Same Sherriff, Different Town

I watched a video yesterday in which one of my favorite YouTube personalities, SeaNanners, made a video giving a tour of his quaint little bachelor pad of an apartment. He generally only uploads videos related to video games, specifically Call of Duty, so this was kind of cool to see. While watching this, I realized something. I'm a disorganized wreck, and I think that if I were more organized, my life would be made better. I'm not exactly sure how or why my brain coincides blogging with being more organized, but here I am.

I've also decided to start using Twitter more, and possibly (I'm getting shit for this, no doubt about it) making a tumblr. All of which are tools that could prove useful if I want to actually do something with my writing.

Back to what SeaNanners' video did to me. It also made me really want to get the hell out of living in this basement apartment. I cannot fucking wait to have my own room again, especially a room which is as big as my current living room. I already have so many plans, such as putting the handmade Guatemalan hammock in my windowsill area. I can't wait to have the ability to listen to music at a moderate volume without somebody having yell at me because they can't hear the TV.

Some of you may has also noticed that I've changed my URL and blog title, and even fewer of you may notice that I've also changed my Twitter display name and URL. This is because I feel like Madonna, with the need to re-invent myself. I am leaving all the old posts up, though, so new people can go back and see what this is all about.

That's it for now, I don't have much else to say.

-Bobby/Madonna

Post 45: Free Periods

Free periods are something that sound like a blessing, and a lot of the time, they are. But what happens when you have nine free periods on a 7-day rotating schedule? You get bored as hell, that's what happens.

I apologize for not posting in a really long time, it's just been out of laziness. I promise to post a lot more often from now on.

Recently there have been a few really good albums released, between Julian Casablancas' "Phrazes for the Young" and Gorillaz finally releasing "Plastic Beach", there has been a lot to listen to. Yet, I find myself listening to Counting Crows, and I have no idea why.

I've also discovered that it's really hard to write anything while I have 4 people reading over my shoulder, and I don't why that is, either, because if they wanted to they could just go read it when I'm done. Maybe I don't want anybody to see the process, to discover the man behind the curtain.

Writer's block sucks. That is all.

-Bobby

Post 44: Cybernations

Cybernations is an online text-based nation simulation game, in which people create their own countries and build them up with the use of lots of different in-game methods. Their are alliances, in which groups small, medium and large come together in order to benefit from Trade Circles, protection and meeting new people. Or at least, that's what the creators want you to think.

What it really is is this: A bunch of morons who do what they're told by their control-freak, elitest leaders who think they know what is best for everybody, and of course, every single leader has a different view of what is best. So, really, it could be compared to our world governments current state. I could go on for hours about how much I hate the people that play this game, but that would be kind of hypocritical, considering I recently closed my latest-formed account.

I had created the account just around the new year and had been talking to people on my alliances forum, on the game forum, and on other alliances forum when I realized something: people are stupid. I've had this view for a long time, but my realization was more in the context of 'people that play this game are stupid, and I need to quit'. The thing about Cybernations is that the meta-game (the politics and huge 300 nation wars) are much more important to the people who play then the actual physical game. Once you reach the point that most of the people who have been playing for around 8 months to a year have, you get bored, and you just start shit for the sake of starting shit. Now, don't get me wrong, I love to do this, but when you're a lowly peon and you're ruled by oppressive assholes who tell you they want to help, but really only help you to a certain point before they stop speaking to you altogether (the point in which you are convinced that they are awesome and you will do everything they say).

Sometimes I just really want to hit people in the head. Hard. That's it for tonight, folks, I've been tangential (VOCAB WORD, BEEYOTCH) enough. Peace out, homeskillets.

-Bobby

Post 43: An Apology

I am aware that I have not posted in a long time (five days) and this is purely out of laziness. Thus, I have constructed a new way of blogging. I'm not going to be posting every day, some days a blog post is just simply out of the question with my schedule, however, by the end of the year, I want to have 365 posts total. I think this is a much more reasonable way to approach intensive blogging, and I am sure most if not all of you will as well. So I plan to do two more posts tonight, both of them kind of half-assed. Again, really sorry to everybody who believed in me so much, but my previous way of going about this project was just insane. Thank you for all the support, everybody, I really don't deserve the praise I've been receiving.

-Bobby

Day 43: Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief

Tonight, I went out with my family to see the first Percy Jackson film. I've never read any of the books, and had no idea what I was walking into. My younger brother, on the other hand, is a die hard fan of the series and was thus our reason for going to see the movie. I was pretty blown away, I really liked it. Though, I feel that it will be a lot like the Harry Potter series in that the first movie(s) aren't going to be able to top the second half in the least. Much to my surprise, my brother also really like the way the movie turned out. Though, when we were walking out of the theater and the entire car ride home he explained all the flaws/differences from the movie to the book. He still thought it was a great movie, anyways.

ASK QUESTIONS, DAMMIT.

Short Story tomorrow might get cancelled tomorrow, and I will instead write about the possible Free Hugging I will be doing. We'll see what happens.

-Bobby

Day 42: Cyclists

On Wednesday night my dad's boss and six of his friends came to our house for dinner. Why? They are all cyclists, and they were taking a trip from Walnut Creek through Monterey with their final destination in Malibu, CA. They were all very nice and they all seemed to be pretty cool guys. My father made 8lbs of meatballs and a vat of sauce, and we had some of the best spaghetti ever created. Dessert was two cheesecakes, a chocolate and a vanilla/lemon. Now, you'd expect that it couldn't get much better then that, but oh, you are so wrong. I slept so well that night it was ridic, and was completely energized for the last day of school in the week. Man, did that feel good.

I NEED MORE QUESTIONS. ASK ME SOMETHING, ANYTHING.

PS - This wasn't late, stupid Blogger didn't post it again.

-Bobby

Day 41: A View Of What's Ahead

Since it's really late and I don't want to do an actual post, I'm giving to show you all what's to come.

Thursday: A blog about what happened tonight
Friday: Percy Jackson Review
Saturday: Short Story
Sunday: Blog about my epic Valentines Day
Monday: Questionaire (sp?)/Maybe I'll tell you all a story about my favorite documentary of all time.

In case I decide to go with the Questionaire, ask me questions either in the comments in the blogs to come, send me a message on Facebook, or shoot me an e-mail. All questions will be answered. Bring it on, the more, the better.

I love you all.

-Bobby

Day 40: Aw, shit. Get your towels ready, it's about to go down.

So, tonights episode of LOST really effing got me hooked. The final twist was almost so awesome I couldn't take it.

SPOILERS: I'm pretty sure Sayid was made invincible by the waters that the asian dude and the translator put him in, but there has to be a catch. Maybe he's possessed by everybody's favorite son of God, Jacob? That's my argument for now, anyways. It was a Kate-centric episode, which at first kind of put me off, because I don't really find Kate's story that interesting, but Kate almost always follows Jack in order of episodes, so I saw it coming. We saw in the pilot that she makes a break for it and gets into a cab with Claire and un-born Aaron inside of it, puts a gun to the drivers head, and tells him to step on it. However, at a few different points during the entire episode of the alternate universe where the plane doesn't crash, Kate seems to somewhat recognize Claire, and is specifically recognizing her when she Claire instinctively names the baby Aaron. I'm thinking they remember things from being on the island, and certain memories trigger bigger ones. This is all speculation, though. Keep that in mind, folks. Then, at the end of the episode, Jin is about to get killed, right? He's got a bear trap on his ankle, and the guy from 'It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia' is about to shoot him, but then out of nowhere he gets shot. We're made to think it's the black guy that he was with, but then the black guy gets lit up, too. After that, I thought 'HOLY SHIT, SAWYER SAVES THE FUCKING DAY! AND THAT'S AWESOME AND SIGNIFICANT BECAUSE HE WAS ALL DEPRESSED AND HE AND JIN ARE BESTIES!' but then, holy shit, even bigger twist. The fucking camera pans over to Claire. WHAT THE FUCK? HOW THE FUCK? WHY THE FUCK? I'm thinking it's not actually Claire, but it's the smoke monster manifesting itself as Claire, because it couldn't take over Sayid. So what's gunna happen is Claire (smoke monster) is going to save Jin and bring him back to the camp where Jack, Hurley, Sayid and Myles (sp?) are, and then they're all gunna be like 'LOLWTF IT'S CLAIRE LET THAT BEEZEY IN HERE' and then The Others are going to let Claire in, but then she'll go hide like Locke did, turn into the smoke monster, and start doing work on The Others, though, I can't be sure the smoke monster wants any of the Survivors. I'm pretty sure he doesn't have any beef with them, but who knows.

Holy shit, that's a long post. If you're not a LOST fan, it's going to suck to be you. You should still read that anyways, though, because I find that it is written pretty hysterically. Anyways, I'm off.

-Bobby

Day 39: Tylenol PM-Induced Haze

I'm not sure how safe it is for me to be writing in the current state that I am in, so I'm going to try and make this one short and I'm going to try not to rant.

Today was a Monday, and thus was a pain in the ass and boring for everyone. However, it does bring us one day closer to Tuesday, which is LOST night, so it wasn't TOO bad.

I've been listening to Joy Division pretty non-stop all day, maybe that helped ease my mood and mental stability into it's current state. Who knows...

I'm off for the night, everybody. Go listen to some Joy Division.

-Bobby

Day 38: Ruh Roh

It seems that the Indianapolis Colts have lost the Superbowl. So, what I need to do is this.

I apologize to all the Saints fans who read my previous post, and retract the statements I made. NOT. Considering it's just a game, and all comments were made in good fun, I'm not sorry if I offended you, because you shouldn't take a game so god damn seriously.

On a side note, school tomorrow, until Friday, when my Joe Pesci given four day weekend begins.

Thank you to all my loyal readers, I am now the 100,678th most popular blog on this site!

-Bobby

Day 37: Gaeux Colts!

It is currently 3:51AM and I have yet to post. So I'm going to say this: in about 12 hours, the Colts will be that much closer to kicking the Saints asses in their first Super Bowl. Manning is going to mop the field with New Orleans, and we're having a party to celebrate.

Your predictions on the Super Bowl go in the comments section, except for Saints fans, you all can go away.

Day 36: Quick Update

Tonight's blog is going to be pretty quick, like all of my latest ones have been. Not a whole lot has been going on in my life lately, pretty normal school, homework, video games routine, nothing terribly exciting. Thought, last night was pretty fun. The first friday of every month there is an Art Walk in Oldtown Salinas, so I went with two friends and we walked around downtown, went to the Steinbeck center (SO EXCITING), and had really good Chinese food. T'was a good night, no doubt. Then I came home and played Call of Duty until I realized it was really late and I needed to blog. So here I am, blogging. Not much else to say other then that, though. Hope you all are doing well, I'm out for the night.

EDIT: For some reason this didn't post last night, and was just saved under my 'Edit Posts' option. Stupid Blogger.

-Bobby

Day 35: I Forgot

So you all get this instead. If you have the time, try and watch at least 3 parts, he's an absolute genius.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKnzPHtf9u4

Day 34: Time Flies Like an Arrow, Fruit Flies Like Bananas.

I really like puns. I really like being overly sarcastic and crude, add these two together, and it can make for interesting conversation, try it sometime.

Today, I got out of school at 1PM.

Minions: Why did you get out of school so early, Bobby?
Me: Well, because every other Wednesday is an early release day, so at 2:45PM, we get to leave.
Minions: But Bobby, that doesn't explain why you got out at 1PM.
Me: You're right, you all get gold stars for observational skills, minions. I got out earlier then 2:45 because my last two classes were free periods, so I just left at 1PM.
Minions: Wow, Bobby, I wish I had your schedule, sounds like you've got it made!
Me: Yep.

That's my explanation, don't like it, too bad.

Recently (today) I've been listening to a lot of music I don't normally listen to. Bands like Dave Matthews, Counting Crows, Steely Dan and The Police. It's been really awesome to go through all the songs that I enjoy listening to by all those bands, and I even found a few new ones that I really like. Problem is, I'm so lazy I keep putting off installing iTunes to my new PC, so I can't rip any of the music from YouTube to my iPod. I've decided to put it off until Valentines Day weekend, when I have the Friday and following Monday off from school.

I found this video on YouTube today about government control and how it is done, and I think it is more then 100% truthful and accurate, and hope you all enjoy it, as that is what I'm leaving you with. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZeiSKnhOBc. Have a good night/day/evening/morning/afternoon everybody.

-Bobby

Day 33: LOST

As some of you may know, I'm a pretty avid follower of the show 'LOST' on ABC. I think it has a very compelling story and is something I've enjoyed watching since the 1st Season. As some of you may also know, the last season premiere was on tonight. One word can describe it fairly simply. Epic. So many questions answered, and so many more brought up. It's an amazing stroke of TV genius, and I'm going to be sad to see it go. However, I think all the fans will enjoy it as it lasts, and we all can't wait to see what happens next, that is for sure. So, another short post tonight, but I leave you with a question I'd like to see all the fellow LOST geeks who read this crap answer.

What did you think?

PS - Another long, heartfelt, meaningful post tomorrow, I get out of school at 1PM, more on that tomorrow.

-Bobby

Day 32: Shoes

I have recently come into possession of some really awesome shoes, they are slip-on Vans, and they are all white. Every surface of the shoe is white, I bought them so I and others could draw on them and make them look awesome. So, I come to you, minions, in search of help. I need suggestions for some kind of design, I don't want pictures necessarily, I want more of a geometric or spiraly-type-thing design, and the shoes can be totally different, I would actually prefer it that way. Any ideas in any form are appreciated, whether it be a text description, or a drawing e-mailed to me at t3hb0b1n4t0r@gmail.com, I'd love to see what you all come up with. That's all for now.

-Bobby

Day 31: Crazy Taxi

This weekend was spent in San Francisco in celebration of my mom's birthday, we all had a great time and I'm very glad I decided to go. Tonight, you are getting one of the better stories from the trip.

So, on Saturday afternoon, we were leaving the SF Westfield to go back to the hotel to get our stuff/car and head home, and we had all been on our feet all day and didn't feel like making the long walk. My dad hailed a cab, and we all hopped in. Now, I've been in enough cabs to know that cab drivers aren't always the safest human beings on the planet, but this was insane. He nearly had us killed at least three times by the end of the ride, and I was literally shaking from fear. One of the bigger things was how he would slam on the gas pedal and slam on the brake pedal, as if there were no in between in terms of speed, it was either speeding up or slowing down in this guys opinion. So, to someone who isn't used to that kind of decision, it's like saying 'Would you rather shit your pants on this car ride or keep them clean?' The scariest thing that happened, in my opinion, was this. He had been holding on the gas pedal for about half the block before he realized that the light was red and wasn't changing any time soon, so he started to push down on the brake. We got closer and closer and closer to the car that was stopped ahead of us, and when we were less then a foot away from it and still had some momentum, the driver pulls the steering wheel to the right and we jerk into the right lane with no time to spare. After that, I just thought to myself 'This guy would be really fucking good at Crazy Taxi' (my favorite driving arcade game of all time). Then I came to the conclusion that most cab drivers might actually have a leg up on the normal person when playing that game. I don't know, I just think it's funny to see how somebody's career can impact how well they do other things in life, like an architect. An architect could probably build some insane stuff with LEGOS. Maybe I'm crazy and neither of those things would ever relate to each other at all, maybe I'm not, I don't know.

Anyways, I'm off for the night. School is going to suck tomorrow, then again, it always does.

-Bobby

Day 30: 6:30 AM and still no post....

This means you will get your long and meaningful post on Sunday night, peoples. I'm much too tired to write anything else other then that, I think I'm actually getting delusional.

Article Credit to Meghan:
THIS IS INSANE.
http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/01/29/arizona.marijuana.bust/index.html

Day 28-29: Punishment Time

It's true, I completely missed a day, that is why I'm asking for suggestions on punishment, leave a comment if you have an idea, or leave a comment supporting another persons idea.

Anyways... It's late, don't feel like blogging, big day tomorrow. There will either be a long blog describing the whole weekend on Saturday night or on Sunday night, depending what time I get home Saturday.

In the meantime, go read a book.

-Bobby

Day 27: Don't be a coconut, God is trying to talk to you

I'm convinced my math teacher is Yoda, and I'm going present my argument as to why I think such a ridonkulous thing in today's post.

1. She's small and wise. She is the head of the Math/Science Department at one of the best schools on the West Coast, and she's no taller then 5'2''.

2. She talks about the Force and the Dark Side. Whenever somebody is able to understand a new concept quickly in class, or if somebody is able to solve an unusually hard problem without any faults she will literally say 'Oh, the Force is strong in this one.' As for her mentioning the Dark Side, she tells us not to be tempted by it. Whenever there's a trick in a problem that is there to make us mess up (like a lot of the SAT questions) she tells us not to be tempted by the Dark Side, and to take our time with the problem.

3. There is an extremely smart kid in our class, who she constantly is presenting new challenges to. I'm also convinced this classmate of mine is Luke Skywalker.

There you have it, three fairly compelling points.

I has a qwesshun.

Is it weird that I actually kind of enjoy listening to Lady Gage? I mean, normally I hate this kind of shit, but she is actually really not that bad.

Also, the title of this blog has absolutely nothing to do with anything at all. I was listening to the song Ask Me Anything by The Strokes, and that is one of the lines, so I thought 'What the fuck? It's my blog, and I think it's a cool title'.

Anyways, I think I'm off to watch some Modern Warfare 2 gameplay on YouTube. Peace in the middle east, ya'll.

-Bobby

Day 26: Because I have nothing to say,,,

What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more
Oh, baby don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more

What is love
Yeah

Oh, I don't know why you're not there
I give you my love, but you don't care
So what is right and what is wrong
Gimme a sign

What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more
What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more

Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh
Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh

Oh, I don't know, what can I do
What else can I say, it's up to you
I know we're one, just me and you
I can't go on

What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more
What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more

Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh
Whoa whoa whoa, oooh oooh

What is love, oooh, oooh, oooh
What is love, oooh, oooh, oooh

What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more

Don't hurt me
Don't hurt me

I want no other, no other lover
This is your life, our time
When we are together, I need you forever
Is it love

What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more
What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more (oooh, oooh)

What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more
What is love
Oh baby, don't hurt me
Don't hurt me no more (oooh, oooh)

What is love?

-Bobby

Day 25: Part Deux

We (Some friends and I) arrived at the party before most of the crowd, and we were about half the crowd. It was pretty slow at first, we hung out downstairs and ate a little bit, trying to think of something to do. Somebody, I don't remember who, came up with the idea to play board games. We all went upstairs and got out Scrabble, sat down, and talked and played Scrabble. More and more people started showing up, and they were all just directed upstairs to play Scrabble with us. We played and played until everybody showed up, and then we played more. It was one of the longest games of Scrabble ever. Eventually, we went back downstairs to the kitchen/dining room for pizza. This is where things got exciting. It was kind of quiet, everybody was eating, there were a few whispery conversations going on, and it was sort of awkward. I was talking to two friends about old Nickelodeon cartoons when I heard something singeing. Seconds later, the back of Kristina's head burst into about a four inch flame, and we all gasped. Not more then a second passed by before the guy sitting next to Kristina, Brandon, blew out the flame like it was nothing. It took us all a few seconds to realize what had actually happened. I mean, her fucking hair caught on fire, that's some crazy shit. Everybody's reaction was different, but there seemed to be a pretty common consensus that it was a.) fucking awesome and b.) hilarious, once we knew she was okay, of course. After that, there was a little bit more conversation floating around. Dinner commenced, and we all went down to the basement and watched The Hangover. It was one of the funner parties I've been to lately, because it was nice and relaxed, and not a lot going on, but still fun.

I don't think I have anything else to say, and if I do, rest assured. It will without a doubt get said tomorrow.

-Bobby

Day 24: Parte Uno

I was thinking today, when something is called 'Untitled', isn't that a title?

Yesterday was so epic, that I'm splitting it up into two parts.
Part 1 - Free Hugs
Part 2 - Nina's Party

Part 1: I got up around 11 o clock on Saturday, and as soon as I heard my parents were going into Old Town I had made the decision on how I was spending the next few hours. I grabbed the superior Free Hugs sign, and got in the car. I walked down Main St. and was about 50ft away from the theater when I saw the Farmers Market, which happens across the street from the theater every Saturday from 10AM-2PM. I did circles around the Farmers Market, and was pretty well received. There were three chairs set up, kind of off to the side of the Farmers Market, and two of them were occupied. One by a fairly large man (who had already hugged me) and one by an elderly woman. She pointed to her walker, which was covered with shirts and I shook my head left to right, I assumed she was trying to sell me something. I thought nothing of it, and just kept on walked. I hadn't walked 75ft when two hands came from behind and covered my eyes. 'Keep walking' the guy said, in a voice that was obviously not his normal one. It was very deep and scratchy, and if you've seen Watchmen, it was basically the voice or Rorscach. 'Uhm, I'm gunna guess Spencer' I said to him, and again he said 'Keep walking' in the same voice. He had turned me around now, and had me walking the opposite direction, he had also moved his hands from my eyes to my shoulders, but kept a firm grip, not allowing me to turn around and see his face. He was leading me directly to the elderly woman and the large man, so I guided myself as much as possible when I realized that. We reached them and the woman said to me 'Hi, we're from Dorothy's Kitchen, and if you ever want to come in and get something to eat, please do. We can give you clothes if you need them, to.' she said. I instantly felt like an ass for not approaching her earlier and said 'That's very kind of you, but I'm not homeless.' She pretty much cut me off and said 'That doesn't matter, you can be a billionaire and still come and get clothes and sustenance at Dorothy's.' I hadn't known this before, but I said 'Thank you, I appreciate that.' I attempted to turn around, but the guy forced me to face the woman again. 'Look man, do I know you?' I said. 'Oh hell yeah, you know me.' He was using his regular voice now, but I still couldn't place it exactly, though I admit, it sounded familiar. Once again, I tried to turn around, but he still had me by my shoulders, and he twisted me to face front, yet again. The next part happened all in once movement. First, he wrapped his arms around me with my arms at my sides, picked me up off the ground maybe a foot, and shook me from side to side. It was kind of a hug, now that I think about it. He set me back down after about twenty seconds, and allowed me to turn around. I looked at him, and he looked familiar, but I still couldn't place it. 'You look familiar, but--' I said. 'Yeah, last time I saw you I said I was going to kick your fucking ass'. I almost shat myself, it was him. I froze like a deer in headlights, and he just smiled, not a creepy smile, a genuine 'Hey buddy, what's going on?' smile. 'Oh, yeah, OK. The guy that you were with last time, was he a Marine?'. He shook his head no 'He's Airborne. And dude, you know what I love more then hugs?' he said. 'I have no idea.' I replied, and then he put me in a headlock and screamed 'NOOGIES!' and proceeded to give me really bad noogies for half a minute. He let go, and without saying anything, I walked away, holding up my sign, still contemplating what had just happened. After that, I just went across the street to the Maya, there were plenty of people there, and I wanted to avoid running into Joey again. I stood outside the theater for maybe an hour and a half and did quite a bit of hugging. Honestly, after the second Joey incident, nothing terribly interesting happened.

Part 2 is going to get written and posted tomorrow, because I want to talk a little bit about today, and don't have a whole lot of time. Today I went to Borders and got three things: World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks, and Hearts In Atlantis by Stephen King. The latter isn't nearly as important as the former two, because that's what I want to talk about. Zombies. My question for tomorrow is this: You can have a main weapon, a sidearm/melee weapon, a vehicle and a destination all for when the zombie apocalypse hits, what are your choices and why?

Mine?
Main weapon: SCAR-H. It shoots a .308 bullet, so it has the ability to completely remove limbs in one bullet and still has a huge amount of stopping power. (I know, destroy the brain, but most of the time you just want to reduce the zombies to the point where they're so slow you almost don't have to worry about them.

Sidearm/Melee (choose one or the other, not both): I'm going with a melee for this one, remember, melee weapons don't need reloading, and they don't require ammo. I choose a high-quality aluminum baseball bat, with a piece of steel wrapped around the top. The piece of steel has lots of bumps in it, making it extremely easy to shatter skulls.

Vehicle: 10-speed BMX bike, for a few reasons. 1. They're almost completely silent, you can ride almost any terrain and make next to no noise. 2. No gas is needed, it's completely man-powered. 3. Durable and light. If you hit a point that the bike can't cross, you can easily lift it, throw it or maneuver it around the obstacle you face. All in all, I think anything that requires almost no gas or no gas at all is your best bet.

Destination: I'm going for a realistic destination, here. This one actually took me a little while to think about. What's the highest-security area within biking distance? Soledad State Prison. Now, you have to abide by the rule that 'No place is safe, only safer' on this one. Of course there are going to be walking dead swarming the place, but you can say that about anywhere.

Alright, that's it from me for tonight. Catch you cats on the flip flop.

-B to the o to the double b y.

Day 23: Eventful Day

It was so eventful, in fact, that I'm not going to write about it at all tonight, and I'm going to do a proper long post tomorrow night, considering I'm starting this one at 1:40AM.

So, for half an hour I've sat here with nothing to say, and all I really can say is check back tomorrow for a real post, sorry this one sucks.

I checked my Google Analytics that I've set up for this blog tonight, over 400 hits in the last 23 days. I think that's pretty impressive. So, yeah. Nothing more to say.

-Bobby

Day 22: Steampunk and Sleeptalking

Recently, I've been really interested in the genre Steampunk. For those of you who don't know what the amazingness of Steampunk is, I will explain. Steampunk is a science-fiction writing style. The stories usually take place in mid 19th Century England, during a time when everything was steam-powered. The twist is this: Steampunk is based around the idea that the technology boom during this time went much further then it actually did, and the invention of many different flying machines, mass-producing of steam-powered cars, sometimes even the computer. Movies like 'Steamboy' and 'Wild Wild West' could be considered Steampunk. It's something that I've recently come across, and was wondering if anybody had any suggestions for me, that's why I mentioned it.

On the subject of sleeptalking, before I started blogging, I was lying in bed (and then I remembered I had to post) thinking about if I was going to hear my brother sleeptalk tonight. He does this pretty often, and he always says some really funny stuff. I'm going to start writing it down as much as possible so I can actually remember it. Then when I came back out to the living room and went on YouTube to listen to music while blogging, I saw a video of a guy sleeptalking that got on the news in the UK, it can be found http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mAAOaoswXw <-- there.

I'm pretty sure that's all I have to say, thanks to everybody who made a suggestion, I'll be using them all.

-Bobby

Day 21: FUUUUUUUUU

It's 11:20 and I still haven't posted and I have two tests tomorrow, looks like this one is going to be a short one, folks.

I want you all to ask me a question, questions you think will be interesting for me to answer, so I have something to talk about. (Carlos, I swear to fucking christ if you put something stupid, I will cut you.)

On another note, I wanted to blog a little bit about my mom tonight.

Earlier today once we had gotten home and eaten dinner, she was playing Mario on the Wii. She was in a pretty tight situation, trying to beat the last Castle of World 5. She got to around the same spot three or four times and kept choking up and falling into the liquid lava below. As this was happening, I noticed more of what she kept doing physically then in the game. She was sitting in an office chair, rocking back and fourth a little, while humming along to the music. Then I noticed that she does that WHENEVER she is playing Mario, not just at that moment. On top of all this, she also repeats what Mario says IN MARIO'S VOICE. ie, when she loses a life Mario will say 'Oh no!' and then three seconds later you hear my mom's half-decent Mario impression, what does she say? 'Oh no!'. You have no idea how quickly that can become the most irritating thing in your life.

So remember, kiddies, ask me questions you want my opinion on, and I'll give them to you. Anybody that reads this can comment now, by the way.

Th-th-th-the-th-the-th-that's all folks.

-Bobby

Day 20: Trying Your Luck

Normally, I don't believe at all in luck. I'm a total fatalist. Every little thing that happens in your life, well, it happens for a reason, and you have no ability to change it. However, I think the decisions you make are what pre-determines this fate, so I want everybody to do something tomorrow. I want everybody to try your luck, do something totally different than you normally do it, whether it's just your morning routine or what you do when you get home. Do something different, and try and see if you can spot the possibly different outcome. I myself will be doing this as well, but I don't want to say what I'm doing quite yet, because there are people that read this that might change my fate for me.

Anyways, moving on. Tomorrow is Hugging Day, so you can all imagine what I'm bringing to school. Hopefully it won't be raining too badly.

I really don't have much to say lately, nothing terrible interesting is going on. I realized that I have complete freedom on this blog, I mean, I can say whatever the fuck I want. So, in honor of me being self-enlightened...

"Shit piss fuck cunt cocksucker motherfucker tits fart turd and twat." -George Carlin

That is all.

-Bobby

Day 19: What Would You Grab?

I saw the movie 'Leap Year' recently (yes, I regret it, but it was a date, so back off and read), and one of the things it brought up was that in the last 30-40 years humanity has become so attached to really stupid things that we have all forgotten what's really important.

If your house was on fire and you had 60 seconds to grab one thing, what would it be?

I've been thinking about that for the past day or so, and I have yet to come up with something. Maybe I'm completely content with my life? Probably not, but I'm not ruling it out yet. So far, the only thing I've really thought of is a postcard that I keep in my top drawer (along with a whole bunch of other stuff that I don't want to lose while in the middle of a move).

So, I ask this of you, blog reading minions of mine. What would you grab? You don't have to answer this right away, but I'm curious to see some other opinions, because it may be that we have common interests, and you are thinking of something I'm not.

I've been listening to a pretty wide variety of music lately, which I thought was worth mentioning. I recently re-discovered Radiohead, and I re-discovered how much I love that band, but lately the only thing that can completely satisfy my inner eardrums is the sound of Pink Floyd, and I'm thinking that's related to yesterdays post.

Bedtime for me now, kiddies. I think tomorrow I'm going to write a short story. We'll see what happens. Peace in the middle east.

-Bobby

Day 18: What IS crazy?

If you have read most of my previous posts, then you know that this summer I did a month-long theater program in Berkeley. In my Acting class, one of our assignments was to memorize a monologue, whether it was from a poem, a movie, a play, whatever. We needed to memorize a monologue and be able to present it to the class. Within seconds I knew what I was doing, my favorite monologue from my favorite actor from my favorite movie. Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden, presenting to the not-so-special snowflakes the 'Rules of Fight Club'. When I got home, I looked up the rules as a reference for order, and began reciting them. By the fourth time reading them aloud, I had them down. I've seen the movie so many times I remembered very clearly how Tyler annunciated every word in that monologue jam-packed full of epic. Finally, the day came when we presented. When I felt I was comfortable enough to raise my hand, I did, and it was the single best performance I've ever done, right there, in front of a class. A few more people went, and it came around to one of my favorite people on the planet.

"I don't have a monologue prepared, but I was thinking, would it be alright if the class asks me a few questions, and I answer them?" she said. With a little hesitation, our teacher, Marvin, agreed to let some questions be answered. Somebody in the class raised their hand and asked her to 'define crazy'. With little time to think about what she was asked, she gave one of the most eloquent and captivating speech's I've ever had the pleasure to listen to. She said that really, we're all crazy. We all have things in our lives that we are crazy about (and not just in the sense that we like them a lot, but that we all are kind of OCD about certain things), and that it's important to be crazy, sane people are boring. She went on to talk about crazy being used to diagnose people, especially back in th 18-19th Century, when doctors knew less about mental retardations, schizophrenia etc. etc.

Not one week later, I was talking to my dad about Pink Floyd and Syd Barrett. Syd Barret was (for lack of a better word) crazy. He was schizophrenic, and was pretty fried from heavy drug use. It could be argued that many of Pink Floyd's albums reflect on Syd, even after he had left the band. He most definitely had an impact on 'The Wall' as it has to do with a man becoming so worn down by the music industry, that he is transformed into a megalomaniac. The album deals with the issue of defining the term 'crazy', in my opinion. It brings up questions such as 'Is it crazy to consider yourself sane in an insane world?' and 'Who is one person to judge anothers sanity?'.

Discussions on being crazy have always interested me, I don't know why. Maybe I'm crazy to be blogging at 12:30 on a school night. On that note, I'm off.

-Bobby

Day 17: As Promised...

A good friend of mine and I made the decision to do Free Hugs outside the movie theater on Saturday night, and when I say that, what I really mean is, I made the decision to do Free Hugs, and David came along for the ride.

I only had one sign, so he took the cardboard back of a large pad of paper and made a sign that was far superior to mine. We got down to the coffee shop around seven in the evening, I got a cup of coffee, and we were off. On the walk to the theater I gave David the basic rundown, but even I didn't fully know what was going to happen because I knew that there was going to be a police officer there, and I've never done it at night. We got to the theater, sat down across the street and kind of scoped out what was going on. I drank my coffee, noticed the police car parked in front of the theater, but I couldn't smell doughnuts, so I was a little skeptical on his location. Eventually, we crossed the street and posted up. If facing the theater from outside, I was on the left, catching people after they bought their tickets and were on the way into the theater, and David took the opposite direction, catching people as they were walking in the area or over to the ticket booth. In the first half hour or so, until about 8:15, there was a surprising lack of people. There was a steady flow, but I had imagined there would've been more then what I was seeing. Right around 8:20 there was just a huge increase in people, whether it was people getting out of movies at the same time as people going into later movies or something else, I can't be sure. Alls I know is that there was a lot of hugging going on. So much hugging that I was really irritated when people started to want me to take time out of doing what makes me happy to talk to them about why I was doing it. That's right, you heard me. The god damn Hug-Questioners.

"Oh, how cute, is this for an Eagle Scout project?" I actually fucking laughed out loud at that one, I couldn't control myself, there was so much stupid being emitted from that sentence, it was like watching Cheech and Chong.
"No, ma'am" I replied "I'm an Atheist, and my friend is Ba'hai, we're doing this because we're bored on a Saturday night."

The hugfest was really happening, I got people who didn't want to give me a hug to give each other hugs, some little kid came up and hugged me, which is the first time that's happened in a while. It was in full-swing, and that's when I knew that I should be doing it at night more often, a lot more foot-traffic.

Then, it all kind of happened at once. Around 7:40 the piggy had made an appearance, really just letting us know that he was around, and he was doing patrols. Every ten or so minutes he would come outside and walk around a little bit, and then go back in. I knew what he was doing, he knew I knew. He was lurking. He was waiting for one of us to slip up and do something we shouldn't have, so he could kick us off the premises. I told myself that it was going to happen, and that me and David were totally cool, but alas, it happened. He came outside, and the smell of bacon was so over-powering that I almost plugged my nose at the aroma of the wonderfully tasty pork that was walking around in a police uniform outside the Maya. He looked right at me, pointed at me, and then looked at David, pointing at him.

Now, I'm pretty sure he said "You two, over here", but all I heard was "OINK OINK OINK. OINK, OINK OINK." and I saw him motioning me to where he was standing.
"I've been waiting for somebody to complain about you guys the whole time you've been here, and you see that guy over there? All the way down there, he just did. He's soliciting, but not on the theater's property, and he complained about you guys, so I'm going to have to ask you to move on down that way." He motioned towards the opposite side of the theater from the solicitor with his fat sausage link fingers.

Yeah, I could've argued with him, told him that we weren't soliciting, because we are giving something, not RECEIVING something, but it really wasn't worth it, and we walked down the street, hanging our heads in shame to society. Fucking cops.

-Bobby

Day 16: Hawaii Aloha

The title is not at all related to the post, it's just the song I'm currently listening to.

Today I went to Mos Landing with a good friend of mine and my dad, to the Army Surplus store. Since the last time I was there, six or seven years, they have really gotten their acts together. I got quite a bit of Airsoft gear, a battery and charger for my automatic gun, black BDU pants (which are insanely fucking comfortable!), an extra magazine for my automatic gun and gloves with really hard backs to them, to protect my hands even further. I now have a complete loadout (equipment that fits together) for Airsoft, I look like a Private Military Contractor, which is what I was going for.

We also did Free Hugs together, but I'm too tired to tell that story tonight. I pinky swear that story will be told in tomorrow's more adequate post.

-Bobby

Day 15: Hey, looky looky!

The summer that my family and I left Berkeley to move back to Salinas, I went to a month-long theater intensive, which is where I rediscovered my love of acting and being onstage in general. At first, I was very skeptical of the people there, and was very self-conscious about stepping up and acting in front of people, whether it was reciting lines, doing improv, whatever. I was afraid to volunteer myself the first couple days. After maybe the first week, I started to get very comfortable around my group and instructors, and was starting to have a lot of fun meeting new people and furthering my acting capabilities. Then came the first Friday of camp, and everything changed. Every Friday for the four weeks we were there, we had a special two hour elective, different from the one we had chosen before signing up for camp. We chose this one on maybe Tuesday/Wednesday. Looking through the list of my options, it was either On Camera Acting or Clowning. I went with my gut, and marked an 'X' next to the Clowning option. Friday rolled around, and even though there was one person from my group in the class, and my Play Creation teacher was also teaching the Clowning class, I still didn't feel completely safe in the mindset that it was OK to make a fool of myself. We played a few games to warm up our muscles and get into a creative and goofy atmosphere, and then Ben (the instructor) really showed us what clowning was. He had the ability to completely transform into a different person like he was just hitting a switch in his brain, and we were all awestruck. We did a few juggling excersizes, and to close the class we watched some footage of Bill Irwin, one of the greatest clowns of all time.

The other member of my group (which from now on will be known as 'Green Group', because that's what we were/are) that was in the class and I had a conversation afterwords, and we were both very impressed with what we saw, and very excited for what was to come.

The next weeks flew by so quickly it was almost unbelievable, Green Group had successfully written a 25 minute play about what one guy will do for the love of his life by the end of the third week, and we were/are all extremely proud of what we had accomplished. The third Friday's Clowning class was a huge relief when it rolled around, because the stress of getting the show written was finally over, and we had the weekend to relax a little before we had to start rehearsing and blocking. Charlotte, Alex and I all walked in ready to goof off and let go, but we were nowhere near prepared for what was coming. The class circled up around the white board in the room, where Ben had written the list of things we were doing in class that day. It was pretty normal stuff. Warm-ups, games (a few of which we didn't recognize), closing comments on the class. We finished up with the warm-ups and were ready to start the stuff that we knew was going to be more fun. Eugenia, another girl in the class, was curious about a thing he had written on the board, a game, called 'Hey, looky looky!'. A Cheshire-cat esque smile came across Ben's face, and he began to explain the game.

'I want you to imagine your brain for a minute. Inside your brain, in the deepest, darkest corner, there is a door. Inside that door, is a little tiny version of you, but a different version then the one you display either here, or in public, or at your grandmothers house. This version of you does very inappropriate and strange things, so you have to lock it away. So today, I want you to crack open that door, just a tiny bit, and see where it takes you. See what happens when that little version of you gets to take a little bit of control. In the game, I want you to start upstairs, all the way up there, so the rest of us can't see you. Take as much time up there as you need to compose yourself, and then open that door. Now, this version of you has been locked away for a very long time, since Kindergarten let's say, and it has something that it REALLY wants to show the rest of us. So once you can see the rest of us, the only two words you are allowed to say are 'hey' and 'looky', you can use them in any order you like, change your voice however you like, whatever. Use emotions, mime the object you want to show us, show us what it does, but all you're allowed to say is 'hey' and 'looky'.

Needless to say, we wanted a demonstration, so Ben did his little brainswitch, and was instantly transformed into the little form of him. For literally ten minutes, none of us could stop laughing. All of our stomachs were sore by the end of class, and we couldn't wait to tell every single person at camp what had happened in Clown class. After that, Benjamin Boyd Johnson was my hero, and I wanted nothing more then to be a clown.

-Bobby

Dau 14: Nothing to Say

I have absolutely nothing to say tonight. I don't know why, and I have a feeling this is going to happen quite often. Nothing terribly interesting went on today, it was fairly boring at school, and I didn't get home until about eight at night because a.) My mom wasn't able to get my brother and I from my grandma's house until 6:30 and b.) once she had picked us up, she wanted to go OUT to dinner, so we ended up going to the mall food court to get dinner.

Maybe I'll talk about that.

The first thing you need to know about Northridge Mall is: if you're white, you're the minority.
The second: there have been murders IN the mall, so, if you have common sense, you avoid it at all costs.
The third: if you cannot in fact avoid it, and you are forced to enter said mall, what would be a nice shopping trip turns into a Special Forces mission, you are in and out of there as quickly and efficiently as possible, preferably with no casualties.

I could not avoid the mall, so that's what I treated dinner like, a Special Forces mission. I told my brother to walk behind my mom, but in front of me. We entered the mall only to learn that my mom had parked on the exact opposite side as the food court, so we had to march all the way to the other end. In other words, we were in the shit. I tried to keep an eye on everybody that was around us, specifically there hands and what colors they were wearing. We reached the other end of the mall in one piece, and were able to get our food and have a nice family meal of Panda Express and Hot Dog on a Stick. However, this also meant it was time to lock and fucking load, and get back to the car. It seemed that we walked a lot quicker on the way back, and we finally exited the mall, all together, no harm done. Mission succesful, return to base.

-Bobby

Day 13: An Old Debate

Chevy vs. Ford? Lame.
Democrat vs. Republican? Old.
Nick vs. Disney? Nick, obviously. But not what I want to talk about.

The issue I wanted to discuss with you tonight is the issue of Paintball vs. Airsoft. It's been debated for some time now which is better, and it's something I've been pondering lately as I am starting to get back into playing Airsoft. Now, before you go off on me for playing Airsoft instead of Paintball, know this. I did, I played it for about a year and a half, I was on a team at the local course with some of my friends. There are a few reasons that I stopped, but we'll talk about that later, for now I want to say this. I started to get back into Airsoft because I bought a gun last year in an attempt to get active with some friends at Berkeley High, but it never really happened, all I did was mess around with it and play a few games. However, I have since learned that the guys I like to hang out with pretty much all have guns, but never actually play full matches together. So, combining our brains we came up with a plan, which I'm not going to discuss publicly, because I'm not 100% sure if it's legal. So, today, I bought another gun online (a spring M160-A3 M14, for those of you who know a bit about guns/airsoft) and it should be arriving in the mail pretty soon. I also made plans with my dad to go to the Army Surplus Store in Mos Landing on Saturday to buy gear/ammo/maybe a sidearm. This all excites me very much, and I can't wait to start shooting things/people.

Now, we're moving out of my backround in both of these things, and more into arguments I've heard for each side.

Paintball Pros - More fast paced, more tactical, has a pretty recognized professional league, more newbie friendly
Paintball Cons - Hurts exponentially more, costs more, can't be played in nearly as many areas

The Airsoft Pros/Cons are basically the opposites of the Paintball Pros/Cons (durr). Personally, I like Airsoft MORE.
What the above does NOT mean is: I do not like Paintball, I think Paintball sucks, I do not enjoy playing paintball.

What I am saying is that, for now, I would rather play Airsoft, because that's what all my friends already have access to. If I get invited to play Paintball by somebody, or my friends decide that they want to try Paintball, then I will be all for showing them the ropes and taking them out to the local course, but for now, I'd like to stick with what we know.

PS - Originally, this post was supposed to be about a different subject, but I changed my mind because I didn't want to type out the whole god damn story, that would take too fucking long. I'm posting what I was going to post tonight on Friday, so I can be sure I have enough time because I won't have school in the morning. Peace out, homeskillets.

PPS - HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MEGHAN. I LOVE YOU. :3

-Bobby

Day 12: A Family Film

Tonight, my family and I all sat down and watched a movie together, for the first time in a while. It was really fun, and I remember now how much I miss it. Around 8:30 my mother said to my father "Honey, come in here, we're all going to watch The Hangover."

It was the second time I'd seen the film in total, and the second time I'd seen it in three days. It is possibly the funniest movie of the decade, easily the best I've seen of Zach Galifianakis, my comedy hero. If you haven't seen it, go rent it this weekend, because you will not be able to stop laughing throughout the entire movie. Not only the story keeps you guessing the same thing the characters are (What the fuck happened last night?), but so does the amazingly convincing acting. Jeffrey Tambor has a small, yet suited role, and even with the few lines he has, he delivers them amazingly well.

I promise you all a much longer post tomorrow, I started real late tonight.

-Bobby

Day 11: Social Experiments

Last year I took a class called 'Intro to Psychology'. We covered a lot of things, one of them was a social experiment conducted by a man whose name is currently escaping me. The experiment was on obedience. He acquired his experimentees by putting an ad in the paper saying that he would give $50 to any man who came to assist him in a science experiment on a given date. They arrived at the lab and were told that there was a man in the room next to him, hooked up to a bunch of wires, and that he was going to be given a quiz. Every time he got an answer on the quiz wrong, he was to be given an electric shock, and the voltage of the shock grew the more questions he got wrong. The experimentees were to deliver the shock to the man through a circuit board. The man in fact was an actor, and was not truly being shocked, but what the experiment was truly testing for was how far the experimentee would continue to shock the man as he got questions wrong. I'm can't be sure on any of the results of their experiment, but I know that there were some shocking ones.

I'm talking about this today, because I had a very interesting World History class today.

Surprisingly enough, nobody was late, and as the teacher is normally laid back that she doesn't really mind, it was a shock to see her steaming with rage as she walked in the door. Immediately I said to myself "Alright, prepare for the worst." She came in, leaned against her desk at the front of the room, and crossed her arms. "Tyler, Anne Marie and Kylie, no, scratch that, Tyler, Anne Marie and Bobby, come up here now, and bring a desk." My heart sank, I was in deep shit. There is nothing that could piss off our History teacher. Nothing. Today, I was more afraid then I ever have been. In a matter of seconds I was at the front of the room with a desk, there was no time to waste. Once the three of us were there, she handed a packet out to the class. "The rest of you are to take notes on this packet, you have a quiz in fifteen minutes. Get to work." She came back to her seat behind her desk, and said "Alright, we're gunna play a card game, that OK?" We all looked at each other, confused, and nodded. "It's semi-educational, the rules are as follows. You play one of the cards in your hand, they all have actions on them, and you get to do lots of different things with the cards here. The number on the card here is the amount of points you get, and you get one of these cards at the end of every one of your turns." She pulled out a bag of Mother's animal cookies, the white and pink ones that are defuckinglicious, and asked the three of us if we wanted any, and we heard gasps from around the class. What happened next I was not expecting at all, a fairly outspoken girl in our class stood up and said "This is not OK!" Our teacher smiled and told her to sit back down, and the girl replied "NO!" Then, a fairly outspoken guy ran over to the teachers desk, stole our card game and cookies, and ran back to his desk. Our teacher was in hysterics, it looked like she was going to cry she was laughing so hard. The packet that they were taking notes on was about the French Revolution, and our teacher made a little social experiment out of all her classes that day, doing the exact same thing. We were the first class to get what she was doing before five minutes had gone through.

The class before us took twenty minutes to understand what was going on. York, in a nutshell.

-Bobby

Day 10: Flashcards

In the typical high school student fashion, today was a mad dash to get all my weekend homework done. While doing my flashcards for my English class vocabulary assignment, I noticed something. When I start to make flashcards, my standard for quality is pretty high, but as I get closer and closer to finishing said assignment, my standard goes down. Maybe it's not the same for everybody else, maybe that's something universal. Who knows.

Lately, I've been listening to a pretty wide variety of music, but there has been one song stuck in my head over the past few days, and I can't seem to get it out. Maybe that's because when you combine artists like The Strokes and Regina Spektor, what you get out of it can only be amazing. So, I want all of your opinions on this song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ_B7HRznBA

I think that's pretty much it for tonight, boys and girls. Thank you all for the support, this blog is beginning to grow into something pretty cool!

-Bobby

Day 9: Hugs for Drugs

Today was another 'Free Hugs' day (sorry I didn't warn you, Heather), and it was a totally different experience then last week.

I set out to do some hugging around 4PM in front of the Maya Cinemas, and it went fairly well. I had more people then expected approach me, and even some stayed a while to watch and ask questions. Now, I need to say something about the people who ask questions. I really dislike them. I mean, I appreciate that they're interested, but they're always so stereotypical. They think I'm doing it for some church group or for community service or all that bullshit.

Stupid Person: Oh wow, that's a neat idea! Are you with a church group?
Me: No, I'm an Atheist and all around anti-theist.

Stupid Person: Aw, that's cute, are you doing this for community service?
Me: No, Salinas is boring as hell for somebody my age and I figure it's more productive to do this then to join a gang.

Why is the public so pessimistic that they think that somebody would do something like I'm doing and not want anything out of it? It really ticks me off, I mean, I know they're just curious, but they can ask the stupidest fucking questions.

Around 4:30 four kids about 17-18 were there buying tickets to a 7PM movie, there were three guys and one girl. The girl was fairly obviously in a relationship with one of the guys, but she came over and hugged me anyways. From then on, the three guys kind of made it their mission to get on my nerves. They were indirectly calling me gay, throwing pennies in my area (not at me) and came up with the slogan I actually find cool 'Hugs for Drugs'. Neither bothered me, it only really made them look like assholes and got me more recognition anyways. They were all white, the girl was dressed in kind of emo attire, and all the guys were some major wangsters. Around 5PM I headed back to the coffeehouse, finished my coffee (my mom was crafting with a friend) and then headed back out around 5:30PM. There were a lot more people there, either pre-buying their tickets or going to a movie before dinner, and it was a glorious time for hugging. In about half an hour I got well over seventy hugs, which by my standards is fucking epic.

Then, the wangsters came back, and I automatically thought to myself that I might as well just leave right then and there. But then something happened, the couple came up to me, and the conversation went something like this.

Wangster: Hey man, we're sorry about being dicks earlier, you're doing a good thing, we really appreciate it. Anybody tries to fuck with you, we got your back.
Girlfriend of Wangster: Yeah, we're really sorry. We'll be over there if you wanna come sit with us.
Me: Uhh.... Yeah....

About 10 minutes later, I see a two guys and a girl walking towards me. Not in my general direction, towards me, they saw my sign and were curious as to what it said. One of the guys is in the Marine Corpse (he has on his Marine pants and a huge backpack, also is stylin' his buzzcut.) The girl and the guy were linked arm in arm, and they stopped in this order, facing me. Marine on the far left, guy in the middle, girl on the right. The non-marine guy read my sign aloud 'Free Hugs' he said, and from the way he said, I knew there was going to be some issue. He followed with 'If we were in New York City, I would kick your fucking ass for holding that sign.' The actions of those around me followed in this order.

1. The guys Marine friend took him to the side and said 'Joey, he's just a fucking kid, you can't fucking talk to him like that'
2. The Wangsters had overheard what Joey said and were on their feet in a matter of seconds.
3. I tried to motion them away, and that it was all good. But they came over and asked Joey if he had some problems.
4. Marine friend of Joey says 'No, we're just gunna go' and the three of them walk away. As they leave, Joey's girlfriend says to him 'What the fuck were you thinking, dumbass?' Joey's response? 'What?! I don't give a fuck!' His girlfriend: Yeah, you never give a fuck about anything, pathetic fucking loser.
5. The Wangsters ask me if I'm alright. I say I'm fine and politely decline a cigarette from one of them.

2/3 awesome things that happened tonight.

3/3: One of the employees walks out of Maya Cinemas, and me being a judgemental prick, I thought he was going to kick me out of the area. No, that's not what happened at all. He approached me and said 'Hey man, I really appreciate what you're doing out here, y'know? Like there are so many people out there that need some love right now. They may walk right by you and talk shit when they're gone, but deep down, they need a hug. And the people that be giving you hugs, they just know that they be needing hugs. They're admitting to themselves that they need more love then what they be gettin'. That's my kinda spiritual view on it, anyways. I really appreciate whutchu be doin', blood. I think I'mma start doing it to in my spare time. Look, my names Prince, and I see you coming in here to see movies all the time, so any time you see me here, just ask for me and I'll get you in for free. You're doing a good thing, man. Don't stop.'

Coolest movie theater employee ever? Yeah, you could say that.

-Bobby

Day 8: Get to the Choppa

I'm starting this post at 12:05AM on the 9th of January. I have failed.

I've been playing a lot of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 today, as I stayed home from school sick. One of the things I noticed about the social aspect of the game is, if you're friendly to people, they're still douchebags. I have since made the decision to either not talk at all, or be a douchebag to people, which is an amazing amount of fun in itself. I have also been watching a lot of gameplay footage with commentary dubbed over it on YouTube, and I noticed that those guys all are really good, and they rarely talk or even associate with any sort of teamwork (or shit-talking) ever. Could it be that such a team-based game could be played by a few guys using absolutely no teamwork but winning every match? I investigated.

Over 20 games of Team Deathmatch with five friends, we won 19. None of us ever spoke at all over voice or text chat.

We played another 20 games where we were pretty consistently talking shit, and we won 6 games out of 20.

Finally, we played 20 games using teamwork and tactics (pre-planned according to the maps and otherwise) and we won 14 of 20.

Now these statistics can't be considered terribly accurate considering that we were always playing a different team, but it is interesting to think about. So from now on, I'm going to try to talk a little bit less, focus on the game a little bit more and see what happens. Maybe I'll do better, maybe I won't. Who knows.

PS - Just because I failed doesn't mean I'm going to stop, I'm only counting this as a small screwup. I lost track of time is all, and not like anybody really cares.

-Bobby

Day 7: The Reunion

Today I was anxious from about the time I woke up to about 6:15. It was my elementary school reunion, and alumni from all different ages came. It was so strange to see how little everybody had changed. I had made assumptions that certain people were going to act a certain way towards me, and I was right in a few of them, but most of them were totally thrown out the window by around 6:30, and I was very surprised. Most people hadn't changed at all, and in a way, it was very relieving to see that people had stayed the same. It was good to re-connect with people I thought didn't like me anymore, and even the people that I missed and couldn't find on Facebook. It brought up a question in my head, though. Do people change? Or do they basically stay the same their whole lives? I mean, it probably really depends on the person, but it's interesting to look at the people you've known throughout your whole life, and analyze for yourself whether or not you think they've changed. I dunno, maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I'm right, you just have to check it out for yourself, and if you do find something interesting, let me know.

Thank George Carlin it's Friday tomorrow, can't wait for this week to be over. Not that anything particularly bad has happened, but I'm already pretty burnt out from school. I need to start getting more sleep, but that's always going to be an issue. So, speaking of which, I'm heading off to bed, catch you cats on the flip flop.

-Bobby

Day 6: Friends With Nothing In Common

I'm going to tell you a story, but before I tell you that story, I need to tell you another one.

I lived in Salinas most of my life, from preschool to the summer between 8th-9th grade. That summer, I moved to Berkeley, CA. My dad had gotten a new job after seeing the writing on the wall at his old one, and we needed to be closer to the SF Bay Area, so we moved. At first, it was really tough, I spent the whole summer there and I only knew two guys my age, my godbrothers. We didn't spend a whole lot of time together that summer, so I was basically a shut-in. Once school started, it had gotten a little better. I made a few friends with whom I had almost nothing in common with. Berkeley High School is made up of a few small schools to make it a little more organized, and to allow the students to have classes with people they know, and to focus on what they think they want to do as adults. My first choice for the small school program was AC, or Academic Choice. In AC you take two required classes, your level of English and your level of Math, other then that, you are free to choose whatever classes you like, four are required. My second choice was AHA, the Arts and Humanities Academy. That one speaks for itself. My third choice (it was only my third choice because a counselor for the 'academy' lived around the corner from us, and suggested it to my mother) was CPA, or Community Partnerships Academy. If you wanted to be a paralegal, that was the small school for you. I got put in CPA. Now, I'm not complaining at all, at the time my mother was furious, but once she saw that I was actually making friends she was semi-okay with it. What this has to do with the title is that literally 95% of the CPA population was either African-American or Hispanic. I'm a white boy from a farm town. Define 'stranger in a strange land' any better for me, and I'll give you twenty bucks. After the first semester, I was widely accepted as an okay guy. I had quite a few friends that I thought I would never get close to at the beginning of the year, and I miss them all dearly. I got accustomed to the culture and adopted the local way of speaking (irritated the hell out of my parents, I might add) and even began to hang out with my new friends out of school. At first, it was a culture shock, and I got used to it, and since I've left, I miss it a lot, and not a day goes by where I don't wish I was still living there.

Now, for the story that I originally came up with for today's post. Coming back to Salinas/attending York was another culture shock, and I wasn't expecting it at all. In CPA, everybody basically had the same views on politics, religion and life in general. In my opinion, York's best quality is it's diversity. There are so many different people with such totally different views, and last year I learned how to adapt to those people, and even make friends with them. Coming to York, one of the first people I enjoyed being around is a guy named Henry. Henry and I have nothing in common, he's Conservative, pays attention in school, wants to go to a good college and all that jazz. Me? I'm a liberal and I want to drop out and get my GED at the end of my Junior year and move on to a Junior College. (We do have other differences, but it's late.) Yesterday, I was sitting at the Pick Up/Drop Off location with Kristina (carpool/long time friend), Hayden (Kristina's boyfriend and a new friend of mine) and Henry. Henry's mother was the first to show, and so he left.
(as they are pulling away)

Henry's Mom: So, was that the hippie kid from Berkeley you were sitting next to?
Henry: Yup.

-Bobby

Day 5: Comic Books

4 hours ago, I was worried that I would have little to nothing to talk about in today's post. Now, everything has changed.

I just got home from the coffee house with my mom. We had gone there so late at night to talk to a high school classmate of my dad's who is in town from LA, he's a comic book artist/writer. His brother created Johnny Bravo. He knows people like Damon Lindelof (Co-creator of Lost), Seth MacFarlane (Creator of Family Guy and American Dad) and Stan Lee (the comic book God). He was one of the most interesting people I've spoken to in a long time. He also inspired me to start reading a lot more, and not just literature, but comics and graphic novels. He said that I should get a few real books and a few comics, and read both at the same time. Pick up the novel, read a few chapters and then pick up the comic book the next day and read a few pages. I'm going to do it. At least for a little while. Believe it or not, comic books/graphic novels actually have quite a bit of literary value. Hopefully Borders will have some of what I'm looking for...

And now I have nothing more to say, short post tonight, guys and girls. Hope you all had a good Tuesday.

-Bobby

Day 4: First Day Back

I think they came up with the dog Snuggie like this.
1. Person buys a Snuggie.
2. Person leaves their Snuggie on the floor, on their bed, on their couch etc.
3. The persons dog finds a super fucking comfortable and warm spot to lay down that wasn't there before.
4. Person thinks 'Well, maybe if my dog wants to lay on it, they'll be willing to just wear one, as well'.
It's a sick world, folks.

Today was a day of days. It was the first day back to school from Winter Break, and really, the stress of knowing you have to go back was the worst part. The homework load so far isn't too bad, but I'm sure that's going to change soon enough. I got home and just kinda took a nap on the couch, if anything is going to kill me in the next few weeks, it's going to be the fact that I'm going to have to get to bed earlier if I don't want to be so tired. Is it weird to want to get the fuck out of high school in your sophomore year? I got senior-itus a little early, in my opinion.

My dad got frozen pizzas for dinner the past two nights, they were good though, from the Safeway bakery because he has theater rehearsal. So, my mom is taking tonight's pizza out of the fridge to put it in the oven, and a fairly large Ziploc container filled to the brim with enchilada sauce comes tumbling on out, smacks on the ground, and enchilada sauce goes everywhere. I wasn't in the kitchen for this, but I could tell something fell out of the fridge because I heard a thump followed by 'FUCK FUCK COCK GOD DAMMIT COCK FUCK!'. My mother despises the word cock, she finds it absolutely repulsive. No explanation behind it, she just hates it. So, for her to say it repeatedly and with such intense anger, I went into the kitchen to investigate.

Me: What happened?
Mom: I opened the god damn fridge and out comes that fucking enchilada sauce your father made.
Me: Oh, OK, I thought it was something that mattered.
Mom: You're blogging this, aren't you?

Also, if you were wondering, a 'Yorkie' is someone who attends York School in Monterey. Just figured I'd throw that out there. Logging for the night, everybody. See ya'll around.

-Bobby

Day 3: The Revelation

Today, I came to one of the most fascinating conclusions I have ever come to. If you are ever unsure of what to get at a doughnut shop, get the doughnut holes. Doughnut holes are the closest thing to universal a food can ever come to. Anywhere you go, the doughnut holes are going to taste creepily similar.

A lot went on today, it's my last day of Winter Break before I have to go back to getting lectured for eight hours a day. I think I made the most of it, but you can never really be sure of something like that. I woke up around noon and still completely rolled out of bed, I had plans with my mom to go to the coffee house my family has been going to for the last eleven years and hang out, and there was no way in hell she was letting them fall through. I got my coffee and received about 20 minutes of clarity before I realized that I just needed to put my head down for a few more minutes. I put my iPod on and my head down and in ten minutes I was ready to carry on a moderately intelligent conversation. I had brought books with me, but I didn't bring any intention to even open them. I steadily grew more and more aware that I was going to have a really boring two hours if I didn't find something to do, and quickly. I opened my bag, and when I saw what contained (something I didn't see in it before) it became clear that there was something destiny had planned for me today.

About a year and a half ago, I was at a friends house, both of us very bored. The friend of mine was a Junior at the time, and I a Freshman, so he could drive us, and he has a car. That day, we were inspired to do something so amazingly stupid that we had to it, and we had to do it then. It had been a running joke in our small circle of friends for maybe two years prior that we were going to do this, and what a perfect opportunity to make a joke into reality. We hopped in his car and drove into town, as he lives in the middle of nowhere, and the first thing we thought of was to head over to the house of another friend of ours, whose mother is so artsy and perfect some people might find it gross. She made us two signs, one for each of us. They both read 'FREE HUGS'. It was a Saturday, and if my memory serves me correctly, I had spent the previous night at his house. The day of the week is significant because Saturday's in Salinas, there is a Farmers Market in the parking lot, across the street from the local movie theater. A prime spot to give out free hugs? Yeah, you could say that. In a matter of fifteen minutes we had received a insane amount of attention, we had already been told that if we acted up any further we were going to kicked out of the Farmers Market. By this time, we were both having so much fun that we needed to keep going or our day would be ruined and our hopes for the future diminished. We crossed the street and stood in front the the Maya Cinemas. We started to get a bit of a crowd, they started asking questions. Questions neither of us had any clue how to answer. "What are you doing this for?", "Are you a part of some organization?", "Do your parents know you two are doing this?". Yes, a very angry woman even asked that last question. She was obviously not feelin' the love. We stood out there, hugging random strangers, for a good two hours before we called it a day and went back to his house.

Fast forward to today. You've already guessed what's in my bag. A 16'' by 16'' piece of cardstockish material, and in big bold letters the sign reads 'FREE HUGS'. Luckily, the cafe where we were is two blocks from the movie theater, so I took a walk down Main St. and started hugging away. I have since learned that Sunday's aren't very good for giving out hugs, nobody seems to be out and about in this small, crappy little town on a Sunday. All in all, it was a good day. Tomorrow? Well, we'll see what happens.

-Bobby

Day 2: A More Formal Introduction

I feel like an extremely cocky asshole. So, I'm going to apologize. I am sorry, Blogger, for seeming like a douche on the first day of this insane mission of mine. My post yesterday was very rushed, and I didn't have a whole lot of time to introduce myself, I moreso introduced my idea.

Hi, blog-readers, my name is Bobby. I am fifteen years old, and I live in Salinas, CA. Smaller then a small town, our 'claim to fame' is John Steinbeck. He wrote about Salinas, and the entire Central Coast of California. Salinas borders Monterey, which has (I believe) the second largest aquarium in the world, and thus is a pretty common spot for Marine Biology stuff to go down.
I am a sophomore at York School in Monterey, a college prep school, although I probably won't be going there next year (do better in school then I'm doing, kiddies). I like to do a lot of things, recently, I've re-discovered acting as a fairly large part of my life, and I've been trying to bring acting more into my life, but haven't had any success yet. Keeping my chin up, though, it's gotta turn around some time. Music is another large part of my life, I like everything from the Gorillaz to The Strokes. I haven't gotten around to it yet, but I'm going to start playing it fairly soon as well. I have a beginner 7-piece cherry red Pearl drum kit, and if I can get a 3.5 GPA this semester a family friend is going to get me a Fender Stratocaster and a 60 watt amp, which is pretty fucking awesome.

I don't think I really have anything else to say for now, any questions you non-existent readers have will be answered throughout the year, or you could ask them in the comments and I will be happy to answer them. Logging for now, guys and gals. Sleep well.

-Bobby

Day 1: The Mission

Today is the first day in the year 2010. A fresh start, some may say, a good time to set a goal for yourself for the next 364 days. Thus, I am blogging. My New Years resolution is to blog every day in the year 2010, about what, I haven't a clue. It's going to be the Seinfeld of blogs (a blog, about nothing), and I can't wait to see where it takes me. The reason behind this probably impossible mission? Over the course of the last 2 months my mother has been pressuring me to write. Just to write every day, because she thinks I'm a great writer. Now, I don't know about the "great writer" part of what she's been saying, but I do agree that I should be writing every day. It keeps me on my toes mentally, and will only further my abilities as a writer. This can really only benefit me as a human being, as I have recently realized, so I'm going for it. Write every day for 365 days in a row. Right about now you may be asking yourself 'Yeah, OK, that's an alright goal, but why make it public?'. Perfectly logical question to ask, and my answer is simple. I want Feedback. I'll be posting loads of different things, from reviews to short stories, and I want Feedback, opinions, writing technique suggestions. Everything. Anything you can offer up to make me a better writer, I want to hear it. Well, my godbrothers whom I have not seen in about 5 months and am very close to are here now, so I'm going to log for the night. Have a good one everybody. Happy New Year.

-Bobby