the other day i watched a big black guy on lets make a deal pick the wrong door. instead of a new bmw he won two road bikes.

Things i thought:
-He is probably more embarrassed/ insulted by the cultural inaccuracy of the "prize" than anything else
-He isn't sure if wayne brady too white to realize what just happened
-I can tell wayne brady is laughing hysterically on the inside by his facial expresssion
-I am thinking too hard about what they are thinking to realize how funny this is
-what the heck is up with white people and road bikes, anyway?

Accomplishment of the Week

I turned my test grade into a face.

Honoring God in your spiritual discipline becomes a lot easier when your your non-spiritual disciplines are executed as if He Himself asked you to do them.

my mother told me a story at the dinner table yesterday after i inquired about quirky things that i used to do when i was little. she told me that i used to take out all my toys when she was cooking dinner and spread them all over the floor in the kitchen so i could play while she was cooking. after she was done cooking she told me to put my toys back in my room. i would then get up, stare at the mess, look at my mom, and walk to my room and hide. patiently annoyed, my mom would follow me into my room and kindly remind me again that i had to clean up my mess. after repeating this a few times i finally walked back into the kitchen where i stood before my mess, overwhelmed by the task before me. after staring some more, i finally sat down and would slowly put each lego piece back into the bucket, one at a time. she couldn't get me to understand that i could get it all done in very little time if i simply scooped them all up at once.

she provided more detail and gestures that i cant portray in words, but the point is that i realized i haven't changed at all. i still do this. just not with legos.

"There is a culture of lies in white rock and and roll that you don't get in hip hop, jazz, or other areas, where people won't own up to their ambitions. So they pretend 'yeah man I'm just a punk rocker all i love is the music.' WRONG. If you love your music you're gonna wanna communicate- its about communication. Thats why you formed a band. No one formes a band unless they want to be the beatles, the rolling stones, the sex pistols, the clash or nirvana, you know? If you want a private little experience you can become a potter. Go buy yourself a potters wheel; go fuck off."

-Bono

freaking wedddings

Nostalgia

i remember the days when i had to ask my parents how many seconds i had to put food in the microwave. i also remember the first time i made my own bowl of cereal. it had lots of water and a small handfull of corn flakes in it.

you may have seen this already but just in case

John Mark McMillan - Skeleton Bones from john mark mcmillan on Vimeo.

some of these come from experiences and some are just thoughts

i'm no cyclist, but i have to laugh when i see people riding through campus on a mountain bike thats too small, with the seat all the way down, in the highest gear possible. i've seen it at least three times, so i'm allowed to make fun of it.

if you are a girl and want a guy to think you are interested in him, its doesn't necessarily make him feel good to tell him you think he's "a nice guy." i don't know.

I used to think Apple commercials were cool, but i just feel like some of them are mean. or like half of them are just about how they are cool. i like my mac though.

i like how when you go to the doctor and you have that waiting time between the nurse and the doctor and the doctor knocks and then waits for a half a second before he walks in. so if you found something embarrassing to do within that 10 minutes you have just enough time to at least look undeniably caught when they walk in.

every year it gets harder to not sing "have yourself a merry little christmas" out of season.

dirty laundry is like cereal; the small sediment falls to the bottom.

Progressive church bands everywhere are performing Kings of Leon's "Use Somebody." Why? I don't know

Things I thought about while walking to class in a non-punctual fashion

i do a lot of pointless things for no reason, yet i don't do a lot of things when i have plenty of reasons why i should.

sometimes i wonder (as i did today) if my life is like the truman show, and they just made the movie to mess with my head.

i like finding out that words we use in english have meaning in another language.

ex: chaise = chair
noir = black
Claire = bright
chat = doesn't have anything to do with instant messenger. it means cat.
je m'appele = them apples

No Subject

i'm back. i was too busy when i was in the outer banks all summer to keep up. i edited one old post and deleted another one. i do this thing where i think that i matured enough in a period of a couple months to be able to look at stuff i said and want to punch myself in the face.
if you wish, i edited a post from 4/10 that i thought needed some revising. i hope to continue being a bloggerdude again.

i am going to fill out a survey for a free chilfila sandwich and then wash a penis drawing off the top of my car that has been there for too long.

smitten.

if you have short hair, it's usually never a good idea to shave your sideburns off above your ear

"I'm a lover, not a fighter, but sometimes you have to fight to love"

-T.E. Lovers

sometimes a man gets carried away

when i am a grown up and have a house, it will have a piano and hopefully good art in it. and my wife and i will adopt a dog which we regularly take to the park down the road, regardless of pressing obligations. we won't be able to afford any of this, but buying things like unmatching, faded, disney-themed cups at the thrift store will hopefully balance out such expenses until we can lavishly furnish our home in a matching, yet modest theme. and when she (my wife, not the dog, although i think i'd like a girl) goes grocery shopping i think it would be cute if she used those earth friendly bags that you reuse. And when she comes home from doing such an errand our dog will shower her in slobbery kisses and i will put my latest composition on hold (lol jk) to get up from the piano and do the same. because she deserves it for being so indescribably lovely and for being my best friend and for being the most Godly person i know. and for putting up with my inablitity to do even the most basic things like grocery shopping, because i don't have (and probably still wont have) the capacity to buy things that you could put together and actually call "dinner."
EDIT: 1) i am not a composer. that is stupid.
2) That is also stupid, we will do grocery shopping together.

and no, i'm not going to apologize for fantasizing. but i'm open to God obliterating my expectations and blowing my mind with some plans that are top secret at the moment.

EDIT: that is stuff i still think but i use too many words and try too hard to sound cool

if things happened any other way it wouldn't be right.

"Every man dies. Not every man really lives."
-William Wallace

As surely as sparks fly upward

April 1 2009- 11:32pm:
life is a rollercoaster and at the moment i want to get off and go throw up.

(From now on i will no longer write like this.)


I feel like for the most part the way my life is lately is like having a rope tied around your waist thats connected to the bumper of a car. a car thats going so fast you just get dragged the whole time and try to run but cant keep up. much less stand. Every landmark, field of flowers, lone hitchhiker is an obligation or good intention that gets left behind because you don't have any control over when you stop. and then once the car is actually stopped, you spend all your energy thinking that you want to turn around and take pictures of what should have been beautiful moments. but your camera fell off your neck a long time ago, and you're too bruised to do anything but just sit there and rest anyway. or you're so relieved that you get a chance to breathe and stand up that you get caught up in those moments so much that you just start to enjoy the most minute detail of your brief rest before you're taken completely by surprise when the light turns green. You find yourself in a subdued panic in your realization that although you knew it was going to happen again, you spent no time preparing for the next dragging. On top of that, you didn't to recuperate from the last one. And you're suddenly doing the same thing you just told yourself you'd never let happen again. You'd kick yourself for it, but your legs are trailing limply behind you.

I made my roommate David read this, and he asked me questions I couldn't really answer on the spot. They made me feel silly, too, because I thought i was being really deep, and then he 1 upped me. but in a good way that made me think. Anyway, these were his questions...

Who tied me to the car, Who is driving the car, and is the car taking me to a better place?

All I could really say was, "I don't know, I haven't thought about any of those things yet, but thanks for ruining my extended metaphor." Also, maybe it would have been better, but i initially was going to explain everything with a metaphor using a crowded Tokyo crosswalk. But i've never been there before, so yeah. But I digress... If you can relate to this, then I'm glad I could maybe vocalize shared frustrations for you. If not, I'm sorry I've wasted your time and exposed you to sloppy punctuation/capitalization and unintentional changes in narrative form or tense that would have otherwise been fixed, had I been writing this for a certain english professor that likes to call me out for redundancies caused by my overuse of adjectives and adverbs, or for compound sentences that are way too long.

a list of things i want to do differently/more/better or just do period.

First of all, i'd like to say that, for the most part, I like who I am, and that God made me the way he did for a reason. But I'd venture that most of the following is the result of healthy thinking...

- crosswords

- read more. anything. Including the newspaper. 

- enjoy more classical/jazz/old R&B music. there's just so much of it that it overwhelms me.

- keep my room clean on a regular basis

- enjoy practicing. classical guitar. pop guitar. whatever. and be able to make it communication with God. not a chore. that would be awesome.

- procrastinate less. a lot less.

- give things away without thinking about it. and I mean things that I really like.

- take every chance I can to collaborate with another musician. no matter how good or bad i think they are. 

- learn to play cello

- spend less money on various and sundry stupid things and more on musical equipment or fixing what I already have.

- Be more pleasant/congenial/talkative when I'm around a large group of my extended family. I tend to shell up in those circumstances and end up appearing very aloof. Especially with my grandparents. In a couple cases, unfortunately, its already too late. That might be an inappropriate way to say it, but I don't know how else to.

- Absorb more from my classes. My music classes especially, but also stuff like history. I really envy people that know history. Thats what a liberal arts education is for, but I spend too much time thinking that learning stuff like that is a waste of time. 

- Take my thoughts and try to make them into songs. I'm too self-critical so I never finish anything. And sometimes I never even start. I'm also going to put journaling into this category. That includes song ideas, thoughts in general, things i want to say to God or that he said to me, people i need to remember to pray for. Because, to be honest I suck at remembering bible verses and people that I need to pray for.

- keep track of my money. What's it called? A register? yeah, one of those things.

- get to know people for the sake of knowing them and investing in something other than myself. 

- eat more organic/vegetarian food. and floss. floss more. both of those i think will pay off later.

- participate in more theatre productions. I kind of stopped after high school. But i love it and i kick myself every time i see i play or musical and wish i would have auditioned.

- exercise on a regular basis. not like every day for a week and then wait another two months for inspiration.

- and thats another thing, inspiration seems so hard to come by, and when it is there its like its there and gone and its not there long enough for me to do anything constructive or make good habits from it.

-Get better at haggling. Even saying the word "haggling" makes me cringe, but I think there's a way to do it. Some of the places I buy equipment from have such a huge profit margin that I shouldn't feel bad trying to pay less for things. I just get really uncomfortable and wimp out.

- Im really bad about compartmentalizing things in my life, as scattered as I am. I just have a tendency to do that- with my friends especially. I wish I could just be like, "Hey, I'm sorry, I don't want to do that," but in a way that people know that I genuinely enjoy who they are.

- Save up some money for a good turntable and speakers so I can really enjoy my moms old records (and the small collection I have from raiding thrift stores). Im still rocking the old school Fisher Price briefcase-record-player I used when I had Annie: The Soundtrack and Sesame Street Goes Disco on heavy rotation. 

this list is subject to changes and amendments.

Edit-Today @ 6:23 pm: I also want to make a 'SHRUTE FARMS BEETS' shirt for all of my friends. Including myself.

I'd hate to wake up and realize that I like the idea of being a music major more than actually being one

an out of context quote

"... I mean, thats ridicuolous. There's only twelve notes you can use. There's going to be repeats that you can't help, and if people can sue for that kind of stuff then Hillsong should sue itself."

-Andy Kurzweg

I grew up knowing the importance of red white and blue. the three primary colors.

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then three pictures are worth three thousand words.

Usually the stuff I think is funny that I think of in my head, people don't think is funny. So occasionally have some of my favorite times when I've been by myself long enough to start thinking aloud. And there's no one to tell me my jokes aren't funny. But trust me that doesn't happen all the time. And also, alot of stuff that people think is funny is stuff I didn't intend to do, so then I can't figure out if they're laughing AT me or what, and then I miss a good moment cause I'm thinking too hard or getting offended for no reason.

I wish I had more functional clothing. My wardrobe is just made up of items I think are cool that don't usually fit together. I don't really think of that when I buy them. And I have a lot of shirts that I've collected over the years, but still. I want to be that guy that can wear the same pair of vans or something for everything. My pair is old and has big holes in them but I'd feel guilty getting another pair of shoes. This paragraph is boring.

I was driving behind a truck the other day, and on the back of it there was a sign that read "If you cant see my mirrors, I can't see you." So I slowed down and found out just how far I had to back up so he could see me. And I was like, "Hey man, this is too far. I don't have time for this, and the people behind me are getting impatient."

3 Bands I always wanted to listen to but never did.

1. Dinosaur Jr. (Trent Peacock, my youth pastor, introduced me. How? I don't know)

2. Fugazi (i heard some when i roomed with C Custer last year. Also, there was this guy in my junior english class. Derek Strong. We had to do a project where you picked a song that said some thing about social injustice and stuff. So naturally people picked like Bob Dylan or Jack Johnson [okay that was me] or that big yellow taxi song. Anyways, homeboy plays a fugazi tune and no one said a word after it finished. it was the best thing ever. I secretly felt bad because at the beginning of the year I remember telling everyone i thought he was going to kill us [and for selling out/taking the easy route with a JJ song]. Strong was a quiet type, but i underestimated him in my attempt to make my peers laugh, and also probably on many other occasions. So Derek Strong- Im sorry. I like you. Your're an okay guy. I hope I can prove to you someday I am too.)

3. Ryan Adams (i just got really angry because i couldn't remember my third pick. But i just remembered- its Ryan Adams. My confession is that the only song of his i really know is his Wonderwall cover. Which I'm pretty sure is way better. And i dare say that even Noel Gallagher himself agrees. Tell me if I'm wrong, but Gallagher copied parts of a song from a guy who copied him but made it sound cooler.)

EDIT: I decided to lose the stingray sidebar. As cool as it was, it just didn't fit the theme. And i didn't feel like taking the time to make the colors match. It would have been trying too hard. And that, my friends, is not classy.

I want new music that doesn't remind me of things that bother me.

a common typo I make when texting is saying "ate" instead of "are." so it's usually especially comical when I saying something like, " when ate you goimg to dinner?" Man, what a laugh.

There is so much a man can tell you, so much be can say

I think I'm going to make and wear a sign on my chest that reads, "MY BREAK WAS GOOD, THANKS."

you should try listening to The Enemy Lovers for a change

also. this isn't the correct website to watch The Office online i think. 

If there's one thing I can count on, it's my mom always keeping a good supply/variety of shredded cheese in the refrigerator.

www.creedthoughts.gov/www.creedthoughts 

there's nothing more disappointing than realizing that an idea you or someone else had has already been done. if it was you, you realize you're not as cool as you though you were. and if it's someone else, you're mad for thinking they were cooler than they really are. thieves..

water

according to Alyssa, the money the east coast alone spends on bottles water could provide the rest of the world with clean water. I don't know I exactly how true that is; regarless... I just bought water with vitamins in it.

you should really see this guys website. and watch the video if you have time. you can donate and/or buy a tshirt if you feeling like giving a charitable contribution and also getting a cool shirt at the same time.

Slumdog Millionare was incredible

i knew i needed to take a break when i heard myself say, "Oh Toby, you're funny.. haaa." aloud. i mean he's just so dull, you know? and then like Creed, HA. Well he doesn't even know anyone's name.


I'm making strides towards growing up.
1. I'm not going to say everything aloud (or type for that matter, but this is important) when I think of it. I also won't overthink things. Like deciding whether or not I should say what I think.
2. I'm going to make better efforts to capitalize things and avoid unintentional omission of punctuation on the computer, like apostrophes.

i think as long as people like Jeff Buckley keep making music the world will be okay.

some proverbs

don't ever, under any circumstance, let someone eat a chili dog in your car.

a penny saved is worth two in the bush.

delight yourself in the devil and your plans will probably fail. in fact, they will literally burst into flames. just kidding. but seriously, if you write them on paper, then probably yeah.

you know those bands that are all computer music and people think they are cool? are they rockstars or still nerds?

driving behind or along a truck full of caged chickens is a bad idea in a lot of ways. trust me, when unhappy chickens make eye contact they see into your soul and make you wanna be a better person.

if i had 50 cents for every time someone told me they like my orange hat, i'd have like $2.00

proverbs 11:25

ive resolved to sleeping on some of my jokes before i blog 'em. some of them probably waayyy too cheesy, you know? i just hope i don't crinkle my notes in the process.

i hate run on sentences they are bad they should be fixed.

i think a good idea for a video for Faith Hill's "Breathe" would have been a lady giving birth.

i wish i had a short little man to sing me "tutti frutti" to wake me up in the morning. if he was tall i couldn't tap him on the head for snooze mode. i guess he can be tall. but he should at least do that thing where people get on their knees and "put on shoes" so i can at least not be so weirded out when there's this tall guy sitting there and i'm trying to go to bed. and i guess if i get tired of "tutti Frutti" (OMG!UNLIKELY), he can switch to "rockin' robin."

i keep the blood brothers on my itunes just in case i feel like getting really angry and breaking my computer. also to teach myself a lesson: if you are patient, bob dylan will always come through for you.

new lonely island 

there was this girl the other day at dinner with a large salad that was mostly tomatoes and banana peppers covered in italian dressing. upon glancing again, i noticed she had an even bigger salad that was mostly mushrooms.

people make me mad. and i don't even know them. i'm like, seriously, do you really want to get a hot chocolate?

preesh and presh are two words that should not be confused. 

starting a list of words i need to start using more. it includes "astounding" and "boss." and this word i heard House say last night. it starts with a p.

Santana, you used to be cool, man.

im not gonna talk about myself as much this time around. just things i think are really important that have happened to me.

I'm finding out how important i think it is to use the proper form of they're there and there. it just really bothers me that people don't know what to use.

I thought today that listening to the radio is like that feeling that you get when realizing that you've been eating the same food for a long time over and over and thinking that you could probably go the rest of your life without ever having it again.

you know how in the emergency room they put certain people on different levels of priority depending on their situation? well what if there was two people that came in at the same time and one had a broken arm and the other had a broken leg? and then the receptionist is like, "well i don't know what to do, so who wants to go first?" and then the guy with the broken arm probably loses because its too painful to raise his arm quick.