We Are Functional...

...we are efficient.

We are prepared and self sufficient.

And we only destroy for the greater good

so you can be free to consume more as you should,

and lead a better life.

Last week in the Bay before heading up North for a few days and then heading to APU. I forgot what I did on Monday, but Tuesday I spent the day in the SF with Teenie and Rosales. Fun day – we went to Pier 39, bought cupcakes at Ghiradelli Square (expensive but delicious). On our way back we passed some really awesome artwork and ended up talking to the artist, who was a super awesome British guy with an awesome sense of humour. He had some crazy awesome airbrush pieces, one in particular that totally blew my mind was a set of three that were all completely interchangeable. So after a long talk with him about art, which was enlightening and fun, we headed to lunch. After a thirty minute walk and four or so restaurant choices we ended up at Pizza Orgasmica (good choice). Then we walked to the Apple Store and spent an hour there checking out the headphones on Rosales' iPod. A $300 pair of Bose were incredibly kick-ass, and made every song sound...perfect? Then we left Teenie at the bus and headed back to Rosales' to watch tv and play video games. The usual.

Where is the line between progress and decline?

What is the price to stop ruining life?

Why is functional worth more than sustainability?

Why are we so comfortable in our gullibility?

Wednesday - I played music and goofed around on Facebook.

We are dysfunctional, and inefficient.

We're unprepared, we are deficient.

And we only kill for the bottom line

so you can be free to consume more as you should,

and lead a better life.

Thursday I got to hang out with Rosales one last time, and we watched Boondock Saints. It's always a good day when someone who hasn't seen it watches it for the first time. We also spent a few hours with Spencer, playing games (etc.), and dinner at a cheesesteak place in the City. It was super good. Went well after Chinese food for lunch. Good day seeing them both, and a fun day on it's own.

Where is the line between progress and decline?

What is the price to stop ruining life?

Why is functional worth more than sustainability?

Why are we so comfortable in our gullibility?

Friday I had sushi with a friend, then went to Pacifica and spent a few hours with the art teacher from my high school and spent a few hours on hold with Adobe trying to get some licensing figured out. In the end I ended up with CS3 again, this time activated, and still legal. It was also fun to hang out with my teacher one last time, since I wouldn't have had time to visit her before I left.

What happened to make us want to be blind?

What is it in us that made us believe in all of the lies

spoon-fed to us by the ones who only stand to profit from our loss,

exploiting our misery and selling it back to us for a cost?

Saturday I found out that I was heading up to my mom's in the afternoon rather than three days later, which means more time away from the Bay and that I can't hang out with Teenie again before I go back to school. Pissed me off. Good news was I got to see my family for the September birthday parties. I spent the entire morning packing – I have WAYYY too much crap. My mom and her BF came early so we could load up the car and not have transfer junk later. My mom decided she'd go say hello to some neighbors while we loaded everything up. I'm all for being friendly, but I'm also totally into pulling my own weight when it's needed. Birthday parties were fun. I got to see all the family members I wouldn't have seen until Christmas, and I got to say another goodbye to my aunt and talk to my other aunt on the phone (FINALLY!! Texting is fine to k.i.t. but I like to speak with loved ones too on occasion!). Left from there with my mom and her Rick up to her place to spend five days there until we drive down to APU.

Where is the line between progress and decline?

What is the price to stop ruining life?

Why is functional worth more than sustainability,

why are we so comfortable in our gullibility?

Tonight's title and lyrics are from the song 'Functional', by Imperative Reaction. I'm a fan of all the IR songs I have (all of them) – they call out hypocrisy, lies, irony...basically the songs are about the world as it is. This song in particular is a personal favourite, even more so recently. I'm getting really sick of hypocrisy and BS, in everything from politics to conversations with people. It'd be nice if it ended soon.

Anyways, I'm off for a week with my mom and no internet. Joy.

Cheers,

Shadow of Light

You Know I'm Not a Saint...

Tonight's title from the lyrics of the Apoptygma Berzerk song 'Kathy's Song'.

I chose it for a couple reasons, mostly because I'm listening to the EP that I just got right now. It's a nice, mellow, meaningful song. I'm listening to the album because It's also one of those songs that affects my mood, and right now I need it. Today has been kind of...unsatisfactory? Its really a shame too, because last night was pretty awesome - went out with Rosales, Teenie, and her friend Lauren. After that Rosales and I went back to his place, got some In n' Out, watched the final part of R.O.D. (Read Or Die - an anime show and 3-part movie (we watched the movie)), an episode of Little Britain, and generally chilled out.

Then today happened. God, what a day. I got about 6 hours of sleep, but I also woke up really late (noon). Made another mask on my own and it turned out - less than desirable, due to poor planning on my part. Struggled with trying to get my nose to stop hurting, because the pain is really starting to piss me off, it's this sharp, stabbing pain just under my left eye on the side that doesn't work, and while it's bad enough I haven't noticed my headache like I usually do, it's also pretty effing bad, so I don't know which one I prefer. At least the headache usually lessens with aspirin. This lessens a bit if I bite into my arm, but considering it's only temporary relief it's not worth it to me to give myself two puncture wounds on my wrist.

As usual, everything took on a really wonderful aura for the rest of the day (/sarcasm). I decided to try and get some files off of an old computer but I can't seem to find a keyboard that works, so I got the giant thing out for nothing and had to shove it and all it's crap back into it's hole.

Then I decided to get back onto my old Facebook account so I could pull off all my old messages and important wall posts and put them in documents so that I could have them on record without having to go back into it all the time. That was actually not too bad - I put a couple of messages into their own document because I'll probably access them more, and one document in particular is 38 pages, while the document of all the other messages compiled together is 13. And that's the OLD account alone - I'm actually kind of curious as to how much longer it would be with the messages from my new account. But of course going through old accounts also means seeing old messages and people you no longer see - and that's always just so much fun! Didn't make my mood any worse, but it didn't make it any better either.

And this was one of those days (I've had a few) where someone asked me, "why are you so angry?" -_- Here's the thing: I wasn't in a good mood - but I wasn't angry either...until then. It's like being poked when you're in a bad mood - everything just jumps to the polar extreme and then the poker gets all offended because you're angry, and you're there with the, "what the hell?" look, because it's pretty freaking obvious why you're suddenly so pissed off. And then there's the conversation that goes on after that with the usual defense of, "I was just playing, you don't need to be so pissy about it". In all earnest, there's a really simple solution to this: DON'T POKE!!!!!!!!!! Tickling falls into the same category sometimes too. When people are unhappy and you are a part of their irritation, don't touch them!

That might just be me though.

Anyways, today I was asked why I was so angry, and I've been kind of...angry...ever since. Originally I was just in pain and over contemplating life. For example (and feel free to post answers), if you're a cynic about things (like I am), but you find exceptions for those things, are you really a cynic? For example, I don't believe in love. I believe in the familial love, the love that's inherent, but not the love as in "I'm in love", "I fell in love", etc. However, I have three pairs of friends who are all, "in love" and engaged, and I'm totally happy for them. I do not think that their relationships are fake, but I still don't believe in love. That is what I contemplated most of the day. Still have no answer for myself, and it's kind of bugging me. Maybe because I'd like to believe in love, but just don't get it?? IDK. It can be tomorrow's problem.

And so tonight I will leave you with something: Kathy's Song (again, I find love in music, but not in life. what the heck?)

Oh my love, it's time

You know how it feels

You read between the lines

And know me better than I do

I'm lost again my friend

You know I'm not a saint

You've known it all this time

Still you've been waiting for me here...

Come lie next to me

Know why, you and me are one

Come lie next to me

No lies, you and me are one

Here is a link to the song on Youtube, one of my favourite remixes for the song (much steadier than the others, good choice of vocals, etc.): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EW5WHdhMWdI&feature=related

Cheers,

Shadow of Light

Give Me Velocity and Gasoline...

...Electricity and Adrenaline. I want to be super luminal.

And marks my return to my domain, here among you - my brothers and sisters. I feel that I have been absent too long, and it is my fault for not using my time correctly. But that is in the past, and I am here now to set things right.

As I believe I noted in my previous post, I spent the last week and half with my aunt. It was really, really wonderful - we did some really fun things, I spent time with my cousin, and I got a chance to relax in the most relaxing way (i.e. I wasn't stressing out, and I was doing fun things). We went to the Academy of Sciences, my first time since it's remodel, and that was fun. The new aquarium has lots of fish, and it's easier to take pictures of some of the fish, but I still kind of miss the original walkthrough linear aquarium. They still have the albino (white chocolate) alligator, which was nice, a new giant terrarium bubble and they also re-designed the planetarium area. The old planetarium was part of a giant space section and you could walk through and see a bunch of different space things and the planetarium show was the giant projector that showed all the stars above you. The new planetarium is just like the terrarium, a giant bubble, and the projector was replaced with a dome theatre. Not as fun. I did get a bunch of pictures of fish though and we went there for the aquarium, so it's all good. After that we went to the Japanese Tea Gardens. There I took some more pictures, we walked through the garden, and then we had tea(!!). After that we had dinner with my other aunt and uncle and then went to a retro/eighties ice cream place. Fun, full day.

Over the rest of the mini vacation, I watched Psych with my aunt, went bowling, saw the movies UP and Ponyo (Ponyo is super cute, even though it's not my favourite Miyazaki film - I'm still thinking about the super awesome "see the forest come back to life" feeling that Princess Mononoke had, but it's still a great movie), went shopping (food for when I return to school and some art supplies - plaster, gauze, a soldering gun), I got a manicure, my cousin and I got haircuts, and we ate at some really fantastic restaurants (seriously, amazing. One restaurant made their crème brûlée with Malibu rum instead of vanilla - it's amazing!!!!!!). And when we were at home I played with my cousin, watched tv and movies with my aunt and generally had a good time. I also made a plaster mask with my cousin (we didn't use plaster on his face because it warns against burning your skin, so we used flower and water instead), mine came out well but cracked on the way home, so I need to fix it. My cousin's mask didn't dry well because of the material we used, and I felt bad for that, but we still had fun. All-in-all it was a great time, and a nice break to mark the ending of my summer break.

And now I am home, and planning out this last week with things to do before I go back to school. I got back yesterday and had a sushi dinner with John, Bunny, Teenie, John and Teenie's parents, and Teenie's best friend. Tons of fun! But I ate wayyyy to much sushi...(worth it). Then this morning I spent a few hours with my friends Amy and Evan from high school. That was also fun, and we watched about four hours of Will and Grace.

I got home, I ran my old ASL books to a friend who's going to be taking the class this semester, I did a little work on my aunt's tattoo design, I played some Rock Band 2, and I talked with my friend Wrath. Currently working on plans tomorrow to hang out with Teenie and Rosales - still working on it.

And now the music portion of this post ^_^

Tonight's title is from the song Luminal by Covenant. I was torn between that and a Neuroticfish song, but I couldn't pick a single song so I chose this one instead. Although, I've been listening to Neuroticfish and Pride and Fall for most of today and most of the past week. Going through Neuroticfish's album, A Greater Good, has proved really nice - I like many of the songs. Pride and Fall is of course a favourite already and I've just been listening to a few different songs than usual. Using Neuroticfish would have been kind of cool considering Marius' birthday is coming up and we have a notorious signature of communication on Facebook - throwing lines from the chorus of The Bomb back and forth. It's actually pretty fun. The band hold s a lot for me - the connection with M, the cover of 'They're Coming to Take me Away', the song 'Close' which I listened to pretty often first semester of my senior year of high school. There's a lot of memories that go with it.

Speaking of memories, over the last week I remembered that I need to add Bach's 'Tocata and Fugue' to my playlist on my computer. It's a must have for my personality as well as my opera and classical playlist. I've also been listening to the VNV Nation remix of 'Paint it Black' over the last week which brings back very fond fuzzy memories of humming the song in high school where no one knew it, and because it's the end credit song to the movie 'Devil's Advocate'.

And that is about it. I've have tried to keep it down to less that three pages, and I think I did, but I never know. I shall try to stay a little more up to date with things on the blog, a week was an awfully long time. Well...ya, it was.

Cheers,

Shadow of Light

A Million Points of Light

What a week. I've tried blogging several times in the last few days but I keep getting pulled into a bunch of other things that I don't really want to do, but I also don't feel like putting up with the pain of not doing them. Ever have those moments? You want to watch a movie (in my case, blog) and someone calls you to do something else, whether it's go out or do a chore, and you don't want to, but if you decline then you have to put up with guilt trips, arguing, over explaining things that fall under the "my business" category, etc. so instead you just say, what the hell, and give in. That's what I've been putting up with for the last three days, and today it's really starting to piss me off - it just doesn't bloody end!

Anyways, that's why this is delayed so far past when I intended to write it, which I don't need to explain, but since the reason is actually something that has been bothering me - I am. I kind of can't wait to get back to school, there hasn't been a whole lot to do and it's bothersome. I highly enjoy the days that I blog about on here, because those are the days I spend with friends or do fun things or things that will matter later, but considering how many days I've had over the break and how many posts there have been - I'm coming out short on the enjoyable things. School probably won't be any better, but at least I have that whole "I learned something new and interesting!" option to add to the fun and friends options. Plus I'll get to complain about the awful weather and people (complain about people, not about awful people), while simultaneously raving about the projects I'll have time and space to work on. But I'll also be away from people I care about too, which will be sad. But I'll be around other people I care about so it'll be fun. It's a very bipolar experience.

And to go along with increasingly worsening headache (it wouldn't be so bad if it ever went away, but it's always there ignorable until it spikes up like tonight), and a not-so-great night: tonight is a (what I call) blood moon. It's when something in the atmosphere makes the moon look orangish-red, I'm sure you've seen similar stuff at some point - like a harvest moon. The only thing is: red moon (and sun) are usually something you see when it's low in the atmosphere, but that's not the case tonight - it's almost directly above my house and it's very nearly blood-red, which is another thing that isn't too common. There are also no stars from my angle - absolutely zero. There are stars far away opposite the moon, but absolutely zero around the moon itself. It really bothers me - the moon has always been my element and right now it just doesn't feel right and I don't know why. Seeing it hasn't helped my mood any though.

Anyways, I did a lot over the weekend (except Sunday), so here's that:

Friday - spent the day with my Friend Käri hanging out in SF. We went down to Pier 39, had lunch at Bubba Gump's, went to Ghiradelli Square, sat in a park, etc. After we finished all that we went to a hookah bar on 16th St. - the same one Rosales and friends had tried to go to with directions that went nowhere and which I thought to be my fault at the time (I was very mad at Yelp). Well this time, after getting lost and calling John again (for the exact same reason as the time before - I found it less amusing than he did) we ended up at the same place as when I was with Rosales, except that the place now existed. Turns out the time before they just hadn't had their door open, and I had gotten blamed for having bad directions while I leaned up against against the (closed and unmarked) door of the hookah bar while I called John. The place was alright: nice atmosphere, some of the best hummus I've ever had, good hookah, but terrible service. We had a fun time, but it didn't really get kickin' until I called Rosales and he showed up. Like I say: Three's a party, four's a rave. Then we all walked down the street (some not as stable as others due to some stupid experiment to see how long that person could hold a breath of smoke) to BART and went home. Turns out I can make it about 50 feet. It was a fun day, but a really fun night.

Saturday I spent the afternoon and evening with one of my teachers from high school. We played around on our Macs mostly, but she also let me have one of her CS3 licenses since she bought CS4. Then I got some lessons on things to do in Illustrator and InDesign. Only sad part - she forgot to release her license so I'm stuck without the programs for now. Need to talk to her and see what we can work out. I'll probably call her tomorrow, cause I'd like to get it taken care of before I can't use the programs anymore.

Sunday through today I played more on my Mac, complained about the heat (85 is too hot for me without a breeze - and a breeze only goes so far after that), played more Overlord, some Magic the Gathering on the Xbox arcade, ate a few muffins, and worked on a card.

I passed some of the time with the Fable 2 OST - quite worth it IMHO. I wish the Fable 2 Theme were longer, but I'm still happy with it. I also got Psych season 3 finally, and I'm watching that right now as well as listening to music. And when it comes to listening to music - I've been keeping it light and mellow (ish). Basically: Fable 2, some Hellsing OST (always a good choice), VNV (of course - just a different selection), Tiesto, Pride and Fall (I did say 'ish'), Faunts, Xandria, A23, Covenant, and Depeche Mode (can't get Enjoy the Silence out of my head, and Precious is always a favourite). Also I'm debating adding some new songs to my collection, manly Weapon by Matthew Good band (good intro), and a Simon and Garfunkel song - The Sound of Silence. I've heard them both before, but now I'm debating about adding them to my collection (although I know that there's a S&G cd around here somewhere). Currently listening to 'UR' (pronounced 'You Are') by Tiesto, a great, mellow, meaningful song.

Links of course:

Matthew Good, 'Weapon' - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eo1hY2qNd3Y

S&G, 'Sound of Silence' - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDYxgDO5bCI

Tiesto, 'UR' - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxRBXbGdmqE&feature=related

And that's it. That's everything. I strongly suggest listening to UR, it's easily one of my tops songs and it's very introspective. Doesn't hold the best of memories for me, but I still love it - which is true of a lot of things actually.

I'll try and post something again soon. Probably after something eventful.

Cheers,

Shadow of Light

Wake the Sea of Silent Hope

Ahhhh, what an eventful, fun, full week. ^_^ Exhausting though, although that might just be me...

Sooo, let me see what I can remember. This last weekend I went and saw a movie with my friend Ellen, Hurt Locker. I thought it was a really good movie, there's a lot of themes you can draw from it, and it was pretty well done too. All in all, glad I got to see it, and hanging out with friends is always a plus for me.

Monday I spent the day with Rosales doing the usual - playing video games, watching movies, drinking a pallet of Cytomax (this only happens when I get it though), and ordering in pizza. We do other things too, but this is what we've done since the end of my Freshman year in High School, except back then we played Halo 2. Ahhh, good memories.... ^_^ This time our activities included: Left 4 Dead, a horribly funny Japanese film, the newest add-on for Fallout 3, and Rockband 2 (I think something else too, but I can't remember). Rockband 2 was the big highlight though, for several reasons: 1 - I learned how to play the drums and not fail entirely, and 2 - we played the 84 song set-list for an achievement. That's right, we got the achievement, AND I played 84 songs on the drums with only one complete fail (there were quite a few saves on Rosales' part too - but I feel much better about myself now ^_^). After that, we watched the videos I posted in the last post and re-lived parts of the VNV concert, mostly by shouting 'Free Bird' while we played Rockband. Then we listened to some Depeche Mode on the ride to my place. Great day.

The next day I played some more Overlord (I got the game...couldn't resist) and had SO much fun with it. It's a well designed game - it has good graphics, it has a good story, it's fun, it's challenging without being murderous - I love it.

But Wednesday was the real highlight of the week - I got my Macbook Pro! I love it. I've named her Arya after a character from a book written by George R. R. Martin (specifically: A Game of Thrones). I don't know if I can really describe how amazing it is - there's just so much that makes it special, and amazing. The sleek body, the back-lit keyboard (!!!), a dvd drive that plays dvd's (although the fact that I didn't delete a driver like I did on my PC might be a contributing factor - I did it on accident!!), the touch-pad gesture controls (that I play with waaaaayyyy too often), the built in camera that has better resolution than the one I bought for my PC, the weight, way we just look at each other for hours at a time...I really can't explain it. She completes me.

Yes, she. I'm of the belief that all computers are female (kind of like with ships). You have to treat a computer well, otherwise you'll have problems. You have to love it. Yelling at a computer solves nothing, and only makes you look like an idiot. Computers have an external aesthetic that is unique to the individual, and that aesthetic is attractive to specific people (Arya is thin, smooth, has that perfect balance of being sexy and modest at the same time, great features, and an amazing personality). And most importantly, if you do treat your computer well and love it, you can always count on it when you're in need.

See? As cynical as I may be, I do still believe in love - it's just limited to Arya. I believe that it's going to be a very nice relationship. ^_^

In other news: I talked with my aunt for a while online, I've sorted out all my photos and most of my music, and I've been hopping up and down with glee over the new iPod Touch features. Hearing VNV Nation without headphones is AMAZING!!!!!!

Tomorrow I'm off to the City to hang out with my friend Käri, and then Saturday I'm visiting my friend Esther again, and we're going to play with our computers, and art, and run amok around the house. And if her daughters are there, I'll probably visit with them too (and then I won't feel so guilty about forgetting to visit so far this summer). Then I'll be off to my aunt's sometime this next week probably, and then returning towards the end of August to visit with more people before I head back to school. This includes getting sushi with Ellen, and hanging out with Rosales more as well. These are the things that are unavoidable in my universe (seriously, no matter what, these things will happen) - there are other things as well, but I haven't seen them happen long enough to give my full support of their inevitability. Some day.

Tonight's blog title is brought to you from the song M4 (Part II) by Faunts. It's the song that plays in the end credits of Mass Effect, and it's also a very meaningful song with a nice beat, well written lyrics, and good vocals. Seems a little melancholy, but the message feels very...me.

Cheers,

Shadow of Light

Wide Awake in a World That Sleeps

Well, here I am, keeping my promise, and posting later this week. I wouldn't have bet on me, but it looks like I would have lost.

This is going to be a fun post, or at least I hope it's a fun post. It's fun for me at the very least. Tonight I found some videos on Youtube from the VNV Nation concert taken by a guy who was right behind us, so you will get to see us, and you'll get to see some of Ronan's interludes between songs. ^_^

Video one: The large head (made large by hair) in the very first frame of the video is Rosales; the smaller head cut off on the far right of the very first frame is me (^_^); the hand that comes up to point after Ronan's first comment and just before he says, "no, seriously" is Rosales; the short, deep laughs you hear immediately after Ronan's comment about ridiculing people are me and Rosales (and probably some others as well, but they're not important); right after Ronan announces the title of the photo he is having taken, a b/w striped arm with glow sticks appears - that's Alex; the hand sign that gets thrown up on the far right after Ronan's comment about calling himself a lady is me; Rosales' head and Alex's glowing striped hand appear a few more times on the right as the video ends.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a4JaI4Fmyc

Video two: Rosales' head can be seen when the lighting permits.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUf8KPQWzVA

Video three: Two striped-sleeved, glowstick-wielding hands - Alex; right after Ronan says he's from Ireland the camera zooms out and a hand gets in the way for a second - that's me (my ring is visible if you go to that particular frame).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcnSUKo-mbg

^_^ Three videos that I hope stay on Youtube for a while, as I would really enjoy reliving some of these moments when there are no concerts for me to attend. Three videos where Ronan Harris speaks. Three reminders of how awesome that concert was.

I apologize if you find the fact that I'm pointing out myself and friends in the videos a little vain, but honestly - it's a blog about my life, and the people in it; at least I'm not pointing out random people that I don't know. Seriously.

In some other news, I found out today that I have more money in grants scholarships and loans than I need for tuition over the school year. This means I can get the excess and use it for school supplies, like a new Macbook Pro!!! Finally I will be able to get a computer that won't crash on me when it feels like it, and I'll be able to get the full version of either Adobe CS3 or CS4! Plus it will also double my storage space, and I'll be getting a couple accessories to go with it and make it work out for me. I'd also like to modify it a teeny-tiny bit, but I'm still working out how. I don't want to do anything to the physical body of the case, but I would like to do something so that instead of the apple glowing on the back, it would be the Vampire Vineyards logo. I have some red transparent plastic sheeting I can use for the color, but I need to sort out the other details later. As much as I love the aesthetic design of the new Macs, I would really like to be able to customize it a bit to make it more...me. It's another project I can add to the list, but I think it can wait until I actually have the Mac. That's my new dilemma - getting the Mac. I need it in the first week of school, BUT I can't get the excess money from my loans/scholarships until I get to school and fill out some papers and then wait another two weeks. So I'm hoping something will work out, because I'd like to not have to drop a required class for that reason - it'd be really lame.

Well, I'm going to be off, one more day of work tomorrow, and then I'm free for the rest of summer. Sunday I have tentative plans to hang out with one friend, and Monday I have pretty solid plans to hang out with another friend. Then I'm off to visit my aunt, and to return later in the month for more visits. Should be lots of fun! ^_^

Cheers,

Shadow of Light

A Choir Full of Longing...

Title tonight from Covenant's 'Call the Ships to Port'. Great song - nice beat, good lyrics, nice medium of heavy house/club music and trance. Been singing along with it most of the last hour. Before that I was still listening to Combichrist's 'Electrohead'.

I wasn't planning on blogging again until the end of this week, but I had a pretty eventful day. Today I rescued my books!! I also did laundry, replied to one of my roommates on Facebook, and will eventually trim my beard sometime this evening.

The books are the exciting part though (although the fact that I'm washing ALL my clothes made rescuing my books in a robe a lot more adventurous). The back story of it goes something like this: A few years ago I started cleaning my room, and I was putting things in boxes to organize them, and all my favourite books of that time were put into a 'book box'. During the time that I was cleaning my room however, my aunt visited and assisted, and we got a good chunk of my room clean in a day instead of the week I had planned on. It was during this epic sweep however, that the book box was placed at the bottom of a pile of other things (boxes, toys, clothes, etc.), and being the weak little 10 y/o that I was, I could not pull out a 70lb box from the bottom of a pile stacked to the ceiling of a bunch of other heavy things. And so all my favourite books were lost to myself and the world forever.

Until today...

♪doo-doooooo♪

(An Obelisk of Light Production)

♪doo-da-do-do♪

(In Association with I Want Justice Entertainment)

♪dum-dum-daaaam♪

Found!

♪do-do-do-daam♪

(Staring:)

(Mr. Maximus - me!)

(The Rosaler - Himself)

(Narrator - Pyle's wraith)

♪doo-doo-doo♪

♪doo-doo-doo♪

♪doo-doo-doo♪

♪doo♪

♪doo♪

♪DOO-DOO♪

It started in the morning, a day like any other. Mr. Maximus had just finished putting the laundry into the basket to take it to be washed, his robe billowing about his ankles as he paced between his laundry pile and the hamper, eyes still shadowed by the remnants of sleep, and bed head sticking out into the vastness of the house. He scratched the shaggy hair growing past the boundaries of his beard lost in thought in the moment and reflecting on his week.

As he stood in the stillness and let his thoughts flow over him he thought back to the memory of a box of treasured books once used to keep them safe until it had been lost forever. He thought of his cousin, of how some of the books would be perfect for his current reading level, and of the other books he had once treasured and loved and if he might ever see them again.

It was then that he came back to his senses and standing in front of his room's door, he wondered if he might dare enter and quest for his lost treasures. He thought about the books he wanted to read, but could not bring himself to go just for himself; but the thought of his cousin drove him to decide to quest into the depths of the room and bring out the great tome of knowledge. He set out by clearing the debris that had gathered over the years in front of the great opening to the abyss. Little by little, he cleared a way to enter, and bracing himself he clambered over the last of the debris and into the darkness of the realm beyond. Upon entering, the lighting immediately changed, and he found his eyes adjusting to the glow emitted from windows that had once gazed out upon a great world and vast empire, but that now stood half-shut looking out upon a world of hypocrisy and corruption. Looking back just once, he set forth through the now alien realm scanning his surroundings for signs of other things lost and forgotten.

After several minutes of treacherous hiking over2 ground layered by the remnants of a previous life, while staying away from the dens of strange creatures made up of legs and eyes, Maximus came upon a familiar shape buried in old skins. Brushing the skins aside he found one of his only pieces of useful furniture, a small(-ish) entertainment center that would serve him well upon his return to the distant magic academy, where despite his best efforts he had yet to turn water into wine. He hoisted his new treasure onto a plinth near him so he might return by the same way and take it along with him.

He ventured further through his surroundings, fighting off the vicious monsters that swung down from above him and crawled from their dens to cling to his bare legs, struggling over unstable ground and pathways filled with debris that left deep gouges as he scraped by them, unprotected. Eventually he made it to the back of the Abyss, where an eerie and unholy wind whipped about him, biting at his hands and face. He searched through squinted eyes at the largest pile of debris yet, and saw at it's base a gleam of gold where the chest he sought lay covered and trapped. Setting down the small collection of items he had found along his travel, he began to dig through the pile, carrying the larger pieces away from his work. Breathing heavy, he thought of having the help of someone familiar with the vast and terrible world around him. He thought of the greatest of the travelers that he knew, The Rosaler. The man had seen the terrors of the abyss, and yet his bravery never wavered any time he had had to venture forth into it.

Finally Maximus reached the great chest that held his books, and heaving it out of another pile, he lifted the lid and saw the treasure inside...

...Aaaaaand that's a pretty good description of what I had to do to get the books, with a few artistic liberties taken to make it sound more exciting, but not many - the room really is a mess, that's part of the reason I've slept on the couch for the last 7 years. In the end I made it out, and with quite a haul! I set out my entertainment center to take back to school, I also found two packs of cedar planks that I can use for projects, some sandpaper, some craft stuff, a book I bought my Freshman year of high school when I wanted to learn how to draw (unfortunately I never really got into the book, but I have it again and I'm going to go through it and work on some of the lessons), and a few other odds and ends. Getting into the book box was the real haul though, I got the books I wanted for my cousin, a set of 17 of the 'Great Illustrated Classics' which are abridged versions of classic novels with pictures every other page. I read them when I was little, and I loved them because they were only abridged enough to be easy to read, not to dilute the content. I also found my LOTR books, a box set including the Hobbit, my copies of 'The House of the Scorpion', 'The Aeneid', 'The Odyssey', and the entire collection of the 'Everworld' series - I got the first book when I was 10 and finished the series about two years after that when I had all the other books (thinking about reading it again, kind of in the mood for fantasy but don't know how eager I am to re-read that particular series). But the books that I was really happy to find were my collection of Calvin and Hobbes books: The Essential Calvin and Hobbes, Homicidal Psycho Jungle Cat (my favourite ^_^), The Days Are Just Packed, Calvin and Hobbes, and The Revenge of the Baby-sat. Calvin and Hobbes is my very favourite comic strip, I love reading it when I can now, but I love reading it in the books more - my mom had two of the books and when I visited her when I was little I would read them while I watched cartoons and ate Fruit Loops out of the box. It wasn't made special because I was with my mom, it was made special because I was having fun and I wasn't stressed out, and to this day Scooby-Doo, Fruit Loops, and Calvin and Hobbes all brighten my day.

On a more depressing note, I also found a rough draft that someone once gave me to read of a story. I got it in high school, and it's a good story, a few years old, last worked on about 6 months before it was given to me. It's kind of a sad story, and finding it didn't exactly give me warm , fuzzy feelings. But finding everything else was great.

That's it, that's all of my day. I still have to pull my laundry out of the dryer, and I still have to shave, but then I'll be ready to crash and start tomorrow. Thing is...I don't want to start tomorrow, I'm not looking forward to going all the way to Palo Alto to pack up office supplies and furniture. But I keep telling myself it'll be over soon, and then I'm free, and I get paid pretty well, 10/hr, and I'll be working with a kid about my age, but I won't be able to treat him like a normal person because he's my boss' son. LAME!

So I'm off to fold clothes, and get my beard back to it's Sean Connery look. I'll blog again later this week!

Cheers!

-Shadow of Light