Comic Book Superzero

I scream for a bowl and spoon!

2010-01-28T03:09:00.004-05:00

I really enjoy cake and I also enjoy ice cream. These two splendid things as we all know go marvelously together. Sometimes, however, not so much.

Some people do the whole "cone" thing for ice cream. I can respect that. I mean hell, you eat the dish you serve it in. I'm an avid fan of not dirtying dishes so you don't have to wash them. You do still have to wash the scoop after, but that's not an entirely huge deal.

I definitely sacrifice my "no dishes" rule though when it comes to ice cream. I prefer it in the bowl for sure. That way, there's no mess if the ice cream decides to melt and I can eat it at my own pace. Also, I don't lick ice cream, I bite it. I can't stand it when people lick ice cream, leaving their tongue trails in the tower of creamy goodness. Gross. In any case, I find it very beneficial to use a spoon when eating ice cream. It helps eliminate getting it all over your face.

With cake, on the other hand, it's much more customary to eat with a fork, on a plate. Liquids and ice cream are for spoons. If you're eating a solid food, you use a fork. That's basically a scientific fact. And you use a plate because there's nothing to contain like you would need a bowl for. The one exception to this rule however is ice cream cake, for obvious reasons.

Anyway, when it comes to eating cake AND ice cream, it only makes sense to put it in a bowl, and to use a spoon. It's much easier to scoop a chunk of cake and ice cream with a spoon than it is to stab the ice cream with the prongs of the fork as it runs through it like butter. Forget getting your cake to stay on the fork while you try to manage scraping that meager little portion of ice cream. And to add ease to the scooping of the spoon, it should be served in a bowl, lest it fall off the plate and onto the floor.

I write this blog because recently I was served cake and ice cream on a flimsy paper plate with a fork. It didn't go well.

Procrastination and Sunlight!

2009-12-04T02:26:00.005-05:00

Procrastination is something I'm really good at (or really bad with, if you want to pull the "cup half full/half empty" argument on me.) Right now, I'm putting off a 3 page paper that's supposed to be an in-depth look at 2 poems about sunlight, while mentioning up to 5 other poems as well. I could've picked a different theme besides sunlight, I suppose, since there were 2 others I could've picked from; "anti-war" and "end of the world", but I figured sunlight would be the easiest to find poems on. Poems with sunlight are usually a bit too chipper for my taste, whereas "end of the world" poems tend to be right up my alley. I only have to write 3 pages though, so oh well.

In light of procrastinating, I'll point out the elephant in the room and say that it's been quite a few months since I've written on this thing. Sooo many things have changed in my life since my last post, I don't even know where to begin. I've started and practically ended my first semester at a state university. That's kind of neat. I'm an English major in the "writing arts" program. I really like it, although I admit it's very intimidating.

I didn't write enough this semester. I know that through my recent lack of interest in writing essays and short stories for my classes. There would always be long periods of time where I would be doing nothing but reading or critiquing other student's stories. I should've kept up on my blog during these times. Not only would I continue to grow as a writer, but I wouldn't feel so panicked all of the sudden when asked to write something. In any case, that's all going to change. I'm going to keep up-to-date on this blog, and maybe another one about a more personal, yet amusing aspect of my life. More on that later.

I believe I've found my niche as a writer, however. I enjoy writing darker stories and poems, but I also enjoy writing humor. Turns out, after submitting some stories in my Writing Fiction class, I'm much better at the latter of the two.

Speaking of which, I love the phrase, "The latter of the two." It's a phrase I've been dying to use for a very long time, and you just witnessed the first time I ever have. There were a few reasons why I've never abused the hell out of that phrase before. Not only was I not sure if it meant the first or second option, but I had no clue if it was "latter" or "ladder". When I went to end my last paragraph with it, I shit you not, I looked it up finally. There are a lot of phrases like that that escape me right now that I would look up for the hell of it (and to put off my paper some more). One phrase that I looked up over the summer was "The proof is in the pudding". Granted, I'll probably never use it, but it's nice to know what it means, and whether or not it's "pudding" or "putting". The later of the two makes more sense, because you could guess that it could mean where something's put, rather than something about a dessert. But, alas, it's the dessert.

Anyway, I'll definitely be making a valiant effort to be posting on a somewhat regular basis again... at least once a week if I can help it. It's 3:00 am here and I should really get that paper started. I don't think I'll be going to sleep tonight. Can't wait to see the sunlight in a few hours.

Making up my mind, in a flash!

2009-07-22T03:35:00.006-04:00

I really like technology. I enjoy reading about it, playing with it, and buying it. That being said, I'm also very indecisive about it. I could research cell phones or something for days but eventually I'll be stuck between four different models.

I had to buy a camera recently. I don't really know why I thought I needed a camera, since I'm really into writing. All I knew, was that I needed that new camera.

I have a perfectly good camera right now. The only thing that bugs me about it is that I have to push the "scroll left" button extra hard to get it to work. I'm not really the kind of guy looking to exert the extra strength that goes into pushing that button. It really irritates me, especially with the right button being so easy to push.

Anyway, like I said, I needed a new camera, so I trotted on over to Best Buy and looked around in there for some models I had found online. I still wasn't exactly sure what kind I wanted. A camera with face recognition would be kind of cool, but to me, that's a "party camera", a camera college girls buy to take pictures of their best friends finishing up their first keg stand. Oh, the memories sorority girls share. I'd pay to see that scrapbook.

I was definitely interested in a camera with a nice zoom, manual mode (if I can figure out how to use it), and a high mega pixel count. I was quickly approached by a sales clerk who asked me if I needed help.

I looked up at him, "Oh, no thanks. I need a new camera and I'm just taking a look at what you guys have," I replied.

"Well, what would you primarily use it for?" he asked.

I lost eye contact and looked towards the table of cameras. I began, "Well..."

I knew he was just asking so he could find the camera that would "best fit my needs". It's a classic sales tactic. If I had said "I'm just looking to take pictures of my friends when we all hang out," like any other half wit passing through, he would've sold me some crappy camera that does absolutely nothing. I'm on a "poor college student" budget, but I didn't want that to stop me from getting a good camera.

I knew if I wanted to be sold a good camera, I couldn't possibly tell him the truth; I would probably use it to take a few random pictures of my friends the next time we hung out, then I'd lose it in a drawer somewhere and forget about it. I had to think of something really convincing so he would sell me something amazing, but inexpensive.

"Well, I'm a photography major down at a school in Massachusetts. I'm looking to get my Masters Degree in it so that I can travel abroad and take pictures at fashion shows in Paris. The school I'm going to is really expensive, so I'm on a tight budget for a camera, but I need a really good one with lots of capabilities."

Immediately, since I told him I was just looking, he decided to ask about my fantastic school.

"I have a friend that's a photography major too! He was looking at the Hallmark Institute of Photography down in that area, but he didn't end up going, it was a little expensive and he wanted to go somewhere closer."

"Yeah, it's a really nice school. I go there." I smiled at my now established university. I went on, "I love it. One of my favorite things there is the dining hall. They spend a lot of money on the food. It's nothing like those community colleges," I snickered a little, for good measure. I know how bad the local community college's food is. I just graduated from there, and it's pretty terrible.

"Yeah, the food's pretty bad at those places." He paused as his eyes narrowed, "So, if the school has so much money for food, why don't they have a fund somewhere to supply you guys with cameras?"

"They expect us to be financially savvy enough to buy our own cameras. Also, since everyone buys their own cameras, each different camera offers a unique eye to the world, further making each photography project unique."

I was really running out of lies. Well, it wasn't that I was running out of lies, so much as it was about me forgetting what I had told him already. I already forgot what college I said I go to. I remembered it was in a state that started with an "M", but that was about it. It was time to bail.

"Well, I like what I see here, but I'm going to head over to Ritz Camera. They had a Figifilm camera for under $900. I think I'm going to go with that one." I declared as I turned away and began heading towards the exit.

He called out to me, "It's Fujifilm! And I thought you were on a budget!"

I started to turn around to explain my inconsistency, but my feet decided that would just make things worse. Before I knew it, I was out the door. I didn't need a camera that bad anyway.

Summer Bummer

2009-06-08T02:36:00.002-04:00

Life's been crazy lately with classes ending, but now that it's summer, hopefully I'll get back into my blogging routine.

I recently got a pretty rad job. I work at a cell phone kiosk in Sam's Club, and sell almost every cell phone imaginable. We sell three "contract" phones services, including Verizon, Sprint, and AT&T, as well as the five prepaid plans Boost Mobile, Virgin Mobile, Net10, TracPhone, and AT&T GO Phones. It's a fairly easy job, although the processes take some getting used to. I've only been there a month and a half or so now, and I've gotten most of them down pat. Some, however, I still have yet to learn.

Verizon Wireless, for example is the biggest bitch ever. We have to do everything for them manually, including the credit check and contract. All of the others we can do through the computer, but since Verizon is done over the phone after a 15 minute wait, it definitely takes the longest to finish.

When it's slow, there's literally nothing to do. The best I can do to keep myself entertained and stimulated, sexually or otherwise, is to greet customers and pace around like a lunatic. If there are no customers, I'm stuck using the computer. Once I'm done browsing the 13 pages that aren't blocked, I'm left to my own devices. By that, I of course mean my cell phone. Since I work at a cell phone kiosk, they're pretty lenient about making/receiving calls and text messages. That gets old too after awhile though. Half the people I send my "plz talk 2 me! I'm @ work and bored!" text messages to, don't reply. The ones that do reply, I simply run out of things to say to them.

It's at this point where I hit an all time low. I will look for anyone, in my cell phone's contact list, or someone in the store to talk to. About absolutely anything. Once I find a person, if I don't hold my composure and hide my desperation for human communication, I'll scare them away, worsening my situation.

I've recently found a way around all of this, though. One of my coworkers suggested I bring a book. I was so flabbergasted at the simplicity and obviousness of her suggestion, but I immediately started bringing various books and graphic novels to work. Today, I in fact got paid for 30 minutes of actual work, and 3 1/2 hours of reading comics. It was pretty fantastic.

All this lack of business comes with a price, however. The kiosk is closing at the end of this month. It really kind of sucks, for a lot of reasons. The main reason it does, though, has everything to do with my online training. The district manager was really late making it available to me, so I got it finally after working there about three weeks. After about two weeks of actually having the training and, within the same two weeks, procrastinating doing the training, I found out the kiosk is closing.

Now I'm stuck in an awkward position. I can either buckle down and do all of the training so my last 9 days of work go by smoothly, or I could skip it because there's really no point now anyway. Obviously, I'm going to skip it. It's going to be brutal though.

I'm going to miss this job. The customers at the Sam's Club kiosk were a huge step up from the customers at Sears. As many of you know, you need a membership to get into Sam's, meaning that not just any half-wit can go in there and annoy the snot out of me with their petty retail problems. The only half-wits that are allowed in Sam's are the ones that are willing to shell out an extra $40 every so often to enter the building. They're few and far between, though.

I did have one lady in the store today, who was either really stupid or totally stressed out by her kid. While it was probably the kid, one can never be sure when it comes to the general public. She asked me briefly about a car charger for her phone that she didn't have on her, nor did she know the name of it. During our conversation, she was holding on to her son's arm, trying to contain him and keep him out of trouble. To no avail, he was using his other hand to grab at my fake demo phones and let go, causing the tether to snap them back into their places. After he did that to a couple of phones, his mother turned to him and screamed, "YOU NEED TO STOP THAT RIGHT NOW! IF YOU BREAK THOSE, MOMMY'S GOING TO HAVE TO PAY FOR THEM AND MOMMY CAN'T AFFORD THEM!"

I don't think she knew they were made of plastic with cardboard screens. If she did, she should really consider not spending her money on a membership at Sam's Club and worry more about saving up for the other plastic and cardboard things that her son will inevitably break.

Back Issue #3: I got bit by a spider (part 2) (WITH A PIC!)

2009-04-02T03:06:00.003-04:00

Originally posted June 22nd, 2008 on MySpace.

Ok, so it's like day 6 of my spider bite. Still no super powers. All I'm getting is an infection. Seriously though, I'm somewhat afraid that my skin's gonna start rotting off my body. I looked up some spider bite pictures just now and holy shit... there's some pretty fucked up spiders out there. Take this link for instance. While that remains undetermined whether it was a brown recluse bite or not, they suspect it was. I can't even imagine that happening to my stomach. I mean, duh, I didn't get bitten by one of those but my bite still has the potential to get pretty gross. And speaking of really gross...

Here's a picture of my spider bite (Click it for the "full effect"):

It's gross, I know. I'm pretty sure I'm gonna have to see a doctor about it on Monday or Tuesday. It doesn't appear to be getting any better. When I move it stings like dry skin. It's pretty aweful. And since I'm not an Olympian God and don't have a 6-pack, the spider bite's on the top part of where my mini gut starts. So like, when I move, the spider bite's basically like, "WOW! [inflicts pain, inflicts pain] STOP EATING SUCH SHITTY FAST FOOD! I'M THE PAINFUL REMINDER THAT YOU HAVE A CREASE WHERE A GUT'S FORMING!"

Spider bites = best diet ever. If you're not convinced quite yet that that's true, take a good LONG look at my picture and tell me if you feel like eating after that.

Didn't think so.

Back Issue #2 : I got bit by a spider, and I don't have super powers... what a sham!

2009-04-02T03:05:00.003-04:00

Originally posted June 20th, 2008 on MySpace.

At least I think it was a spider. I don't know. Regardless of the species, I still have no super powers. I didn't think it was going to happen, but it would've been cool. Cooler than a giant, red, sore welt on my stomach at least.

I'm not really sure when it happened either, just that it happened on Monday. It REALLY creeps me out to think that it was inside my shirt and just biting me repeatedly. I have like 2 other smaller bumps near it.

So yeah, on another buggy note, I don't know if many of you know this about me, but I'm most definitely extremely afraid of centipedes. Now I know what you're thinking... "Really Phil? Those stupid little red things you see under rocks?" And yeah. Understandable. Allow me to explain. When I was little and lived in Hawaii, I had one crawl across my arm in my bed. And for those of you who don't know, centipedes look more like this in Hawaii...

Yeah. Fucking terrifying. So back to my story...

So a few days ago, I was in my room minding my own business and changing my shirt. As I pulled it over my head, I saw something on my newly made bed. Yup... you guessed it. A centipede. I freaked out so bad, anyone would've laughed. It was very reminiscent of a woman on Looney Tunes screaming on top of a chair at a mouse. Except it was me, on the floor. Still screaming, though.

Anyway, I tried to think quickly and find something to kill it with, which happened to be my remote. So I grabbed the remote tried smashing it on the top of my bed. This proved rather ineffective at first, considering my comforter was cushioning all of my remote's blows, not to mention these guys live under rocks for Christ's sake, so they can take a beating. Eventually though, I killed it.

Filled with a case of "The Phils"

2009-03-25T20:48:00.007-04:00

My geology/meteorology teacher is a bit flakey sometimes, and that's giving him a lot of credit. One of the biggest problems in my opinion is after knowing me for well over 6 months, he still doesn't know my name, even though we're in an extremely tiny community college and I'd like to think I stick out like a sore thumb sometimes, especially since I'm a little chatty sometimes. Anyway, let me take you back to around late November 2008...

Last semester, when he was my geology teacher, he had us do these big research projects where we had to write a 5 page paper and do a PowerPoint presentation about, as it turns out, anything we wanted to. I, unlike some of the people in my class, stuck to geology and did my project on diamonds. I didn't know much about them at the time, and thought it would be kind of fun to research. After doing all the research for it though, I'm really glad I picked what I did. Diamonds are pretty fucking cool. I would normally go on about all the awesome things diamonds do, but I'm far too lazy and tired to list everything, or even something, that I researched.

Moving right along, it came time to do our presentations, and I gave mine, and it went along smoothly and I got a good grade. But that's when things started to get weird. My friend Jeff went up to do his presentation on... whatever it was that he did... and my professor said, "Ok Phil, so you're doing _______?" and Jeff replied, not really catching that he called him Phil. I certainly noticed though. I've always felt like if there was one person in the class that the teacher would always forget their name, it would be me. For some reason, I'm used to being called the wrong name in class, but never have I been the person the teacher calls other people. And to be clear, Jeff and I look nothing alike.

Anyway, Jeff finished his presentation, and sat back down. As our professor was talking to the next presenter, I leaned over a little and got Jeff's attention from a few rows down, and mouthed a few words that somehow got across, "You might want to remind our teacher who you are. He called you Phil and he's going to give me your grade because he's an idiot."

Jeff raised his hand: "Hey, who's name did you write down on that paper?"
Professor: "Uh... yours!"
Jeff: "What did you write?"
Professor: "Philip!"
Jeff: "Yeah uh... my name's Jeff."
Professor: "Oh gosh, DUH! I would've caught that eventually!"

Sure you would have, professor, sure you would.

Anyway, normally this wouldn't weird me out as much, but frankly he should know who's who in a class of only 15 or so on the week before finals. Oh well though, it was a simple slip-up I guess... or was it?

Fast forward 5 or so months...

My professor likes variety in his classes, so what better way to do that than to assign the exact same research project in meteorology as he did when I took geology! One day we had to have a summary typed up on what we were going to do our research projects on. I chose lightning. Frankly, there's a lot of information on it, and it's pretty sweet. I also plan to incorporate extremely loud thunder claps when I change each slide on my PowerPoint, just to give my fellow classmates the "full effect". So I gave that to my teacher and he read it and liked it. Then my friend Jeff went after I did. He was going to do his project on the mini ice age that occurred in the 1500's or something, but my professor said it was too vague.

After going through a few other people's ideas, my professor made a few general statements to the class about the subjects people have been picking. He started off by saying...

"Like I was telling Phil, doing the mini ice age of the 1500's is too vague. You need something more specific."

This is coming from the guy who thinks a good research project is comparing a baseball player's batting average to the weather.

After he finished his little lecture on how to pick a research project he hasn't seen done before because he's bored with some subjects (which, I'll have you note, isn't lightning apparently), another student raised his hand and asked a question about the projects. My teacher replied:

"Good question, Phil! Let me explain..."

That's right. All of the sudden there's 3 Phils in my class. Surprise! I'm the only Phil that he has in that class, and probably all of his other classes too (it's not a big college at all).

So I've deduced a few things out of his inability to remember which person I am in the class. It's one of the following options...

1. He doesn't know anyone's name in the class but the name "Phil" sticks with him, so he just decided to stick with that.
2. He knows there's a Phil in the class but has no idea who I am, so he's calling everyone that.

and finally...

3. I do something that really bothers him and makes him think about me.

I hope it's number 3. If that's the case, I need to find out what it is that I do that annoys the snot out of him just so I can do it more. It might seem a little vindictive, but that's just necessary sometimes.

Anyway, if anyone has any other ideas as to why he might be having such a hard time remembering who I am, please leave a comment below. I'm interested to hear your theories!

"Hey Wendy, forgetting something!?"

2009-03-10T01:47:00.005-04:00

This happened over a month ago, but since I've been busy with school and stuff lately, I haven't really had a chance to post it.

I was in creative writing one day. Let me tell you, definitely think twice before taking a class like that... especially if you can't stand poems of questionable quality written by your peers. If you answered yes to the proceeding, then that class isn't for you. That said, I really enjoy critiquing them... probably too much.

Anyway, class got out one day, and I want standing around with my friends Beth and Wendy. The 3 of us were talking while getting our stuff together when I saw a set of keys on the table. At that moment, I thought it'd be funny to take Wendy's keys so she'd freak out later. So I grabbed them and just carried them around a little, thinking a was a smug little bastard who pulled one over on her. I played with the light on the key chain. I even shined it in her face a few times to see if she'd say anything, but to no avail.

A few minutes later, the three of us had gone down 3 floors and went outside and were heading to the cars. While we were in the middle of saying something, I got tired of being anonymously clever, so I took the keys out of my pocket. The conversation went as follows:

"Hey Wendy, forgetting something?!"
"Oh my God, who's are those?"
"They're yours! I took them off the table while you weren't looking!" I replied, grinning ear to ear. Just then, Wendy reached into her pocket and grabbed her keys,
"No... These are my keys!"

The smug look completely washed off my face. I had definitely just stolen some random person's keys. I was borderline horrified. I quickly turned around and literally ran up those three flights of stairs and back into my classroom. I noticed they were my classmate Jodie's on the way up. Thankfully she was still in there.

She looked a little confused when I ran in the room panting practically shouting some story about what I was trying to do, which probably made me look like an even worse person.

At the end of the day though, Jodie has her keys, and I failed to prank Wendy yet again. That's what really matters, right?

Stop Hate

2009-02-07T20:38:00.006-05:00

Well folks, I have another serious post for you.

A few years back, my town heard we were going to have some unwanted visitors. Anyone ever hear of Fred Phelps or his family? The family from the Westboro Baptist Church, the ones that make outrageous claims against gay people and the soldiers in Iraq? If you have no idea what I'm taking about, take a minute or two and watch the following videos.

There you have it, nuts in a nutshell. In any case, these people came to my town's Mayor's Cup, and decided it'd be a good idea to protest against our gay mayor and say that he's doomed to hell and the like. This didn't bother me too incredibly much. After all, while Phelps was essentially protesting our mayor's sexuality, he was also protesting the town, and by doing that we united, backed up our mayor, and many joined the "Stop Hate" program. He eventually left... but guess what! He's coming back.

This time, he's not attacking the mayor (who's now out of office), he's attacking our schools. My high school and SUNY Plattsburgh are his new targets. My high school likes to promote tolerance, and therefore started a GSA (Gay Straight Alliance), which a friend of mine was head of, and one of the founders for our school. Many students are members.

SUNY Plattsburgh also has a similar program I believe called the Laramie Project, which they focus on Matthew Shepard, the man who was murdered and tied to a fence for being gay.

All these programs do is promote peace and acceptance. Phelps and his little followers believe however that the people involved in this program are "sinners". So now they're planning a trip back here to protest at our schools.

This infuriates me. Kids, regardless of what gender(s) they want to sleep with have every single right to go to school without being hassled about who they decide to love. I wish I still went to that dreadful little high school, just so I could show them a thing or two. The thing that really gets to me, is the fact that what these people are doing is perfectly legal! This shit needs to end. Protesting should be preserved for things that improve the quality of life for other people, not for things that make people feel shitty about their lives and to promote hatred to a minority.

These people are part of the reason I'm an atheist. I don't want any part of some religious cult or otherwise. I like knowing that I have control of my life. I like believing that you're not a sinner for loving someone. More importantly, it's nice believing that masturbation isn't a sin either... If it is, I'm certainly going to this alleged "hell" faster than anyone else. I accept everyone regardless of their race, religion, orientation, whatever.

I'm not saying people who have a solid religion are all crazy like these people... That's certainly not what I mean. I have the upmost respect for any religion that doesn't preach hatred. These people, however, have not earned that respect.

Anyway, I felt I needed to say something about this. People like this who believe in causing torment in the lives of other people should be locked up and put in a looney bin if you ask me. I think lighting them on fire is a more fitting answer, but who am I to decide their fate.

I more than welcome your thoughts and opinions about anything mentioned in this blog.

Watch your mouth!

2009-02-04T12:30:00.003-05:00

Today at my college was a special day. We had a fire drill! I've been at this school now for over 3 semesters, and not once have we had a fire drill. I was in the cafeteria and apparently it was someone's brilliant idea to not install fire alarms in teh cafeteria. I can't imagine why they would anyway. Lets face it, fires don't happen in places involving food and stoves. That's unheard of!

In any case, my friend Wendy and I went outside in the freezing cold air and stood around and joked about the people around us. I then reminded her of last week's episode of The Office, where they also had a fire drill. I then started quoting it and laughing about it.

As we were going back inside after the drill, I quoted this one part where Michael Scott said, "Stay fucking calm! JUST STAY FUCKING CALM!" and this lady who works at the school turned around and said, "HEY! Watch your mouth!" and she gave me a seriously angry look. I was so offended! I mean, not only was I not actually cursing at anyone in particular, but she has absolutely no right to tell me what I can and cannot say. I'm less then 2 weeks away from being 20 years old, and I don't need some old bat telling me to watch my mouth. Regardless of whether or not I was saying anything vulgar to her or anyone around me is none of her business. People really just need to let things go and not try to control what other people do or say. It was really asinine.

"Jewelry, This is Dianne!"

2009-02-01T05:58:00.003-05:00

I love pranks. I love plotting them, pulling them on people, and watching their usually horrified reaction. Lets face it, the best pranks are the ones that are borderline mean, but still funny.

One of my all time favorite pranks is one I pulled on my friend Dianne when she and I worked at Sears. I was working in the shoe department, and she was working in the adjacent department, jewelry.

One night, sometime last August, it was really slow I felt like being a little mean, so I devised a brilliant idea.

When you use the phones at Sears, there's numerous nifty things you can do with it. For instance, if you hit "8-1" you go over the intercom. If you hit "*-8", you can talk to another department over the speakerphone on their phone, which usually subsequently scares the crap out of them. Scaring people like that though is a bit tired, but still a little funny, especially when you make noises into the phone. It's also fun to do that and pretend to be a customer and say "Hello, ma'am? Can you help me over here?" and then watch them from afar say "Where are you? How can I help you?" ... It's pretty great.

Anyway, I picked up the phone in my department and hit "8-1" to go over the intercom, and set the phone very carefully on the table. I then went over to Dianne and told her a customer was calling about a watch that had broken and they apparently had a problem using the switchboard to get to the right department. So I asked her to come over and take the call.

As she was leaving her booth, a manager stopped her and asked her to start putting the jewelry away since we were closing soon, but Dianne told her she had to take a call in my department. The manager understood and said to do it after and that she'd wait for her in the department (managers have to watch associates put the jewelry away for security reasons). Dianne came over and I carefully handed her the phone as to not make any noise. When she put the phone up to her face to answer the call, throughout the entire store rang the words...

"JEWELRY, THIS IS DIANNE!"

She then stared straight ahead and hung up the phone quickly. The look on her face was absolutely priceless. I still laugh to myself whenever I picture it. She promised she'd get me back even worse, and I'm still waiting for it. I looked at the manager, who at this point was trying really hard to look angry, but even she couldn't help but grin a little. She did manage to say "Phil! That's not what the phones are for!"

Dianne, thank you for having a sense of humor.

Jean Grey is possessed!

2009-01-22T01:33:00.007-05:00

...And not by the Phoenix either...

My favorite X-Men of all time is Jean Grey, hands down. She's got cool powers, and she's hot... and she has a cool personality. That's important too, right? If you're new to the whole "X-Men" thing, you can find out more about Jean here.

In any case, she has a costume in a green mini skirt which I've always liked. It sported a rather geeky mask, but I really liked the look because it was very "retro" and was the coolest costume before she ever came in contact with the Phoenix. In recent months, they've advertised a statue of her in this very costume, pictured below:

So anyway, my Dad ordered this for me awhile ago for my birthday. It came in today (a lot earlier than I expected), and he gave it to me a few weeks early from by birthday, which if you don't know, is February 18th.

Needless to say, I was really excited to get this today. I have a pretty extensive statue collection, but I finally have my favorite character in my favorite costume ever.

I opened it up and instantly made a spot for it on one of my statue shelves, in the middle of Nightcrawler, Rogue, Storm, and Cyclops. I wanted to then show everyone my new statue, and what better way than to take a picture of it with my phone and send it to everyone, right?

I got out my phone and proceeded to take a picture of her. When I went to send the picture, however, I noticed the file was corrupt. That's happened before if it instantly saves the pic to my memory card, so I went to the options menu and checked where it was saving, and it was already saving to the phone, so I switched it to the memory card. I tried again to get a good picture of her, but the file was still corrupt. I then thought maybe the lights were too bright, so I adjusted the lighting on the statue, and was still unable to take a picture of her.

I then lifted my phone up a little bit, for shits and giggles, and went to take a picture of the shelf directly above her. I wasn't able to. Then I told my Mom my camera on my phone was broken and I'd have to go to Verizon (again) and get it fixed. I went to take a picture of my cat to show her what it was doing, but it worked this time.

Excited that my phone probably wasn't broken, I went back in my room and went to take a picture of Jean. Still corrupt. Then I decided I'd take a pic of an adjacent statue, and I was able to take a picture of Nightcrawler, Storm, Cyclops, and Rogue, but still not Jean!

I stood back a little and tried to get a group shot. Still couldn't take the picture. Thinking maybe it's the position of the statue on the shelf getting some interference, I moved my Rogue statue off the shelf and moved Jean to where Rogue was standing, and I still wasn't able to take a picture. My Mom and I were getting really creeped out.

Finally, I took the statue into the living room where I was finally able to get a picture of her.

What the heck? Is she haunted or something? I mean jeez. That was kind of ridiculous. She's now on my statue shelf right next to my computer, just looking at me. My other statues are too, but not the way she is.

STOP LOOKING AT ME, JEAN!

I swear to God, I'm going to wake up tomorrow morning with bloody hand prints all over my room. That'd be scary as hell.

Update: I'm alive! And there were also no bloody hand prints. Anyway, here's the picture I was able to get...

The Reason I'm a Comic Book Superzero

2009-01-14T05:58:00.005-05:00

Someone inadvertently pointed out that I never write about comics and comic related things. I suppose this could be a let down to some people because of my blog's name and such, but I can't help it. Not to say I'm never going to write about comics and other related things, but I just haven't had anything to write about in regards to them.

Liking the X-Men is a big part of who I am. I think that in order for a blog to be about me and the stories I have to tell, it has to have a name that really relates to me as well, hence "Comic Book Superzero".

Furthermore, while I haven't read more than half (maybe even a quarter) of all of the comics I own, one could argue that I'm too busy keeping my X-Men collection up-to-date.

My X-Men collection is definitely something I've taken pride in for most of my life now. I started liking the X-Men at the tender age of 4 or so when the animated series was all the rage. Since then, I've always been interested in their merchandise. Around ten years ago, I started collecting everything MIB (mint in box, a term referring to the condition of an action figure and related things, for all you people who probably don't spend a good portion of their paychecks on toys).

Over the years, I've managed to obtain a lot of X-Men things, those of which I'm going to share with you in the following pictures. I hope you all enjoy!

I'll answer any questions in the comments. But, to cover some basic ground...

I don't know what I'd do in case of a fire.
I don't know what I'll do when I have to move.
Dusting's a pain in the butt.

Those seem to be some common concerns. Just thought I'd get them out of the way. =)

Old people protesting?! This must be serious!

2009-01-13T17:35:00.010-05:00

First off, here's the video I'm going to be talking about:

For those too lazy to click, a cat was kicked out of a post office in Alabama because someone wrote a letter complaining about it. Now I'm not going to point any fingers at people who might be capable of writing such a letter, but someone must have a strong opinion about cats. Fair enough I guess. Some people are allergic to cats, so it would make sense to have pets like that in privately owned stores and such, and maybe not a federal government building. All in all though, that cat probably wasn't doing anyone any harm.

But, once these old citizens caught wind ~~thanks to their oxygen tanks~~ of the horrible thing that happened to this poor cat, instead of maybe adopting the cat like a sensible person might do, they're actually protesting. Seriously? Of all the things these guys could protest in this world and use their limited yet valuable time tring to change, they pick a cat.

Understandably, while the cat will probably live longer than the majority of the folks in that video, they could still protest something meaningful, like why this video is the most viewed on YouTube of all time. Decent song I guess, but really?

I'm going to be a doctor! (Because I watch TV)

2009-01-13T15:58:00.004-05:00

I was just watching a commercial for Plavix, which apparently is some sort of pill that prevents heart attacks and blood clots. Let me set the commercial's scene for you, incase you haven't seen it:

It's a bright, sunny day.
There's a family reunion.
Everyone's playing some sort of sport involving a ball, except the one older guy who's sitting in a folding chair.
A younger man jogs over and asks the old man to join.
"Not on these old legs!"

Then the younger guy goes on about Plavix and explains how it can help his heart condition and whatever. I'm sure you've all seen the commercials that are basically montage of physically active people while a monologue by an unseen narrator basically gives you a public service announcement explaining the risks of the disease and talks about the benefits of the pill. This, of course, is followed by the side effects of taking the pill, which is almost everything short of death (and sometimes even that. Erections lasting longer than 4 hours can be fatal!)

After that, the camera cuts back to the 2 men and the younger guy says, "Seriously, ask your doctor," in a variety of different ways. Really? Ask his doctor? Is that even logical? By "asking his doctor", not only is he suggesting you ask your doctor, but he's basically suggesting that your doctor's completely oblivious as to how to treat your disease. And you know what? He is. He probably doesn't watch Plavix commercials while watching endless hours horrible day-time television. He doesn't know about erections lasting more than for hours. He doesn't know anything about Abdominal pain, agitation, anxiety, constipation, decreased sex drive, diarrhea or loose stools, difficulty with ejaculation, dizziness, dry mouth, fatigue, gas, headache, decreased appetite, increased sweating, indigestion, insomnia, nausea, nervousness, pain, rash, sleepiness, sore throat, tingling or pins and needles, tremor, vision problems, vomiting.

But you know what? I do! During my winter break, I've watched more mindless TV during the day than you can shake a stick at. Not even a Wiimote.

Next time you're sick, come to me...

...Dr. Phil.

Burning Bridges

2009-01-09T18:45:00.007-05:00

I've been pretty bitter lately. This blog isn't going to be an attempt at a humorous anecdote, not today. It's going to be me complaining about how people can be pretty crappy sometimes and not even realize it.

I have about 4 people I still consider really close to me. They're "good friends", most of the time. But lately, they've been dropping the ball a little bit. I'm going to talk about two friends in particular in this blog, which may or may not make things awkward between us. I know these people read my blogs, so I'm certain they'll know it's about them. To protect their identity, however, I'm going to call the first person Ted.

Ted and I are good friends, let me start off by saying that. He and I made plans to hang out last week after he got off work. He called me after work and said he couldn't hang out because he was having stomach problems and couldn't make it. That's completely fine. I get that. I'm not going to sit at home with my boxers in a knot over him not coming over for that reason. What kind of friend would I be?

I gave him a few days, thinking when he felt better, he'd reschedule. I didn't really hear from him for about 3 days, so I decided to give him a call on the 4th night. I was having some drinks with a friend, and decided maybe he'd like to join. Ted told me that he'd pass because he needed to take a break from drinking. Then I thought to myself, "Wait a minute... I thought you were sick?"

I let it go though. I don't doubt Ted was sick, but I figure if he's too sick to do anything at all with me, he's probably too sick to drink with a bunch of friends somewhere else. But hey, whatever.

Then 2 days later, on Monday, we had made plans to go to lunch that afternoon, when all of the sudden something came up and he had to put it off until Friday (not to mention, the restaurant we were going to go to is always closed on Mondays. We forgot.) So I thought it was a goof on both of our parts, and I guess I thought it didn't matter much that something came up with him. I did however ask him to hang out that night, but again, he already had other plans that night.

Ted is taking a few winter classes up at the college, so I figured he'd be busy all week with that and work so I decided not to bother him too much about hanging out. I figured since he's sort of ditched me at least 3 times now, he'd probably get a hold of me when he had some free time. I talked to him last night, and he told me we were still on for lunch today and that he would call me and wake me up in the morning so we could go.

1:47 pm rolls around and I finally wake up (I sleep late when I don't have school. Sue me), and I realized he never called. I sent Ted a text message just saying "...nice." to which he replied "what? and did you still want to go to lunch today?" I brushed it off and told him about a weird dream I had about him (which did happen), and that I was still up for lunch. He definitely forgot we were supposed to go to lunch today. Either that, or he figured if I didn't say something the day of (even though he said he'd wake me up), that it didn't count anymore. Apparently that means I don't want to go anymore.

When we finally got to lunch, he let it slip that he's basically been drinking with other people all week. Frankly, I'm sick of being lied to and forgiving when people think I'm an idiot and don't know what they're doing, especially when they're terrible at covering it up. I don't think he does these things on purpose per say, but I definitely think maybe he should take into consideration about how I'm feeling when he'd rather get drunk somewhere else than hang out with me like he was supposed to at least a week ago.

I'm sick to death of all these mind games you have to play with some people just to hang out with them. It's ridiculous. I shouldn't have to constantly remind a person that we have plans that night, and I certainly shouldn't be the one always asking to do things.

Furthermore, I shouldn't have to sit around and wait for someone's indecisive "maybe" to turn into a yes or the more probable answer, no.

I have another friend, who we'll call Kirra. Kirra, since we've been friends, has developed a rather severe case of OCD. Anything from germs and dust to pet hair bothers her. She won't go in anyone's house who has pets. It makes her skin crawl apparently. Therefore, since I have pets, whenever she's visiting, it's extremely hard for her to hang out with me now, but she seems to try. We managed to hang out twice since she's been back up here for Christmas from her collage a state or two away. She's had 3 weeks up here, and we were only able to hang out twice. Granted, that doubled the amount of time we hung out last time she visited for Thanksgiving, it still seemed like it wasn't enough.

Kirra and I had talked about her OCD and how she hated having it. She missed hanging out with me, and I her. She said she was going to suck it up and have me over as often as possible when she was home. Apparently that was a lie. Of course, she'll probably never admit that it was her OCD. Everyone's favorite excuse to not hang out apparently is their busy and hectic lifestyles. I don't buy it, not for a second. When you have no job, and nothing to do but hang out with your family for 3 weeks, I'd like to believe you'd have at least more than 2 days that you can hang out. I know Kirra said she's try and suck it up. As difficult as it can be though, I'd like to believe that she could have tried a little harder.

When she visited on Thanksgiving, after we hung out that one time, she literally ignored every text message and IM I sent her asking what was up for the next 2 weeks she was visiting, until she went home. That's why this time she felt really bad and wanted to hang out more. I guess I wasn't so lucky.

I probably should take this issue up with these people directly. I really should, but I can't. I'm not sure how they would take it. I just want to them to know that I'm on to them, and I know what they're doing to me and why they're doing it. I don't buy for a second that either one of them is actually too busy to hang out with me. If they really wanted to, they'd make time. I know these people care for me, they're my best friends, and I care for them too. I just think that for some reason or another they think they can pull a fast one on me and get away with it (sometimes over and over), but they really can't. I know them too well and have for too long.

Ted and Kirra, I want you guys to know, that when you read this (and I know you will), is that I forgive you guys, and I want to move on. I just wanted you guys to know that I know, without actually telling you directly. You don't ever have to bring it up, just know that I know, and try to be a better friend once in awhile. Quit with the silly mind games and for god's sake, Kirra, give me a straight answer. If you don't want to do something because you're OCD is acting up, fine, but don't give me a bunch of "maybe"s and expect everything to work itself out. I definitely think that everyone out of high school should be done toying people around, believing they can out smart anyone they want into thinking whatever. People aren't that dumb guys, they just play the game and go along with it to avoid confrontation. I'm done with that. Time to grow up, everyone.

I promise after writing this that I'm going to be even more straight forward when it comes to dealing with people. I won't try to manipulate people into thinking I'm doing one thing so I can hang with someone else, and I'm certainly going to deal with my problems even more directly than I was before. And I know what you readers are thinking, " Wow! That's pretty big talk for someone who just wrote a ridiculously long blog indirectly confronting all his problems!" I have no problem talking to either one of these guys about what's bugging me. I'd like to think I'm close enough to them so that I could tell either of them anything. However, both of these people were doing similar things to me, and I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone and just let them both know what was up while protecting their identity from everyone and each other.

No hard feelings, Ted or Kirra. I just want things to change.

Back Issue #1: Nuts In My Mouth

2009-01-02T07:01:00.005-05:00

Originally posted May 30th, 2008 on MySpace.

My Mom likes to bake when she has time. Why, just the other day, my Mom decided she'd make some muffins from a recipe she had. It was some sort of banana-nut muffins, that contained of, you guessed it, bananas and nuts. It also had coffee grounds in it, which I thought was kind of weird, but that was the least of my concerns.

Personally, I think nuts ruin any dessert. Peanut butter is a different story all together. But nuts, as a whole that are not "butter-fied" in desserts make me want to gag.

So there I was, cutting this freshly baked, moist, muffin. It had a sweet maple syrup smell to it because of the brown sugar which was mixed with the delicious aroma of bananas. So I took the knife and carefully spread the butter on it. Just as I finished that, I picked up half of the muffin and began to bite down. The richness of the butter (yeah, or margarine) and the deliciousness of the muffin combined in my mouth, producing a wonderful taste. I continued to bite down, when all of the sudden...

*HARD THING*

It was an almond. It totally interrupted the blissful taste of the muffin itself with a bland crunchy thing that is almost like adding negative taste to the muffin. It was appalling. Just when I was starting to enjoy the moistness of the muffin, I'd bite into another one! It was awful.

I was under the impression that my Mom knew that I hate nuts in stuff like that. If I'm bored and kinda hungry, and we have some peanuts around the house, I'll eat them or whatever. That's fine. But I definitely think you shouldn't surprise people with them. Don't be all, "Hey! Here's an awesomely delicious and moist muffin! Enjoy!" then turn away and stick a finger in each ear as if the nuts in the muffin were a bomb about to explode in my face. She didn't do that, but she might as well have. I'd rather my head explode than eat another muffin with nuts in it. I also wish I was allergic to nuts. And I mean like, deathly allergic. So that way my mom would go out of her way NOT to include nuts in stuff. But I only wish I was allergic to the whole nut. I can give up my occasional peanut snack, but I cannot live without Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. ABSOLUTELY CANNOT!

Anyway, to sum all that up. Nuts ruin desserts. They taste gross in muffins, and in brownies, and don't even get me started on nut-riddled ice cream.

Back Issue #0: Prologue

2009-01-02T06:53:00.007-05:00

I've decided I'm going to post some of my more memorable blogs from MySpace on here. Some of the older blogs I've written on there were generally well received, some more than others. I have some favorites and some that I know people close to me liked. In anycase, any blog that starts with "Back Issue#___:" is an older blog. I hope you guys enjoy reading them as much as I did writing them.

On a side note, I might edit some of them before I post them onto here.

And another side note, if you want to view my MySpace and my older blogs that I might not post, check it out here: . If you add me to friends, in the message, please include that you found me through my blog. Sometimes I get random creepers that add me to friends and I usually just ignore them. So yeah, thanks ahead of time.

I Smell Like Cheese...

2008-12-30T08:55:00.004-05:00

And you know what? That's probably one of (if not) the absolute worst thing you could ever smell like. Especially if it's an identifiable cheese, like blue cheese, or brie or something that smells like feet. Or worse yet, rotten cheese.

I don't smell like that though, oh no. Nothing that bad, I promise. I smell like taco cheese. I basically decided to stay up all night (since I got up at 5:00 pm yesterday, it wasn't all that hard), and I got hungry around 8:30 am the next day, so I decided a grilled cheese would be a good choice for a breakfast of sorts. So I made that.

Then I had a flashback to another morning I stayed up really late. I had been watching HSN. At the time they were selling non-stick pans. They demonstrated how "non-stick" they are by melting and burning cheese on it and showing it just peeled right off. And then that giddy idiot in the television uttered(*) these fateful words, "And you know what?! This would make a great snack! I do it all the time!"

It was a matter of months before I was actually able to muster up the guts to risk messing up one of my mom's not-so-anti-stick-pans because they're so GD old. But I did it. I made myself that grilled cheese today with some cheddar cheese, and then took a quarter of a bag of taco cheese and melted it on the skillet.

It was going pretty well until it started to stick to the pan like a sweaty ass on leather. And then I realized that I used too much cheese. Cheese, and everyone else probably realizes, is slightly greasy, so there was a large amount I had to manage on the pan. I did however keep rotating it, all the while grease is getting everywhere and the cheese is starting to smoke. And then the cheese fumes fused to my being, and now I smell like cheese.

I don't think I'll be able to get rid of the smell or greasy skin for awhile.

Update: I definitely ate too much cheese. I'm going to be bound up for like 4 weeks, I swear.

Footnotes:
(*)= I had to look this up to make sure I wasn't referring to the teat of a cow.

A wedding that ended in bloodshed! (Run for your lives!)

2008-12-28T00:59:00.005-05:00

I went to my first wedding today. It was quite the month of religious ceremonies for me. First a wake, and now a wedding. Talk about opposite sides of the spectrum. In any case, today was pretty fun, I'm not going to lie.

The ceremony itself was nice. The bride and groom were friends of mine, and it was nice to see them so happy together. The reception afterward was especially fun because I sat with everyone I was friends with at a table by ourselves... we didn't have to deal with any old religious fanatics judging our sometimes crude conversations.

One point stands out in particular. All this week I've been getting bloody noses due to the cold, dry weather. It's pretty sickening. It mostly happens in the shower, after all, who doesn't enjoy a good snot rocket after first waking up?

So anyway, there I was sitting between my friends Kayla and Meagan when all of the sudden, I felt that familiar movement in my nose. The dam built in the red sea, for the purpose of this nose bleed metaphor, broke and began to unleash out my nostril. Having the amazing reflexes that I do (hey! Don't laugh. I got a Wii Fit for Christmas! I'm on my way to actually being (a little) fit!), I caught the blood on my hand before it could get all over my new shirt I got for the wedding. I quickly told anyone who happened to be listening (fun fact: no one), that I'd be right back. I bolted out of the reception hall trying to not be noticed, all the while my hand was further being covered with blood.

I finally made it out of the main room when I had to turn left, go down a hallway, then straight into the men's room to stop the bleeding. But before I could make it down the hall, I saw 2 women who were guests at the wedding. They were walking side by side in a manner that suggested they had been dancing for hours and their heels were starting to hurt them. Ladies, don't wear platforms to a goddamn wedding. In any case, since they were walking side by side, I had no way of getting around them. And they were going incredibly slow. I could've politely said, "Excuse me!" or something, but that would've drawn their attention to me, much less my now blood covered hand over my half bloody face. So I stood there, walking slowly to sort of trail behind them to stay unnoticed. It was tough, but I don't think they saw me, or my nose at the very least.

Finally I made it in the bathroom. I spashed some water on my face to get some of the blood off, but that was a bad idea. Instead of getting rid of the blood, the blood continued to come out of my nose and fill in ever wet spot on my face. It got a lot worse. I then grabbed some paper towel and got it all off. Then, after feeling like everyone was staring at me, I went in a stall to jam some toilet paper up my nose until it stopped.

After about 10 minutes, it stopped. When I went back to my table, no one seemed to notice where I went or why I did. Apparently I have a very noticeable, vibrant presence.

Oh my god! I have 26 ears!

2008-12-16T03:48:00.006-05:00

Or at least I must with the amount of headphones I have. Here's a knowledge bomb for you, I have 13 pairs of headphones. I'm not going to lie, I basically just realized this. Why on Earth is that necessary? Why do I need so many? Hell if I know. Too bad there isn't that one perfect pair. Maybe that's what I'm in constant search for? Who knows... the point is, I have too many. In any case, here's a list of the headphones/headsets I have and my "reasons" for having them (and the ones I have listed, broken or not, are still in my possession and have not been thrown out).

1. Apple Ear Buds - I bought an Ipod Nano.

2. Apple Ear Buds - I bought an Ipod (32 gigs).

3. Apple Ear Buds - I bought an Ipod Classic (160 Gigs).

4. Cell phone headset - Came with a cell phone I used to have ages ago. (These are MIA.)

5. Official Xbox headset - Came with my Xbox 360.

6. Unofficial Xbox 360 headset - The official ones broke.

7. Bluetooth headset - I wanted to be one of those cool people that tricks everyone into thinking they're talking to them, when in reality they're on the phone. Unfortunately, I, at once point in my life, thought that was a cool thing to do.

8. Uncomfortable ear buds - This particular pair I bought because I wanted ear buds. This was before I had the Ipod ones that were of equal or lesser value. These were my first set of ear buds and they came in a neat storage case.

9. In-ear ear buds - These I bought as an upgrade from my uncomfortable Ipod ones that stretch out your ear lobe. This pair also had an adjustable volume dial on the cord, which was nifty.

10. In-ear ear buds with wrap-around ear attachment (so they'll stay on during all that rigorous jogging that I don't do) - The main reason I bought these is because I ended up losing the rubber piece that fit in my ear for my #9 pair.

11. Working Headset with microphone - These I took from my father's to try to use for some online gaming that required you to use a voice-chat program. They didn't work out.

12. Non-working headset - This headset is especially old. This one also has a mic. I'm not really sure why I originally bought this pair, but I did. I definitely wanted to do some voice chatting of some sort. The mic is a bit faulty because you get some weird static if you move or adjust it sometimes. These were the reason I grabbed pair #11 from my Dad's.

13. My awesome headphones - These headphones are like, hardcore-DJ headphones. These I bought for some hardcore internet gaming/movie watching or music listening to on my Ipod. They have amazing sound. And since I wasn't able to find a good set of headphones with a mic that worked, I now use #12 and these at the same time. It take a bit of adjusting, but after a little bit of work, I can comfortably use 2 sets of headphones at once.

And there you have it ladies and gents, a list of all the horrible things I spend my money on. Now that I have this all hammered out, I just need to figure out where I put headphones #4...

Icey You Baby! Washin' Those Hands!

2008-12-13T20:20:00.004-05:00

So I was in Kmart the other day eating dinner at the Little Caesars in there and studying for my history final. My friend Beth works there so I got one hell of a discount on a large soda and a large order of cheesy bread. I think it was just over $4 if I'm not mistaken. I owe you one, Beth.

Anyway, so after I ordered my food, I turned around from the register and walked down the aisle immediately behind me. I walked past the soda machine to my right and 2 tables on my left before I sat at the third table, facing the register so I could still see Beth but I was far enough away to probably not bother her. There was a mother and a daughter sitting at the second table in the aisle, the mother facing me and the daughter facing the register. The daughter was really short so every time I looked up, there was a good chance I'd make eye contact with her mom if the daughter was at all leaning to the side or forwards. It was kind of awkward when we would make eye contact. I felt like she thought I was checking her or her daughter out. She seemed almost creeped out.

In any case, there I was thoroughly enjoying my cheesy bread, drinking my Diet Coke, when this whale of a woman with an oxygen tank (bad blowhole?), wheeled up in an electric wheelchair because whales, after all, can't walk on their own. She must've consumed all of the plankton in the ocean, because obviously she was getting food at Little Caesars. She ordered a pizza and a soda with her friend (who was probably secretly a dolphin), and went over to the soda machine to fill up their cups.

Now I was watching them the entire time because I didn't want to get grease on the flash cards I was using, so I figured I might as well stare at them. Whatever. Anwyay, after they filled their cups, Shamu was like, "Hang on, I just want to get some ice," which puzzled me, because she no longer had her cup. She lunged forward a little to better reach the ice button then put her other hand under where the ice came out, which kind of grossed me out because she touched the rim of where the ice came out. Who nows what she touched? Apparently I wasn't the only one concerned with that. She then took the ice that was dispensed and began to commence wriggling them through her fingers, using them like a bar of soap, letting her dirty finger debris fall saturated into the drip tray. I wanted to puke.

Now, for those of you who don't know me, when caught off guard, I wear my emotions on my face pretty badly. I was caught off guard, to say the least. My jaw dropped, my eyes widened with a look of disbelief, and I'm sure a few wrinkles appeared in my forehead. So I looked away and I made direct eye contact with the mother for what felt like an eternity. I had enough time to think the following to myself,

"I can't believe that lady just did that!
I that lady must be grossed out too!
That lady doesn't appear to be as grossed out.
I don't think she saw it at all.
Oh my god, I'm making a face a her."

It was pretty horrible. I looked away as soon as I realized this. I didn't look up after that until she left. After she left, my friend Beth decided she'd be awesome and stack the pizza boxes she finished folding, as high as they'd go. She failed. I had to get out my phone for that one:

Please say a command! BEEP!

2008-11-13T19:48:00.012-05:00

I like to stay up late. Very late. I usually end up going to sleep at or around 3am, even on school nights. Last Monday night, I stayed up slightly later than that... which I soon found out was a terrible.

When I get really tired... or drunk... the mental wall I have in my head that prevents me from saying everything on my mind slowly fades away. This because especially prevalent when I was in math class.

For the entire semester, my math teacher has bothered me for a number of reasons. She has to have things exactly her way. She has rules for everything... it's a little ridiculous. One of her less outrageous rules is that you can do the corrections on your tests and hand them in to her for up to 5 point back. Now, before I rant about that, let me just clarify that I'm thankful for the opportunity to get points back. On that note, I think if you do test corrections, you should get a percentage back instead of a set amount of points. That way it's far more worth someone's time to redo, lets say, half the test.

So I sit down in math that fateful Tuesday and listened to the teacher announce she'd be handing back our tests at the end of class. I like to occasionally text in class so I turned off the sound and vibration on my phone so I can just set it on my desk. That way, if/when I get a txt, the screen will just light up and it won't distract everyone. I then opened my phone (which sometimes goes to "speaker" mode) so I had easy access to the keyboard. After I got settled, I groggily raised my hand. She called on me, and in a dazed/tired state, this is how the conversation went:

Me: "I just have a question. Why is it that you only give 5 points back on a test if we do the corrections? I just don't think it's very motivating for someone who got a 50 or something to do all those corrections to still not be passing. And they're the ones who need to do the work, not those people who got a 95. You should be encouraging people that need to do the corrections to do so, and to not waste their time."
Her: "Well the corrections are supposed to boost a person half a letter grade and that's what it does. A lot of teachers don't give their students an opportunity to make corrections on their test, and this also allows them to get some points back. It's not necessarily, supposed to give you a ton of points back..."

At this point in any of my teacher's discussions or lectures, she tends to talk in circles and repeat herself in a number of different ways by restating the information in a slightly new manner. So I looked down at my phone and decided it'd be a good idea to check and see if I had recieved any messages while my heart was bursting out of my chest. What I had said was finally starting to sink in. Trying to distract myself from my nerves, I went to hit the clear button on my phone just to illuminate the screen to see if I had anything, but what I didn't realize in my "sleep goggles", was I hit the voice command key instead. For those of you who don't know, this trigger's the voice command mode on your phone, which typically has a female's voice say "Please say a command!" and then beeps... which is exactly what my phone did. I frantically hit a bunch of buttons to get her to stop talking before slamming my phone shut. Thankfully, the teacher was still talking in a never ending cyclone of sentences. She didn't notice, but everyone in the surrounding desks heard it, looked at me, and laughed.

It was really embarrassing. I still feel like I got my point across though. I've had a lot of teachers in my days, and not one of them set a point limit on test corrections. It was always a percentage.

I've dropped the class since. I'm looking forward to taking the class with a teacher next semester that isn't (as) crazy.

On another note, I'm glad I've finally subscribed to some interesting people's blogs. Everyone of them that I've subscribed to is pretty awesome. I don't get around to commenting as many as I'd like to, but I definitely try to read them as often as possible. I have a survey that I have to do that I got tagged for. I'll have to do that =)

I've Been Discovered and Have an Album Coming Out!

2008-10-28T00:11:00.002-04:00

And pigs fly!!! Well... demon pigs might at least. Anyway...

Many people sing in the privacy of their own home. Deny it all you want, but everyone does it. Who doesn't love cranking their MP3 player and just singing until they're blue in the face? No one. The especially spiffy people, like myself, dance along to it. The even spiffier people are good at their secluded dancing. I'm not that spiffy, yet.

In any case, last night I was listening to this band called Sherwood at like, 2am. As you might've guessed, I was having my own little concert in my room. No dancing though, just full out singing. There I was, slowly spinning in my computer chair, singing:

Would you wait if I wrote you a perfect song tonight?
To make your heart stand still and make your chest grow tight
But I'll never write a perfect line
And I don't even know why I waste my time and try, whoa

And for the longest time
I couldn't love her to save my life
Never a moment of peace in my mind, yeah
Cause in the longest line
The front and the back are the same sometimes
And taking a number has taken my time, whoa

and I was having such an amazing time. You don't even understand. I've listened to their CD about 8 times now, so I've almost got all of the lyrics down pat.

In any case, apparently my singing wasn't so private. Not only was I heard by someone else who would probably hold it over my head for a really long time (my Mom, if you hadn't figured it out), but I was actually preventing them from sleeping. I'm not sure if I feel more embarrassed or sorry for keeping her up. Probably more embarrassed considering I was listening to the music on my headphones, so all she could hear was me.

I'm starting to decide that I'm more embarrassed though. To be fair, she could've txted me (yes, she txts), and told me to shut the hell up, but she didn't. She even told me that she was going to, but was too lazy/tired to get up to tell me to be quiet.

Holy crap. I'm slowly remembering everything I was singing last night. It could have been the Sherwood CD, but there's a very good probability she heard me singing to the myspace karaoke thing that recently came out. It's this thing that allows you to read the lyrics to a song and sing along to it while you record yourself to hear how retarded and awful you sound. If you're feeling like making a total and complete fool of yourself, you can even post it online. I thought about doing it, but I didn't. Apparently subconsciously I knew I was already making a big enough fool of myself.

I hope she didn't hear that. I was singing some pretty "Toxic" songs. Hahahaha

Oh God, I'm never singing again.

Flatbread Sandwiches FTW

2008-10-23T17:13:00.003-04:00

I don't know if it was the fact that I got more than 3 hours of sleep last night (it was actually closer to 13), but I had the most amazing day ever. It all started this morning when I woke up.

I was in the shower today and thought to myself, "God! I sure as hell could go for one of those flat bread sandwiches from Dunkin Donuts! That kind with the bacon cheese and turkey! Oh my GOD I want one!" So after I got out of the shower, I called my Dad and asked if he could possibly get one for me before he picked me up, and he reluctantly agreed.

So there I was in my Dad's car eating my flat bread sandwich and sipping my propel. At that point, there could've been a nuclear holocaust that day and it still would've been an amazing day. Those things are amazingly delicious. I may have burned myself a few times trying to eat it (that sucker was hot), but it was sooo worth it.

So then I got to my geology lab, which could've put a damper on anyone's day. It didn't though, cause we did a lab where we had to melt sugar. I'm proud to say that my group was the only group who almost set theirs on fire. It was smoking really bad, but in my defense, when Beth and I asked him what to set the hot plate on, and my geo teacher, that we'll just call "Gibbers" was like, "Oh, definitely 8 or 9 ought to do it. Definitely 8 or 9". So that's what I set it on. 9. And guess what the actual settings were supposed to be? 2 or 3. So that caused a grotesque amount of smoke to emanate from our lab group. It was fine though. To be fair, it smelled really good. I was also able to sneak a bunch of extra sugar cubes from the box and ate like 5 of them. It was delicious.

Also during geology, this girl that I'm not really a huge fan of kept nodding off in class and waking up abruptly. It was pretty funny looking. In any case, I took a video of it so I could remember that moment for years to come. Well, lets face it; only a year. I have a problem with buying new cell phones.

So then, after my lab, instead of having to stick around campus like I would have to during my 2 hour break between that and statistics, Beth and I hung out for a little and ate my FAVORITE type of pizza (Ultimate Pepperoni DiGiorno Pizza) while watching one of my FAVORITE TV shows (Roseanne). It was pretty amazing.

Then when I got back to campus, Beth and I used the computers for a little. I wanted to show an amazing "literal" music video to Beth (link here), and since the computers don't have speakers, I whipped out my headphones so we could listen to the video. Much to my dismay, however, one of the little rubber things that goes on the end of my ear buds had fallen off. I was kinda pissed. They were like, $50 and the only reason I bought them is because the ear buds I had before wound up loosing their little rubber ear piece as well. I checked the floor in the computer lab... nothing. All I found were bits of hair and 50 year old dust. The only other place it could've been was at home when I put my IPod and headphones in my pocket. I'd have to check later.

I got to math, which is extremely boring and irritating no matter what kind of day you're having. Your first son or daughter could be born and you win the lottery all in the same day, and math could be that one bullet in the day that would urge you to shoot yourself in the face. How did I cope with this, you might ask? It's very simple. I sat there for 50 of the hour and fifteen minutes of that class and read a book that I love to hate (The Amityville Horror by Jay Anson. More to come on that in a later blog). I managed to grind out like, 80 pages. Good times.

After math, I went home and read some more, and then watched another one of my favorite shows, Judge Judy. While the cases weren't particularly any good (it was mostly a bunch of alleged loans that people were suing over), I was still happy that I was able to stay awake because of all the sleep I got last night. Usually I end up passing out on the couch when it's on. I didn't today, though!

On a side note, the Olsen twins were on Oprah today, which I shamefully watched. It was nice to see they got their shit together now and they have 2 very successful fashion lines that they completely own and run basically on their own. Good for them. They're not too bad looking now either.

That brings us to about right now. I'm just sitting here and writing this right now, but later tonight I have plans to go to Wendy's (my friend Wendy's house, not the restaurant. Sorry Wendy, but I had to clarify. I hate the restaurant and I don't want people thinking otherwise lol), and she, her husband Patrick, Beth and I are going to watch the Exorcist. Which is a good horror movie, unlike Amityville Horror, which can just go right ahead and bite me. Seriously.

And that concludes my otherwise amazing day. I hope you guys enjoyed reading about it as much as I did living it. Good times.

The PERFECT Thermos (Illustrated Blog! Kind of, anyway)

2008-10-15T16:04:00.001-04:00

Ok, for YEARS now, at least 3, I've wanted to buy a nice coffee thermos. Honest to God, I would walk by them in the store and stop and look at them. I'd pick them up, turn them around and look at the sides, the handle, the lid, and other stuff like that. Now, I don't drink coffee. I actually really think it's pretty disgusting. It smells GREAT... but kind of tastes like dirt.

It all started when I worked at Auntie Anne's in the summer of 2005. It was there that I first really made an attempt to be addicted to coffee. Call me crazy, but I definitely thought it was cool to drink coffee back then. Everyone else in high school was downing liquor like it was going out of style. I wanted to drink coffee... I must've been sooo popular in high school.

Needless to say, the coffee thing didn't work out for me. I couldn't really get past the taste, no matter how many packets of sugar or creamers I put in it. Plus, I feel like that when people look at other people drinking any kind of hot beverage, they think to themselves, "Wow, look at that person drinking that coffee or whatever. He looks pretty cool!" I've come to realize that makes as much sense as the theory that smoking makes you look cool. But honestly, if anything in the entire world were going to actually have an effect on your level of "coolness", it'd be coffee.

So why do I want a coffee thermos, you might ask? Well, it's very simple. I like hot chocolate, and there's no rule that says I can't drink hot chocolate out of a damn coffee thermos. So after 3 years of contemplating coffee, I've decided that I will most likely always be a hot chocolate fan. I have hot chocolate pockets and stuff at home, sure, but I don't have anything substantial to drink it out of. I have a tiny coffee mug I got at Universal Studios that has "Phil" on the side of it. It's kinds dorky (which normally I'd love), but it's also really tiny. I always use 2 packets of the hot chocolate mix instead of 2, and it's difficult to mix 2 packets of the stuff with the water in a mug that's that tiny.

On a recent trip to the Borders Cafe', however, I found exactly what I was looking for. THE PERFECT THERMOS! Now before you go off and say "Duh Phil! Check the fucking coffee place for a coffee thermos!"... I did. Quite a few times. I didn't really like what I saw much before that. It had to be seriously perfect. In retrospect, it was probably there the whole time, I just had to fall in love with it, which I did.

Anyway, the whole thermos thing didn't work out as well as I had liked. Since the thermos was substantially bigger than my coffee mug, I figured I would add a third packet of sugar. I realized the next morning, however, that that was a terrible idea. I got SO sick, it was ridiculous. Never again, will I add 3 packets of anything to anything.

Do writers write what they know?(An essay for school)

2008-10-01T00:31:00.003-04:00

So I have to write a paper for my English class. I have to argue whether or not I agree with the quote, "Scientific romances and science fiction are generally considered to be remote from the author's experience. That can never be the case:; what we are fills the fictions we tell, often without our realizing it. What lurks as figurative in the mind comes out clearly on paper". I figure I might as well write this in a blog to convince myself I'm not actually doing school work... but I am. I'm so tricky.

[It’s tough being a writer. Sometimes you have to toss a story around in your mind for what seems like years. In the introduction to War of the Worlds, Brian Aldiss states, ""Scientific romances and science fiction are generally considered to be remote from the author's experience. That can never be the case; what we are fills the fictions we tell, often without our realizing it. What lurks as figurative in the mind comes out clearly on paper". I sincerely agree with this quote. To me, this quote means that the writer both consciously and subconsciously uses themes and characters that are familiar to him. The writer's personality takes over their writing as a camouflaged facade.

As difficult and as long as it takes to write sometimes, some of the best stories out there are a distorted and altered change of realistic themes and characters that the author has experience with. Without this familiarity, pieces of writing wouldn't be convincing to the reader. Writers can't write a great science fiction piece about alien invasions if the authors themselves haven't felt personally invaded before.

People who try to write about things that they're completely unfamiliar with often come across as unauthentic or they end up having to do a ton of research on the subject. Lets say an author was trying to write about someone that was captured by an alien ship and imprisoned. If that person hasn't personally been confined in a sort of situation like that, or at least felt emotionally arrested, the author would be unable to absolutely relate to the character and make you feel what the character's supposed to be feeling.

Writers often use thoughts and experiences not just change and mask them for the sake of their story, but to evolve from that idea. This evolution is usually a conscious process. Thinking for a moment about why the pencil grip was invented can prove this. Someone looked at their past (or present) situation and thought to themselves, "Damn! I'm trying to write this letter to my lover, but the pencil's too slippery! If only I had something that went around the pencil to help keep it in my hand!" That person used their past experience and evolved that into an idea. Such creative processes go into writing all the time. Someone can take a simple scenario from their past, like tripping over a rock, and totally completely "roll" with the idea in a story. Maybe after they tripped over that rock, they hit their head and went into a fantasyland where air was made of chocolate. Who knows?

Brian Aldiss has to be correct when he says, ""Scientific romances and science fiction are generally considered to be remote from the author's experience. That can never be the case; what we are fills the fictions we tell, often without our realizing it. What lurks as figurative in the mind comes out clearly on paper". Writers need to write what they know in order to come up with any ideas at all. By using "what they know", they're able to creatively twist that thought into something new that readers can relate to. And often times, writers take an idea or scenario and evolve off of that idea and base an entire story off of a personal experience. This paper, for example, was almost entirely written off of personal experience.]

After I write this I thought to myself, "Wait... why is his pencil slippery?"

I have a foggy memory.

2008-09-30T20:49:00.001-04:00

So, I was in the maternity store recently talking to my good friend Johnna about her halloween party. We were discussing the things she needs for her party, like decorations and stuff. Apparently, she also needs a fog machine. I then said she could use my fog machine, when it hit me... why in the hell do I own a fog machine?

I'll be the first to admit I'm not very good with money. I buy comics every week, a new cell phone at least once every year, and all kinds of X-Men crap on ebay, but I can not for the life of me remember why I bought that fog machine. Usually when I buy frivolous things, I at least have some sort of "legit" reason (or at least I think so) to buy it. I have no clue why I would ever want, much less buy, a fog machine. I vaguely remember playing with it awhile ago. I remember I used to play with a laser pointer with it, because if the room's foggy, you can actually see the laser beam in the room (and it's pretty fucking sweet). I know I didn't buy it just for that, though.

Maybe I was planning on having a Halloween party one year. I've tried that before... that didn't go well. I think that was the year I realized I hate large groups of people. I remember I ended up getting mad at everyone (I get a little irritable in factions of people).

It couldn't have happened on a better night though. Maybe they just thought I was in the murderous Halloween spirit...

Probably not.

Pics of my hiking trip and my favorite recipe!

2008-09-30T20:18:00.001-04:00

Not really. But a lot of people like to talk about that kind of stuff on this website it seems. I think my main issue is that I'm jealous. I'm usually pretty ecstatic if I'm going to the mall, much less going on a hiking trip or something awesome. And lets face it. I can't cook for beans. I couldn't even make beans if I tried.

Anyway, so I've been meaning to write a blog about this for awhile, so here it is.

Lately my Mom has been going on walks every single night. When she started doing it, she probably thought, "Wow I'm being so fit and healthy! I think I'm going to ask Philip to go with me! That way we can talk for an hour about his life and I can be his best friend!"

I had other plans... like not going for walks. She kept asking and I kept turning her down. I feel much more productive laying on the couch and watching Judge Judy. HEY! Don't judge me... that's her job.

So anyway, one day she and I are watching TV in the mid afternoon just, ya know, kind of lounging around. Then when it got really quiet, I was like, "Hey Mom, wanna go for a walk?" and her face lit up like a child getting a lollypop. Then she was like "Really?!" I paused for a moment, then was like, "NOT!"

Now, I know that makes me sound like a terrible person, but I assure you, it was hilarious. She's known me for, what, 19 years now? (obviously)

She gets my humor.

The last few days of my life in the form of a bad sitcom... plus or minus a cast list. (minus)

2008-09-29T23:33:00.000-04:00

So, I've never written on this website before. Beth convinced me too. It took me awhile to actually get around to doing it. I haven't had much to write about lately, which I usually don't like to admit, since I want to be a writer. But I guess everybody gets writer's block. I have had some pretty shitty things happen lately though. I almost felt like I was on a really bad slapstick sitcom.

The sitcom, first off, would have a series premiere (obviously). It would consist of an old friend coming into town and me hanging out with him and having a good ol' time. There would be assorted laughs in there through various bits of sarcasm and insults... and if that didn't keep people laughing, watching us watch The Office would. Also, we go to a pizza place where one of the cooks accuses us of trying to scam a second pizza out of the store, just because we're teenagers. I flip out and tell the cook that she shouldn't descriminate against teenagers. I would be directly quoted as saying "NO ONE LIKES BEING DESCRIMINATED AGAINST!!!" Then, I'm quoted all over other TV shows and the internet, due to my explosive exclamation. That's the first episode.

The second one would be me trying to hang out with my friend again but I keep getting the overwhelming feeling something's bugging him, cause lets face it, he appears to be ignoring me. So that conflict right there, will bring my second episode into a 2-part cliff hanger. Also in this episode, a friend ditches me for lunch while I make a few new friends (and a new enemy) at the school newspaper club.

In the third episode, I further contemplate why I'm being shunned by my friend. Nothing new develops. Just more ignoring. (I know I said that this conflict would be resolved in 2 half hour episodes, but I've just decided that the whole first season is going to be about that.) In the third episode, I go to the mall and buy some new clothes for school with my MOM. I'm feeling nice so I pay for a haircut for her, since most of the humor in this episode is her relentlessly complaining about how she's growing her hair out and has no idea what she's going to do with it.

The fourth and final episode of the series (because at this point it's so bad it goes on hiatus), I go to class the next day and get a bloody nose in the middle of a lecture and get blood all over my brand new jeans. It's like the movie "Carrie" gone "crotch". It wasn't pretty. Still no word from my friend.

There's tons of cliffhangers, so I'm pretty sure the station will pick up the series again. We've got to know why my friend's ignoring me! And what about that new enemy in newspaper club? Who's the ACTUAL better writer? Only time will tell!

That was seriously the lamest thing I've ever written.