. Turns out he was eligible to register Nov. 13 at 9:45 p.m. Fortunately he was informed of this on the morning of Nov. 14. Just pretend like he's not stupid and read it.

On Nov. 16, (that's proper AP format by the way) I will be making some life altering decisions. Wednesday will be the day I become eligible to register for classes in my upcoming spring semester. I know what you're thinking…well no I don't. I'm going to imagine you're thinking something along the lines of, "Shut up. That is NOT going to be life altering." And you're probably right, but for me, every time the scheduling** of classes comes about I go into full on panic mode. My thoughts usually center on the idea that scheduling one class, any class, will make my forthcoming graduation more difficult to attain and/or will drastically alter my life's course. This thought process has led to me being on track to graduate in four years (something I am currently not happy about) and potentially getting a job immediately after graduation. The only problem is that after seven nervous breakdowns (one for every semester I had to schedule courses, save the first, in which I was too stupid to know anything) I am not only still as bewildered as my first scheduling crisis, but I’m wishing that I hadn’t formerly been so efficient in scheduling.

Every semester I successfully beat away the crushing anxiety and settle into two-to-three days of brilliant class scheduling analysis. After three years, I managed to place myself in the position of needing only 18 credits to graduate this year. Upon coming to that realization last spring, I realized that I could manage an easy course load, fulfill my graduation requirements…AND get an English minor (how about that folks!). For a then consistent blogger, I felt there was some sort of place for English academia. At the time, it was an epiphany. (I should say that Kaitlyn helped me reach this epiphanous (not a real word) moment, but because she’s not reading this, it’s probably pointless).

The point is this, every semester I get an e-mail from the registrar (don’t even get me started on that word) telling me when I can register for classes. I go through my denial stage and procrastinate for two-to-three days, then realize my life is literally going to end (I don’t need to bury this into the ground, but people often misuse the word literally, particularly sportscasters, they’re idiots) if I don’t figure out a schedule. At some point, from nowhere, I marshal up an amazing idea (like switching my major to advertising, adding an English minor, etc.), which makes me feel confident about my life path after graduation. However, I’m really just doing what I do best: procrastination. Every great scheduling maneuver hides the true insecurities; every epiphany is just an extension on a homework assignment. But this isn’t homework. It’s my life.

So today, I’m scheduling for life, but I don’t have any decisions to make. I only need nine upper division English credits and I know it. I’ve exhausted my extensions, nothing can save me now. I could cop out and go to law/grad school and it is still a possibility, but I’m not organized enough to figure out how to apply.

Because my scheduling for the upcoming semester is so easy to fill, I’m just trying to avoid having class more than three days a week. Maybe because I’m lazy, maybe because I’m extremely motivated and want to go to my internship more consistently, you tell me. However, it’s not that easy. This stupid small, private, liberal arts school only offers 12 (give or take five) upper division English classes, so I’m going to have a shitty schedule regardless of this 600+ word diatribe.

 

 ** During the initial writing of this blog, your humble author assumed that he spelled “scheduling” wrong and that a spell checker would save it. Despite that assumption (which of course turned out to be correct), he still labored over how to spell it. The word schedule, in all its forms, along with the name Michael, bothers your author very much so.

Although it was probably at least over a month ago, I suppose people were interested in the results of my confrontation with the Rupee Room. The Thursday before the game I gave a little call to my employer, the manager answered.

Manager: Hello?
Zack: Hey, this is Zack.
M: Hey, what's going on?
Z: Oh nothing, how's it going?
M: Oh you know, just setting up for tonight, setting up for Saturday.

(Allow me to interject some commentary here. This is a restauraunt, you don't set up for Saturday night on Thursday night at 6 p.m. Furthermore, you don't even set up for Friday night at 6 p.m. on Thursday. You set up for Saturday night at like 5 p.m. on Saturday. At this point he already knows I'm pissed off about having to work on Saturday, and maybe thought this would be some sort of guilt trip, turns out he was an idiot).

Z: Yeah, about Saturday...
M: What?
Z: I'm going to the game.
M: I kind of expected that.
Z: Yep, well I'm going.

So basically that was that. I mean we shot the proverbial shit for a few more seconds and I asked some questions that I didn't need to ask and he tried to make it seem like they would be screwed, which they wouldn't be.

SATURDAY:

Went to the game. Big Brother Ben made his world-premiere-debut to most of my friends. He performed well. Well-liked, entertaining, new perspective on what it's like to be a Marker. He came off as a way more talkative/funny me, in my book at least, and I think that was a solid debut. He had made some relief appearances, but this was a strong 7 inning plus start.

The Beavs got smoked pretty handily by the then undefeated UCLA Bruins. It was my first experience at the Rose Bowl and I was in seats that were phenomenal. Apparently the section could be quite rowdy with the Bruin fans, but I found it to be quite the contrary. My brother and I used some pretty self-defecating, as I like to say it, humor so we kind of meshed well. Only one real good interaction came out. After a Beaver touchdown it played out like this:

Z: Never question the heart!
UCLA Fan: Never question the heart? Matt Moore is a pussy!!!
Z: (while motioning to the 3 little kids in front of me): Real classy UCLA Fan, real classy. Going to drop the p-word in front of children.
UCLA Fan: Utter silence.

I don't even know the final score, but I know that I spent most of the time berating them for being the 2nd best team in the very city their school is named after. Using hindsight, it turns out both teams are pretty shitty, OSU being much worse, but UCLA sucking in it's own right.

SUNDAY:

I showed up at work on Sunday night as if nothing had happened. The manager tried to drop a few hints about how "slammed" they got, but I didn't care or believe him. Good times all around.

On a further note, I got 10 comments from probably my worst post ever, including a comment from a reader that I would never have expected. Ah, the power of the internet. Love, Zack.

Basically I need some help. I received two free tickets, on the 50 yard line no less, to this Saturday's upcoming UCLA vs. OSU college football game. Being a former resident of Corvallis, the location of OSU, the Beavs are my favorite team. Unfortunately I have to work at this stupid restaraunt that night, where I'll make about 50 bucks and not be able to even watch the game. I asked for this Saturday off a week before, the specified length of time that our manager asks us to inform him about necessary off days. Granted I only work 2-3 nights a week, but I'm a much needed cog in the proverbial wheel of this restaraunt.

My question is, what should I do?

I've got a couple of ideas:

Threaten to quit

Actually quit

Just not show up and see what happens

Somehow get someone to cover for me (apparently we only have one other server and she has some school event to attend on Saturdays, which blows and may make me want to quit anyways. Knowing that I'm going to work every Saturday forever)

So if anybody can impart their knowledge on me, please let me know. If you think one of the four above ideas sound good tell me, if you have a better idea tell me. Basically I'm leaning towards quitting right now. I'm pretty fucking pissed off though.

    I was advised by an anonymous reader to write about something that makes me uncontrollably happy. Honestly, I have no way to verify who it was and although the commenter probably thinks I know, I really don't. That being said, I am going to take him/her up on their advice and write about something that makes me uncontrollably happy.

    While on a run today, I realized that being in shape makes me happy. I say that knowing full well that I'm nowhere even close to being in shape right now. I'm not trying to brag, but I mean I ran a marathon around this time last year. (To assure you that I'm not trying to brag I'll come out and say that my marathon time was thoroughly trounced, trounced I tell you, by a guy that goes by Fatty. Said character not only ran his 26.2 miles about a half an hour faster than me, but he's also the same guy that wrote the great sentence about legal ramifications in my last post. Therefore, not only is this guy in way better shape than me, but also a better writer, plus has desires to be a patent lawyer and developed an absolutely unstoppable basketball shot that although unrelated to his desired profession is deemed, "The Patent," otherwise known as, "P-town," as in, "Take 'em to P-town, Fatty!") So I'm on my four mile run today and felt like coughing up at least one if not both lungs. I don't even smoke, not pot, cigs...peyote. I don't smoke anything. Yet, I'm on the run and feel like Danny Bonaduce after his second pack of the day. (Is there a better show on TV right now than "Breaking Bonaduce," I think not. Where else would I learn that a C-to-D list ex-celebrity smokes three packs a day?)

     I guess my point is that running doesn't make me happy, but the results of two or three months of consistent running do. My life as a runner began last summer, after yet another summer of getting back into shape after a year of dorm food and dorm drinks. It kind of goes like this.

High School: Played sports/worked out all year long and never had to worry about my weight.

Freshmen Year: Part-time veil as a potential baseball player was halted after breaking my hand on New Year's Eve, downward spiral of dorm food and inactivity led to the highly anticipated/feared "Freshman eight-five."
  
 Summer between Freshmen/Sophomore: Continued my veil as a baseball player and somehow lost a bunch of weight and got back into shape by playing baseball.

Sophomore Year: Lifted a lot, ate more, drank more. Didn't do any aerobic exercise. Probably the strongest moment of my life while simultaneously the fattest.
   
    Summer between Sophomore/Junior: Began with a trip to Hawaii that involved waking up, eating, going to the beach, eating, eating, drinking, then eating. Returned with great memories and a photo of myself with my shirt off that relegated me to Buddha status. Developed a desire to lose weight and run ridiculous amounts of distance in the same day. Culminated with me running a marathon.

Junior Year: Maintained my running regiment basically throughout the year and stayed in decent shape. Although somewhat slowed by a case of left knee tendinitis, I pretend and I just run through the pain, the rain, over any terrain to maintain and sustain my campaign to be free once again. (Lyrics by Ricochet Rabbit).
  
     Summer between Junior/Senior year: Get a couple of jobs, but continue to run and stay in good shape. Work a baseball camp for one week and eat pizza every day, then go to work at a movie theater until midnight for every night of the week. Turn 21 on that Friday, go to Las Vegas. Las Vegas is Las Vegas and completely eliminates any chance of ever doing anything productive for the next 28 days. Weight stays the same, but overal fitness level diminishes rapidly, start drinking coffee.

Senior Year: Become overwhelmed with 6 jobs and stop running. Realize that sucks. Start running, start blogging. Fresh start. Meet Sports Guy on Friday hopefully, fulfill life long dream of getting a book signed by said Guy of Sports. Forget how to write sentences.
   
    Summer between Senior/Real Life Year #1: Get some type of amazing job working at Wieden + Kennedy in Portland, write a TV show, book, movie, rap CD, work for LSE/TSM, become SG Intern, sign a major record deal, work as literary agent, read tons of books, go to grad school, law school, and med school at the same time (wait, what?), write a book of poetry, visit Africa/Asia/Europe/the Penguins on Antartica on my parents coin, play online poker for a living, wait tables, drink heavily, stop drinking, run another marathon, do a bi/triathalon, meet the woman I decide to marry, have kids, teach, develop a product that makes me a millionaire many times over (most likely a Pringles can that has easier access to the last couple of Pringles), get a job using blog entries and two rap cd's as portfolio, never create a resume, eat tons of Ritz with tuna/celery/pickles, suffer from liberal guilt, listen to the "I Have a Dream" speech, learn to write speech (the word, not "a speech") without fearing that I spelled it wrong, do the same with Michael, cook great meals, write for a newspaper, blog, make a movie, hitchhike across the country and back, eliminate the worldwide use of adjectives, buy/download/listen to tons of music, procrastinate (gee, I wonder what I'm doing now), come between a kid and his candy, spaz like Bobcats on booze, watch Seinfeld and Curb, listen to Groundation and other music that is most high (in a non-drug related sense, although probably in a drug related sense as well), completely disregard rules of english and tense agreement, hangout with friends (in no particular order: Ranch, Hawaii, Ad Club, C-City, Family, Kaitlyn), be really really really senti,  learn how to use Photoshop, overuse parenthetical comments, make a crappy video on my computer that blows up, buy a laptop/ipod/digital camera, wait until I can no longer reasonably fear the next advance in technology and actually buy all three in one product the size of a quarter, write a good creative writing piece on my own terms, turn $11 into $124,00 in a week, discover some usage in Facebok for the greater good of the world, work for Sims, listen to soul music, not have homework in the sense of it being for school, do something that gives me worldwide credit as the first to do said thing, go to sleep at a reasonable hour, etc. etc.
 

I've got a couple of things to say.

1) There has got to be a better way to title this entry. If I can't fix the wording, I've got to at least be able to do something with the capilization.

2) I'm not a very consistent blogger. It was never my intention to blog in the 15-year-old angst sense of the word, I don't want to riddle the Internet with quick blurbs about what music I'm currently listening to and what kind of mood I'm in. It's just not me.

3) That being said, I do want to get back to ranting and raving about shit that pisses me off, but I just don't have the time. One would think that my lack of time would make this an exercise in hypocrisy, but it is actually an exercise in procrastination. Similar, but not exactly the same.

4) This will probably end up being a traditional blog (a la what I referred to not wanting to do in point 2).

5) I am currently working like 6 jobs.
    1) School
    2) Account Executive for Circle Advertising, a member of the AAF, NSAC, blah blah.
    3) Internship
    4) The Rupee Room: underpaid, underappreciated, undertrained, waiter.
    5) Part-time Professional Online Poker Player.
    6) Amateur/Independent/Shitty rapper.

6) Point five would indicate why I haven't been able to do anything lately.

7) This is essentially a list of reasons why I can't do what I used to do.

8) I wish that at some point I could write sentences like this, "in order to avoid capture, i would do it in the movie, as the cinima is a realm completely devoid of legal ramifications." My buddy Steve wrote that to me in an IM. I can't even do it justice re-typing it in a shitty blog.

9) I don't want people to stop coming to this site, as I want to have some sort of audience to read what I'm writing. However, my overall lack of consistency may have ruined that chance forever. For those who are still checking, thank you. For those that aren't, there's really no need to say anything because you aren't reading this anyway.

    I realize that death is a serious issue and I don't mean to take it likely.

    That being said, my computer is about to die. It sounds like Chewbacca (spelling?), smells like Ethyl Alcohol, and performs at the speed of Mount Rushmore (inside joke for only those who have listened to my rap cd, probably so inside that even of the 20 people that have heard my rap cd only about 3 of them would recognize the joke and that includes two members of the group. Hell I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that only Steve remembers the line). After reading that lengthy parenthetical you probably forgot what I was writing about. My computer is going to die soon. This is going to happen for two reasons.

       1. Age: My computer is now 4 years old, which in computer years is 308 years old.

        If you were at all wondering, to calculate computer years you take your computers age in dog years, multiplied by its years in "Latin baseball players in the Major League years" (Generally considered plus 7).  Now if I'm correct, to get dog years you just multiply the real age by 7, giving us this formula:
         
        (CX7)X(C+7) = CY 
       
    That would lead to my computers age being 308.
                    
         (4X7)X(4+7) = 308

    2. Abuse: I've been beating the shit out of this computer for a good 2 years. Ever since the son of a bitch turned 126 it had been acting up. Couldn't handle big programs, couldn't shut up, etc. I somehow figured out that it was overheating. So I started hitting it. When this didn't work I dismantled it and let it breath a little, while this helped it out it also gave me free reign to touch the insides, which probably wasn't a good idea. Sometimes the CPU fan would make too much noise and I could re-adjust it so it wouldn't do so anymore. Well, sad to say, after many re-adjustments it started to disintegrate and fuck up all the time, more or less. Hence the Chewbacca-esque groans.

    Now I'd like to think that of the two reasons, only the former is truly the reason my computer will soon be six feet deep. And if that Geto Boys song (Six Feet Deep if you're wondering, quite the classic) doesn't suffice, I'll take it out to an empty field and beat the shit out of it with "Still" bumping in the background, Office Space style. I'd also like my parents to think that my computer's age is the main reason it will be dying soon, just for, you know financial reasons. I'd also like to turn this in as a 500 word "setting" piece for my creative writing class, but I just don't see that happening.

    It's been about two months since I last mustered up the considerable energy required to blog. I've been thinking about forging out and beginning a comeback before my readers abandon any hope of  my returning to the craft. So when I got this e-mail earlier today I had but one goal in mind.


Subject: Are you still blogging?

Or should I remove your site from my favorites bar?

Cory O'Connor

      During my hiatus, my biggest fear has been that my faithful reader (Readers? You tell me) would forget about my occasional blogs (I've grown tired of calling them anything else) and I'd no longer have an audience. Therefore this e-mail has temporarily sparked me to return.  I must warn you all and say I'm not sure if I have the energy to do it anymore. I'm not going to make any excuses for my absence, nor will I predict greatness or inferiority in my comeback attempt.
    I would love to liken my short, summer comeback attempt to the Jordan "45" season, in which he returned midway through the season from his affair with baseball and gave fans some memorable moments, including the legendary "double nickle" performance, so coined by Spike Lee, at the Garden, yet ultimately fell short to Shaq and Penny in the playoffs. That of course would mean that my current comeback attempt will mimic the season following the "45" season. A season that not only saw Jordan win the regular season, all-star and NBA Finals MVP and lead the league in scoring for the 8th time in his career (NBA record),  but he also led a Bulls team to an NBA record 72 win regular season and their 4th NBA title. The Jordan-led Bulls lost 13 games (including the playoffs) all year. Let's just say if I could even come within a sniff of a literary/metaphorical mirroring of this phase of the Jordan comeback I'd already have some book deals, so let's not hold our breath on that one. I'm still holding out hope that maybe I could perform like a Steve Kerr at least.
    However, the way this first blog is coming it seems as if I may be headed for Jordan with the Wizards status. Maybe it's the long lay-off, maybe I've slowly morphed into a blabbering idiot and nobody will ever understand a word I write ever again or maybe the game has passed me by. The Jordan era with Washington wasn't as bad as we all think it was, but it's no goal to shoot for when you're considering far-fetching analogies (I know I've already called it a metaphor, so any discrepancies between the actual definitions of a metaphor or analogy are useless because I'm obviously wrong with the usage of one, if not both words).