Shyzer.com

This post is long. Just a warning.

Many, in fact almost everybody, would laugh at what I call my “religion.” I’ve been studying it again lately, in an attempt to find out who will win The War and I’ve finally realized a few things. But first, I thought it might be helpful to give a little…ok, large background on what I call my “religion.”

Now first off, I am not knocking organized religions. In fact, I think they are amazingly great for some people. Anything that has the type of power that can change a person’s life and continue doing so for centuries on end cannot be viewed as a bad thing. There are many flaws in the systems, of course, but show me one system, ANY system, that doesn’t have flaws. So for the record. I am not anti-religion with religion playing the classical role. I just know it’s not for me.

Growing up, I wasn’t raised in a “religious” family. My mom grew up as a semi-practicing Catholic (I think) and my Dad frew up as a…? I honestly don’t know about either one of them, but I do know that growing up, we weren’t big into religion. Sure, we went to the church on Christmas or on other such occasions, but I knew very little about religion as a whole. I was 14 before I realized that a Hail Mary was more then just a desperate football play or that Southern Baptists didn’t like Disney. But once I started looking around into religions, my parents were both supportive and said that they would help me along the way. My mom made my family start going to church every week for about 2 years and I tried to pay attention, I tried to understand, and I tried to believe. But it wasn’t there. For many different reasons, I just didn’t agree with many things being preached - the preaching being one of them. So, I started looking into religions. I read the basic beliefs and practices of all the major religions, tried my best to understand them, and in the end I was left with what I had picked and selected from various religions as being what I thought the truth was. And then, I found my calling.

As many of you know, on the first day of the 8th grade, I started a journal. After a few years, I began writing in it every night and have yet to miss a day. Now, what I feel - what I know - is that certain things I do make certain things happen. So now we have the major ingrediant in my religion. What most people would call superstition. Though I personally feel this word is a bad comparison since my beliefs are nothing like the definition of superstition.

a) A belief, practice, or rite irrationally maintained by ignorance of the laws of nature or by faith in magic or chance. b) A fearful or abject state of mind resulting from such ignorance or irrationality. c) Idolatry.

a) can be dismissed due to the pure fact that it has “laws of nature” in it. Aslo, “irrationally” and “ignorance” are far from the truth. b) can be tossed aside can again be eliminated due to the same two words. And c)….well trust me, I am not blind. I am learning. You see, my beliefs are based on what I have seen. What I have learned. And what I have proved time and time again. There are certain things - small things to most people - that if done in ANY other way than what I have realized, a set of negative actions that are easily identifiable and 100% unforeseen will take place. And trust me, each and every time I test this, the results come out to be the same. In fact, my journal that I keep is my “religious notes” if you will. I can look back, see what I did, and see what happened. When you see that over 4 years, I did something, say 29 times and that in the day after each of those 29 occurances, something amazingly bad happened, you start to believe that you in fact do have a control over your own destiny. That you do in fact control your own life. But then the question remains, how do I know I still have control over what I do? But I digress, for that is a discussion for a later topic.

Over the years, my knowledge has grown. And with learning of these things that I must do, I have found ways to combat them. Small ways, in the general scheme of things, but ways none-the-less. Here, let me give you an example. Say for instance that I wake up one morning and realize that I missed something the previous day. I can then sit there and try to imagine every possible bad thing that could occur that day. And by mentally realizing them in my head, I have a good chance of avoiding them. However, that lovely word unforeseen will rear its ugly head and something bad will happen - guaranteed. And I’m not talking “missed the bus” or “a bad episode of my favorite show,”… I’m talking pure, 100%, black, vile, evil.

So how the hell is this considered a religion? Prayer, Truth, Beauty, and Virtue. They are all there. When you consider that all recognized religions contain those 4 linking objects and that mine too does, well, I stop calling it superstitions and start calling it a religion. And what do I think I will eventually achieve. Well, many years later, I hope to be able to avoid negative occurances all-together. Call it crazy, call it stupid, but call it me.

So….what is this all leading up to? Well, I’ve finally been enlightened to the next stepping stone of things to avoid. Except, for the first time, it isn’t actions. It’s people. I have identified certain people, who clearly bring nothing but back luck into my life. What bothers me the most is that I went 6 years without realizing them - or even this aspect. I was so blind to the fact that it had to be actions and motions in my daily life, that outsiders couldn’t effect it. But I have finally realized this. Now, I must find a way to rid my life of these people and find ways to combat them in case I must be forced to have them in my lives. Finally, a new thing to meditate on…

I just wrote this amazingly long post and then realized that in no way, shape, or form did I want to post it. Talk about some bad time management. There goes 60 minutes down the drain.

I need to get out of here. There are just too many things wrong. It’s so funny. I wish like nothing else that August was already here so that I would be able to concentrate on school. Yes, that’s how bad it’s gotten. There are so many things that I hate about this town and this house and the people here. And yet, I’ve found happiness lately in the strangest of company. And sorrow in the oldest of enemies.

Being depressed sucks. I can tell this summer is going to be one of the worst summers I’ve had. And now that I know and realize that, I won’t allow it to be any other way. I’m so angry and I don’t even know who at. It’s funny, I love playing the devil’s advocate, but there are many times that I just want to drop the advocate part and fight myself. Remember that internal battle I talked about a few posts ago? I think we’ve hit May of 1940 and it’s not looking too good. I remember what I used to feel like. Unpacking all my old things and going through them made me realize what I am today. And truth be told, I can’t stand either one of them. They both are nothing like what I want them to be.

I’ve said “it’s funny” literally 38 times in everything I’ve been trying to write tonight, including a few that I left in. And the actually funny thing? It’s nowhere close to being funny. At least not now…not until 10 years down the road when this seems so trivial. And now that I look back upon what I’ve wrote, it doesn’t do justice to what I feel like.

That’s kinda funny.

I feel like posting, yet have nothing to say. That, my friends, results in a very boring blog entry. So I decided to turn to the ever-so-reliable news media to provide me with some material to make fun of…er, I mean talk about.

The first topic I found that interested me was this little piece of news. Now folks, I am all for equal rights. But am I the only one who sees this as potentially dangerous? Let me explain. In many sports, the best male athletes are better then the best female athletes. Be it running, basketball, soccer, etc. the previous statement is 9 times out of 10 correct. Now, I think that everybody should get the best competition they can. But if a girl is good enough to go play with the men, then sooner or later, we are going to have men say they should be allowed to go play with the girls. If the whole reason Sorenstam is allowed to play is because of fairness, then why shouldn’t those men who aren’t quite good enough to play with the best males, but could easily compete with the females not be allowed to go play with them? The current system we have now in pro sports won’t be able to sustain this and in the end, it comes down to this. Either we keep men and women seperate or we devise a new system. For instance, have 3 leagues. One for men. One for women. And one for the best of both. And honestly, I don’t how we go from what we have to what we need.

This story isn’t going to seem so funny once that snake gets hungry. I give him 3 more weeks.

And THIS made me laugh like nothing else. Well, actually, it was this quote: A media saga over the private life of Mexico’s first lady took a bizarre twist on Wednesday when she defended herself against allegations of abuse of power in a live television interview with a clown.

Does anybody besides me find it difficult to take her seriously when she is being interviewed by Bozo himself?

On Monday, May 19th, 2003 at 11 AM EST, history was made folks. A game of basketball was being played and “he who never plays due to horrible skills” actually showed up and played. Yes, that is right. I dragged my ass out of bed at 10 this morning to go play some basketball with my boys. Nhan (pronounced Yen) IMed me last night and asked me if I wanted to play. All it took was one look at my body to realize that I could use the exercise and I agreed. Now folks, I don’t think you understand how monumental this was. I NEVER play basketball….and for good reason. I suck so much ass, it just isn’t funny. I can’t shoot. I can’t dribble. I can’t pass. I can’t jump. And God knows, I can’t play defense. It got to the point where my friends stopped telling my about the games they were about to play and I didn’t ask about them =)

Lee, Ronak, Nhan, and I all showed up and played a little 2-on-2. Nhan got his friend Travis to come, so we had a sub for the games and we played for abotu 2 hours. It was pretty damn fun and we are gonna try and plan a game for Wednesday tomorrow, therefore hopefully giving people enough time to clear their morning schedule and set their alarm clocks to wake up before the crack of noon.

After the game, Lee, Ronak, and I hit up the Salvation Army to see if they had any cool stuff for sell. And I saw one fo the most disgusting things I have ever seen. Used underwear with skid marks. This kind of comedy can’t even be made up. I have never laughed so hard at the thought of somebody actually buying those. Hell, you can get a pair of NEW underwear at the dollar store for a buck! But that wasn’t even the best find of the day. Lee called me over and was dieing with laughter as he showed me a picture frame he had found. Only, he was laughing at the picture inside of it. Sitting there, was a lovely late 1970’s picture of somebody grandmother. Lee was almost tempted to buy the picture just so people could go “Hey Lee, is that your grandmother?” “Na, it’s just somebody else’s” “Well whose is it?” “Heck it I know!”

After that, we went and grabbed some Thai food, which was damn delicious, and then I came home. Right as I walked in the house, I got a phone call from USC student government asking if I’d sit on a few committee chairs. I said what the hell, since it sounded halfway fun and I have nothing better to do. So we’ll see how that goes. Then I took a nap until about 9 and worked on my site for a while. I’m not sure what I’m going to be doing tomorrow, but I’m sure I’ll post about it =)

God, I’ve got a lot I want to talk about. Alex and Atlanta, The Matrix, Jess, etc…just a warning that this might be long!

Ok. First off, everybody and anybody reading this needs to make sure they see The Matrix Reloaded. I went and saw it Thursday afternoon and then took my little brother and saw it again on Friday afternoon. And it is KICK ASS! I’ve heard a lot of people complain about it not living up to the hype, but folks, if a movie doesn’t live up to “hype”, it’s not the movies fault. It’s the critics who are hyping it and those of you out there who are listening to it. Don’t read about moveis before they come out…hell, you end up finding out what is going to happen. The fight scenes are kick ass, the sex scenes are kick ass, the funny scenes are kick ass, and the whole damn movie is kick ass. I’ll admit, the Zion part of the movie could hvae been toned down a little bit and cut shorter, but it still was good overall. I loved how they carried on the story and I can’t wait to see The Matrix Revolutions in November!

My bro Alex is home for the weekend. We watched some TV tonight and played video games for a while, which was pretty fun. I’ve been friends with him every since the 4th grade, making him by far my oldest friend. He goes down to Georgia Tech and I was hoping to live with him this summer. He doesn’t have any extra rooms in his apartment, but he has a free couch, which is just the same to me =) I am going down there this week to see if I can get a job anywhere down there that pays well. I’ll be more then willing to work 50+ hours a week if it means I can make some money. I have no idea if I am going to be able to bring my computer down there though. I spend like all my time on the computer, so it would be a huge shock to me. But don’t worry, even if I can’t bring my computer, I’ll have access to the Internet, so I’ll still be able to blog.

If things don’t pan out in Atlanta, I’m pretty much just going to pack up and head to a random city. I’ve got a few places in mind, but I would really love to live with Alex in Atlanta. He’s fuckign awesome and fun as hell to be around. I don’t really drink at all, but him and his roommates do, so it would be interesting to spend a summer with them =) I’ve got like all my stuff packed up in boxes and I think I am taking it down to Columbia to store in a storage place. That is going to be a little expensive and I have no money. Plus, I found out how much I owe for my car insurance (a fucking lot) so I REALLY need to find a WELL PAYING job sometime soon =) I went a listed a shit load of things on E-bay tonight. I’ll post the link to it later. Y’all should go buy some things from me =)

The yard sale was rained out today. I was really fuckign pissed, because I needed some money. We had scheduled a kickball game for today, so we went ahead and played. The field was just ONE HUGE MUD PUDDLE and it was damn fun. Everybody got covered in mud and all we were doing was slipping and falling all over the place. My team sucked though….lol. We actually hung with them for a while, but we got beat in the latter innings.

Jess was in town last Thursday, so I went over to her house for a few hours to watch Must See TV with her. After that, she was about to go to bed since she had to wake up at 5:30 to go and drive on a 7 hour trip. However, we started talking about things and had a pretty long talk. I found some pretty interesting things out about her, and I talked a lot about how I’ve been feeling lately and what’s been going through my mind, and just things like that. We really didn’t figure anything out and I honestly don’t know where we stand. We both end up confusing each other by things we say and I do think that is part of our problem. See, we both see almost everything in complete opposite ways. It’s almost alarming at the difference of opinions we have on practically everything. From little things like who calls who to big things like the rules of dating and how we spend our free time…things like that. My “Religious” beliefs are amazingly complex as well, which doesn’t make things any easier and it’s hard for me to explain most of it to people, including her. 99% of the things I believe would be written off as foolishness by many people, so it makes it hard to explain, especially when I myself am still discovering the rules. =)

I was helping my mom with some boxes today and I found some prom pictures from high school and some other pictures of like things I’ve bought her and stuff and it made me just miss her like nothing else. I can see this summer and beyond being pretty rough. Not just relationship wise, but internally as I struggle and battle my two sides out. Trust me, I’ll go more into detail about that later…

Well, it’s 2:54 and I am heading to bed. Peace.

All right, well now it’s time to repost my original post. I honestly have no idea what I posted before, so this is pretty much just a brand new post =)

So what did I do today? I cut the grass…I know, I know. It was amazing sight. There I was. Actually cutting the grass. I remember HATING to do it every 5 days when I was younger and forced to by my parents. But this time, I actually found that it was quite relaxing! I guess I’m “growing up. “Go figure.

Did anybody see the season finale of The West Wing? The writters on that show are easily some of the best in the business. Everybody should check it out next season! But it’s a little tough to keep up with at times, so don’t start channel surfing =)

Wow, I have nothing to talk about. I think I’ve found a place to stay for the summer, but I’m not 100% sure yet, so I don’t want to say much about it yet. But if it all works out, I’m sure I’ll be posting about it on here. My family is also moving to West V. or Virginia. I’m not really sure which yet and in fact, I hate it. I’m only going to get to see them once a year - twice if I am lucky. I’ll be able to talk to them on IM, but it’s just not the same. Oh well. I’m off to work a little on my site and then go to bed. Take it easy everyone.

1-30 baby. Nothin better then winning a game of backyard baseball in the bottom of the 9th. And to think, I still got the W even though I had a 30.00 ERA

Paintball yesterday kicked some serious ass. No, I’m not kidding, I got my ass kicked folks. Almost everybody out there were hard core players who had guns that shot 100 yards, small pistols, sniper rifles, grenades, bazookas, artillery, fighter jets….ok, maybe I made a few of those up, but it sure as hell seemed like it. And here I was, with the rental gun that never shot in the same motion twice, trying to hit guys who were far out of my range, and being pelted with paintballs. And damn was it fun =) I just wanted to try one game using some of the equipment those other people had. Tommy let me use his gun once when we were defending this bridge. It was pretty much down to Tommy, Clay, Drew (Tommy’s best friend), and Me. We had a few little kids as our last line of defense, but they were scared shitless and didn’t really want to fight back. I had a good line of sight, so Tommy tossed me Clay’s gun, which has a nice 16-inch barrel on it, giving it some damn good range. I just stretched out and started picking people off one by one. Then there was this one map with an old mine shaft in it. Tommy, Drew, and I went in and snuck up behind the other team and had our way with them. We tried using that same strategy against another team, but it didn’t quite work. Tommy was leading and I was behind him and as Tommy was walking out of the shaft, two gun barrels just dropped into view from above the shaft and I heard “surrender…” Tommy said a few cuss words, I dove back into the shaft, and hid in the mud as the enemy just littered the shaft with paint.

As we were marching to the battle in one map, this little kid named Hunter runs up and joins our team. Now by little, I mean 7 years old little and small for his age. As we are walking, Tommy and I are talking about how we will help protect him and he says “Mother fucker, it sure is hot out here.” Tommy and I stare at each other and ask him what he said and he repeats it for us as casually as asking for a glass of milk. Then, as we get to the battle, he shoots me in the back of the head to make sure his gun worked. Damn thing hurt like hell and I wanted to shoot him back so badly. We ended up getting flanked and then massacred that game. It wasn’t too fun =)

Last night Tan and Ronak had a nice little barn…err, bon fire. I personally advised against throwing the lighter into the fire. I was outvoted 4-1 though. About 30 seconds later, all 4 who voted against me quickly agreed that it should have been 0-5 in favor of the “let’s use common sense and all say hell no at the same time” platform that I campaigned under. =) It took us 5 or 6 hot dogs before we got the hang of how to actually cook them. Since when does tin foil burn? I remember cooking hamburgers in the middle of a fire without it burning. Maybe it was magic tin foil. I guess we’ll never know…

I just saw that my neighborhood is having it’s yearly yard sale this weekend. Now folks, I love yard sales. Not only do I have boxes upon boxes of shit that I need to get rid of, but can’t quite bring myself to throwing away because they have some value in them. And what better way to unload junk you no longer want than at a yard sale? Yet I always use the money I’ve earned and go buy other people’s junk they no longer want, quickly refilling the junk I just sold. It’s a vicious cycle that I would never wish upon anyone.

Well, I am off to work on my site a little more and then go to bed. Take it easy folks.

[EDIT]I’m going to play paintball this morning. I mean, what better way to release all my anger and frustration then beating the hell out of people who are too slow to run from me? Hopefully I’ll have some pictures to post this weekend.[/EDIT]

I don’t really feel like posting, but since both this site and baseball are ways I relax myself, I figured I might as well post since it’s dark outside.

I now need to find a place to live and work this summer. Things with Jess and I are rocky at best and so I can’t be living with her. I don’t want to stay in Columbia, and my hometown isn’t an option since my parents are moving within a month. If anybody knows of someplace I could live and work, I would be eternally thankfull to you. I don’t take up much room, I have my own car, and I’m a non-smoker who couldn’t care less if you smoked a pack a day. And I’m serious. If the only place I can find is in Paris, then I’ll start brushing up on my French =)

When I started ubpacking tonight, I realized one thing. 99% of the stuff I bring to college, I don’t need. I mean seriously, my 9th grade geometry notes? My pictures from middle school field trips? 8 pairs of jeans? My high school yearbooks? A ski mask? Ok, I could see using that in an emergency, but you get my point. I could see keeping most if not all of it for keepsakes value, but honestly, I don’t need to lug it with me everywhere I go. I’m gonna go check out one of those storage places you can rent so I can pack this stuff away.

I also need to get a loan. I have no clue even where to begin. The bank I am currently with with officially sucks ass, so I need to find a new one. But then, why would this new bank give me a loan when I’ve only been with them for a few weeks? I guess I need to go back to Columbia and even see if my bank gives loans. I will physically laugh my ass off right there in the bank if they tell me they don’t.

Well, I guess that is all for tonight. I’m really in the mood to type a whole lot, but I have nothing to talk about (as if you couldn’t already tell by crap I’ve stuck in this post). I’m seriously about a place to stay too. Drop me an IM or e-mail if anybody knows of anywhere. Take it easy y’all.

I didn’t believe her. I made her pull out her diploma. And sure enough, my mom graduated from here.

Gotta love it.

Alright, well I think I have most of the pages working now. Everybody needs to go visit Jackie and tell her how awesome she is! She walked me through my problems and I couldn’t have done it without her help! THANK YOU JACKIE!

I updated the Predictions Page page tonight. And by update, I mean totally go all out on….lol. Everybody go read what I had to say about your favorite team and let me know how you feel!

I have an exam in less then 36 hours and I don’t seem to care at all. I have yet to start studying for it and it’s my last one, so I really am having trouble getting motivated to study for it. I applied today for some jobs this summer. I’d love to be able to get a babysitting gig in the morning and a part-time job in the evening. I just need to save up some money for next semester =) Well, I am off to bed for the night. I’ll update again tomorrow!