13 Acres of Hell

Econ test tomorrow......oi ve. On the bright side, I get to unwind by watching Star Whores, er, Wars afterwards and then wandering around Powder Mills Park for three hours. Pointless as it may be, gym has its uses at times....

Isis is love. Kind of. Sometimes I feel like I've forsaken my musical roots to wander strange and foreign shores, but sometimes it's worth it. Isis is one of those times.

I think we should expand Kiran's roadtrip plan a bit...to go Across the Universe!



Edit: I'm not listening to Isis right now.

God dammit. I went out for a nice tranquil walk, and when I came back I had the same fight with my mom we were having Sunday night. I'd calmed down since then, I'd hoped Syracuse had done the same for her. Talking things out with my dad was ok, cuz he can't yell at me and I don't get mad at him. Mom, though? Grrrrrrr......
I've mellowed out lately, but it seems I've retained my talent for pissing mother dearest the fuck off.

Springfest is coming. It's hard to find the energy to care. The music kids are getting ready. The stoners are stocking up. Everyone's anticipating lounging about, swapping year books, dunking teachers, ditching classes for a day...
I just need to go back.

It doesn't look like I'm gonna be able to find Minjee the gift I wanted to give her. If Corey takes me back to the mall on Saturday, that'd be mad useful. Why oh why didn't I just buy the rabbit?

Can't say this bugs me too much, but I was looking forward to tonight. Besides, I hate waiting.

You said we would hate you before this was over. I didn't know you were going to go out of your way to make that come true.

Frankly, my dear, you confuse me.

Here's to poptarts and cigarettes and not sleeping.

And a good time was had by all?

On a lighter note, going deaf to Rain of Blood makes me feel good....except for the whole going deaf part.

Dear journal,
Apparently I can't give my parents a piece of my mind because if I do I'm a spoiled brat, and I can't bitch about it to anybody, this blog included, without being an emo cunt slut. I try to solve my god damned problems. They just happen to be very persnickety, very picky, and very much resistant to reason. But I suppose that's my fault, too. I'm sick of this: all the snide remarks, the sliding standards, the mixed messages and condescension. Just piss the fuck off.
Oh bloody hell. Like this is going to change anything.

Parents: I'm seriously sick of this. All the passive agressiveness, sending mixed messages, neurosis. It seems as if, even I were to act incredibly mature and responsibly, I would still be a child to them, merely because we disagree on a few fundamental issues. I can only take so much hypocrisy and bullshit, and unlike royalty, I don't need you to lay it on with a trowel.

Friends: Was talking about this earlier, actually. Hopefully I can make this concise. I'm sort of stuck in this limbo where I have a ton of skin deep relationships (a situation I never would've expected to be in), but no one seems to concerned with deepening the experience. More often than not I take the back burner to other people's closer, older friendships. All they want to do is maintain the status quo, and I can't blame them for it. I'd probably do the same, in their position. Just my status quo is nil. I don't have close friends so much as moments of intimacy. They're more frequent with some people then with others, but still I feel I'm up against a wall. A glass ceiling. I think lack of connection is increasingly common in this day and age, but I'm beginning to wonder if I'm fundamentally flawed on some level, because people don't tend to avoid even starting a simple conversation with me. Not an overt act, just....it doesn't happen. Simple as that. Words can be exchanged, but people don't say anything. Perhaps they don't expect to find anything. Perhaps they think they already know what's there. I know I can be awkward at times, but that's not always the case, and I'm at a loss to explain this.

School: Truly a mess if I've ever seen one. I can't seem to stop procastinating, desite the fact that it is consuming my life. At the moment, I'm somehow surviving by stress inspired strokes of ingenuity. Last minute, hastily concocted papers formed of the lamest possible shit, phrased oh so eloquently. The teacher can't see me huddling over my computer at 3 in the morning, desparately banging away at the keys. For all they know, I spent a few minutes each day composing, drafting, editing, undoing, redoing, all that good stuff. How I spend my time is irrelevant to them, so long as I complete each assignment satisfactorily. My work ethic is mine own. It cannot be imposed upon me. And until I learn some discipline, I will continue to suffer the consequences of mine own actions.

www.lost.eu/1fd39

I've found a new musical outlet.....although whether it is musical at all could be dubious.

If art is commerce, will that still hold true in an age of peer to peer filesharing where art can be gotten for free and has no economic value?

This break has been nothing if not a whirlwind of social activity. I've occupied to the extent that my mom told me she hasn't seen enough of me after I accidentally woke her up at 3 in the morning.
I'm trying to remember everything I've done, so here it is:

Friday-Rocked out with Kiran and Will....there was a distinct lack of drugs, but oddly enough of sobriety as well.
Saturday-Went to Albion with Steve and Anders, then chilled at MinJee's for a few hours. Amazing day, aside from potential head games on their part.

Sunday-All quiet on the Western front, except for the random party for Aidan. Actually wasn't much fun, but I had a very fruitful conversation with Corey after we left. Oh, yeah, and my keys got buried so Eshan kindly took me in for an hour or two. Nice guy.

Monday-Filming. Christ, we are disorganized. Party at Henry's in the evening. Not the greatest, but once we broke out the cards things looked up. Magic revivals make me happy, it seems.

Tuesday-Chilled with Eric in the morning. I felt bad about cutting things off to go back to filming, but on the other hand, we did finish the damn thing. Hung out with Eshan that evening. Hardcore drawing game action, there.

Wednesday-I picked up my Ozzy record from Sarah, as well as explored the Park/Monroe Ave area, all while in the company of one of the finest young ladies I know.

Thursday-Slept 'til 2ish (hell yeah!). After much deliberation, I chilled with Robynne and Mandy (curse you Katherine *shakes fist*), and got a couple movies I've been wanting from Global. Now that I know fo' sho' I'm on the account, I'll be going there much more often. Hung out with the Starr/Megan/Lizzie/Aidan mob in the evening. We went to Camilles and were obnoxious. We went to the movies and would have been considered obnoxious, had not the film been so bad. And then we went to Wegmans and redefined obnoxiousness. Fun, fun.

And there's still a few more days.....I may be updating this later on. If I go to the Ventana show tomorrow (highly unlikely) I'll try and do a review of that as well. Their music was rather underwhelming the first time I heard it (Daath, on the other hand, I'm gaining a tremendous amount of respect for!), but the concert's only 8 dollars and the group does include a member of Mushroomhead. Speaking of which, Mushroomhead's on tour, or soon will be, so if they come here, that'll be cool. The downside is The Human Abstract is opening for them, which means Bloody might show, and that could be very annoying. I swear to god, I'm over that girl, but sometimes she just finds her way into my head. Fuck that bitch. I wish we could still be friends, but since that isn't happening, hating (or at least pretending I hate) her is easier.

I want to hurt you just to hear you
screaming my name
-Alice Cooper, "Poison"


Had that song stuck in my head all evening. 'mazing song. I can still remember the encore.

Alpha Centauri is possibly the gayest crap alive. I started playing it yesterday, but wasn't saving, so the fucking thing went and crashed on me. Now tonight I play for several hours straight, saving every turn, and it doesn't do shit. Like Zappa says, "poorly written and randomly enforced." Anyhoo, besides that inconvenience, the game itself is godly. The intricacy of the game is incredible, and the fact that I still want to play it despite it's age (released in '99) is a testament to its greatness. Civilization II (1996) is on a possible par. Both are incredibly flexible, allowing for an infinite variety of replays and an ability to finely tune difficulty (and, in AC's case, many other aspects of the game). There's a lot more satisfaction to be had from replaying these, too, as opposed to Starcraft or the various Warcrafts, which leave you feeling hollow and unaccomplished after repeated play. Although they take less time to complete, they are such at the price of being less engaging and less thought provoking. Especially in Alpha Centauri, which is like an "academic head trip" with its random snatches of politics, philosphy, and religion mixed in. I like that a lot, because its as if, in establishing the social fabric of your own empire, you begin to question, or maybe understand, that of the one we currently live in. My dad used to joke that if I played Civilization too much my sense of history would be warped. That never happened, but I did pick up some of the broader concepts driving nations.
So basically this whole paragraph was just a round about way of me saying I really, really, really, really, really, like Alpha Centauri (and Civilization II), and you should go grab yourselves copies of them.

Me? Make up sleep during break? Pfffft. Perish the thought.

Futility does not seem to be on eBay. And on that most depressing of notes, I must leave you.
Guten Nacht.

So, yeah, I'm reading Time over at Eshan's, and they're talking about the "war" over abortion. War. What the hell? People wonder why the topic is so fucked up? If that's how it's getting treated, no wonder. You've got a host of secular concerns on one side competing with a legion of ideological ones on the other, and not much compromising going on.
The article mentioned that some pregnancy care centers were showing pregant ladies ultrasounds of their babies and what not to change their minds, and that's fine. If they still want to have an abortion, even after that, though, it's their call, not some anonymous big wig Bible pusher. Abortions are unpleasant, given, but if you really want to end abortions, direct your attentions to ending the poverty that often drives women to such extremes.
I'm not gonna pretend I know better than three hundred million other people, but I'm fucking irritated by how the issue is being used as political fodder. Politicians are secular entities. Ushering in the kingdom of heaven is the job of priests, not Congressmen. I could be doing a lot better in terms of community service, without a doubt. But it's a safe bet that there are plenty of pro-lifers out there who think giving a pittance to charity gives them the moral highground, and that bombing abortion clinics and lying to pregnant women is their duty as upstanding Christians.
Nobody's perfect, but people who don't pretend to be are a lot closer to it.
I don't really give a shit if this post offends anybody, or even makes sense.
So fuck off.



Edit: If they want to talk about a fucking war, they could send their kids to the one they started in the Middle East. How many conservative Senators, or even Congress people in general, have sons in the armed forces? I don't think you could even count it on one hand. Noice, man, noice.

Happy V-Day, mates. Was it good for you?

This whole church and state thing is starting ta look like a juggling act done a see-saw. That is to say, it ebbs, and it flows, and woe to you who's born at the wrong point in time. Taking notes at 3 O'clock in the morning wouldn't seem ideal, by any stretch, but I find it easier to focus when the world outside disappears into darkness and there's nothing to distract me.

Monique couldn't make it out tonight, but I talked to her for a good 40 minutes or so before people came over, and more later on. We put a rain check on today, so that should be good.

Fingers crossed for no school tomorrow.
Night blokes.