Random Thought of the Day #2: Fist Pumpin' Like A Champ

I know it's not that intricate a dance, and people get annoyed by it, but I believe the Fist Pump is the best dance ever developed by "guidos". Have you ever wondered what dance to do at a party? It's simple, just follow the directions to the right or click on this link: http://tiny.cc/lHyKl

Now go tell your friends and don't stop pumpin' that fist like a champ!

iTunes TV Shows

Lately I've been putting a lot of TV shows on my iTunes library. This is because due to lack of parental consent, I have no television in my bedroom. So I've proceeded to put the first five season of The Office and all six seasons of the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air on my computer. I also have shows such as That '70s Show and Fight Quest. How did I get all of these shows on iTunes [legally], you ask? Simple, a program called PQ DVD. It is a program that takes videos from DVDs and makes them iTunes/iPod compatible. Rather than spending tons of money on downloads from iTunes, spend a one-time fee of $20 and the program will more than pay for itself in two movies alone.

This program can be found online here: http://tiny.cc/wYH0x .

But anyway, back to my point. Due to this discovery, I have been watching The Office non-stop, in an attempt to catch up with the new episodes playing every Thursday night at 9 EST. I have discovered that I love TV. I understand that most people enjoy watching television and have some favorite shows, but I'm almost positive that if given the option, I would watch TV forever. It's not so much that I love every show on TV, but more the fact that I love being entertained by skilled actors and actresses who pursue activities in shows that I could never begin to think of.

This leads me to believe that my latent reason for enjoying television so much is that I subconsciously am fascinated by the idea of living in every culture and social scene or in the shoes of one of the characters from my favorite TV shows. Even if it's a reality show, somebody in real life IS doing the displayed action and I suppose that somewhere in the back of my mind this registers and I feel as if I'm actually there, just as a hidden or silent observer. I'm not going to lie, when a TV series ends, I do get a bit sad at the thought of the end of no longer having access to the aforementioned perspectives, at least not new episodic perspectives.

I think if I could have one present of my choosing, it would be a day in the life of each of the characters in my favorite TV shows including but not limited to: Friends, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, The Office, Scrubs, and That '70s Show.

Man, that would be swell.

My First Meal at Bonefish Grill

So there I sat: in the car on my way to dinner. The car radio blared a country song that my Dad chose, as our car plowed through what seemed like a hurricane. We were going to some new restaurant called “Bonefish Grill”. I must admit, the name made me skeptical. I imagined a fish filled with bones which, personally, I don’t find appetizing at all.

As we pulled in the parking lot, the first thing that I noticed was a rather large fish skeleton statue perched on the façade. I hoped, with all my inner being, that this alleged high-end restaurant would meet my expectations, as my father cracked it up to be an eatery with chefs qualified to make your taste buds dance the Hora.

We sat in a booth near the window, menus in hand. As I examined mine, our waiter informed us of an unlisted topping, “Oscar,” for the Chilean Sea Bass with lemon-butter sauce and a variety of fresh veggies. Since I couldn’t manage to find anything else to tickle my fancy, I decided to try it.

This could have been one of the best decisions of my life. The expert display of veggies, lovely contradiction of flamboyance and modesty, and flavor, had my eyes and taste buds engaged in a Hora followed by a Tango.

If I had adequate funding, I would purchase a unicycle, ride it to Bonefish Grill and order Chilean Sea Bass “Oscar” every day for the rest of my life.

Random Thought of the Day #1

What if Papa John came to your house with a pizza like on the commercials but you answered the door with a Pizza Hut pizza in your hand? Awkward...

The Flaws of Texting

Don't get me wrong, I text as much as any other guy. I have unlimited texting like everyone else in the 21st century and my phone is super-glued to my hands like the next guy. But I won't pretend that there aren't any defects in the concept of chatting non-stop, regardless of one's whereabouts.

Texting can very easily keep one from maintaining a stable conversation with real live people. I can recall many a-time when I've been with people and received a message from a friend and cease speaking to reply to my opposing converser. I will admit, it is very rude and very problematic because after I finish responding, I sometimes utter, "What was I saying...?"

Also, (and I understand other than a greater concentration, there is no way to prevent this) I have on several occasions replied with an answer to the wrong person. I won't specify who the intended recipients and what the messages were, but all I can say is that they got me into quite the pickles. Although I made my way out of the conflicts, the point is that texting is a flawed system.

Regardless of how convenient the Short Messaging System (SMS aka Text Messaging), nobody can say that the concepts are foolproof. It would be nice if people could be genetically altered to multi-task for text conversation and live conversation as well as to remember to check the "Outgoing:" bar.

Anyone willing to fix these?

Hoodlums and Hooligans

So today it was 37 degrees Fahrenheit so I was wearing three layers of tops. This include a tee-shirt, a sweater, and a hooded jacket. Because of the temperature, I was walking around all day with my hood on. I don't have a hat and I don't have ear muffs. The purpose of my hood is not to "look cool", it's pragmatic (functional) and serves the purpose of keeping my ears from freezing.

I don't like how when people see a person in a hood, they automatically stamp the label "hoodlum" or a "hooligan" on their forehead. Today I walked up to my teacher asking for a pass to the bathroom, and he said, "Whoa, be careful sneaking up behind me like that, especially while wearing a hood." He didn't have to say it, but I knew he was implying that hooded figures wreak havoc.

Also, while I understand that most people wear the hoods of their jackets for aesthetic (visual;stylistic) reasons rather than functional, the hood is added to the jacket so that way if one's head is getting cold, they can keep it from being cold to an extent. In my opinion, pragmatics (functions) beats out aesthetics (visuals;stylistics) every time. It insults me when people say, "You don't look cool with a hood on" or "Boy, you white, take dat hood awff" because they're implying that I haven't thought out why I'm wearing it.

Okay, maybe I do think it looks cool.

Hi, I'm looking for my immune system...

So this morning I wake up to a lovely scratchy feeling in my throat, and I groaned with disbelieve: I am ill once again. But that's not the great part. I just got over a cold. As in within the last two days. And here comes another one coming right back in to take the old one's place.

I try to do everything in my power to fight these ailments, including Sudafed, Robitussin, Mucinex, etc. Whenever I get sick I buy large cartons of Tropicana Antioxidant Advantage orange juice with 240% of the daily dose of Vitamin C. I buy bags and bags of Ricola's Honey Lemon and Hall's Fruit with Vitamin C cough drops. I tote around the small Kleenex pouches with tissues. I blow my nose constantly.

At this point, I've almost given up. It's nearly freezing outside and I don't think I have a fighting chance. It's not a bad cold, just an irritating one. But really, it's been TWO DAYS since I got over the last one. I'm just thinking, "Hello, Immune System. I'm just wondering what the hell's going on. Are you going on strike or protesting or something? Because whatever your demands are I'll concede to them."

Being sick sucks.

Last Day of Winter Break

As the clock ticks and my hours of freedom from classes and teachers dwindles to a close, I am suddenly filled with all of the responsibilities that I was assigned for the Winter Break and I have several tasks to attend to.

First and foremost, I have a plethora of assignments to complete before returning. This includes a book report for English, three Psych worksheets, four pages in my Psych scrapbook, a Psych packet for Chapter 8: Learning, a 20-page outline for AP World History, and a review for AP World. It was also recently brought to my attention that I had a semester review packet for Spanish 3. Just my luck; I left it at school.

However, yesterday it hit me that I had two days left to slack off and I did my book report for English on the Autobiography of Anthony Kiedis (I only recommend this book if you're a big Chili Peppers fan, it's not very well-written; more of a "this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened..." type read). I also did my Scrapbook pages regarding Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development.

Luckily I was proactive and did my worksheets, 5 pages of my World outline, and my Psych packet. I kept telling myself, "Okay, you'll do 5 pages of the outline Sunday night, and it's not due until Wednesday, so then you'll do 5 pages of it Monday and Tuesday." But tonight when I went to do it, I just walked past my backpack and sat in my desk chair. I suppose I became content with doing 7 and a half Monday and 7 and a half Tuesday. I have a serious procrastination problem. If I don't do something when it's assigned, I will wait until the last minute to begin it.

As I think prospectively of the day to come tomorrow and gloomily at my backpack and the work within it, I can only begin to form a list of the preparations I must engage in before tomorrow. I have to make lunch, pick my clothes, get my work together, find out who's driving in the carpool tomorrow so I can ensure that I actually GET to school, etc.

On top of that, I think retrospectively of how quickly 2009 passed. Is it just me or did New Year's Eve/Day seem like just a month or so ago? I can't believe it's already been a full year. I guess the old saying "Time flies when you're having fun" can be altered to say "Time flies". It really is true, everything seems slow when you're thinking ahead about the future, but when you take the time to look back, everything seems as if it happened so rapidly.

That includes how long you took reading this post.