Inception

"Dreams feel real while we're in them. It isn't until we wake up that we realize something was actually strange." -- Cobb

I have phobias. I mean true, crippling, life-affecting phobias. There are people who fear things, and they call these fears phobias, they are wrong. If you're afraid of spiders, you are not arachnophobic. If you have an irrational, intense and persistent fear of spiders that causes you to take outrageous efforts to avoid spiders, you are arachnophobic. So, when I say that I have phobias, I mean that I have three things in this world that I have a conscious, all-consuming, life-altering, persistent, intense, highly-irrational fear of three things/experiences/situations in my world. Most of my close friends know of one or two of them, but the third is going to be revealed for the very first time here, on Blogger. I figure if I talk about these phobias, I can inch toward taking care of them and letting them become something less than crippling. You are more than welcome to make fun of me and tease me and call me names. That is perfectly ok. I acknowledge how irrational these fears are, and have taken steps to try and be less afraid, including sharing them with my friends numerous times in the past. Every time, I am teased and belittled for them, so believe me, it will neither be a surprise or a shock. After the jump, I'll itemize them for you, in order from most-crippling, to least-crippling.

Juno

"No, It's Morgan Freeman, do you have any bones that need collected?" -- Juno

This quote has nothing to do with this blog post. It just happens to be my favorite quote from the movie. A more appropriate quote would be, "It makes his junk smell like pie." Not for the obvious reasons, because I'm subtle and do what I can to make people think about the things I say. In case you didn't know, this blog post is about how I experience attraction in threes. In fact, I experience a lot of things in threes, specifically any interpersonal relationships I've had have occurred, or developed, in threes. I privately call it my 'echo'. You see, when I was very young, I had three very close friends, and as such, I have continued this trend and have always had three very close friends at any given time. Three people that have always mattered the most to me. On top of that, my adventures in dating and attraction have always happened in threes as well. I don't know what happened to cause this, but every time I meet a great guy, I meet two more great people at the same time. Eventually, that dwindles down to one, but it never happens gradually. Suddenly, two of them will do something that drops them out of the running.

Melungeons

I stumbled upon this yesterday and it made me lol for real,
so when I thought random I thought this. 

I have a bad feeling about the nature of my posts. They are all going to be a collection of random things, because I'll be damned if I can ever focus on anything for long enough to make a full post out of it. I swear the things I get fixated on are only those things that I do not want to share with the world, which isn't a lot, because secrets are sort of silly and I have a tendency to blurt things out. Especially when I've spent the last ten minutes thinking "Okay don't tell them this, don't tell them this, don't tell them this! You're not going to! It's cool! They don't have to know" and then I see them and I'm like "THIS!" immediately. Yeah hope that made sense.

Despicable Me

"Look Mom, I drew a picture of me on the moon." -- Young Gru 

You may have noticed that this is my first post in 4 days. I'd like to say I have a very good explanation, but frankly, I really just haven't had time. In the aftermath of the hold-up, I ended up not really looking at my computer for anything other than watching movies and tv shows. Don't judge me. I've started watching How I Met Your Mother, and I've been watching scary movies. Then, two of my friends took a break, so I played the part of Best Friend Ever. Then they actually broke up, and I continued to play the part of Best Friend Ever. Then I had a date-like thing, then I was terrified of dying and even more terrified of the fact that I almost died a million times on the way to/from work. That explanation of my absence done, I wanted to talk about goals. I got to thinking about this because of my goal to update the blog daily, and failing miserably in the first ten days of the new year.

My posts are sort of like America, when it was a melting pot and not a salad bowl. Or maybe they're salad bowls. I don't know.

At least I was never as bad as Robin

I think I may have quit smoking for real you guys. I've made it through two shifts at work and a couple of days off sans cigarette. Even the huge number of smoking scenes/references on How I Met Your Mother (which Josh is now watching through) haven't made me really want one. So that's exciting. I'm sure I'll smoke again at some point, but I think I can pretty solidly say that for now the habit is kicked.

The Last Unicorn

Yeah, it was like that. 

"What's the matter with your eyes? Why can't I see myself in your eyes?!" -- King Haggard

Have you heard? Omaha is officially the least safe place in the history of humanity. After approximately 22 years of living in Omaha, I was finally robbed at gun point. The robbing itself wasn't so bad, it was the aftermath that really affected me. The whole time, I was sure I'd fallen asleep and was having the kind of nightmare that seems so real that it must be a premonition. Afterward though, after regaining the ability to text and make phone calls, I realized that I was wide awake and that what had just happened was real. Real terrifying. Anybody who looks you in the eye and says that having a gun pointed at you isn't terrifying is a fucking liar. You should punch him or her in the face and set them on fire. After the jump, I have included a narrative of the entire experience.

Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory

"Little surprises around every corner, but nothing dangerous." -- Willy Wonka 

So, if you haven't heard, and I'd be impressed if you haven't, there was a shooting the other day here in Omaha. There were also shootings in New Orleans and Chandler, but those aren't as important as a school shooting, everybody knows that. In the event that you don't know the details, essentially some dumb ass kid got suspended from school and decided to take out his frustrations by shooting the principal and vice principal. Secifically, Vicki Kaspar passed away after her wounds, which is compounded by the fact that her 59th birthday would have taken place the very next day. All in all, a tragedy. Omaha hasn't gotten this much publicity since 2007 when some punk kid decided to shoot up Westroads Mall while I was working. This post isn't about the tragedy itself, this was a horrific event that is an unfortunate side-effect of our society. My heart goes out to the family, friends, co-workers and former students of this educator/administrator. This is about my lack of approval for using a tragedy to promote your own agenda.

Gleewind : S01E11

Just The Facts; I'm going to warn you now. This episode is the subject of much consternation among my friends. Mostly because I fucking loved EVERY MOMENT and they almost universally loathe and despise its very existence. The episode itself is entitled Hairography and showcases the upcoming brilliance of Brittany the breakthrough actress of this series. While predominantly dealing with preparations for sectionals, this episode also sets the tone for the upcoming season break, and the end of Will's relationship and thus the beginning of his slutty stage. oh who am I kidding, he's always been in his slutty stage. He just hasn't had much time to be slutty in the physical sense, just the emotional kind.

My So Called Life

"Sometimes, someone says something so small and it just fits into this empty place in your heart." -- Angela

I know, I know it's not a movie, it's a television show, but the quote fits the mentality of this post, which, by the by is another Soundtrack post. This particular soundtrack is my Sad Clowns playlist. My sad clowns playlist is a playlist that I have developed gradually over the past several years. it is what I listen to when I'm depressed, despondent, or otherwise feeling low. All of the songs are relatively slow and have a generally negative feel to them, but have very important positive meanings to me. They all remind me of times in my life when I've been the lowest of the low and had to overcome something big in order to recover and brings myself back to the top of my game. So, while on the outside these songs may sound sad, when I hear them, they lift my spirits without forcing me to listen to upbeat party jams. I've picked five of the songs from my playlist that mean the most to me. Give them a listen, I promise you won't be disappointed.

Alice In Wonderland Part One

I just started work on the invitations and preparations for the 8th Annual Unbirthday Party. Mark your calendars. It's going to be pretty fantastic. The party, originally dubbed the White Tea Semi-Formal was born at Arcosanti, and has traveled with me to Omaha. This will be the fourth Unbirthday Party in Nebraska. To the left, you'll see the current preliminary invitation. It will undoubtedly change numerous times over the next week while I iron out the final details of the event. I'm pretty sure I've chosen the color theme for this year though as Cerulean and Chocolate. They work well together.

Feel free to view the image in full size by clicking on it. if you have thoughts, observations or commentary, please, don't hesitate. I know this shouldn't count as a blog post, but I was pretty excited that I got around to finishing up something I was satisfied with so far.

Many topics, one post

So super blog post made me think super date which made this necessary. 

I have a reasonable number of small things to blog about, so I thought I would combine them into one, not necessarily super, but multi-topic post.

1. New Year's Resolutions

My resolutions are pretty simple. Quit smoking and quit drinking soda. So at 11:59 on December 31st I had a cigarette in one hand and a Bacardi and Coke in the other. Both of those were cast aside once the countdown was done. I've done pretty well. I broke on both yesterday, but fuck the lot of you if you think that's not doing well. I've decided quitting soda altogether is probably a little stupid, as when I had some yesterday it turned my entire shift around due to the energy it provided, so I'm thinking it'll be an emergency pick-me-up thing. Cigarettes are... whatever. I'm not smoking anymore. I'll slip up, because I will, but yeah.

Enchanted

"i don't know if I'll make it through today, let alone a lifetime. That's what I'm trying to tell you. It's complicated." -- Robert

Good morning. First and foremost, I'd like to thank some of my coworkers for reminding me that this is a blog post I've been wanting to write for a while. Second, I hope you're all enjoying your new year thus far. My resolutions seem to be going well enough, I have been pretty careful to watch myself. Granted, I only made the resolutions themselves yesterday, but still, one day, is a day nonetheless. Anyway, earlier today, a coworker of mine, Gihan, inquired about my religious leanings. This came about because he recently added me as a friend on facebook; as many coworkers have recently, and that resulted in him seeing that I list my religious affiliation as Theravada Buddhist. He happens to be Buddhist himself, which led to a brief conversation about religious practices, including meditation. It should come as no surprise that even before studying the three jewels, four noble truths, the eight-fold path and so on and so forth, I was heavy into meditation as a relaxation technique and a method of centering myself, my energies and, as Guru Pathik would say, align my chakras! (note: in order to read that last portion correctly, you must have seen the entirety of Avatar, and loved it.)

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

"When life gives you lemons, just say, 'fuck the lemons,' and bail." -- Surfing Instructor 

Is it 2012 yet? People keep asking me what my resolutions for the year are. It's all I hear on the radio, every morning, all morning! Katrina is quitting soda and cigarettes. People are resolving not to work so often, or to take more time to spend with the family, lose weight, work out more ... It kind of makes me feel like a lazy sack for not having resolutions of my own. I have my resolution to blog on a more regular basis, and that's about it. I didn't used to be such a lazy git tho. I used to write out twenty resolutions every year. I even kept most of them. Well, most of most of them, mostly. Somtimes. So, in an effort to not be a lazy sack, I figure I'll come up with ten decent resolutions and act like I'm going to carry through with them. I say act like because we all know that I'm going to either forget, or give up pretty quick. That said, let's get this over with, shall we?

Traffic

"Is this like freebasing?" -- Caroline Wakefield

So, a new year has dawned! Our happy fun blog has been active for  2 months, 7 days, 22 hours, 31 minutes, and 42 seconds as of this moment. It will undoubtedly be longer once I've posted this, but you get the general idea. Kaka and I have been blogging regularly for about two months now, and the whole time has been pretty outrageous. One of the things that spark conversation in our apartment is pageviews. Kaka and I have this ongoing obsessive compulsive need to check the stats for our blog, and frankly, I can't help but be amused at the number of views we get on a regular basis, even over the past three or four days when neither of us has bothered to update the blog because we've been either dying or well ... dying. So, I figured this blog would be a nice opportunity to share some of our blog stats with you and give my thoughts on them and, by extension, our audience.

Whip It

"We deserve better villains." -- Bliss Cavendar

First and foremost, welcome to the New Year ladies & gentlemen! Did you miss me? Did you miss us? Sure you did. You have been gazing intently at facebook waiting ever-impatiently for either Kaka or I to give your lives meaning in this New Year by updating our blog and giving you something to do with yourselves. Either that, or you're bored shitless and you wanna know what's up. Well, are you in for a treat, sir, or ma'am! I am here to tell you the tale of my New Years celebration and to recount my adventures in sickland.