Where to find me

In case you miss these posts, my school blog (csmeeth.umwblogs.org) is occasionally updated as well as following me on Twitter @CSmeeth. My school blog is used mainly for academic-related thoughts, but I try to make it fun. As for Twitter, it's my random, non-academia-related thoughts and the like. Get at me, peeps.

First semester reflections from sophomore year

(Sorry about the lack of content for a while. I've been busy as well as blogging on my school blog at csmeeth.umwblogs.org.Anyways, here's the update.)
So the first semester of sophomore year is over as of yesterday, and man did the time fly. As cliched as this sounds, especially since I’m a veteran student here at UMW, it seems like the other day that I was moving in to Eagle Landing. It definitely feels like a long time ago since I moved in only to run smack dab into that overhyped storm of ours and to lose power for several hours. Anyways, I can’t believe that I’m halfway through to being halfway through my collegiate career. In honor of that, I’d like to take a look back at the highlights of the year so far.
- Moving in and meeting my roommate and the suitemates for year two. They’re a great bunch of guys, and I can’t wish for better.
- Moving in and having the power go out an hour after I’d arrived, and since we were on first floor nobody was there. I’d like to thank Nina and her friends for providing us with something to do in that time.
- Realizing that Harry was a far, far better roommate than one of my two ones from last year.
- Finding out that I had two members of the tennis team as suitemates.
- Realizing that I was a sophomore in college, with the cliched phenomenon of questioning where the time went.
- The epic Mario Kart/Super Smash Bros./Mario Party sessions we’ve had, as well as the first Mario Kart tournament I’ve been a part of.
- "Suck it Birdo"...then at the very end getting lapped by him/her/it/whatever the hell it is.
- "Look mom, I can fly!", followed by me getting hit and then run over and then being knocked out of bounds.
- Establishing how much of a useless moron Funky Kong is. Yes, I'm still mad about his lack of prowess in both Mario Kart and Mario Super Sluggers. My god do I hate that useless piece of shit.
- Getting game-winning, walk off three run homers off of Mark to come from behind and win. Though I'm now 3-4 against him, and I almost had another comeback of my own, but alas, it wasn't enough as I eventually lost by one run to lose the series against him.
- Running out to GameStop when NHL 12 and Skyrim came out, and being judged, in a good way, for doing so. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
- Year two of the UMW Street Hockey Club, and the awesomeness that we’ve had so far. No seriously, we have our own version of the Stanley Cup-the Eagle One Cup.
- All the stupid things we’ve said and subsequently coined as the phrases in our room. We “roll how we do”, after all.
- All of the stuff we’ve done in our room that made first semester as quirky as it has been.
- Our living room couch being where both Alex and Mark brought girls back. Use your imagination as to how they used it.
- Segue: waking up at 10 AM on a Monday morning to hear a guy and girl having pretty loud sex in the room next door.
- ATTENTION: The walls in Eagle Landing are not, as they claim, soundproof.
- The laughs we’ve all collectively shared.
- The awesome people I’ve met so far this year.
- Getting away with doing even more texting in the back corner of the band room for Symphony…and knowing that at the end of the year I’ll get paid for doing so. Life is good.
- Being fortunate enough to play with great musicians in the concerts we’ve had so far.
- The lucky moments where something awesome happened out of nothing.
- Our infamous moment where we played Mario Party at 1 in the morning, thanks to Mark being super drunk and insisting that we play. We ended up not beating him because of *bleeping* Birdo, who got insanely lucky. I may still be mad from that.
- Learning in ways in which we didn’t care to about how exactly soundproof the walls in Eagle Landing are.
- Learning that Poptarts may/may not be a way to serve as a pickup line.
- All the random conversations that we’ve had after German class.
- Being able to talk about the English Premier League, and talking smack about Man. United and Man. City. It’s all about Chelsea FC anyways.
- Meeting the greatest people while volunteering.
- The amazing satisfaction when you look at what you’ve accomplished when volunteering. It’s an amazing feeling!
- Finding out that you’re not the only person with a flag of Bhutan in their room. Thanks, Tonto!

There may be things that I left out here, and come to think of I’m pretty sure I’ve left out a ton, but this is all that I can remember for now. Hey well, here’s to another semester of making memories at UMW!

RIP Grandma

Earlier this morning I got the horrible news that my grandma passed away. Later on today I learned that she was diagnosed last week with lung cancer, and that the doctors couldn't do anything for her. It's harsh and brutally sobering to hear this awful piece of news.Though to be fair, I feel that it might have been better for her to not to suffer with a prolonged treatment. Either way, I will miss you grandma and I will love you for forever. May you be eternally happy with grandpa up there in Heaven.

Nancy Smeeth September 14, 1929-October 6, 2011 RIP

What I've learned this week

These are some of the things that I've learned this week:
- Pancho Villa is great and almost, in my humble opinion, a great substitute for Chipotle.
- If you don't study for Arabic for at least an hour a week, it comes back to bone you in the ass. And yes, this is in reference to the fact that I'm completely unprepared for my midterm in that class on Monday.
- German Lit allows us to watch vintage classical 1930's movies, and I'm very much okay with that.
- Volunteering for great causes+ free t-shirts= me volunteering more. Not that I can't afford to not volunteer (long story about that that I'll explain if you ask me outside of this blog).
- We can have long conversations while walking back to our dorm about that one guy in our German class who clearly is a suck up and wants to make things very well known about his own skills, as well as clearly wanting to play "baseball" with a girl in our class.
- The pizza from the Nest somehow tastes a heck of a lot better when I'm there with my friends from my German class. I dunno why, but it never seems to taste as good for me when I'm by myself.
- People watching while spending two hours for the Inaugural Ball. I never really knew until tonight how some people can pull off certain dresses and look that good. There seriously were some really good looking girls/ladies that walked into the convocation center tonight.
- How awesome my roomie is that he buys me Pancho Villa and delivers it to me while I'm volunteering and then hangs out with me to make the rest of the shift a heck of a lot better. You rock, Harry!
- Don't sprint down the hill immediately after eating Pancho Villa, cause that's just horrible on your stomach. Something you shouldn't try at home, kids.

KHL related note

After today's horrible KHL tragedy, I texted both my parents to tell them I loved them. These were the responses. I just want to appreciate the time with them, as today has proven that anything can happen in the blink of the eye. And if anybody is reading this, please, please, please, tell your parents/loved ones that you love them.


From my mom:
"We love [yo]u dearly too"

From my dad
Via text: "Stuff happens. Live every moment like the next [yo]u will meet Jesus. Love you son."
Via email: "We love you, son. You are our ‘beemish boy’, our ‘sun and stars’."

Hockey Tragedy

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/blog/puck_daddy/post/Report-Plane-crash-kills-8216-majority-8217-?urn=nhl-wp11993&cmp=fb#mwpphu-container



RIP Lokomotiv Yaroslavl players

Move in day and some more

Well today I moved in to the fabulous Eagle Landing, which is nothing short of awesome! However, as you may be aware, there's a hurricane brewing on the coast. And we got hit with that. Oh yes, we got the best of it-our power went out for the better part of 7 hours. Now, I wouldn't mind this, except for the fact that it got to the point where going out to Giant was the highlight of the no power part. However, thanks to the fact that I signed up for Facebook Mobile, I got a notification that my friend Nina was hanging out with friends around where my roomie Harry and I were walking to. This ended up with us all going on an "adventure", aka going "ghosthunting" with "real" equipment. This in turn ended up with us hanging out by the water fountain. Which also ended up us all hanging out and talking for another hour or two. Who knew, this also led to a great night out of literally nothing much.

Also, my roommate/suitemate(s) are pretty cool. Harry, my roommate, really is laid back and really nice. Mark (and Alex, who apparently isn't moving in until Saturday) is cool too and is on the tennis team, same with Alex. Guess I'll be getting some matches in with them!

Today's Earthquake Thoughts

I was playing pickup hockey at Kettler earlier today when we were told to evacuate the building. At first, we all just head a massive sound, like something huge got in an equally huge collision. In retrospect, that should have tipped us off that something was up, as no teams were training in sight. Almost right away we were told to get off the ice; this was surprising at the moment, as we had a good 20 minutes left and I didn't think that there were any other events using the ice after us. Eventually we found out that we just went though a (5.9) earthquake, and since we were on the top floor of a seven story building, it would be in our best interest to get off of it. However, the point was raised that if we collapsed, being on the top floor, it probably would be better giving that everybody else below us would act as a cushion of sorts. Or not. But being in a room full of hockey players, we all stuck around to change out of our equipment in spite of the potential danger. Huzzah for being good like that!

I mean, the only thing I really was bummed about was losing 20 minutes of pickup hockey, given that a) this was my last session for the summer and for a while and b) I did pay $15 for that, so yeah. Though a close second was not being able to update my Facebook and Twitter statuses, thanks to the apparent temporary lack of signal in the area.

In all seriousness though, I hope nobody was hurt and everybody is safe

Conan the Barbarian review, part two, or, The Life and Times of Cimmeria's Most Famous Barbarian

(Part two of my review of the movie, this time in a not very serious way. Seriously. This is in the spirit of running with the fact that I'm vindicated from hearing jokes about my name.)

I just want to say that the documentary of my life was very well done. It really captured the spirit of my life, complete with the whole revenge and the like. In case you movie goers needed any confirmation, decapitating your enemies is an art form; I didn't spend my young years learning the art of killing for nothing. You may doubt that, but lining a man up to maximize the efficiency of cold, hard steel cutting through him takes practice, lots of practice.

Growing up in the wild plains of Cimmeria, I can affirm that you had to be tough like that. The old man made sure that you learned how to be tough. You know those muscles I had? Well, they were due to fighting in village tournaments where the motto was "twenty versus one is fair game". I earned those muscles let me tell you.

Another thing I'd like to point out is that in no way was the lack of affirmative action in completing my revenge for a while is who I am. Really. If I had my way, I would have hacked my way until the last baddie was dead. However, that's not for a very good documentary if everybody is dead within 30 minutes, so I (reluctantly) agreed not to run around killing everything in sight. So I'd like to dedicate this public service announcement to say that I'm actually quite efficient at being a barbarian and the like, contrary to what you all might have seen.

Okay so some people have asked me, "are you really that rough with maidens who are the last of an ancient bloodline?" I'd like to come forth and say that normally I'm not, but you know, I was a bit mad that day, and unfortunately the cameras caught me like that. Women are to be treated with respect, and I honor that. Well to be fair, in Cimmeria if you treat the women like that you're probably going to get a dagger up your windpipe, or worse. So yes, I'd like to think that I am very good with all the women out there. Which is why I attract hordes of them everywhere I go. (Come to think of it, having liberating them might help too.). Oh, on that topic, I'm an equal opportunist when it comes to wearing shirts. Just going to throw that out there.

I've also come under fire for feeling, ahem, very passionate at inappropriate times. What's a barbarian got to do to get respect? I mean, being a barbarian means that we log long and tiring hours-a man's gotta relax at some point. And I mean, romance is good to break up the monotony of these documentaries . So I don't think you can hardly fault me for feeling at ease at times. 


Don't go around thinking that I'm weak with words. I'm not. I just think that making what some people call "a dramatic speech" kind of guy. I mean, you can do that, but I prefer cleaving my enemies in half after telling that I'm going to do that. Saves the effort of having to think of witty things to say anyways.

So yeah, I hope this shares my insight on how my documentary came out. I'd shake your hand in congratulations for doing such a great job on it, but I've got a ton of blood on my hands at the moment so...

PS. What they say about barbarians having huge swords is true

Chinese-Taipei baseball domination

While I'm proud that they beat Aruba, it got to the point where they should have ended it ASAP. I mean, winning 20-3 is just killing the spirit of competition. When you're winning 13-0 at the top of the 3rd inning, they should just end the dang game. Yeah, I know the Aruban team is here and might want to play more, but enough really is enough.

Conan the Barbarian review

Okay folks, I just saw my namesake movie, as the title suggests. I'm going to be doing the review in one of two ways, breaking away from the usual mold. The first review, this one, is a completely serious review, and the second one is going to be my attempt at poking fun at it as well as rolling with the obvious documentary of my life (just rolling with the whole "Conan" thing there). Here goes part one of two.

First of all, the movie was based off of the Robert Howard books, which I will say that I've read and they're pretty awesome. However, this means that the basic plot, if you can call it that, is that some bad guy has done something bad/is planning to bring some nasty evil back to life/wants to cause massive harm to the world/all of the above. Hence, this generally results with a lot of violence and dead bodies, and in the end, Conan (I love typing my name, even more so with what I'm about to say next) ends up getting a girl(s) and...well, unwinds with them. Apparently the director decided to remain relatively faithful as, well, death, tons of bodies, and plenty of gore happens during the movie. As for the plot, the only thing you need to know is that there's this mask that gives the wearer pretty much unlimited power to do whatever he wants-in this case it's to be the one ruler to rule them all. Once this is established, that plot really goes right out the window. I'll admit that I like it when there's not much to think about plot-wise; however, some more plot could have made the movie a bit more intelligent and have added to the "Conan's killing everybody and anything that gets in his path to stop the baddie from winning" bit. Oh well. Though it wasn't like I was expecting anything really special regarding to the plot, it's just something that I may have liked to have seen.

The acting was, in a nutshell, just looking mad or shocked. One may think that this isn't so much as acting as just reacting, and I kinda have to agree, but once again, I don't think anybody really was expecting it involve exceptional acting in the first place. Once you move on from that, I really like the characters. The right people were cast in the right roles, I thought. As a side note, the actor who played my namesack (or vise versa) has been in TV/movies where he's required to be the military guy, so you could see that that experience carried over. Plus, he made me proud to share a name with him. I thought that the main female protagonist, Tamara, really seemed genuinely shocked at being a key point in the story, and thus I think her part was very solid. On the note of females to note in the movie, the main female antagonist was well played too-by the end of the movie, I hated her guts and her looks (that makeup is hideous, holy crap. I kid you not on this, it's hideous. Though the part kinda calls for it, I will say that she didn't look bad portrayed as a child, but something really got lost in translation when she got older.), and thus was happily cheering her demise. I don't want to get lazy, but the other actors did their parts and it wasn't bad.

The violence really stands out, so if you're either squeamish and/or don't like blood, then you probably won't like this movie. Nothing too bad, but this movie definitely earned its R rating. I came in expecting dismembered limbs and the like, but the only few times were a few decapitated heads. I apologize if this disgusts you, and I know to a certain point it did for me, but it was far more manageable than I thought. And the only real violence came during the first half an hour of the movie, so thankfully the more gruesome/violent bits sorted themselves out of the way quickly. Come to think of it, another possible turnoff is the female nudity involved. As there are very bare chests for the females (and this most likely is a part of the faithfulness from the books), which makes sense given the context, if you're with parents and even grandparents, it isn't exactly your cup of tea. Like the noted violence that I mentioned earlier, this nudity is confined to the first half an hour of the movie, thankfully.

Comparing this to the Arnold Schwarzenegger Conan film, there are some things different for both good and bad. Getting it out of the way, I felt like this movie was like a video game in terms of the fighting. Not necessarily a bad thing of that, as it's a movie after all, but I really did feel like it was a bit rushed as well as the general feeling of being too cliched at times. Another negative comparison to the original film was that the way the baddie dies felt cheap; my friend and I agreed, and I'm sure others will/did too, was that the suspense building up to the final duel wasn't sustained, and thus, he died in a way that didn't make me feel like it was worth it. What I mean to say is, it was a moment of "we're going to have to bad guy die just to end the movie", whereas I know the ending of the original was a "you're going to die, you son of a bitch, and I'm going to enjoy ending your life" kind of deal. As far as the negative comparisons, that was it for me. The positives were the scenery of the movie (I still need to look more into where they filmed-it was picturesque!), the faithfulness to the books, and the effects. It may be unfair to compare the 80's movie to today's one with all the digital effects Hollywood can produce, but dang they really made an impact on the effect of the movie.

Overall, I can see why the movie was widely panned. After all, this was just sword fighting porn with the plot introducing itself and then promptly handing the ball over and never really gaining possession back. Yes the movie is built off of violence, but that was one of the key points of the movie anyway. Yes, the movie felt like it should have/could have gone on for at least an extra half an hour, but I was satisfied with it. Will I ultimately buy this when it comes out on DVD? Probably not. Is it worth seeing in theaters? I guess so. Is it a decent time to spend watching for about 2 hours? Yeah, though come prepared for death and mayhem. It is by no means a life changing movie, but I won't lie, it was a great way to spend an afternoon.

An Ode to Those Whom You Love

Time for another poem I wrote (warning, it's probably the mushiest I've ever written):

No matter what it may seem like, no matter what the situation, I love you.

You see, we've been together, by each other's side for as long as you or I can remember. Bless the time we've been together!

You mean so much to me, mean the world to me. Actually, to me, you are the world. You are my world, where I revolve around your presence. Seeing you every day jut makes me realize how much you mean to me. Waking up is the highlight of the day for me because it means that it's one more day I get to spend with you.

When I'm out, I'm thinking of the time when I'll be home and get to spend time with you, as it is the time where you are the sun and brighten up my day. Even when I'm so far from home, I think about you and it makes me happy. Happy to be a part of your life.

Forever and forever, I will always love you-you will always be a part of my heart.

Flag survey

All righty, so I'm thinking about picking up two new flags for the school/to pimp my room out. Anyways, any chance I could get some more opinions (some help Rachel?) on the choices I have. Here they are:
- Wales
- Isle of Man
- Slovakia
- Slovenia
- Taiwan
- Montenegro
- Greenland
- Faroe Islands
- any of the Scandinavian countries
- Austria (with the eagle)
- Kiribati
- Brunei
- Czech Republic
- Liechtenstein

Bonus, if I can find a site that's cheap, these are the ones I'm looking into:
- the Sami flag, as in the region of Scandinavia and northern Russia where the indigenous natives live
- Aland (small island off between Sweden and Finland that belongs to Finland)
- the bailiwick of Guernsey (one of the Channel Islands)
- the Channel Island of Sark
- the flag of the region of South Tirol

Thought this was awesome

It might be late, but the since retired Kris Draper said this at his press conference that I thought was amazing. What a guy.

"You guys inspired me every day. Every day I went to the gym, I thought of you guys. Every game day, I wanted to play so well because I knew you guys would be watching. I wanted to work so hard ... so you guys would be proud of me."
- Kris Draper, speaking to his wife Julie, his son Kienan and his daughters Kennedi and Kamryn, at his retirement press conference.

I am

Hi, I am Conan.
I am a student in college.
More importantly, I am me.

Not you nor him, but I am me. I am myself.

I am a son, grandson, and an uncle. I am a person who loves and is loved. I love back and am stronger for doing so.

I am an individual. I do what I think I want to do, not what somebody else tells me to do. I do not want to be one of the crowd. I want to be known for what I have done.

I am a college student learning the knowledge that will define me in the years to come. I am a seeker of knowledge.

I am caring. I will be there for you. I am the person who will lend a shoulder to cry on. I am a person who will be there to hear you talk or vent the world to. I will be there in your darkest hour as well as your hour of triumph.

I am a friend. I will be there with you, no matter what. I will be there rain or shine, and you can count on that.

I am an athlete. I am a tennis player who will give you his best effort all the time. I am a hockey player who can play all of the positions. I also am a hockey player who will give you 110 percent 100 percent of the time. I am a player who may not be the most talented out there but who will make up for that by giving you his heart and soul. I am an athlete who will fight hard until the very end, and fight with honor and glory. I am an athlete who is magnanimous in both victory and defeat. I am athlete who is ready to compete, no matter what the odds might say. I am an athlete who will be proud at the end of the day who can look back and be proud of his results.

I am a musician first and foremost, not just a bass trombonist. I am a 19 year old who is captivated by being involved with music. I am a person who loves to make people happy by playing note after note for hours and hours on end. I am a musician who will practice for countless hours to learn how the craft the art that literally lies in my hands. I am a person who can and will listen to music for eternity. I am one with the music.

I am unique. I am not mass produced-I will create my path down life's highway. I have the passion to know what I enjoy. I take pleasure in the little things in life. I am a young adult who takes the road not taken, and I am all the better for doing so.

I am strong. I am a competitor; I will never give up on what life may throw at me. I know that whatever the future deems that I must go through, I will not complain. I know that life is ever changing, thus I do not worry when something does not go my way.

I am an opportunist, in the sense that if you hand me the ball, I'll run with it. You just need to give me a chance for me, and I promise that I will make the most of it. I am a person who sees chances everywhere.I know that out of every situation, no matter how dire it seems, I can learn.

I am a person who smiles. I am a person who sees the beauty and joy in life. There are so many amazing things surrounding me that it really is hard not to smile at being blessed with such fortune. I am a 19 year old who will always smile and that fact cannot be taken from me.


I am a person who may not be exceptionally popular. That's okay, I don't need that to define me. I don't feel the need to have to strive for something artificial. I know that no matter what, I'm going to better off just by maintaining what I always do.

I am me, and I always will be me.

Check out these hockey gloves

If you can see this link via Facebook, here it is:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150244746916746&set=a.130594126745.115171.110174536745&type=1&theater

(And yes, the University of Alabama-Huntsville has a D1 team)

One of the funnier video game examples of insults

http://kol.coldfront.net/thekolwiki/index.php/Insult_Beer_Pong

Some of the responses are gold (...Jerry. Gold!)!

Kids these days

So I'm on the UMW Class of 2015 Facebook group to help offer advice on the collegiate experience, when there's a post by this guy who said that he's never done laundry in his life and wants tips/help/help by others to do it for him. Really dude? You've never done laundry? I swear, what has this world come to? I mean, I can only speak for myself but I've been doing my laundry since 7th grade; why can't you do it? Maybe I should thank my parents for doing a pretty good job on getting ready/living on my own in college, but that's kinda sad, in my opinion. Maybe I'm biased, yes, but this guy doesn't exactly seem like he's adequately prepared to live on his own for the next four years. And his girlfriend also offered to do his laundry for him, which is nice and all, but dude, come on, you're going to need to learn how to do it eventually. And also, I don't know if they changed the washers and driers on campus, but it's so easy a caveman can do it (sorry Geico). Just put your clothes in, followed by the detergent and/or detergent sheet(s) in, and voila! your clothes are washed/dried.

Okay, rant over. But seriously, one would think that laundry is a basic part of life, and that it's a little bit shocking to think that one can be that pampered to not have to do it.

Music awesomeness

Been listening to some jazz today, aka Bob McChesney and his sweet, smoothy sound. The man's tone feels like you're in heaven, I swear! And you know what? I've played with him during our UMW Jazz Festival! But yeah, I highly recommend listening to some of his stuff-it really makes a lazy Sunday feel even more relaxing.

Also, another awesome song that I just discovered is the HBO series' adaption of the Song of Ice and Fire novels, the Game of Thrones's Main Title. As far as a main title goes, it is epic. Like, I'd listen to it just to get pumped up for sports, music, and life in general. Holy crap is it awesome! (Disclaimer: while I haven't seen the series yet, I've read the books up to the latest one. I will be checking out the show ASAP.) On that segue, I'll be sure to listen to more of the soundtrack, which is up on iTunes by the way.

Random Liechtenstein Post

Got linked to this by the Lonely Planet Twitter account, and this is a doozy. It really showed more to Liechtenstein than meets the eye.

http://www.groundedtraveler.com/2011/07/25/into-the-alps-weekend-in-liechtenstein/

Smeeth's Law of Tennis

This sudden thought just came to me, and thus, I coin Smeeth's Law of Tennis:
I play better when I haven't played in a while. As in, a couple months up to a year off of tennis always ends up with me playing better, or at least on par, with how I'd been playing when I was active and playing tennis. I think this is partially due to the fact that I forget about the bad parts of my service game.

RIP Borders, I'll miss you/A rant against the closing against bookstores

I know that I'd heard this before but today there was an article confirming the now slowly-dying death that Borders is going through. Not only is this a bad time for books/bookstores/readers/me, but it also signifies the gradual decrease in our standards in the country. I mean, think about it. The fewer books we have to read, the less we're going to break away from tv, computers, and video games. I know this may seem somewhat harsh, and I apologize for it, but the way I've seen our society, we're not getting any smarter; without book stores, not many more people are going to be reading, and that's where society is going to take a hit. Example of this: there's somebody I know whom I'm not going to name, but she says she doesn't read. I feel this reflects on the current state of America as we're far more occupied with technology. When you bundle this with the fact that we've been known to collectively not fare well with essential knowledge (i.e. basic geography, American/world history, etc.) the important role of books helps out, but alas, the chance to get more enlightened is slowly ebbing away. It's great and all that we can get the books we want digitally, but it's not the same. If anything, it just adds on to our reliance to technology, which can turn out to be our downfall. What if, for some reason or another, that the technology went kaput? We'd be screwed. Another peeve of mine is that it's harder to carry the e-readers with you on trips, whereas books are simpler to carry. The maintenance of it also can be raised as a negative; you'd need to recharge/need batteries for the e-readers as opposed to good, old fashioned books being simple and unneedy. Okay so maybe I'm biased as I haven't used an e-reader or a Kindle, but you can see what I'm trying to say, I hope.

Moving away from the personal rant, I'm going to miss Borders a ton. I know that there's Barnes and Nobles to go to, and even the library, but to this blogger, Borders was like a large family. Whenever I went there, I knew that the environment of it would make for a spiritual trip there. The hours I spent in there were quiet and peaceful, and I don't think I'll really be able to get that experience very easily from now on. I know I shouldn't be complaining about having other options, but for some reason, Barnes and Nobles hasn't cut it for me. I guess it seems too quiet there for my liking, or maybe I'm just biased and like the Borders way of organizing the books. However, in the end, I'll have to make trips to B & N. Another thing I'm going to miss of Borders is their generous coupons. Really, you can't beat coupons that offer up to 40% off of their products. And their staff are warm and inviting, whereas the times I've been to B & N the staff haven't been as warm as I'd have preferred. Ah well, I guess I can go to the libraries instead of B & N and save money while patronizing them.

In the end, here are my reasons why I'm vehemently opposed to the closing of bookstores:
- Borders is/was an awesome place to go read and purchase books
- Technology has cut into the book buying business
- I feel that in my humble opinion, technology has barged in on to the sacred territory that books hold in my heart
- America really can't afford to read less books
- On that note, technology has spoiled Americans. It's okay to read books now and then-nobody thinks less of you for doing so, I promise.
- 10,700 jobs are going out the window thanks to Borders shutting down all of their stores; what happens if the other bookstores die down the road?
- Reading has always been a favorite pastime of mine. Please, for the next generations, let's keep that up.

Eurovision 2010 (and some of '11)

Thanks to the web comic site Scandinavia and the World, I somehow got linked to the Eurovision contest songs. For those of you not in the know, it's like a World Cup of European (and some European-minded non-European countries, like Azerbaijan and Israel, etc.) song-offs. Anyways, it's pretty competitive from what I can gather and it's fairly prestigious too. So yeah, I've been listening to some of the individuals/acts representing the countries and I've come away pretty darn impressed! This has also led to some semi-rash song purchases on iTunes, but anyways, the Eurovision contest(s) are something I'm definitely gonna be looking up next year. Also, said contest next year will be held in Azerbaijan because their representatives this year won it all; personally, I think it's cool that the winner gets to hold the successive one. My final parting thought on this is that man, for such a small population, Iceland has some great performers.

Eye infections suck

Words I didn't want to hear today: "Your eye only has healed 50%". I thought my eye had healed satisfactory enough for me to resume wearing my beloved contacts, but no, they haven't. Meaning, I'll be taking meds for it for another two weeks, let alone having to wear glasses for that long (nothing against glasses, but they hurt after a while). So, eye infections bleeping suck.

Iceland

For some reason, I really want to go back to Iceland, I dunno why. Maybe it's the flag hanging over my desk that's inspiring me to plan to go back (it's a sexy flag, for the record).

Writing thoughts

Well, I never thought writing would be so fun and allow me to be creative (he says, after saying this a few times before). But yeah, I've been writing for a bit today and it's been pretty fun, to say the least. I say this because I have grand visions ahead to put down on paper, people to create and to bring to life, names to make significant, places where grand events happen, and events that will become significant. It's fun knowing that all of this is in my hands; I can play God now, really, with what I want to do and what I want to make happen. It's challenging, but it's a challenge that I am willing to accept and conquer.

New favorite web comic

Somehow, I just found the site Scandinavia and the World. As the title implies, it focuses on Scandinavia (as well as other countries) and their issues, but in web comic form. Though they're unique and have different cultures from us, it's still pretty hilarious to go through the site and see the stuff this guy has up there. Definitely worth checking out!

Getting my inner author on

I know that you may/may not have seen my little fantasy story teaser thing from a post from yesterday, but I've been writing a bit in general. It may not be something serious (who knows what it may turn into, though) but it's just nice to get my creative juices flowing. I can attribute some of that to my longtime friend who actually has several books published already, but I think I've secretly longed to write stories. On that segue, I'm actually writing some of the next parts that follow yesterday's teaser story-stay tuned for it, I may put it up on here!

Caps' Prospect Camp Scrimmage/Equipment Sale thoughts

Today was the last day of the Washington Capitals' prospect camp, and what better way to end it than by having a scrimmage. It was pretty fun to watch and the teams looked sharp, though the red team had just a few more better players than the white team. On that note, the red team ended up winning by a final score of 5-2, but they outplayed the white team. There were three fights, but sadly I missed the third fight as I left with a couple of minutes to go just to beat the epic traffic. However, I did manage to take a video of the second fight, so that will be up soon. Speaking of traffic, the Kettler parking lot was PACKED; you had to go down a few levels just to find a space. And it goes without saying that the inside of Kettler was packed to capacity, if not over capacity. This was nice but it did have its downfalls, namely trying to get a seat, let alone a good one, hard, and the equipment sale line (more on that later). But hey, I actually got to unleash my rabid hockey knowledge with the knowledgeable and cool people around me. I felt vindicated about that, that's for sure. Okay so moving on to the equipment sale, aka the massive letdown. See, there were two equipment sales today, one at 8 for the season ticket holders and another at noon for the regular fans. However, when I got there (and 10 minutes early too), there literally wasn't any equipment left, only nameplates. Really, thanks a bunch for the dicks who took everything. And geez, I didn't realize 40 year old overweight people needed a bunch of sticks, especially when they clearly didn't play or would be playing at all; the guys who actually play the game would like to be able to play in this gear, unlike the people who buy it and a) let the gear collect dust in your closets and b) who probably sell the gear for way higher prices on Ebay. Okay, rant over, the sale was a letdown and some people there are assholes. But yeah, it was a decent way to get back in the swing of things after being at the beach for the last couple of days.

Happy Birthday Rachel!

Hope your sweet 16 has been a good one!

Update on the "Tonight" post

I didn't have any weird dreams last night, I'm proud to announce. Thus, I can conclude so far that the weird dreams were a byproduct of the antibiotics I was taking.

Tonight

Alrighty folks, I'm testing something here. The last few nights have ended up with me having five completely bizarre dreams, so I'm going to see if tonight ends up producing one of them again. In case you want to hear how bizarre they are, don't worry, I'm going to be posting them very soon. In any rate, I'm going to see if painkillers and/or anti-biotics have helped induce these weird dreams.

Short Story Teaser Time

I won't lie, this post has been inspired by the book I'm currently reading, Saga of Icelanders (chronicling the stories of the early Vikings and Icelanders). If you also have/will read it, you'll see that I did end up taking a decent amount of the Icelandic literature and ended up using it myself. That inspiration was then turned into a little segment for what I hope might turn into something greater later on. Note that I wrote this at night, so it may not be completely perfect and I do realize it could use some work; be patient, cause this is just a preliminary teaser thing of sorts. But yeah, here this it is.

She stood alone, at the top of the hill, the wind blowing both her cloak and hair to the side. One could see her sheath hanging to the side of the wind. Looking down from the hill she was able to see the towns and villages scattered along the plains; some of them were bigger than others, though that might have been because of where she stood on the hill. It was serene, she had to admit, though her purpose for coming to the planes was less than peaceful. Though the calm offered here was a welcome relaxation from the task at hand; indeed, she was at peace up here.

"Johanna?" a voice called, almost out of nowhere, "It's time to head on over to town."

Curse that Alexei for suddenly ruining her moment of peace. Sighing, she walked down from the top of the hilltop down to the bottom of the hill, where her two companions were patiently waiting for her.

"Sorry to have disturbed you up there, but Jessica saw some men heading towards the village. I figured that after that, we need to get there as quickly as possible," said Alexei.
She was both troubled and pleased to hear this piece of news-it meant that there might be trouble lurking ahead, but at least there would be action awaiting the three of them.

"Yeah let's hurry up then!" she said. Turning to Jessica, she asked,"How many men did you see go by?"

"Maybe five or six of them. But they liked like they were in somewhat of a hurry to get to town," came the response. This spurred the trio to hurriedly mount their horses and to head towards the little town situated on the windswept plains.

  In the lead, Johanna's smooth black hair was flying all around. It would have been an understatement to have said that she was in a hurry to reach the small town ahead. Though they were all in a hurry, one could tell that she was a beautiful girl. May not exceptionally beautiful, but one would would describe her as being subtly beautiful-in her haste to reach her destination, her green eyes highlighted her silent determination to reach their intended target. On both of her sides rode her erstwhile companions Alexei and Jessica, who would have gone to hell and back for her; she also would have reciprocated the favor with both of them. After all, they had been traveling with her for a year's service, scouring the land to defeat the malicious forces plaguing the land. Today was one of those days where they were finally about to destroy a marauding group of bandits who had been harassing the Kranjic Plains-at last their last few days of tracking then down would finally produce results!

"Hey Johanna-where are these guys holed up again?" inquired Alexei
"My man told us that they should be based out of the inn. They should be there, but in case they're not there, we do a sweep and destroy mission in the town," she responded.

With that, the three companions set off to wipe out the bandit gang.

New favorite poem/line

"Do not go gentle into that good night", by famous Welsh poem Dylan Thomas. Check it out, it's short yet riveting, in my humble opinion.

See you on Friday night/Saturday!

I'm going to Virginia Beach Wednesday morning through Friday! (Seems like it really hasn't been long since I got back from another trip, aka the Iceland one too)

Thor movie thoughts

Yes, I'm late to the party, thank you very much. Now that we've got that out of the way (University Mall's theater is really cheap, just FYI), I have to say that I liked the movie. The pacing of it was very satisfactory and it unfolded fairly unpredictable. The acting was very solid, though I felt like the plot might have jumped around a bit too much for any one person other than the main-main characters, in my humble opinion. Come to think of it, there really isn't much to say about the movie (in a good way, though), so in this case it's a good thing. I guess my only "complaint'', if you can even call it that, was that it felt like those two hours spent watching it were like an hour max; it's iffy to even call it a bad thing, but hey, to each their own.

Also, I was surprised to see that Kenneth Branagh was the director for it. It was surprising just given that he's really done Shakespearan adaptions from the stage to the big screen, hence my surprise. But yeah, that was my "being in Mr. McCabe's AP Lit class and watching Branagh's versions of Shakespeare paying off" moment, haha.

It also was interesting to watch, since while I was in Iceland, I got to see a brief overview of Norse mythology. Needless to say, it's fascinating, and even more fascinating watching some of it in the movie!

Another random thought: all the females in it were pretty darn good looking; just had to say it. And the actor playing Thor, whose name I'm too lazy to look up at the moment, was pretty ripped.

Overall, I give this movie a 4/5, just because you knew they left out a bit of plot for the blatantly obvious sequel that accordingly is coming out in 2013. Hey, whadda you know, that was my only downside to the movie-the pacing. But yeah, it's a 4/5 movie that I'd recommend seeing (again, University Mall theater in Fairfax is super cheap to see older movies, hint hint).

Icelandic trip awards

In the full disclosure for this post, I was on my bed in our room in the hostel we were staying at one night, updating my journal of the day's adventures, when I suddenly thought that hey, it would be cool to do an awards thing for the trip. This means that you get to see me attempt to do a humorous stab at awarding awards for things/events that happened on the trip. Enjoy!

-Best in Show: The Blue Lagoon. It's basically required for travelers in Iceland to stop by here; hey, it's only about half an hour away from the airport. Thus, there isn't any excuse for you not to go there. There water is amazing and it's super relaxing. Thus it gets the nod for best part of the trip, even if we stopped by about an hour after landing in Iceland.
- Worst Moment: Realizing how damn expensive it is there. Though really, they have to import food from Europe and elsewhere, so we can cut them some slack. Still though, our credit cards took a bit of a beating there.
- Oddest Moment: Realizing that the sun, well, we wouldn't see the sun go down. When we arrived back home yesterday night, it literally was the first time in a week that it wasn't sunny outside. I'm still actually getting used to seeing darkness, come to think of it.
-Most Patient Moment: goes to Iceland, as they've been settled for 1,081 years and yet they only became an independent country in 1944. That takes some patience.
- Food moment: Realizing how unique (and thus better) the food is over there. Seriously, the pizza and hot dogs there pwn ours here.
- Food moment number two: The Fanta. Also, the size and shape of the Fanta-holy cow.
- Food moment number three: Being able to drink the tap water since it's all natural, geothermal water
- Beauty Award: The amazing scenery
- Beauty Award runner up: Collectively, the girls there. They're very good looking.
- The "Japanese Tourist Award: goes to the Germans. We had 3/4 of our roommates in the hostel be Germans (and the occasional Swiss), not to mention it was like mini-Berlin around town, what with all of the German tourists
- The "glad we didn't prepare for them" Award: will be taken by Spain, as there really weren't any Spanish tourists there, as far as I noticed. Though strangely enough, there were the odd Portugese translations around.
- The Icelandic Staff in Hostels Award: Our hostel was, for the most part, staffed by foreign tourist majors. And I think they were mainly Dutch.
- The Vicious Cycle Award: goes to the Norweigans, and even the Danes, for having a fairly large contingent there in Iceland. It's funny and ironic since it was the Norweigans who first settled it and later controlled Iceland, so the cycle has come full circle.
- The "We didn't expect to run into you guys" Award: We ran into some Slovenians at our hostel. Totally didn't expect to run into them. Also, we didn't expect to run into as many Canadians as we did.
- Fashion Award: Icelandic girls, as what I've noticed, range from somewhat fashionable to pretty dang fashionable. And they can pull it off too.
- Fashion Award corollary: Icelandic guys who try to look really fashionable end up looking like tools (IMO)
- Fashion Statement Award: Apparently sandals with black socks is all the rage there for the workers
- Language Award: Iceland, for their fluent English-speaking population
- "COX has nothing on us" Award: Again, Iceland, for being super savvy with technology
- Law of Towns Award: You're guaranteed to find at least a couple of houses out in the middle of nowhere, where you have to think would be totally inhospitable. Yet inevitably there's a house or two there.
- Law of Museums/Wilderness Knowledge Award: You'll also find some museums in very random places, i.e. the middle of nowhere too
- Snacking Award: Expect to pay, at minimum, amusement park prices on the food, drinks, and snacks over there. See the earlier mentioned Worst Moment Award for further detail on this.
- Plastic Award: Expect your credit card to be used early and often; Icelanders use credit cards 95%, if not basically 100 percent of the time, rather than hard cash.
- Informality Award: Methinks the hard cash they print is just used as a) an formality to say we use hard cash and b) to use for the coins used in the snack machines

Icelandic trip summary

Well, I just got back from the land of fire and ice last night, and man what a trip it was. So because most of you guys don't have the time or money to go there, here's a summary of what I did. And on that note, if you are planning to go to there in the future, take me with you-I can help you guys.

Day One:
- Got off the flight, where we promptly went to go to the fabled Blue Lagoon. Trust me when I say it, a trip to Iceland is not complete without going there sometime. It's a geothermal spring, so the water is very warm there despite what the weather might be (don't worry, it was solidly in the 50's-60's there when I was there). You might have been told that it has healing capabilities-I can indeed confirm that I felt super relaxed and healed after visiting there.
- I had my first Icelandic hot dog, which basically kicks our hot dogs' asses. You can quote me on that.
- Went to the top of their fabled church, the Hallgrimskirkja, where I got a superb view of the city of there. The building also is spectacular, and it's of an unique design.

Day Two:
- Went on a tour of the Golden Circle, which took up most of the day, which was 300 km tour of southern Iceland. This tour included seeing the geysir as well as Thingvellir national park, which housed Althingi, the world's oldest parliament (est. 930).
  -The geysir was amazing, to put it bluntly. To see it go off was spectacular, and has reinforced why Iceland has to be the world's most beautiful country (he said as he's visited in summer).
  - Althingi was a piece of history that really is unrivaled. You can't hate on the world's oldest parliament, and you can't hate on the fact that it's played a prominent role in Iceland's longstanding history.

Day Three:
- Went whale/puffin watching, so that took about 2-3 hours
- Had some of their fabled hot dogs from their fabled hot dog stand from the nation known for being crazy about hot dogs. They're still better than our hot dogs, and the toppings they put on them are amazing.
- Saw two little documentaries about the 1973 and 2010 volcanoes, the first of which destroyed a settlement on the Westman Islands; being as resilient as they are, that community rebuilt it basically from scratch.
- Went to the National Museum of Iceland, which has to have been one of the most impressive museums I've ever been to. And to be fair, I think it gives the Smithsonian a run for its money, and it even beats it for how attention catching it is during the duration of your visit there.
- Learned how amazing and unique their food is there, even their pizza. Can't beat a pizza that has shrimp, chicken, and other various toppings on it. It made our pizza here look inadequate.

Day Four:
- I hiked a glacier. A freaking glacier. Be jealous.
- En route to the glacier, we stopped by to see a little plaque that commemorated the first stage of the epic volcano going off of last year. I got to feel the soot created by it too, so that was neat.
- Stopped by two beautiful waterfalls, and I even got to walk underneath them!

Day Five:
- Happy Canada day! (Eh?)
- On that note, apparently some Canadian girls had an epic fail with writing postcards
- I went horseback riding on the fabled Icelandic horse. It took a lot of energy, I'll tell you. But hey, it was worth it both for the experience and for the awesome scenery we saw during it!

Day 6:
- I had whale for lunch (seriously). And before you ask, it tasted like beef and steak.
- We hung out at the flea market for a bit, and it was pretty cool
- Who knew that some Icelanders really like the military, especially our military?
- Went to the Saga Museum
- On the way to dinner, we went by the house that Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan signed the treaty that ended the Cold War!
- Proving that they do food right, I had some amazing gourmet burgers. They, again, make our burgers look like crap. In case you want to check it out, the name of the place is Hamborgarafabrikken-it's totally worth stopping by!

Day Seven:
- Home sweet home!

Thoughts, observations, and random tidbits:
- Fun Fact time: Iceland has been settled for roughly 1,080 years. It's only been an independent country since 1944.
- Fun fact time #2: Reykjavik means "smokey bay" in Icelandic. Betcha you didn't know that.
- Fun fact time #3: In summer, you can expect to see sun for 22 hours of the day; the only times when you don't see the sun is when you're probably sleeping, so it doesn't matter. This is fun but it does make sleeping really hard at times.
- Fun fact time #4: Their water, due to it being geothermal, is so clean that you can drink tap water
- The girls there are very attractive
- Odds are you'll run into a redhead girl about every one in three or five girls you see. Though it seems like half of the female staff in the restaurants are a redhead. (And they have souls.)
- It's pretty expensive there as they have to import their food from elsewhere
- Iceland is the most beautiful country in the world. Again, you can quote me on this.
- Even though Reykjavik is the capital city, within 30-60 minutes drive, you can get to nature quite easily
- There are museums everywhere, even when you don't expect it. This can also extend to the countryside.
- On that segue, you can expect to find at least one or two houses that are completely in the middle of nowhere
- They speak English fluently, and I mean fluently. Which is good, because Icelandic has to be one of the toughest languages to learn.
- I've learned that from this trip, Germans travel a ton
- You meet some awesome people staying in hostels, not to mention that you save a ton of money
- The shower in our hostel was so relaxing that I thought I was getting a massage

Top 10 list

Given my impending trip to Iceland on Sunday through next Sunday, I figured I should pay tribute to my top 10 travel experiences. This in no way is to put down any and all of my experiences so far, as all have been amazing, but here are the ones I can think of; I might even be able to expand the list to 20 or more too. But here are the top ten as of now. So without further ado, here it goes (in reverse order).

Honorable Mentions:
-  Being on of two people on the AP Euro trip in 2010 who weren't almost arrested by the Hungarian subway police
- Getting accosted by a roughly 9-year old French-speaking gypsy/beggar kid in the back street of Krakow, Poland
- Learning why you shouldn't fall asleep with your mouth open in the back of the bus when surrounded by scheming friends. I still need to get them back for that.
- Admiring how all the girls in Montreal were smokin' hot (not making that up, honestly)
- The overnight train from Edinburgh to London. It was pretty cramped, but I thought it was a neat experience.
- Establishing that there isn't anything to do in (North) Wales

10) The experience of seeing and experiencing different things from your everyday activities at home. It just goes to show how unique each part of the world is.
9) The different currencies. Call me weird but it is something special holding a different currency in your hand.
8) The city of Edinburgh, Scotland. Amazing, amazing, amazing city.
7) Meeting new people each and every trip
6) Visiting the town with the longest name in the UK, in North Wales
5) The epic bonding on the two AP Euro trips I was a part of. We fit 12 people onto one bed our last night in London.
4) Looking down at the St. Lawrence Rive in La Citadelle in Quebec City
3) Eating pierogi and kielbasa for the first time. Best food I've had overseas, and they certainly can compete for title of "food I'd love to eat day in and out".
2) Earning the title of Magyar McMoneybags III, Esquire due to accidentally withdrawing $250 of Hungarian Forints within the first hour or so of being in Hungary. And yes, it was a mathematical mistake on my part when I calculated the transaction, thanks for asking.
1) Visiting Auschwitz. It was one of the most sobering experiences in my life so far.

Sorry about the lack of posts...

In case you read this blog, you'll have noticed that I really haven't done much posting here. It's that I haven't really had any blogable material lately, and that I have other media outlets to talk about life, and much faster. I put a lot of my random thoughts on Twitter, so you can find me there @CSmeeth. Though I will try to blog more, if all possible. No promises though, but I'll try.

formspring.me

Entertain me, please http://formspring.me/conesy

formspring.me

Entertain me please http://formspring.me/conesy

Some lyrics that I really like

These lyrics are some that resonate with me, for whatever reason. They're from Jimmy Eat World's song, Polaris, which is a great song I should say. Anyways, here's the short, yet powerful three line blurb of theirs:

"I feel that when I'm old
I'll look at you and know
The world was beautiful"


I don't know why I like this, just that I think it's touching, remorseful, happy, pondering, and sad, all at the same time. What do you think about that?

College and drama

Disclaimer: there isn't much drama in college, so yeah, for those who wanted to know, you escape high school drama. However, I feel that college drama is a bit worse when people live together/on campus with each other, let alone when not sober. I've just noticed that there are some people that I know, who lately have been unusually tense about stupid drama. Guys, this ain't high school anymore, it's college-grow up and take your drama somewhere else, you're better than that.

Last night

Ah college, a time to experiment with drinks and other things (mainly, staying up ridiculously late and being obnoxious at that). And speaking of that, there was this girl from another dorm on the other side of campus who was in the bathroom for quite some time was puking (that was one horrible sentence, grammatically speaking, haha). I mean, we went into the bathroom and found her just lying between the two stalls. Fortunately she was just straight up drunk, and not in any danger and whatnot. Still, she was in the bathroom for over an hour; thankfully she managed to get home okay.

Now, I went to bed at roughly 2 ish, but dang, I was kept up for far longer than that, cause some douchebags kept on sporadically slamming their doors. I mean, it was like thunder out there, what with the way that they were slamming it. Thankfully, I get the last laugh and got sleep no matter what, plus I have an Amp to keep me energized.

A box is a box right? Random thought about it

Sitting on my desk is a box that had a thing of honey roasted peanuts in it. No big deal, right? Well the box is a part of a birthday present from my grandma and my uncle (there was a whole thing of gourmet snacks from The Popcorn Factory), and I feel bad tossing it out. The box is a small one, but it's so ornately decorated with happy animals and frankly, it's happy looking and in the festive birthday spirit, that I feel like it'd be tragic if I tossed it into the trash. I guess part of me is reluctant just because I don't know what the guys on my floor would do with it, and I feel like it deserves a better fate. Though in the end, I know I'm going to toss it, just I essentially want to postpone doing so until I really have to.

Tonight, again

Quote of the night, by me: "Well dang. It looks like she's sucking his dick." This is reference to Carolyn falling asleep/passing out on Stephen's lap in the common room, in a semi-awkward position. (Come to think of it, it may just be me, but dang, this last sentence can be misconstrued into innuendo.)

Tonight

I just played Keegan, my sober friend, and Jon, my friend who's getting increasingly drunk/hammered, at NHL 11 tonight, besting them for the first time by a score of 5-1. You know, playing somebody who's getting really damn drunk AND who's constantly getting distracted by other people in the room, as well as the increasingly loud selection of music. That, and Jon was getting increasingly belligerent, to the point that he yelled at Jasmin for picking up his cup full of his select beverage, and yelled at her, saying, "Sandra, you steal my shit without asking. Ask dammit!" Ah, the shenanigans that go on in college, let alone our floor; I love it.

Weird dream last night

In my dream, I was with my other roommate Chris, and we apparently got out of class and headed over to the UMW parking lots in the rain, which really resembled GMU's lot, come to think of it. And the car we headed over to was my family's minivan, which was a bit odd to find. And come to think of it, it was stacked with snacks, which was sort of like an omen in what was going to happen for the dream. Anyways, I wanted to go back home, but for some odd reason Chris wanted to go to Florida. I was like yeah sure, whatever, but unfortunately, I made a wrong turn on the highway, so we went in the opposite direction, instead of where we actually wanted to go. Probably 20-30 minutes in, we realized that oh crap, I missed/took the wrong exit, so we were stuck on the road going to somewhere where we didn't want to go. And now that I realize it, the rain managed to clear up, so it was sunny outside. This meant that we could bask in the sun while we were making a futile effort to find an exit to turn around and go the right way. Fortunately for us, we managed to find a "Do not make a U-turn" curve, where we made a U-turn anyways; we felt like we had stuck it to the man, and were kinda proud of that fact. For us, this meant that maybe, just maybe, we could actually get to where we wanted to actually be. Later on we met up with Sandra and Keegan, at a stop light of all places, and they jumped on board with us. And if I remember correctly, our van had somehow managed to magically morph into a motorcycle at this point-whoa. And Keegan wanted to go to, of all places, Rhode Island. No word on what and how I reacted to that. And then I woke up, thus ending this bizarre dream.

Jimmy Eats World concert!!!

As the title says, the Jimmy Eats World concert in Dodd Auditorium was amazing! They were amazing, and they had some amazing tunes! All of the songs on my iPod were played (Pain, 23, Hear You Me, The Middle, My Best Theory, and Always Be), as well some other kickass songs! It was even better given how Keegan convinced us to move to the very front of Dodd, so we all were at the very front-left of the theater; as a result, we were right there by the stage! Dang, J.E.W. is amazing, and more so live! Then again, my left ear really can't hear out of it so much anymore, so that had to be the only downside. Well that and the fact that the security guards were pricks and wouldn't let anybody get pictures in. But hey, I got a free pick (you know, the ones they toss to fans at the end of the show)! All in all, it was an AMAZING night, and I'm glad that I went to it! Now if only my hearing could come back, that'd be swell.

Sigmund Freud was right

I've been having these weird (day) dreams lately. And earlier, about half an hour ago, I was sitting in my Intro to International Relations class, dreaming about making out with a girl(s), who weren't, ahem, properly bundled up for the cold, and who had me pinned to the wall. And I think one of them was the cute girl who sits in front of me in that class. Weird. But hey, it sure as hell was better than listening to the lecture about Pacifism (no offense to any and all pacifists out there).

HOW ABOUT THEM CHEESEHEADS, EH?!?!?!

Green Bay Packers-31, Pittsburgh Steelers-25. Eat it, Pittsburgh. And more importantly, stay classy-there's always next year. Or the year after that, etc.


But really, personally, I think it's hilarious, not to mention pathetic, that Steelers fans are getting a bit too whiny about their loss. I know, it's devastating, and they were on their way to a potential comeback, just that they couldn't pull it off. Just because you guys lost doesn't mean you have to whine and bitch and moan about it; by doing so, you encourage more people to root against you guys BECAUSE of your reactions. I mean, I know that that's partially why I root against Pittsburgh teams-the sense of relative entitlement is obnoxious, not to mention the bragging (that I've seen). I know this seems crass, and I realize that to some people it is, but hey, I just have to get my two cents in.

Either way, a) it was a great game and b) Green Bay won, and c) it REALLY must suck to like anything in Pittsburgh today (Penguins got shut out 3-0 to the Caps earlier). Just wait until next year guys, and good luck.

WTF Kosovo

I'm once again playing sporcle, this time I did the "Can you name the flags of Europe?" one, and I got 46 out of the 47 flags, save for freaking Kosovo. I even got the harder and obscure countries (San Marino, Andorra, and Malta among them!), save for fucking Kosovo. What's worse is that I have a map of the world on my wall that also has the flags of every single country on it, but apparently Kosovo isn't on there. (But to be fair, it only got its independence 3 years ago-February 17, 2008, to be exact- so it's possible that the map is slightly outdated.)

Super Bowl, Schmuper Bowl

The NFL's championship game is tonight, and I'm in my room studying for upcoming tests. Most people would tell me that I'm anti-social and that I'm missing out on a great game, but hell, I a) don't care about the Super Bowl, only that I'm anti-Pittsburgh, b) am on academic probation from last semester (yay for 1.7 g.p.a's!), and c) want to do well on my test tomorrow and on Wednesday. I dunno, I feel like the only reason I'd really watch the S.B. is if there was absolutely nothing better to do and for the commercials. However, I have something to do, and I saw the previews for some of the commercials and I didn't think they were all that great; that, and I definitely can watch them on YouTube later. So yeah, I'm not watching the Super Bowl because, frankly and honestly, I can better apply my time to something more meaningful.

Oh and from what I've gathered from Twitter, Christina Aguilera fucked up the national anthem. To which I say, congrats, it takes mad talent to screw up one of the two most known American tunes, and on prime time TV. So congrats Christina, you fail. And everybody heard/saw you do so. D'oh!

Geography Fail(ing)

So my other roommate and I were playing sporcle.com at 1 in the morning today. We took a "name the capitals of the U.S. states" quiz, and it was embarrassing. We missed some fairly obvious capitals (Jackson, Mississippi), and other not so obvious capitals (Montpelier, Vermont), and generally failed horrendously given how much we've learned about US geography since elementary school. But heck, I will say that tired college kids taking these quizzes in the wee hours of the morning probably isn't the best way to do well. Please don't laugh at us (too much).

LOL drunk people

College. A time to party hard on the weekend. And man oh man have the guys on my floor have gone hard and partied. Loud music and whatnot. But hey, this is an average night for us.

I have such an idle mind in class

Okay, so I'm immature, I'll admit. There's this cute girl that sits in front of me in my Intro to International Relations class. Cute eyes, cute face, all that. And being the kid I am, I was doodling in my notebook, while taking the occasional notes, about how much I'd like to get to know her better. That and I kinda was praying she didn't turn around and ask to see my notes. I live in such an eventful life, eh? Haha.

But I also scribbled some other stuff down, mainly about the part of feminism in international affairs. This was partially due to me being hungry, but I wrote something to the effect of me thinking about women in kitchens making me sandwiches. Yeah, I'm immature, but hey, feminism plus a hungry Conan leads to random thoughts about women and sandwiches.

Man, I just rocked my class today!

In my Intro to Political Science class, we're going over political economy as our subject. Well, we got to be talking about Adam Smith, and I just so happened to have learned all about Adam Smith in high school. To make matters short, I introduced the concepts of the "Invisible Hand of Supply and Demand" and laissez-faire; I mean, I was channeling the spirit of Mr. Novak there! Man oh man I felt accomplished, talking about something that I really knew and having my professor look very pleased!

New shirt!

As the title would indicate, I just got a new shirt in. What makes it special is that it's a special shirt that not only is it $9, which is a steal, it's from the site Tee Fury, which has special designs every day. I actually got linked to it by a friend, but man, they have some great designs! However, the catch is that each of their shirts are only available for purchase for 24 hours, so you have to act quick. And gee, I just realized that I forgot to show you the shirt design that I got. Well, without further ado ladies and gentlemen, here it is!

Late and random birthday thought

Given that I turned 19 on Sunday, if you count by exact number of days, my birthday (and this logic may be flawed by a day, but bear with me), it marked one year to the day that I was dumped by Alexis. Which, when I thought about it in class earlier today, is my karmic revenge-I had a chill and fun day to celebrate the one year of getting dumped...via phone...while I was eating the cake she had made and given to me on my 18th birthday. So there, I think I win.

My birthday wishes

So I turned 19 yesterday. No big deal eh? Well really, I'd like to dedicate this post by saying that over 118 people wished me happy birthday on that great social network, Facebook; that amount was also bolstered by the many other people who personally wished me happy birthday. The only reason that I mention this is because last year, and the year before, I had only gotten a combine 40 wishes. But dang, this year I felt loved like no other! Thanks a ton guys!

WTF USA Hockey

We lost to Canada 4-1 tonight. Yeah, they're the "underdogs" and all and we had 8 returnees from last year's Gold Medal winning team, but jesus. We got thoroughly outplayed tonight, and I had to question whether some guys were even trying and made the effort; it was totally lackluster on our part. I mean, I know Canada's more prepared and all, but geez, it's not like they're THAT much better than us. Then again, I knew it probably wasn't very promising if our goalie, Jack Campbell, was our player of the game; when it's your goalie that gets that, you're kinda screwed. I'm just pissed that we blew our chance at playing for gold, for a second straight year. And knowing how we've played in previous bronze medal games, I'm not too confident about our chances against Sweden on Wednesday.

A Hellish Tour

As he stepped onto the bus, map in hand and sun shining down on him, he was expecting a fine day of soaking in the sights and sounds of the city. At the bus stop, he was studying the map, pouring over the information that it had to offer, knowing little of the nightmare that he was about to step in to. When the doors of the double decker bus closed behind him, his hell started.

"Wait a minute, what the heck is going on here?" he thought to himself. "Where is the double decker bus I just stepped in to? This is...a nightmarish puzzle!"

When he stepped onto the bus, he somehow found himself transported to not just the top, but a sadistic puzzle. There was maybe two feet of walkway space, going all the way around in a rectangle. In the middle of this realm, there was just empty sky, with an endless abyss for unlucky souls to fall into it, trapped for all eternity.

Fortunately, he knew what to do; it was like a voice in his head told him that he would never be able to get back into the world he knew, unless he could maneuver safely. He then set about carefully walking one step at a time to advance around the perimeter of the ledge. Finally, after an excruciatingly long time of careful maneuvering, he managed to find his way out, and was magically transported to the interior of the bus.

Inside, the bus resembled the average bus with some tourists and locals inside, yet it strangely had...poles to grab on and hang on to that were scattered all along the interior. And he was transported to a small mat at the back of the interior. His intuition, for the second time that afternoon, had told him something important to his survival-that the bottom of the bus' floor, once you got off the mat, was covered in land mines; one small step and he would be blown up into many pieces. The only solution? Having to swing from bar to bar and avoid touching the ground at all costs. Fortunately, he was a gymnast in his youth, so he was used to swinging on bars. In the meantime, there were laughing tourists walking in at every stop, while he was literally hanging on for dear life. Girls wearing clothes better suited for the Mediterranean were walking in, talking to each other and laughing, while he, he of all people, was desperately fighting to stay alive each second.
"How can they be smiling and laughing and not notice my plight!?"  he furiously wondered. "And how can they walk on the ground without being blown up? Oh man, I'm in some sort of hell!"

While he was furiously pondering where and why he was in this situation, a sudden crowd of what he believed to be demonic pawns in this sadistic game impeded his sight and reach to the next pole. As he couldn't reach the pole, it gave him time to look up and see the sights outside of the "bus". It was funny, he thought that the apartments by the streets were unusually tall; they looked as if they were about eight or nine stories tall. And speaking of streets, there was only one street that he noticed; wait, has this bus been going in one continuous circle? And why don't I see any cars, shops, or people on the streets? I am in a twisted realm, and I'm probably being watched, and mocked, by some unknown demons, struggling to survive.

"I don't know where I am, but I will do whatever it takes to get out of this, this...nightmare!"

Random thought, inspired by Narnia

So while I was watching the latest Narnia movie (see my last post for my review of it), I was wondering, why can't my legacy be known as some hero or some stoic figure? I mean, yeah, I probably don't have those certain qualities, but damn if I don't want to be known as somebody, whether it's in life or music or whatnot. It'd be nice to get recognized, but hey, it's wishful thinking on my part.

The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader review

So I saw The Voyage of the Dawn Treader last night, and I came away very impressed. The acting was very solid and the special effects were solid as well. It may not have been as action oriented as the previous two movies in the series, especially Prince Caspian, but it was a treat to watch.

Moving away from the previous two movies in the Chronicles of Narnia series, TVotDT focused on Edmund and Lucy Pevensie, as both Susan and Peter Pevensie were "too old" to return to Narnia. Personally, I liked this more because it got to focus more on Edmund and Lucy's characters more, instead of glancing over them in the last two movies. And I was surprised, as I liked both of their characters, and Caspian as well; I don't know what it was, but they all were very likable characters that you were rooting for them from the very outset. A new character that was introduced in the movie was the Pevensie's obnoxious cousin Eustace. Eustace is a kid who, to put it very bluntly, is a tool. He complained a TON and was greedy; I wanted to smack him several times. But the beauty of it was that the actor totally brought his personality out and was highly successful at making him be an asshole. Though at the end of the movie, he went through a personality change (more on that later). The acting was great throughout, and I thought that it was one of the best parts of the movie! You felt connected to the actors, you felt like you were there with the characters, and you felt happy/sad when their journey was over (literally).

The thing that I thought brought the movie down a bit, but not too much, was the plot. While yes, it is based on C.S. Lewis' books, I felt that the course of the movie was a bit odd; the end was a bit anticlimactic in my opinion (but again, that's just my opinion) while the beginning and middle parts started off rather fast. And come to think of it, it's a bit vague why the Dawn Treader was sailing around, and why Lucy and Edmund were summoned there in the first place; these questions were asked in the very beginning, and unless I missed something, I don't think they were ever answered. Thankfully, these minor faults do not get in the way of your enjoyment whatsoever!

Overall I really enjoyed the movie. It has action, beautiful CGI, and great acting. What more can you want from a movie? I give this, 4.25 out of 5 stars.

Winter Classic 2011

Caps win 3-1 over the Penguins! I can't think of very many ways to start off the new year, and man oh man this is great!

2010 in Review

Well it's that time of year again, or at least, it's the start of the new year. Since today is the first day of 2011, I figured I'd do my year in review feature here. The best of and the worst of will be here, or at least how much I can remember from the last year. Here we go:

- January 1, 2010, obviously
- USA Hockey winning gold at the World Juniors!
- Getting through the last half of senior year
- Turning 18. Not the best way to celebrate (long story), but hey, I became legal, as scary as that is.
- Making it to All-District Band, which I was really proud of, even if I was the top chair in the second band; it's the fact that I made it that counted
- Winter Break, round 2
- The fact that no matter what, nobody else in high school will likely ever get that much snow and that long a break. Totally was the best way to really wrap up senior year. =)
- Playing a ton of hockey, despite not being able to play high school hockey in senior year. Eh, I guess it actually worked out better for me after all, so I'm not to mad about that.
- Getting broken up with the day after my birthday. In retrospect, it a) probably was my fault that I didn't live up to my half of the relationship and b) it's actually kinda funny now that I think about it. Gotta live and let live, after all.
- Reston Spring High School hockey. While we went 1-8-1, it was still a blast playing with you guys. We had some amazing times in the locker room. Thanks guys for having a great season regardless of our record.
- Hanging out with people you've known throughout high school and realizing that you may never see some of them again
- Graduating. I'm gonna miss you guys.
- Skipping the day of prom to go play pickup hockey (and to get new skates)
- Then skipping prom to go play pickup (outdoors roller) hockey. And not caring that I missed prom at all.
- Okay so I'll admit, I was slightly jealous afterwards when I saw the pictures of everybody dressed up for prom. But then I realized, I'm doing what I love to do, and nothing is better than hockey.
- Playing a ton of pickup hockey over the summer
- Going to Montreal and Quebec City in August. Amazing people, amazing sights, amazing food, and an amazing time.
- Going off to UMW orientation, and being nervous as hell for it
- Meeting tons of people at UMW, and having a great time
- Starting college classes, and also being really bleeping scared
- My very first college test/quiz
- Meeting awesome people in my classes
- 8 AM classes every day in the week, which actually wasn't too bad as you may have thought
- Russell Hall, 4th floor. That's all that needs to be said.
- The various things thrown out the window(s) on our floor
- Thanks to Beijing, our first fire drill due to a lack of water in his mac n' cheese mix
- An additional two fire drills due to improperly microwaved popcorn bags, on 1st and 3rd floors
- Failing 6 of 7 fire drills in the semester
- 1.7 gpa for the first semester =(
- Landing on academic probation cause of said gpa =(
- The promise of next semester
- Playing street hockey for an hour and a half in the pouring rain
- Winning the Eagle One Cup, our holy grail of our street hockey club
- Playing for 2 and a half hours in that championship. We won 10-7, 8-10, 3-0 to clinch the cup.
- Beating a certain S. Brown once again in that game
- Having a blast for the Club Tennis team
- The random late night mayhem with friends
- 3 AM Sporcle quizzes
- Sporcle-offs in the downstairs lobby
- Getting our floor fined for doing stupid stuff, for god knows what reasons
- The stealthy stealing of chairs from both sides of the floor
- Going on break for a month, and missing all of your friends

Well, here's to an even better 2011. Cheers.