Skunk!

Today coming home from getting my breaks replaced on ole mounty (let it be stated and confirmed for the record on this date so that the next time they say i need to replace my breaks, i can check), I saw a skunk on the side of the highway off-ramp.

Due to my attentive and fast (but safe) driving, I could not tell if the skunk was dead or alive, but I made out the definitive black and white fur pattern. Weirdly enough, I didn't smell anything when I saw the little guy, until about 2 blocks later, when the smell hit me like a brick wall. This lovely aroma went on for another 1.5 blocks or so.

Skunk : Stinky Smell \\ Us : The impact of our love and care for others

Giving Thanks 2009

1. Proverbial Putts is 1 year old, today.
2. My mother served cranberry sauce today that expired last year. She calmly noted that she bought it last year for Thanksgiving, but that it was still perfectly fine and unspoiled. Thankfully, I had the other type of cranberry sauce on the table hahah... gotta love being back home for family meals. =]
3. I'm pretty sure my sister has an addiction to whipped cream. Not only did she ask to bring it out at the beginning of the meal, but she asked to use some more when she literally had the tiniest possible piece of pumpkin pie left.
I feel like this is an apt metaphor for what the holidays have become in America. Let's all remember to use the whipped cream as a bonus trimming, and not the reason why we're eating the pie in the first place.

Would You Rather

Because we are the fun-loving, good ole chaps that we are, my small group guys were playing "would you rather" the other day. They included..

Eat chocolate flavored turd or turd flavored chocalate
Marry at 22 to someone who is just alright or at 50 to the person of your dreams
Die of laughter or of suffucation (...)

But the one that made me think the most:
Live with someone who was super cocky, or who lied all the time

At first I said the liar, because genuinely cocky people are super annoying. But then I realized that being close to someone whose words you cannot trust/believe ultimately is the worst. You think you're getting somewhere, or you have some basis of understanding, but in the end, you are just a fool for believing them. Lame.

What y'all think?

Forget and Not Slow Down

So Relient K is talking about something else in their album title, but recently I feel like I've been breezing through this quarter too quickly. How do I take a step back and soak things in?

Every day I look towards my to-do list, and finally get it done after the curse that is procrastination. Take a deep exhale, and go to bed. Next day, same routine.

I had to go through one more hideous 0/4 with 4 K's day before REALLY getting some extra batting practice.

In other news, after not leaving SoCal for basically the entirety of 2009, I'm excited for my upcoming escapades, whether it be with friends, family, or self.

But for now... going to try and slow down and take it in more. Tonight, UCI @ LMU... the game that no one else really cares about that Pappy and I have been waiting for forever. Our own little super bowl of sorts.

P.s: One of the only things E100 has taught me this quarter: I like Back to the Future because it achieves the sublime. ANDDD now... back to our regularly scheduled programming, an essay on "an essay on criticism"

Extra Batting Practice

I think over the summer, I got lucky with some bloop hits and clutch moments that covered up for my poor mechanics, but now they are starting to catch up to me.

Let this post remind me to get out of this slump and get some extra batting practice in. Starting with this english midterm coming up.

... UCI Basketball coming up in a week and a half!!!

friendship

Don't know why, but I've always valued dedication and longevity in my friendships. Maybe not consistency all the time, because that's just an impossible road to maintain at times, but i just don't get people who prefer to go through phases of friends, forming and breaking bonds like alkali metals.

Currently listening to:
Phil Wickham's Heaven & Earth Album (omg concert on 10/19 was not only amazing, but uplifting and refreshing)
She Drives Me Crazy - Fine Young Cannibals

Goobly Gook and The Ewing Theory Analogy

Today I went through the entire day of lecture without thinking that anything I learned was all that interesting or useful.

Instead of memorizing who was Zeus' dad or Poseidon's roman name, what Longinus thought about poetry or what sublimity was, or the historical/economical breakdown of China through the last 5 centuries... two completely different thoughts that randomly popped in my head today.

1. Goobly Gook. Used in the context today, to mean 'absolute gibberish.' My question is... who decided on goobly gook to mean that?! Literally anything at all could be an example of gibberish, yet people usually know what you mean with "goobly gook". Why not... woombaja hoobamja?

2. Ewing Theory is the ESPN coined phenomena of a mediocre team getting better when they lose their best player. The as of yet untitled phenomena of not being friends with your exes, is when you don't spend any time at all on the friend you used to spend the most time on.
--> my analysis/analogy: People never like losing their star player, because everyone likes watching a dominant player, someone they can always count on. However, this star player is not always best for the TEAM dynamic. Sometimes, in the absense of this go-to guy, the rest of the players on the team all step up and end up doing better where it counts--the win/loss column. Obviously, championship teams still have go-to guys often times, guys that carry their team to the top. Indeed, the argument can be made that true dynasties need go-to guys. But the Ewing Theory doesn't apply to everyone. When it does, you know that the go-to guy wasn't the right one.

So sometimes, you have to get rid of the sweet swinging lefty power hitter, the 6'10 menacing lefty who throws 100, and the good-looking shortstop who can seemingly do it all, and go out and win 116 games.

Songs of the Moment (slightly stretched out to catch up):
Entire Forget and Not Slow Down CD by Relient K, especially Savannah & Sahara
When She Loved Me - Toy Story 2 (thanks Luigi)
Bruises - Chairlift
Entire The Resistance CD by Muse
Burndt Jamb - Weezer
Everything - Michael Buble
Magic Perfume - Charlyne Yi
Spaceman - The Killers