St. Louis

So my friend Scott is staying in St. Louis working for Boeing, so me 'n David drove over there to visit. That's totally the furthest West I've ever been, so that was cool. Scott's apartment was really nice, too, and apparently Boeing pays for the rent, but Scott pays for utilities. So that was nifty.

St. Louis itself was really, really spread out it seemed, at least compared to Cleveland and the big cities I'm fairly familiar with. We didn't do too much, went to a restaurant called Blueberry Hill, something to do with Chuck Berry, I guess, and partook in some good drink and food, played some darts, then went to a bowling alley/movie theater. Scott wanted to take us to see a midnight movie, 'cause apparently they show older movies that aren't in theaters anymore, but they decided to stop that for 2009 and only do it so often. So we just bowled instead. It was all kinds of hardcore.

The next day, we hung around, ate at a sweet chili dog place, and went to visit the St. Louis Arch. I really didn't know what to expect, I've obviously heard of the thing before, but I didn't really know what the story behind it was. It's this crazy tall thing with these funky pod elevators in the ground that swoop up and take you to this narrow viewing room at the top. We didn't go up on Saturday because it was uber foggy outside, but we came back Sunday and had a clear view. It was pretty trippy, getting closed into these tiny pods, then feeling them adjust as you went to the top, so that you weren't sideways at the finish.

We finished off Saturday with a trip to the Busch Brewery. This place is crazy huge. It's like its' own little town, really, and the only thing I can compare it to is Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Only with booze. Our tour guides were this old guy who just looked really depressed and didn't say much, and a young guy I could barely understand unless I focused really, really hard. Seriously, who gives a guy a job giving tours whose sole purpose is to TALK to people, when he can barely be understood? I guess things like that make me feel better about keeping a job for myself...

Anyway, it was sorta interesting. They didn't have the production line running, and that probably would have been the most interesting part to see, so that was a slight bummer, BUT the tour WAS free, and we got some samples at the end, so I tried a couple of beers. So it was a success in the end, anyway.

The nice part of this trip was that all other driving trips for the next while will seem ridiculously short. It took about 8 hours to get to St. Louis, and another 8 driving back. I got pulled over for the 3rd time in my life somewhere in Indiana, but yet again, the fates were on my side. It was the fastest pull-over I've ever heard of, I just said some basic things about visiting a friend in St. Louis, he checked my ID and registration, and I was on my way. He simply stated he was just trying to get everyone down to 70 (I made the mistake of trying to pass in front of him, because he was hovering diagonally behind me and it was starting to piss me off. I have a feeling this happens all the time.), and sent me on my way. Thank you, traffic Gods.

I've been sorta anxious to get back to Akron, because I've had practically no social life over break other than Emily. However, I was in for a rude surprise when I got back, because Emily decided she was tired of our fighting ways, so she dismissed me. I was quite taken aback by this, and I told her I wasn't ready to end the relationship, but I'm pretty sure she's already got a plan with another guy we know. I guess more power to her, if I wasn't doing it for her, then why stay with me? But I found it pretty frustrating, I prefer for people to just tell you how they feel instead of playing little games. You can't always have what you want, I guess.

So now I'm sorta at this impasse. The GOOD news is, all of that neglect for my ex paid off, as I got all As (except one C, but considering I wasn't positive that I was going to pass Theory III, I'll take it for sure) and made the dean's list. So my parents are happy with that, as am I. But I'm hoping I can push myself to the next level this semester, I still feel like I have potential that I'm not realizing. But last semester was a really good step considering the mess I was before. So if I just keep taking some small steps, maybe I'll get to where I want to be eventually. Just gotta keep focused.

So anyway, I PROMISED myself that I was going to just write something, no proofreading, no well-balanced writing, none of that fancy stuff, 'cause that's where I start to get discouraged and then end up abandoning the post. But I like having a blog, it's just a lot of work to write something that's fun for other people to read. HOWEVER, as I am not alerting anyone to this new post, I'm pretty sure noone's gonna read it. So it doesn't matter. I'm just dictating some of my memories to give my brain a rest, 'cause my memory is terrible. So, before I continue all of this nothing, I am done.

'Til next post!

-Jim

What's Goin' On

Time to write! What's been goin' on...

-Work has been slowly sucking my life away from me. And what little time I have outside of work goes by even faster. But I guess money is good...

-I went to visit Scott at ONU and had a great time. Met a lot of awesome people, swapped clothes with various others, and I also got to see Jared K and Amy D for the first time in a long while, so that was sweet, too.

-Things with Emily (my not-yet-mentioned-in-this-blog girlfriend, despite the fact that we have been dating for 8 1/2 months) have been going well. So that's cool.

-I've actually gotten a little better at piano, and I've also been trying to practice trombone and banjo more often, with less success. And various other music projects have ensued a bit.

-Nervous that school is approaching rapidly? You bet I am. Glad to get away from home and back to Akron? You got it.

Anyway, I thought it'd be fun to list some random things that have been occupying my summer other than the previously stated. In no particular order:
-The Dark Knight
-The Next Food Network Star
-Season Three of The Venture Bros
-The Mole
-Dr McNinja
-Facebook
-Cleaning up the house (How does it keep getting messy again???
-Trying not to spend money, but buying an iPod anyway. (It's supposedly for exercise)
-Having my first few significant drinking experiences
-It was yogurt! (I'm allowed to have inside jokes in this since only 3 people will feel like they're missing out)
-Not a whole lot of new video game-age, but I've been playing:

• Battallion Wars (Which came out forever ago, but I got a sweet deal on the last copy at GameStop)
  
• Pokemon Diamond (Gotta Catch 'em All!)
• Advance Wars Dual Strike (Which I've had forever, but it's STILL better than Days of Ruin)
• Super Smash Bros Brawl (The King. Can't wait to get back to Akron and have some sweet matches. May you all be warned)

That's really it. Haven't played many video games lately, to be honest. I'd love to get my hands on a copy of Wii Fit, though, but it's difficult to find.

Well, that's just a really quick and loose post of what's been up. It took a lot of guilt about the absence of posts for me to actually write something this unorganized, so take what you can get, and enjoy.

'Til next post,

-Jimmy

Been a while - Again.

So, I've been thinking about writing another blog entry for a while. I really go in spurts when it comes to wanting to write (and read, oddly enough), and all 3 of you that end up reading this are the lucky few!

Writing is a very relaxing medium. For some reason, knowing that you can send your thoughts in a slightly organized fashion (I say slightly for a reason; I feel that I have many, MANY thoughts that I am only on the verge of understanding or not understanding myself, let alone conveying those thoughts coherently) to theoretically anyone who logs on to the internet is a strange comfort. Especially when all of my friends are miles away at the moment.

I don't know if I'm gonna go back to this being a regular thing. I definitely have a lot of random thoughts and activities going on in my life that I would love to wax poetic about on here. It's just a matter of whether or not it will happen and/or if I'm in the mood to write or not. So we shall see.

Anyway, I'll try and actually write about something other than writing next time. In the meantime, feel free to browse my past and horribly outdated posts to get a glimpse of the past Jimmy, who (hopefully) PALES in comparison to the new and improved Jimmy! Huzzah!


'Til next post!
-Jimmy

Living

I haven't posted anything for a while... so I decided I would. My blog entries are always insanely long. They don't seem like it at the time, but reading my blog as opposed to other peoples' always clues me in on that one. Ah well. So is life.

This past weekend was a good one... sorta. I spent a majority of it playing in the Blue and Gold Brass pep band for the Akron Mens Basketball team, which was doing an awesome job, and then got screwed over at the last second by an admittedly amazing (but lucky) shot from the Miami team. Then we had to stick around forever waiting for officials to decide whether it was good or not, and what was the fair decision they finally made? To give us .6 seconds to make a basket from a pass-in on the opposite side of the court. Yeah, not gonna happen. They gave it a try, anyway, but it was pretty much impossible. I did, however, have a great time on the bus rides there and back... played a little DS vs. Todd (Who kicked my can) and gave Reese Eggs to the needy.

Meanwhile, school still continues to haunt and confuse me... luckily, spring break is just around the corner... I need a break from all of this stress, and I'd like to say that I'll get stuff figured out, but I don't really see that happening. I didn't get things set over Winter break, so what's one week going to do? Probably nothing... and that's not being pessimistic, just realistic.

Also, as pathetic as it is, I'm just gonna flat out say it: I'm lonely. I miss having a girlfriend like crazy, and all the flirting I've been doing lately is just driving me insane. I have a few... interests, but nothing that I really believe will pan out, which is cool. It's not like I haven't been single for a while now. It would just be... nice, to have someone I could care about and just hang out with and cuddle with and... etc. I'm sure it's just my imagination, but EVERYONE keeps talking about all their relationships here, and I'm just a bit jealous. Just a bit. My point? If you know a chick that isn't too picky and is awesome... send her my way. I've learned a LOT of the dos and don'ts of relationships, and I'm ready to give my next one a really good try. Hopefully.

Well... that's about it, I suppose. Can't make this one too long!

-Jimmy

Split Brain???

Classes here at good ol' U of A have been okay so far this semester... pretty simple and self-explanitory. However, my favorite class I have this semester is Introduction to Psychology. I just find it really interesting, thinking about... well, thinking. So far, we've mostly just talked about the physical aspects, parts of the brain, and what they do and such. Well, today, we talked about the weirdest thing I've heard of for a while. Y'see, there's this condition that people can get called "split brain", where the corpus collosum (the series of nerves connecting your left and right brain) gets cut, so the hemispheres of your brain can't communicate with eachother. Apparently they used to do it back in the 60s to people who had serious epilepsy problems, and they still do a revised version of it nowadays.

These people with a "split brain" act pretty normal... untill you test them. They have this test where they have the subject focus on a point in the middle of a screen, and show them slides of different words and objects. If the word "Science" is flashed where the vision field of the right eye is, the subject can repeat back the word no problem, because the right eye sends information to the left brain, where speech and verbal communication is generally handled. If the same word is flashed in the vision field of the left eye, the subject will not be able to repeat back what he or she saw, because the right brain generally cannot control speech. Crazy, huh?

HOWEVER, if a picture of a cow is flashed to the left eye, the subject IS able to pick up a stuffed cow out of a selection of objects, or draw a cow on paper. The body just won't be able to verbalize it. Which just freaks me out, it's like your mind having a mind of it's own... or something. Another really interesting test had two different words showed on each side of the screen: The left side showed the word "TOAD", and the left showed the word "STOOL". The man was able to say the word stool, obviously, but when given a piece of paper, he had to actually guess what his hand was drawing, in this case, a toad, to figure out the whole word TOADSTOOL. Isn't that just crazy??? It weirds me out.

As freaky as I find all of this stuff, it really fascinates me for one reason or another. I'm thinking about maybe exploring what sort of careers you can get into. Getting a career in psychology DOES sound a little fishy to me... like I'd feel weird getting a career in something that seems so... guessy, but at this point, it's all just spectulative, anyway. I'm WAY too indecisive to decide yet... But, hey, maybe I'll learn about what part of my brain makes me so indecicive soon?

-Jimmy

Watching the Simpsons (Illegally, I suppose)

Hello to all of you nonexistant readers! I'm glad to know that at the rate I update my blog, the number of regulars I have is quite appropriate. This is a good thing, I'd be confused if I had hundreds of disappointed readers hanging on my every word... good justification, right?

Anyway, I can't help it that amazing writing moods only strike me every few months. But I was motivated in English today by an in-class assignment to write about a childhood memory that was supposed to have tought us a lesson or something... and I could absolutely not think of anything. I have such a terrible memory, it's ridiculous. I started to write about the time I ran away from my grandparents' house to go home, but I realized that that isn't actually a memory I have, just a story I've been told since. By the time I got around to finally PICKING a "memory" to write about, it was time to stop, and all I had written was an explaination of how bad of a memory I had. Go figure.

ANYWAY, to get to the actual TOPIC of this post... I have lost a dear source of entertainment. Y'see, about half a year ago, I got bored, so I went to yourtvlinks.com, a site with links to random sites that have entire episodes of TV shows, old and new, all organized by season and such. The quality is often very questionable, but where else am I ever going to get to see classics such as Reboot or... Samurai Pizza Cats? Hm. Maybe I'll have to check that out...

Of course, I was pretty disappointed that most of the shows I was actually interested in were "unavailable" or had "been removed by the host" or "violated our terms". I mean, go figure. The site itself isn't actually illegal, because all they're doing is providing links to the websites that actually host the videos. Which I find funny, because I'm pretty sure you CAN get in trouble for "real" crimes that are that kind of idea. Like, a Dr. Kevorkian for finding illegal videos, instead of killing yourself.

That thought sorta frustrates me. All of the copyright protection and whatnot. Y'know, going back to Napster. I mean, honestly, I consider music, video games, and movies all artforms. They really are. Someone is putting their vision into a medium for enjoyment on all levels, including technical, pure enjoyment, and symbolic interpetation, amongst others. Now, I can understand that for a lot of these examples, a great deal of money goes into the productions, and that SOME compensation is needed. It's just sad that artforms can't be freely exchanged. I digress a bit, but consider the following example in point.

Anyway, I started watching The Simpsons online about half a year ago from links I found at the site. I started, naturally, at the beginning, and what should happen after about 1 season and one week? The videos were removed. Go figure. I knew it was too good to be true. Now, I've never been a real hard-core Simpsons fan, I watch it on occasion 'cause it can be funny, and y'know, it's so ledgendary and whatnot, but starting to watch it from the beginning, episodes that are nearly 20 years old, I got sorta fascinated at just thinking about the creation of the episodes, and seeing the character development from the beginning. A lot of Simpsons media and jokes depend on already knowing and understanding these characters' backgrounds, which makes things substantially less enjoyable for someone just randomly joining the series nowadays.

So, I'm hooked, I find out that they caught whatever site was hosting the show, I'm desperately clicking random episodes from random seasons, hoping that maybe, just maybe, they missed one episode or something. THEN, I happen to click on an episode from season 8. And it works! Turns out season 8 and beyond are being hosted by some other site called robotolabs, or something like that, which is the strangest fan site I've ever seen. It's a fan site for the simpsons, but you have to try really hard to actually realize that. But I digress. Always.

Well, eventually, they removed the link from the front page of yourtvlinks, so you had to click on "more TV shows" and then they even removed that link, so I had to track through my history and make the list of episodes a "favorite". And I continued like this for a few months, during which I made it through roughly 4 1/2 seasons, 100-some episodes. Then yesterday night, I got the message I had been dreading ever since seasons 1-7 had been cut off.

"Our apologizes, this content is not longer available because its owner removed it"

(No, that's NOT a typo, that's actually what it says)

So here I am, Simpsonless. You won, Fox. You can continue to make a little more money from DVD sales that I was in theory sapping away from you. That is, of course, assuming that I ever decide to buy any of the DVDs. They DO have them at the Akron Public Library, however. The difference, I do NOT know. But it's there somewhere, I suppose. An interesting point, I suppose though, is that I'm sure I never would have bought any Simpsons DVDs had I not gotten to watch those episodes to get hooked on it. Now, I'm slightly more inclined, but I'm still hesitant (TV shows are expensive to buy on DVD! Not relative to how much material you're actually getting, but still expensive regardless).

So the question is, is it better to have watched for free and lost than to never have watched for free at all?

Yeah, I'd say so.

-Jimmy

Question? - or - Another Reason I'm Probably Going to Hell

So, the other day, I was cruising around Facebook, as I so often find myself doing, and I clicked on someone's (who shall remain anonymous) Xanga. I read into it for a while, probably a lot longer than I ought to have, and decided that this person (whom I am already biased against for no definable reason other than to state that I have a bad taste in my mouth for their general demeanor) was just a little too attention-seeking in their Xanga, and I started wondering about the motives behind having a Xanga, or a Blog, or whatever you may have. Myself? I think I have mine because I like to write, so every now and then, when I get the urge to write, whether it is to entertain an imaginary audience, or bring up a point just to get something off my chest, or very rarely to inform all three people that read this about what's going on... I just write. And I enjoy language. I enjoy using unconventional contractions, such as "could've", "'cept", and even "It's'nt" (Although I don't think I've ever been in a situation where I actually used that one)

My point of bringing up that last odd sentence-fact? I use my blog to entertain myself. Do I expect any comments? No. Do I get any? Seldom. Do I look for attention through a blog? No. I don't write down weird little things in here so people will come up to me and say, "Hey, I read that little cryptic message in your Blog that said you might be getting a girlfriend. Your plan worked! I'm inquiring so that you can brag to me about it."

Nah. That's not my style. It seems a little pathetic to me. And heaven forbid I be the one to decide what's pathetic and what's not, but I have regardless. So, yeah... to broaden the topic back out, I have decided that it is these little thoughts I have against people that make me a bad person deemed fit for an eternity in Hell. I can't help it. I USUALLY think I have a pretty good reasoning going on in my head when I deem someone a "bad person". Honestly, I don't think my requirements to qualify are that difficult. But there are a lot of people out there whose actions are just unacceptable! I don't know how people can act certain ways and still be okay with how they live. I do have ideas of WHY these people act this way, though. I've taken the liberty to arrange them in a very unbalanced list of loose reasons:

• They don't care about other people's well-being in general
  
• They purposefully put other people down to make themselves feel better, due to an insecurity
• They're just too inept to act in an acceptable fashion (They're stupid)
• They think that they ARE acting the right way, but really, they're entirely wrong (Playing to the wrong audience, perhaps?)
• And probably some other stuff that is even less organized into a coherent thought.
  

A lot of these ideas/reasons cross into eachother. They can stem from a myriad of sources. Family? You betcha. Either a bad or not loving family, or a family with morals or values that are just too loose. Or you could just have a dumb and/or crazy family (I don't hold people of a lower intelligence against ANYONE, but it definetly complicates situations with the people that I have other things against)
I've been meeting a lot of people like this in college, and it's a bit frustrating. However, I'm also meeting more than enough awesome people to balance it out, so I am counting my blessings. I've already made more friends so far this semester than all of last year combined.

Finally, I'd like to apologize for an explosion of complaints in this post. I'd also like to thank my family, my friends, and any random stranger who has ever held open a door for me, told me that I dropped my keys as I walked down the street, or even just made sure that all 5 of my tacos are in my order at Taco Bell. I'm so glad that my family has raised me to be the loving, caring, considerite person that (I think) I am today. My friends, for giving me the thumbs up on the way I am and making it worth the run, and all those other folks for basically giving me a thumbs up as well by following suit.

Anyway, before I make myself look like any more of a jerk, and make this post any more of a disorganized mess... I'd better go.

-Jimmy