I write today to address the issue of politeness in context of "walking someone to the door". It's something I've observed in many cases, but I've never completely understood.

Let's get the background in context: whenever I go to a friends house for a period of time and then I subsequently leave, the friend walks me at least as far as the door, or more often, to my car. Me being unpopular with the females, this "walking out" generally tends to occur between me and a male friend, and I have to ask: why?

The only practical reason (meaning besides the reason of "being polite") I can think of for this action is if it is between a couple who want to get some time to themselves (i.e. without parents, siblings, or pets watching them) before they part. But this thing is happening to me with guys. Heck, my mom tells me to walk my male friends to the door.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems just a little, eensey weensey bit homosexual.

But it's polite. =D

I can only think of three or four of my elite friends that arent in this group. <3
I went to a school club conference today and I really enjoyed it. But let me tell you, my reasons are not what they are supposed to be.

So this was a joint meeting of Troy and about 8 other high schools, and the girls there were fine. Super fine. At Troy I'm lucky to see a hot girl once during the day, at the conference I saw three flaming girls, and that's a whole 'nother level above 'fine'. So yeah, I was like a kid in a candy shop. I'm surely looking forward to the State Sectional Conference where all of us are confined to a hotel room for a weekend without parents or anything... mmm... mosh pit.

I've been noticing this consistency in all the asian girls I seem to consider "hot". They all have straight hair first of all (naturally, because I consider ponytails and curly 'lazy'), but when their hair lays on their backs it always has this weird pattern where it spreads outwards from the center of the back in these sexy little groups of strands...


For lack of a better picture, imagine the way this girls hair flows down her back.

Weird is that so many girls that I consider hot have this trait, that whenever I see it I automatically think hot. I actually have a couple of friends who have the same thing going on with their hair and it drives me into this bipolar frenzy of 'is she hot or my friend'.. hehe

The full moon last night was covered over by some rain clouds. The pics horrible, but you get the idea.

Got bored in some of my classes today so I just started writing. I basically took my own little quote "Words have little practical meaning in the real world" and extended it into a synopsis of basic human relationships and the understanding that underlies them and started writing three pages on something I call "common experience". It was sort of neat because I was writing down alot of really complicated things, analyses of relationships between a bunch of different, abstract, philosophical things, and I wasnt thinking at all. I have all this stuff embedded in my brain and it's nice to get it out.

Hehe, you can all get autographs when I'm a famous author someday.

With my new toy in hand, a digicam almost as small as my cell and smaller than my iriver, you can be certain that this journal is going to become very picturesque.

As for today, it pretty much rained. I got most of the presents I didnt recieve yesterday from my extended family, but even with that, birthday's have never been a big thing in my family. We went out to dinner last night (a good dinner at that), and my parents got me a pretty nice present, (the digicam), but I feel lucky having even gotten $70 from the rest of my family. Save save save. I really need a job.


Saw this on the way home today. Some firebird with a hitch on it. I have no clue what kind of trailer this guy is planning on pulling with a lowered CAR, which can probably hardly carry 5 people, but it's pretty damn funny. As you can see, it was pouring. I really like driving around in the rain, especially when it's raining hard. It gives me this sense of separation: there I am sitting in my nice warm car where outside there are gallons of water pouring out of the sky all around me. Sexy.


Had to go apply for a passport today as my first action as a responsible adult. The place I went to was on the way home from school, the Placentia Town Hall. For all of the good things about Yorba Linda, our town hall really sucks ass, but Placentia's hall was really spiffy.

"I tried to be perfect
But nothing was worth it
I dont believe it makes me real"
~from "Pieces". tiiight.

Happy Birthday to me.

You know what I really want?

A platypus.

Course, nobody ever gets what they want. If they did, life wouldnt be any fun now, would it?

I officially declare this week Whiteboy Appreciation Week.

Go out and appreciate your local whiteboy by bowing down to his superior glory, giving him a gangsta' high five (stolen from the 'persecuted' blacks), or just saying "we appreciate you and your culture".

I had a friend back in middle school who was all about promoting Indians. He made this beautiful little claim that "Indians invented zero, therefore they are t3h ownage". Yes, he's right, Indians did invent the concept of zero. But whites invented calculus, the laws of gravity, the printing press, automobiles, electricity, modern architecture, etc etc etc. The scorecard looks like this: Whites 1,033,235,664; Everyone else: 3. Come on, give us a little credit for once.

(for god's sake, I'm being slight sarcastic, so dont explode)

Went to see "Sideways" today. When I first read the reviews about it, I didnt quite understand what they meant by a "Romantic Comedy" because all of them described it after using those two words as two opposites traveling the Californian coast tasting wine. Now I do. It most certainly was a romantic comedy, detailing two completely different views of love and life and taking them like threads and separating them as far as they can go so we can all see the intricate differences between the two lifestyles and then joining them back up at the end to show that no matter how different people are, there can always be a happy ending.

It's interesting, these two men were essentially opposites, and normally when we see something like this in the movies we see one of the men as "good" and the other as "bad", at least in terms of their personality. But it wasnt so in this movie. One guy was a wussy, frustrated with his life and still getting over his divorce which happened 2 years ago. He is a high school teacher but wants to be a writer but eventually fails at it halfway through the film. But he's controlled and logical when he's not drunk. He's considerate of women and open about his feelings and thoughful and he doesnt flatter anyone unless he feels cornered.

The other guy is a player. He's a declining actor that is engaged to be married with a bright future. But he has no morals. He will say anything to get people's fancy, lies profusely, and practices infedelity with two different women in the film.

Nevertheless, I'll end my reviews there. This movie meant alot more to me then it would most people because it helped me coagulate some theories I have on love and relationships. Though this definitely wasnt the intent of the film, it's the most meaningful thing that I came away with, and I really appreciate it.

In the middle of Korean Town, there is a gorilla.

A friend had a birthday party today. I find it really ironic that during my middle school years, I rarely (if never) found a person who was born in february, but now that I go to Troy it seems that February is the most popular birth month. I've allready been to 4 birthday parties this month, god knows how many others there were (typically I dont go to one birthday party in a month). Who knows? Maybe the zodiac thing really is true. Maybe the time you are borne in really does have some subtle affect on your personality or genetics that grows into a major personality trait as you grow up. That would explain why there are so many Pisces going to Troy, a school that is very specific as to the people it accepts (bright, studious, arrogant, blah blah).

Anyhow, for the birthday party I started out going over to this friend's house. He's one of the few people that actually lives close to me and I was like "Cool, maybe for once I'll get to hang out with my friends without wasting alot of gas driving all over the basin". Of course, thinking like that is a garunteed path for a curse. My friend decided somehow to take us to a Korean BBQ about 20 miles away on the fringe of Korean Town in Buena Park. Despite that gas I wasted, I enjoyed myself. Korean BBQ is a very different experience from most restaurantes in that you actually cook your own food. There are buffet platters full of raw beef, fish, pork, chicken, squid, octopus and pretty much every asian-exotic meat you can think of marinated in all the spicy, flavourful sauces you could dream. This was all cool for a splurge, but unfortunately they had this queer rule that you couldnt have any leftovers or they'd charge your tab. I found this really weird because I figured they were charging us allready for all the meat we ate, but I guess in the end it didnt matter. In fact, my friends and I found some neat ways to get rid of food that we didnt want (mainly octopus tentacles and some kind of intestine), like stuffing them down in the vents of the stove that we were given. So, that provided us some remedial fun.

Lately I've been feeling really good about my overall directions in life, at least the ones not involving women. Yesterday my brother followed in my footsteps by buying a virgin mobile phone and he has been asking me advice all day long (at least all day that I've been home). A couple of days ago I was doing some donuts and stuff in a dirt parking lot and my brother was trying to figure out how I got the car to work at the tips of my fingers the way I do. I guess I see alot of the good things I do through my brother now, although I hardly ever notice them. I answer his questions half the time not even realizing that in some ways he actually looks up to me. That feels really good considering the schism that has always existed between me and the rest of my family. Most people probably get bathed in glory by their parents or whatever, but my family just isnt like that. I hardly ever recieve compliments from friends or family and most of the time I'm left assuming what I do is right. The little change in the norm that my brother offers me from time to time nowadays is, well, an affirmation.

At 8:00 in the night......
...........The day has just begun for me

As I repeated over and over (but everybody refused to believe me), there was alot of stagness going on at Winter Formal. I'd be willing to say that there were as many stag girls as there were couples, which is a pretty good turnout. Unfortunately most of them were in groups and therefore inseparable. There was a comedy act, which was pretty provocative/funny/absurd (can can dancers showing endless views of their panties, a magician who couldnt do magic, a guy eveloping himself in a balloon). There were gambling tables like last year. I played Texas Hold 'Em and on one play (the only play I went "all in" on) got $2000, therefore quadrupling the money I was given. Then I went and lost about $500 at blackjack and called it quits.

Dancing was cool. I didnt have a group, so at some of the slower, less interesting songs I felt kind of bored, but I'm a pretty independent person. I found a couple of girls along the way, so I didnt look like a total loner. Around the end of the dance I tried dancing with a girl (well, tried freaking to be honest) and got rejected. Heh, that hurt my pride, but I assume it isnt me. Nevertheless I didnt feel much like girls after that and left about 10 minutes early.

This is the first dance I came back from unchanged. Every other school dance I've went to I cant even remember when I get back. I come back feeling depressed and lonely, but this time I really dont feel that way. Good. =D

To my troy-friends: you should've come.

On a whim today I went out and bought Motorcycle Maintenence's Sequel, "Lila". It's great so far, arguably more enjoyable then Maintenence (because it's alot more understandable now that I know the authors style).

Man, I'm so freaked right now. I always get this way before going to dances, and I dont really know why. I think I'm scared of looking like an idiot or something and I will be until I get on that damn dance floor. Wish me luck.

There is so much bullshit in this world. So many people sell their souls just to get ahead in profits. Friendships, love and family are sold for filthy money. And it all disgusts me, down to the core of me. If there was one thing I would change about society it would be this.

You know it's disgraceful when you watch a news program scanning for all the lies that the reporters tell. When you're no longer sure whether the man you trusted enough to elect to office is telling you the whole truth. When you watch an advertisement and you dont cant just listen, you have to discern between fact and petty exaggeration. It's disgusting to watch girls like the ones on The Apprentice sell something much more than their bodies for a shot at money.

It seems like every lie has money behind it. Worse, it seems that everything that has anything to do with money is a lie. Even advertisements masquerading in costumes of good social ideals are decieving. Corporations like the MPAA will spend billions spreading ads that make the association "downloading is taking from the artists wallet" to appeal to our outstading social morales, when in fact all they want is a little more money for their own wallets.

By god, by myself and everything I love, I swear I will never sell out. If I become homeless and stoop to welfare, I will never sell myself to money. I like it, but my integrity will never have a price. I'm just that proud.

Urr. What a disappointing day, at least disappointing for me. It seems my hope/achievements have been doing this roller coaster ride: (dont laugh at me if some of these things sound silly)
- I get my hopes up during 3rd and 4th period for going out to carls jr (I love their spicy chicken sandwiches) but we end up going to KFC. I acted all gay about it and one of my friends ended up giving me a dollar because I was complaining about the prices or something and I felt really immature/bad.
- I hope to go over to cal state fullerton and finish all my homework and be totally prepared for tommorow's bio test, but I come out with no good feelings at all AND some of my homework is still incomplete.
- I plan on going to the love concert so that I can see a friends performance, but I end up missing it because of my own damn memory/incompetence/poor decision making so I sit through it feeling really guilty.
- I call up someone to find out where the love concert is at only to find out it is in the most obvious spot and I overlooked it. Embarrasment ensues.
- I get home and call up another friend about a breakfast that was going to happen tommorow to try to reschedule it because the restaraunt we are planning on going to wont be open and it turns out I woke her up and she decided to cancel it on the spot, leaving me feeling kinda guilty.

I dont think it's so much that I lost alot of hope today as the fact that I lost alot of face. I appeared immature, inconsiderate, and worst of all, not a very good friend. Guess there's always tommorow. Although only saturday looks promising as of now.

Isnt it embarrasing when you tell someone what you really think about them without meaning to? There's this one guy at my school who I dont know too well, and everytime I talk to him or refer to him, I accidentally call him "Henry", even though that's not his name. (Henry being another very metro guy at our school) It's funny, because everytime I see the guy, I immediately think "metro" because of his style and looks, and then my brain does the next most familiar association, "Henry" and before I know it I am waving and saying "Hi, Henry" and he'll stop and stare at me with this intense contempt. I wont even realize it for a couple of seconds and by then I really cant play it off as a joke and all I can do is apologize and feel foolish. No matter how many times this happens, though, I continue doing it. It's the weirdest thing, like my brain has given a name to the trait of being metrosexual, but it's also really stupid because I think this guy knows what's going through my head when I call him "Henry" and he takes offense to it. He probably doesnt realize that I cant help myself and thinks I'm making fun of him.

Oh well.

Yesterday my brother got his learners permit, so I let him drive around with me today. Funny, I see so much of the same mistakes I made in him, but he is without a doubt a faster learner/better driver than I was when I first started out. Yesterday I didnt need to pick my brother up so I took one of the sideroads to my house and pushed my car really hard. My Accord is surprising in that it's a much more capable driver than anyone would ever expect by just looking at it. Having it on the apex of a turn, feeling like it's going to roll really puts me out for awhile in joy. I really want to go do one of the solo autocross events that SCCA holds, but as with everything, there is the matter of finding some way to lie to my parents.

I guess today wasnt entirely great. I wanted to hang out with some friends after school, but alas, they went home. So I went over to borders to read magazines while I waited for my brother to get out of his school and at one point my mind started to wander on that ultimate downer: "What do I have to look forward each day? What is this repitition?". I heedlessly silenced this voice in the back of my head, but it's a sign of a big mood change that is coming, which really makes me sad. All I can do is just think of all the great weekends coming up: Winter Formal, Friends, Motorcycling, FBLA events and the like.

I dont think this music is helping the mood.
Need ta' get me a girl I can appreciate.

I'm finishing up the movie Troy, and I must say it's not too bad. As Bob Longino says, it's "A swift epic with decent acting and acceptable fight scenes". Really, it's a cookie cutter epic/action film: huge armies, one-on-one battle scenes, a hero that can kill about a hundred of all the "standard" soldiers all at once, and the must-have romance.

What I dont get is the differences in these movies. There are always new fighting moves, there are always new weapons, new uniforms, and it's what makes these movies interesting. For example, in Troy, they actually used spears, and I thought it was pretty damn cool.

But the romances in these movies never change. The woman is always with the man the night before a big battle saying "Dont go, stay here with me" and the man, of course, explains to the woman how it's his duty to "his country" to go and "fight" and they just leave it at that and have hot sex. Why cant the romances in these films have some variety too? I want to see a woman say like "I'll join you in battle" or "Let's practice for that fight tommorow in bed tonight". That would add some spice to the romance scenes. But no, I just end up fast fowarding. Whatever.

Scratch what I said yesterday, cant go on a road trip next weekend. Forgot. It's Winter Formal weekend. I had completely forgot until I went out shopping with my mom for some shorts today (even after a friend talked to me about it last night, I really wasnt paying attention to what I was saying). Luckily, I found a really tacky dress shirt, so I can look...noticeable...like I did last year (for those of you who missed my 20-color shirt, I pity you =D)

My little shopping excursion led me to contemplate something: where do all the stuff that girls get shopping every weekend go? Most of the time when I ask a girl what she is doing over a weekend, she'll just throw a shrug and say "shopping". Yet I can only think of two or three girls that wear genuinely new things every week (ironically enough, all are girls I think are very hot..hinthint). So.. if girls go shopping nearly ever weekend, but come to school every week day with the same clothes they always wear.... what happened to the clothes between the mall and school?

I have a few hypotheses:
(1) Girls are lazy/conservative/intelligent and dont want to wear their new clothes to school.
(2) Girls never buy anything, just look.
(3) They dont buy clothes, they buy other things like stuffed animals and trinkets for their backpacks.
(4) Girls buy things that are so in queue with their style that I dont even notice when they wear something new.

I think it's a mixture of all four things, but hey, who knows?

Ahhhh.. a fresh computer. After a couple of hours of installing and reinstalling, I've finally wiped my damn computer. It was getting really slow because so many of the system files were corrupted, and I really havnt done a good wipe since summer, so I decided today would probably be one of the best times.

Now it's running so fast.. joy. But I got alot of work ahead of me, lots more restoring. My parents are going to take me out to that movie about the boxer girl. So I gotta do that first. I'd rather see "Sideways", but whatever. Personally, I've never liked those "inspirational" movies. They always seem so very corny, because in the end you always know what's going to happen. Everything always works out for the good people and not for the bad. It's like the movies are trying to teach you moral values for a perfect goodie-goodie world that doesnt exist.

But I like movies. And dinner.

There have been many instances where friends have given me directions on how to get to some place or another and I decide to take the longer way. They always give me the same strange look when I tell them of my detour, but I really dont care in this instance. I dont take the long way most of the time for the scenery or the trip, rather I have this insane fettish for naming roads "good" and "bad" and I follow my impressions of roads with almost too much zeal.

What is most perplexing about this little thing of mine is how roads come to be on my good or bad side. For example, the 91 East get's just as crowded as the 91 West from my house, but I have something against going on the 91 West that leads me to try to find any way of getting around getting on it. It's not like I ever got in an accident or saw an accident on it or anything like it, I just plain hate the 91 West. Haha.

We helped throw Tyler Olsen a surprise birthday party tonight (me and a couple of friends). His parents payed for a phenomenally high bill, but other than that, we made invitations and managed the people coming. All accounted, I have to say it was huge success. I havnt had as much fun at a birthday party since my own party last year (almost an entire year now). I think a big part of my enjoyment was due to the attendance of the party by Shohille and Thanos, two friends who are without a doubt the funniest guys I know. They were at my party, and they were at this party, and boy do they know how to lighten the mood.

But I guess the party wasnt all that this night was about. I could go on for a couple of paragraphs about all the stuff that happened, but I dont write like that (obviously). Remember when I talked about Serendipity? Me and Tyler Hayes define that word. Right after the party I mentioned something about getting Boba in a place in the opposite direction of our homes, and we ended up going and getting some at 9 o'clock at night from a place off of Nogales, which for non-california residents, is in the middle of Asian-ville. Of course, we had to roll down the windows and pump up the rap music with the lyrics "STRAIGHT OUT OF COMPTON".

By far the coolest part of the night was the fact that Tyler mentioned something about the great view on one of the roads we were traveling over. My respect for him at that moment shot up about 20 points. People always look at me weird and think I'm joking when I comment on how beautiful natural things are, but I am sincere. I know from Tyler that it has nothing to do with me being a romantic, it has to do with being able to appreciate what is before you, in other words, it's about being mature.

Nevertheless, I had too much fun tonight. It feels like a damn friday tonight and I probably will end up not waking up tommorow on time because my biological clock is all fucked up.

[[reminder for tommorow: write about why I always take the long route]]

Dont get me wrong, I love my friends.

But sometimes I wish that I could find a group to be close with that I could go to things a little more sophisticated than the things I see in my current cliches. I wouldnt dare suggest going to see movies like "The Aviator" or "Sideways" to the white republicans or ballers (my favorite two groups) but I really want to see these movies. I know that there are people in Troy that enjoy good things, according to the astounding attendence to the Operas that have been going on in recent months. I just dont see this passion for beauty escaping the overbearing manliness that everyone seems to have to have.

A teacher today really got to me. She explained that we should just read poetry, experience it, and set it aside without analysis, because it's the analysis that kills the poetry. Then she turns around and has us pick apart a beautiful poem about love's first mistakes.

I got my iRiver to play videos today. Joy. Now I'll have something to do while waiting for zero (watch movies).