Development

 I look at myself now and truly do realize that I've grown as a person in ways I really would have ever imagined. The way I view people. The way I view the world. It's rather amazing but it's also rather scary. I think differently. React differently. The decisions I make are different. Some people are winners. Some are losers. Sometimes I'm the winner and sometimes I'm not. I've come to realize that I should not regret decisions, but rather analyze whether they were the correct ones. We all make mistakes and we all have flaws. I truly appreciate people for not being perfect. Diversity in thoughts, likes and ideas is what makes us individuals. I might act like the same guy from 10 years ago but brain is in another world. I'm more open and more acceptable to so many things that sometimes I catch myself saying "You have never even thought twice about saying no to this three years ago." But here I am, self-reflecting and hoping to grow even more. Many things in life have led me to where I am now and I'm truly glad they all came together to put me into this situation where I am. And a big thank you to the special person in my life whose played a huge in helping me become who I am. Thank you

Working List of Everything I Want to Buy

• Disney Infinity 2.0 with Stitch and Merida
• Grand Theft Auto 5 for the PS4
• Bayonetta 2
• Far Cry 4 for PS4
• Kingdom Hearts 2.5
• Super Smash Bros WiiU
• Super Smash Bros Amiibos:
• Link
• Pikachu
• Yoshi
• Marth
• Peach
• Samus
• Kirby
• Kingdom Hearts Christmastown Sora Action Figure
• Witcher 3
• Kingdom Hearts poster
• Shadows of Mordor
• LittleBigPlanet 3
• Captain Toad
• Splatoon
• Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare

Geeeek

I feel like I'm finally turning into the nerd/geek/whatever-label-you-want-to-use that I've always wanted to be. My room is covered in posters from movies: Saw, Frankenweenie, Jackass; to video games to soccer. I have a giant collection of Disney Infinity figures (including the whole Guardians of the Galaxy set). I have action figures of Alice: Madness Returns, Kingdom Hearts and Bioshock (and I still need to buy Christmastown Sora). I have awesome coffee table books. I have a Collector's Edition Legend of Zelda Monopoly. I have a Legend of Zelda 3DS. I have every Oswald the Lucky Rabbit mug and stuffed animal available. I buy cds and video games like crazy. I have a record player with some of my favorite all time records. I built a gaming computer. I don't regret buying my WiiU and PS4 cause they're both awesome as fuck. 

How am I not suppose to feel like I'm an anchor on the fun things you like to do when you have a tendency to go to bars and stay out late every time you go out with someone who is not me. Maybe I'm just the one whose not fun to go out drinking with. Oh well.

To My Weenie

As the summer comes to a close, it looks like it's ending on an incredible high. You should be proud of yourself for your excellent achievements and accomplishments. This summer had been radically different from what was expected and I can't be any happier for you on how it's played out. You've developed relationships, friendships, created lots of memories and most importantly grown as person in various aspects. I'm happy you've been able to enjoy it as much as you have and that you've cherished all of it. I hope that you always remember this summer as special one 

Even though the food sucked, the positives severely outweigh the negatives :)

I don't think I've every felt this undervalued...

Omnipresent Perception

I have no idea when I got into technical death metal. I think I would resort a lot of it to discovering Obscura a few years back. I think what I like the most about it is the dominant presence of the bass. These bands usually have EXTREMELY talented bass players and this band Beyond Creation is no exception. Don't get me wrong, every technical death metal has incredibly great musicians all around, but the genre glorifies bassists. The song embedded below, "Omnipresent Perception" has an amazing bass solo. The solos are great, the riffs are great and the vocals are great. I have no idea how this band slipped from my vision, but I found them and here they are now :D I love metal

1-3-5

Today I watched Mean Girls. It's been a while since I've last watched and boy a lot of things in the movie I don't recall at all. All those scenes where people start acting like animals seemed brand new to me. Other scenes I recalled completely. I can totally understand why people really love the movie and can quote it like nothing. Hey I do the same exact thing with Red vs Blue. Somehow I didn't remember the character Kevin Gnapoor. I always latch on to comic relief characters but somehow I didn't even recall him being in the movie. Point is, he's a great comic relief because his stuff is more abnormal. With Tina Fey writing the script, most scenes were made to be laughable and Kevin's character exists to remind you of the more realistic characters you would find at a high school that are just so weird they make you laugh. So I definitely liked that. Overall, good movie. Jazz approved.

Genre Purgatory

Coheed and Cambria is one of those bands I claim myself to be a fan of although I've only heard one cd, but dammit that one cd is good. I bought Good Apollo, I'm Burning Star IV, Volume One: From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness in 2005 when I was just beginning 8th grade. At the time they had just released "The Suffering," which was pretty much their big break into mainstream stardom. I thought it was a great song (and still do) so I bought the cd along with RoadRunner Records' RoadRunner United. Whats kinda funny about this band is that a lot of people find them to heavy and guitary for mainstream rock, but not heavy enough for metal, so they're basically stuck in a musical purgatory. Yesterday I posted the song "The Willing Well I: Fuel for the Feeding End," which I would easily consider my favorite song off the album. It has the right mix of everything that makes them a good band and has some of their more metaly stuff in it too. So I'm just going to post all my favorite songs off the album cause I can :)

Besides, I only hope you know that I love you

Feed little maggot off the Westside of your sin
Run little maggot 'till they learn of what you did

All Of Your Hopes And Dreams, Never Meant Shit

I'm a complete letdown. Today I discovered that I didn't actually graduate from college. It's such a depressing and disappointing feeling. I thought I worked hard enough to achieve glory but low and behold, I let myself and everyone around me down :/ I didn't do my math right and discovered that I finished my spring semester with 119 units. You want to know how many are needed to graduate? 120. Fuck me. I feel incredibly stupid inside. All this hard work just to have made such a simple mistake. How I'm going to resolve this, I really don't know, but god damn is it heart breaking and heart wrenching to know that I'm completely at fault for all of this. I'm sorry for letting you down everyone, I really am. I patiently waited week after week after week in hopes of seeing my degree arrive and proudly framing it on the wall. NOPE. Not today...not fucking today...

Without a doubt, probably the best thing that could've happened to me was to have been rejected from grad school. I can't even imagine having to have sent a letter saying sorry.

I feel like shit.

Embrace Your Comforting Company

The sun beats down on your
Comforting company
Everything is burning because

Tonight the south is on fire!
The south is on fire.

due to your ban of federal funding, science cannot save you

Ed Gein is one of those bands I don't give enough credit for influencing my love of all things metal. I saw their music video for "Bastard" one day on Music On Demand at my mom's friend's house and it just made me want to break shit. This is back in 2005. (Leviathan came out in 2004 and both The Fury of Our Maker's Hand and O' God, the Aftermath came out in 2005 for reference) This was pretty much when I knew heavy metal was my genre and fully embraced it. Ed Gein, this one is for you!

Slip Away

My dog Scruffy ran away on 4th of July and it truly tears my insides out. I made the mistake of not putting her away in my garage before the fireworks hit and realized the damage was done when it was too late. She's wondered off several times but this is the first time she's never come home. I fucked up so bad.

The Bizkit

Limp Bizkit was one of those nu-metal bands that arose in that whole late 90s early 2000s along with Coal Chamber, Papa Roach, Korn, etc. Their last album that was still worth listening to, was Results May Vary, and it has a handful of good songs (by my standards because I'm pretty sure they're pretty bad to most people). Their single "Eat You Alive" runs the fine line of just plain stupid and super catchy. It easily has some of the worst lyrics included in any of their songs "No doubt that I'd love to sniff on them panties now" to some great stuff "I'm sorry, so sorry, Your beauty is so vain, It drives me, yes it drives me, Absolutely insane." Watch at your own risk I guess.

Bastard A.I.

I love Mario Kart 8. It's really fun and silly to play. The customization in picking your vehicle, wheels and parachute is awesome and just straight out dorky. I just barely unlocked a pirate ship and I can't decided if that's my favorite vehicle or if it's the teddy bear.

Another cool feature is that you can have different wheels, some huge and some really small. It makes both your character and vehicle look really funny.

The one thing that annoys me is that the A.I. is competitive as %#@! in the hardest mode 150cc. Obviously this makes sense, I just get annoyed cause everyone tries to win and it creates this barrage of attacks you need to be on the lookout for. Regardless, it's loads of fun and I'm going to just keep playing and hopefully improve so that I can beat those suckers!

Few Opportunites

In a few weeks I get to be in charge of my department for a week because my department lead is going on vacation. In my head, this is the one and only opportunity that I have to demonstrate to my managers that I have what it takes to run the area in the smartest and most efficient way. I'm mentally trying to prepare as well as learn as much as I can so that I can do the best job I can. Maybe I'll succeed or maybe I'll fail. But dammit I'm not going down without a fight.

Te Quiero Como Un Hit

Randomly some songs just popped into my head that I haven't heard in years. The first one was called "Tu Necesitas" by a guy called Aleks Syntek. It was a popular Spanish pop song released like 10 years ago and super catchy. I heard it in Mexico and thought it really good. Randomly like 5 years ago when I went to Knotts Berry Farm, the guy who performed the song just happened to be performing and I just happened to be passing by the stage as the song was starting. Coincidental timing.

The other random song that appeared was a song called "Murder on the Dance Floor" by Sophie Ellis-Bextor. Both of these songs were released during a similar time frame and were pretty popular on MTV in Mexico (which is how I discovered them). Why these songs popped into my head, no idea but they're still as catchy as they were back then.

Strength

A picture that made a lot of rounds today was that of Ivory Coast player Serey Die crying during the national anthem of Ivory Coast vs Columbia today. Die was crying because his dad wasn't there to see him play in the World Cup due to his father passing ten years earlier. Playing in the World Cup is one of those achievements every soccer player works to obtain and to not have one's parents to witness this achievement can understandably be heart wrenching.

Traffic Jamz

I was stuck in traffic on the 405 recently and brought along Dimmu Borgir's Death Cult Armageddon and The Black Dahlia Murder's Everblack with me. To be clear, I think both are really good albums, it's just that it took me a while to realize this.

In Death Cult Armageddon, there is this song called, "Eradication Instincts Defined" that has this awesome symphony sounding intro (which is later recreated with samples) that just sounds doomy but catchy at the same time.

In Everblack, when I first bought it, only In Hell Is Where She Waits For Me had stuck to me, but thanks to the power of Los Angeles traffic, I realized that its a very solid album. The two that have really hit me are:

Bloodmine

and

Every Rope A Noose

To the Female Version of Me

This is my 600th post and I'd like to dedicate it to you whom I miss so much. I miss seeing your smile, laugh, kisses, hugs, cuddles and sense of humor that directly leveled with mine. I miss waking up next to you and not wanting to get out of bed. More than anything I just miss being with you. You're sweet voice and smile somehow made any rough day great. Who else am I suppose to eat noodles with? But it's ok because I know I'll be seeing you soon. I love you and you mean the world to me.

For Bloodbath Is On Your Doorstep

"Satan was there
Satan was real to me
Satan called himself...God"

The Hurdle

Well I'm done with college, now it's just time to see what the next step is. I've had my ups and downs, made friends and lost some, and have met people that have forever changed me both positively and negatively. While I do regret some things in the past, they have shaped me to be who I am today. There are a handful of people for whom I wouldn't be where I am today without them, especially one in particular. Hopefully I can get into a graduate program next year and continue the journey.

oh well

In the end, I guess it was a good thing I wasn't optimistic about grad school. I need to start researching schools that have an emphasis in what I would like to do. But then again, maybe rejection isn't too bad. Maybe it will be as far as I will go.