Zombies part 1

I love a good zombie movie. Actually, I love a bad zombie movie as well. But people just don't seem to get the stories or the fascination with them and think they're all about blood and gore, which is anything but the truth. The blood and the gore are just a bonus! :D

There are three types of zombies;

1. Necromancy - magic
2. Voodoo - putting people in a daze that's totally controllable under the guise of magic
3. Viral - has to fit three qualifications
1. Has to have been a person at one time
2. Must be dead now but typically alive at the time of infection
3.  Must have been brought back to life via the virus

It's amazing how many times one of the three qualifications get left off of an infection. If a "zombie" doesn't fit all of the qualifications of a viral zombie, you're dealing with something else entirely. Hate to break people's hopes and dreams here but Zombieland doesn't actually have a single zombie in the film, and neither do the 28 days/weeks later films. Both of these films have greatly influenced zombie films since they've come out, but unfortunately they aren't zombie films.

Whenever I'm talking about zombie movies I'm talking about the viral form, which is what 99.9% of all zombie movies consist of. Despite what people may think, running zombies are actually not contrary to the idea of a zombie film, at least by the definition (the definition is from the head and founder of the Zombie Research Society, Matt Mogk, who's work is even revered by zombie experts such as Max Brooks, Robert Kirkman and George Romero).

So why do I watch zombie films? Because they are a genre of horror all their own. Some directors are as mindless about it as can be and their films are strictly about blood and guts, which is cool. But still others use it as a means to tell a story or to make a point, like Romero's "of the Dead" series which seem to slowly highlight a point about humanity originally put forth my one of my favorite author's, Richard Matheson.

As it turns out, zombie's have vampiric roots. Richard Matheson wrote "I am Legend" as his first big-time novel after a fairly successful career as a penny novel writer in the 1950's. For the first time since Dracula came out it's sales were beginning to dwindle, but "I am Legend" inspired author's everywhere to return to the idea of vampires in their own works. Except George Romero took the idea and created a monster all his own that didn't even have a name at the time. He began filming "Night of the Living Dead" in 1964 (I think) and people by the buttons* flocked to the movie theaters to watch this film. It's still considered to have been the greatest box-office zombie film of all time. Zombieland definitely made more money than Night of the Living Dead, but tickets for Night of the Living Dead were much cheaper so it's still assumed that more people went to go see Romero's film despite not making as much profit.

Romero's second film, "Dawn of the Dead" was release internationally with a new score and a new name. It's said that Romero wasn't the one behind the name change and didn't want his creatures to be known as zombies because there was already zombie lore (voodoo and necromancy), but it was released regardless and was a huge hit internationally and the name "zombie" stuck to Romero's creatures. Zombie movies internationally did the best in Italy which inspired a new genre, Spaghetti Horror films, that would prove to be some of the most extravagant, gory, and creative films in the zombie and horror genres.

That's part of what I know about zombies.

Cool Story, bro.


*To understand why I used 'button' to describe a flock of people see my post "Meet Chad! And the Pregnant Watermelon Incident!"

ASMR. The way I sleep at night.

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response

ASMR is a tingling sensation that occurs in the brain whenever you're exposed to specific triggers via one of the five senses. Youtube can only provide for two of the senses, sights and sounds, but often times certain triggers will cause you to believe one of your other senses are picking up sensations that aren't there.

Fun fact; Our sense of smell is the sense that is most connected to our memory.

ASMR isn't about that at all, but it's kind of cool. For instance, I used to sit by this girl in one of my classes in high school who poured an entire bottle of perfume on her body everyday (that's the only explanation I could conjure up at the time). Several years down the road and I pass by a girl in one of my other classes who wears the same perfume (you never forget a scent after that much exposure to it) and out of nowhere my mind goes back (almost against my will) to that class in high school; where I sat, who the teacher was, who I talked to, etc.

ASMR is not even close to that. It's about that tingling sensation though, that I don't get but every once in a while. I still listen to it anyways because it's some calming stuff regardless and the people who do it can be pretty informative at times. One person whispers Russian lessons, another sings songs from the World War II era, some people do art work (a la Bob Ross) and yet another just says a random collection of words just because their voice is that soothing. We always joke about having Morgan Freeman reading us the phone book until we go to sleep but I now found out that if I go long enough without sleep I'll actually do it!

True story, bro.

P.S. I don't listen to guys who do this stuff because the sound of guys whispering creeps me the freak out. It's typically just girls because they don't make me want to sit in the corner in terror in the fetal position.

I'm hungry. The reality of eating right.

I woke up on Wednesday to my mother asking me if I wanted to eat out for lunch with friends. That's how I was going to start my diet. I wanted to go running, but eating at a restaurant works too...I guess.

I avoided anything that wasn't poultry (as any good Mediterranean dieter would do), despite my desire for a cheeseburger by 2:00 pm. We at at Souper Salad instead of McFatty's and it was a bit of a disappointment. My mom and I both thought it would be healthier than what it was. The only thing worth mentioning there was the Vegan "A-Maize-ing corn bread" that tasted as if it was made out of pure unicorns and crack cocaine. I won't be going vegan in this lifetime but mad props to them for making some delicious food.

Then I had to do stuff, but the only thing that really ended up getting done was ordering a new debit card. I just didn't have the mental capacity for anything else, and I honestly think it's because the food I ate messed with me. Man was not meant to eat unicorn. Experiencing that "adulthood" feeling of getting stuff done was pretty cool, though. Unfortunately, the rest of the day I had about as much energy as this guy...

So I took a nap till about eternity. This is typical for people going on this diet. I will have extremely low energy for the next three weeks, according to sources. Most people end up looking like the squirrel in the picture, except without that sweet tail.

Dieting is frustrating. That's my segue. It doesn't help that I've given myself a short attention span by constantly spending time on the internet and forcing myself into the habit of expecting instant gratification on whatever it is that I do*. Even though I know it's stupid I want to see quick and significant weight loss, just like anybody else who's ever started this quest. Don't lie, you know you've done it too.

I love watches, I hate time.

Time, being the ficklest of friends, can go die.

Here's my frustration; I don't have anything to do and so time decides to drag this summer out as long as it can. The reason I say time is a fickle friend is because it's always working against me. If I am enjoying myself, time flies. I want to kick life in the shorts like the Gremlin it can be sometimes, time decides to take things slow and milk my frustrations for as much enjoyment as it can.

Does anybody really know what time it is?

Last Saturday I went to see the new Spiderman movie with my mom and I thoroughly enjoyed the film. We are walking back the car and this conversation happens.


     MOM: "Don't forget that you're playing a song for Mass tomorrow."  

     ME: "Since when do we go to daily Mass (a Mass that ironically happens at an ungodly hour of the morning) and why am I playing?!"

     MOM: "AwkwardSon, tomorrow is Sunday. What day do you think it is?"

     ME: "...Thursday."

     MOM: "No, Thursday happened like, last Thursday."

     ME: *MIND. BLOWN.*

Does anybody really care? ABOUT TIME!!!

My week looks so much like my weekend that I don't even notice when it's Saturday anymore. And Friday? Shoot, Rebecca Black is alone on that one. I'd have to say that the only time of the day I look forward to anymore is my daily "Mess with my dog" hour that occurs in the afternoon. He naps, I poke him. And we laugh and laugh and laugh...okay so I do most of the laughing.

We've all got time enough to cry!

And thus my day ends with a rousing game of WHAT THE HECK DO I DO NOW? (By Parker Bros).  The game usually ends with me reading humorous blogs or playing video games and no matter how hard I try, WHAT THE HECK DO I DO NOW? is a game I've just never been able to win.

We've all got time enough to die!

Meet Chad! And the pregnant watermelon incident.

Chad is the greatest evil to happen to the world since Yoko Ono.

I had just moved into a new place, the place I am living now, and this place was good except that it was too hard to find. All the entrances were either back alleys or dirt roads that were overgrown with brush and my roommates and I came to the conclusion that we were living in that one house that the pizza guy would never be able to find. I've lived in "that house" before and it isn't fun. You go hungry on pizza days.

I decided that if we are going to have people over we should make the place a bit easier to find so one day I went out with clippers, saws, knives, and a can-do attitude and started removing the brush that not only scratched up our cars but hid our existence from the world. This is when I met Chad.

Chad didn't like me removing the brush. In fact, he drove up to the dirt road that led to my house and he told me so himself.

                Chad: Hey, stop that.

 Me: lol no.

     Chad: Please stop that.

 Me: Thanks for saying 'please' but I'm afraid you can't change my mind.

     Chad: What if I told you I was related to this guy who's really photogenic?

     Me: GREAT SCOTT! WITH A FACE LIKE THAT ONE COULD SIMPLY WALK INTO MORDOR! LITERALLY! Are you actually related to that guy?

     Chad: I'm not actually related to him. :( But yes, he is photogenic.

His request was that I should stop what I'm doing and reconsider my efforts of being accessible by the pizza guy or the fire department/police department/ medical emergency vehicles/ Ice Cream truck. I love pizza too much to comply and I told Chad that I was going to continue to remove the brush. I made an enemy that day.

Here's a picture that represents Chad's facial expression when I told him I would continue my rebellion against the Chad empire and his bushes.

Although he had his poker face on, I'm sure this picture more accurately describes his emotions.

Chad walked away and never spoke to me again but his wrath is still present. For the past year I have paid for my encounter with Chad dearly. You will not believe everything that I'm going to tell you about Chad on this blog but I swear that it's real.

Anything that has ever gone wrong in the house that is totally inexplicable is Chad's fault. It has to be. Disappearances of beloved dairy products (yogurt, ice cream, milk) is common, our thermostat has formed an alliance with the Chad Empire, and even our fruit are in danger of facing Chad's wicked wrath.

This brings us to the pregnant watermelon incident. Last September one of my roommates (who shall thus forth be known as "the Aggie Roommate") decided to buy a watermelon. My roommates and I all agreed that this was a good idea however we were confused as to why he bought the watermelon. He had the intentions of eating it, but we ended up keeping it as almost kind of a pet of sorts. Some people have pet rocks, we have pet watermelons. Don't be gel.

Then one day, nine months after the purchasing of said watermelon, I had a butt ton (not a button, a butt *space* ton) of people over to watch a movie and while we were watching "UP" a soda exploded in the kitchen freezer...or so I thought. I rushed to the kitchen with the speed, tenacity and purpose of some unknown Marvel Avenger and I saw that a soda did not explode. After nine months, my watermelon broke. The green shell encasing the delectable pet we once knew now had a crack in the side of it and was spewing watermelon juice all over the kitchen. Chad had struck again.

I don't know when these attacks will end, but know that this is not the last we have heard of Chad. Oh no. He is not yet done extracting vengeance upon me.


Also, I will buy dinner for the next female I see wearing these shoes in honor of my lost yet beloved pet.

Also also I'm considering using "button" as a unit of measurement for people.

Gastronomical Mardi Gras part 1!!!

I'm starting a diet on Wednesday. Not one of those "I'm just gonna not snack and watch what I eat diets" but one of those "So long, sweets. It's been real" diets. The reason for said diet? Another day, another blog post. I'll answer that question when I find it to be relevant.

I want to start this diet on Wednesday, or at least start easing myself into it. Until Wednesday, however, I've been in the process of eating anything that even remotely looks like food (except for watermelons. I'll explain that later). Clearly the smart thing to do when attempting to lose weight is to first gain a bunch of weight. That just makes the process of losing it seem that much more epic.

FUTURE ME: "I gained 250 lbs!"
FUTURE-R ME: "I LOST 300 LBS!"

In order to lose enough weight to impress anybody you have to have a bunch of weight to lose. So gain weight. It'll make your victory that much more glorious. Also, I won't be able to eat ice cream again until the 12th of Never so I might as well gorge myself on sugar. It's my last chance. 

My one rule though is to allow myself to indulge a little bit at events like parties and such. 

My other one rule is to also not be totally strict about the diet on the weekends. I don't eat that much on the weekends anyway. I'm more of a weekday fatty.

My last one rule is that I am not going to let this diet cost anymore than how I live now. If tuna wraps and Chicken Pot Pies start costing me more than sandwiches and frozen pizzas, it's over. I have no wiggle room, financially. You're probably wondering what type of diet this is to be eating tuna wraps and chicken pot pies, and we'll get to that. Later.

WALLET: "Can't I wiggle just a little bit?"

ME: "NO, YOU STUPID PIECE OF DEAD COW HIDE! THERE'S NO ROOM THAT. NOW GET BACK IN MY POCKET BEFORE I DO TO YOU WHAT I DID TO THAT EXPIRED DEBIT CARD!"

I've decided that since tomorrow (Tuesday) is effectively my last day of this...

I should attempt to utilize the last without with junk food to the best of my abilities. (Thank you Allie Brosh for the meme and for being epic and may you recover from your depression and return to blogdom soon. You are missed.) Therefore I have found it necessary to start something that shall henceforth be known as...

GASTRONOMICAL MARDI GRAS!

I will be creating a schedule of all the food that I shall be consuming and I will stick to eating it. If I have to throw up to make room to finish this schedule...I will do it. But let's be real, I spend most nights holding it and telling it everything will be okay while R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts" plays in the background so the purchasing of mass quantities of food is not gonna be all that likely.

That's my life, I guess. It's time for me to begin the wallet cradling process now, actually, so I will be signing off and starting my night time rituals of procrastinating getting ready for bed only to be forced to do everything when I'm desperately exhausted. 

P.S. I think I'm going to have to start using a paint program to draw my own pics for my blog. All the pictures that I happen to use have been borrowed from other people's blogs. The first picture is from Allie Brosh's Blog: Hyperbole and a Half. She says this, "Copyright 2009-2011 By Allie Brosh strictly enforced by the copyright monster." I'm scared of copyright monsters almost as much as I'm scared of cockroaches (long story) so no copyright intended.

The Wallet is from a blog I only just discovered (after having Googled "Sad Wallet") and her name is still a mystery to me. Her blog is called "Purple Cheese" and I'm kind of excited about it. Also, she says this. "This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Please don't steal my shizz. Kthanks!" Because the last thing I want to be is a shizz stealer, I'm going to say that no copyright was intended. Suck it, copyright laws. Purple Cheese's author is a lawyer so hopefully I didn't just do something illegal...

Bear with me for a second.

The other day I thought I'd see what I'd find if I just typed in random words into Google images and see what comes up. I ended up searching "depressed bear" and these are the fruits of my labor. I hope you find that these distract you, like me, from that nagging thought inside of you urging you to consider being a stand up, contributing member of society.

Being a contributing member of society is, in fact, no fun at all. Don't fall for it. You will end up like these bears (depressed and hairy). Society may attempt to trick you with cake, but it's a dry cake with gross icing made of...lies. They actually compounded the concept of deceit into an icing. You may be wondering if this icing has a flavor. Is it chocolate or vanilla frosting? Nope. IT'S SUBTERFUGE FLAVORED!

Woes of a Catholic Man

I love being Catholic, I really do. The traditions, the scripture, the Sacraments, the secret meetings held on Thursday nights where we get informed on the progress we're making on taking over the world, and so on and so forth. If we being honest, being a Catholic is one of the things I enjoy most about myself. It makes me interesting.

But we Catholics have our very own set of problems nobody else would even think twice about. For instance, old Catholics. The number of elderly people within a congregation will determine if your parish is 'hip' or 'needs a hip'.

Elderly Catholics, specific old women, like to be thorough with their reconciliation and they also like to go in flocks. Seeing these groups of old women in line at confession make me think that the old lady Catholics are all in some sort of Irish/Mexican/Italian Mafia who's Bingo games on Thursday afternoons are actually a front for illegal knitting needle trades and dealings. Each of these 20+ ladies take 15 minutes for confession. 20 x 15 = "I'm sorry, AwkwardBlock. I've been in confession for 8 hours and I need to sleep". I understand, father. I completely understand.

One thing that I find frustrating as of late is one particular part of the Mass that was changed last December that we still haven't quite figured out. "For our good and the good of all his HOLY Church." HOLY church. Not just his church, people, but his 'HOLY church'. 8 months after we've made the changes to the Mass and you can't remember to include this one word? Really? That's just a lack of effort.

But today, Mass was different. People forgot that God's Church was Holy, again. That's not going anywhere anytime soon. But, I found myself utterly amused at the fact that the priest's microphone malfunction and my ear infection have rendered me totally incapable of understanding a single word the priest said today and it sounded like the muffled mumblings of those cheap speakers at the drive-thru.

     PRIEST: alskldfnauiuehfasnkasjdfkjh
     ME: Yeah, I'll have the number 5.
     CONGREGATION: And with your spirit
     ME: Oh, and that too.

The best part of Mass today? Communion. The next best part of Mass today? When in total confusion as to what was happening during the Mass from an inability to hear the readings, I figured out that the words to the Gloria, the Alleluia, Amen, the Mystery of Faith, and the Lamb of God ALL happen to fit the tune of the Halo video game soundtrack. Thus, while the rest of the congregation of Catholics who had the capacity to hear were paying attention to the homily (which based on people's laughter I'm assuming was quite enjoyable), I was sitting there in my own little world singing the Halo themes with religious words in my head. I can only imagine the size of the stupid grin on my face. I can only imagine... (cue MercyMe).

Will you be my girlfriend? Breathe for yes. Lick your elbow for no.

Possible outcomes for touching MC Hammer:

1) WWIII

2) Obama pulls a Michael Jackson and becomes white.

3) The producers of Lost reveal a secret episode years later that only adds more questions.

4) Chuck Testa retires

5) This photo

 

6) Michelle Obama actually admits to stealing her arms off a man and having them surgically attached.

7) Herman Cain is that man.

8)  Rihanna "Chris Browns" Chris Brown.

9) One simply walks into Mordor

10) Chad invades my computer and screws up my posslktal;;sldfak;sudh;liawef;ljahs;dlifj;asdihk;aut;a;oisdfliahso;ihl;dsfa;uhfiauesiuhf

Fun Facts with the AwkwardBlock

My life, lately, has been ridiculously boring.* To those of you who REALLY know me, I am a citizen of the interwebz, meaning that I pledge my allegiance to a pixelated US flag. Other than that (and my rediculous** awkwardness), I am just like everyone else in the United States who doesn't get out much.

I am starting to bum myself out a little bit because without YouTube or Skyrim, my day falls apart. The most exciting thing that's happened to me since the summer started is that Toby Turner's "Tobuscus" channel is now the 25th most subscribed YouTube Channel. The only thing that comes close to the giddy, fanboy excitement this provides me is that Ray William Johnson's channel "RayWilliamJohnson" (an original channel name, if I do say so myself) may be rereplaced by Ryan Higa's NigaHiga channel. Ryan is gaining a lot of subscribers right now, probably because of the collaborations he's going to be doing soon on his YouTube reality show "Internet Icon".

PIANO! So I played at that wedding recently and here is a truly fun fact; when I can't fit my piano into the space you've provided for me, I can't play my piano. Wedding music 101, really. Elementary, my dear Watson. Elementary.

HARRY POTTER! Snape kills Dumbledore. ***

WEIGHT LOSS! Not happening. Since the summer started I've been taking a huge step backwards, but I want to get back into it. I even meant to bring my running clothes home so I could go running, but I forgot so...

BACON! Still delicious.

_________________________________________________________________________________
* Fun fact; I just screwed up the spelling of the word 'ridiculous' because I always spell it 'rediculous' as if something was at one time diculous and it is now diculous again.

** Dangit.

*** WARNING: Spoiler alert. I also failed to mention that the Titanic sinks, Bruce Willis was a ghost the whole time, and Anakin Skywalker becomes Darth Vader. ****

****WARNING: Mega spoilers

Oh, a trophy? For me?

These next few weeks are gonna be busy for me. Actually, it started getting busy yesterday. I have been preparing a few different things lately.

First off, I had a piano recital yesterday. It wasn't a huge deal and I didn't really sweat it too much. In fact, I hadn't even played the piece I was to perform for a couple of days before the recital because I'm an idiot. True story. But, it turned out okay. I wasn't even nervous, until I saw the camera. That's when I began to realize that I do not have a fear of playing in front of people. Nope. I have a fear of cameras. True story. So what I'm going to do is start posting more stuff to YouTube. I need to practice in front of a camera to get over this unexpected issue. Could be fun. Probably won't be, but it'll be something to do.

Second, I am playing for Church on Sunday! I'll be playing a couple of songs with my old choir to help out some, and it's all easy stuff that I've played before, but it should be a nice change of pace to be able to play and not be in charge of anything. Being a choir director kind of sucks the fun out of the ministry sometimes, and it'll be good to get back to just having to show up and play. :D

Third, I have a wedding on Monday. Yep. Monday. The most awkward day of the week to have a wedding. At 1:00 PM, which is the most time of the day to play for a wedding. Kind of fitting that the most awkward piano player in existence should be the pianist, no?

P.S. I think when I get famous I'm going to go by "The Awkward Block". No reason. I just want to highlight my awkwardness. I'm hoping I can get by in the world off of it.

P.P.S. I wish I knew how to tune a piano.

Oh, you're crying...dID i SoUND ThaT Bad?!?!?!

Something happened the other day that has literally never happened to me before... I made a woman cry. Okay, left at just that statement alone I sound like a horrible guy. Especially for putting it in a blog, but let me start at the beginning.

Since the summer started I've not really done much with myself. My first week of the break I didn't really leave the couch or my bed. In fact, I watched all the episodes of How I Met Your Mother on Netflix, which is 6 seasons long. To be honest, I didn't really want to do much with myself but come the second week of summer I actually had something to look forward to... my piano lesson.

My piano teacher is excited about teaching, which is awesome. That's actually her JOB! Not a side thing that she does to get extra money, but teaching is how she gets by and she's really good at it. To be honest, I was a little surprised at how good she was at it when I showed up. After a fiasco with three of her other students trying to figure out parking, I finally arrived. I started by playing a single scale for her (my best friend, the C major scale) and she quickly noted several ways to improve my playing and we got to work. Those first two lessons were brutal. Playing scale after scale at painfully slow speeds to make sure my posture and technique were just right, and after the scales we moved on to other tedious exercises. But by the third lesson I had made the corrections she was looking for and we began to actually work on music. I was excited about something again for my summer.


The difference between that first and second week of summer were significant. For instance, the first thing I did when I woke up this morning was pull out the MIDI Controller (still working on a name for her and she's really upset it's taking this long) and started writing music for my upcoming wedding gig in two weeks. I'm practicing my old audition pieces, but I'm also writing my own arrangements of music for performances. Staying up every morning till 3:00 am writing music and trying to make something that's worth listening to has been awesome!


But that brings me back to where I started; the crying lady. I met with a singer that I perform with a lot and we chose music for a wedding we are playing in two weeks and then a couple of days later we met with the couple that's to be married and we showed them what it is that we would like to play for them. We finally worked out what they'd like to have played during the wedding and then we started discussing pre-ceremony music to set the mood. I played two pieces for them; Holy Holy Holy arranged by Jim Brickman, and Hymne written by Vangelus. I've played Holy Holy Holy literally dozens of times and I've played Hymne a bunch as well so they were easy for me, but something odd happened. While I was playing the second piece I got the feeling that the couple didn't like what I was playing. Enough so, actually, that they wanted me to stop. I'm not sure where this came from, but I decided that it would be best if I kept playing anyways and tried to play the piece better than I ever have before. When I finished playing I looked up and the bride-to-be was in tears. She said it was beautiful and that it was the one piece she most looked forward to hearing on her big wedding day. WELL HOT DANG! I didn't see that one coming.


I guess it just goes to show how far just a little bit of effort can get you. I got tears out of the deal. Maybe with just a little bit more effort I can get into a music program?!?! Who knows...

"You're too blessed to be stressed." "YOU'RE TOO FEMININE TO BE OUT OF THE KITCHEN!"

Today, I sign up for classes. I realize now how close I am, exactly, to graduating and I have to say that I'm remarkably unmoved. This is how little I care about my major. If someone were to take my comm studies diploma from my hand, throw it on the ground, and pee on it, I probably wouldn't care. I don't even know what I'd DO with this freaking degree.

People are so freaking stressed about classes and people have been sharing some very specific sentiments. First of all, when we discover that a fellow classmate is registering for classes the appropriate response is now "may the odds be ever in your favor". Second, I think we all agree that if we are going to spend so much money going to school, we should change the name of our college to Hogwarts and make our Quidditch team the central focus of our sports teams, not football. Also, we should import British people to sit in our classes and speak every so often so we start to really feel like we are at Hogwarts.

What breaks your bones is not the weight you're carrying but all in how you carry it

I came to the conclusion that I suck at writing. Seriously. This blog is three sentences long and I'll bet you anything that if a college English professor were to read this he would flip out and pee on whatever device it is that he's reading this blog from. You may say it's crazy, but I've seen it done many a time before with my essays and papers I've turned in.

I'm not very good at speaking either. Relationships are not my forte, if I'm going to be completely honest. I have some great people in my life right now, don't get me wrong, but when things go wrong in a friendship they seem to go REALLY wrong. I'm really more of a listener than a speaker. It's when I try to talk that things blow up. Strange how I haven't learned my lesson yet, no?

I suck at math.

Physics is the devil.

Why the heck does physics end with an 's' if it's not plural?

Would Physic sound weird in regular conversation?

Why were the first two guys who thought Superman was a bird and a plane so freaking excited to see a bird and a plane?

I am not exactly the most athletic (although I REALLY want to play soccer).

I love music. If you've read my blog, you'd know this to be true. If you've ever met me, you'd know this to be true. So why haven't I auditioned for the school of music before? I am almost convinced that if being a music major was what God meant to happen, things are happening right as he intended them. These past three years have not been a waste of time. In fact, I'm quite certain that God has been putting me in situations to help me in the school of music. To help me grow as a musician. I've accompanied so many different people, had to rely on myself to learn theory, played in so many different sorts of situations, and been given the opportunity to play my instrument for Him. If I started out my college career as a music major, I don't think I would have this desire to give back to God whatever it is that I learn from a music degree. Regardless of whether or not I get into the school of music, I know that God's had a hand in my college career and I'm slowly learning to trust Him. This year has been rough, but this year has taught me to give it all to Him.

Why WERE those two guys so excited to see a plane and a bird?

I'M SO NERVOUS I'M SHAKING MORE THAN A CONSTIPATED CHIHUAHUA!!!

I have to play for the piano professor tomorrow, and I don't feel ready because I don't really have anything fully prepared. However, tonight has been a good night, in terms of accomplishing stuff. I finished learning and memorizing the whole Fugue (the left handed part, anyways) and I didn't waste so much time on my Ray Charles impression, as usual.

I'm going to get back to work now, I was just excited and had to share my success. Also, I found a CD of Debussy that has my favorite piano suite ever on it, so I'm kind of pumped. Usually I can only find CD's with part of the suite, but never all four pieces together so that was a win.

My goodness, I ramble and don't make sense when I'm tired. There was no transition from point to point at all. Goat milk is far superior to Cow milk. I'm watching a silent film currently, and it's freaking me out. I think Isaac Zavalak or Zkalalskjdjf, or however you say his name (the Science Fiction writer) was clearly inspired by this monstrosity of a movie. It's storming...I've had too much sugar.

CLAP IF YOU BELIEVE! SAVE THE FAIRIES!!! AAAAAGH!!!!!

DO YOU KNOW HOW TO DANCE A WALTZ?!?!?!?!

Today is Sunday. Yesterday was Saturday. I didn't do a single thing with my Saturday...except practice piano. And guitar for a little bit, but mostly I just practiced piano. We're talking piano practicing to a degree that I've never done before. Here's a short list of what I accomplished;

1. I found a song online that I've wanted to learn for a long time
2. I learned the song
3. I memorized the entire song
4. I played scales
5. I worked through rough spots on the waltz and Fugue
6. I discovered that the third piece I haven't really started on yet is actually partially memorized
7. I put on Sunglasses and smiled and pretended to be Ray Charles

I have to perform for the head of the piano department on Wednesday at 4:30 PM (I hope it's PM), and I think I'm going to play the waltz rather than the fugue. I'm going to work on both, but I just feel like the waltz is already almost completely re-memorized so I might as well play that one. Hopefully by the end of January I'll have both pieces memorized anyways and I can spend February on the last piece.

One thing that's a bit exciting is that I'm feeling a huge difference in my hands development. My left hand has really come along in a short amount of time, and I can even type these blogs faster. Wouldn't it be something if I became left handed? lol.

...but seriously. Being ambidextrous would be far superior to being left or right handed. Bach is helping me to get there too, funny enough. I started playing one of my favorite piano pieces (that's actually for Clavichord, but whatever) called Invention #13 by Bach, and it was actually just a piano exercise written to help Bach's students develop their dexterity. He has some that have only two melodies playing at once, which is relatively easy to accomplish with two hands. The tough part is playing pieces that have three or more melodies playing at once with only two hands. Bach was a winner. A real "go-getter", if you will.

TWO DAYS IN AND I'M GONNA BLOW MY BRAINS OUT WITH A NERF GUN!!!

I haven't played piano as much as I'd like to this past week, but I'm finally getting back into it and I'm not suffering from it as much as I thought. I totally figured that my hands would need more time to get back into shape, but they seem to be doing all right. But I need them to be better. Fast. By next wednesday, to be exact.

I emailed the head piano professor at Texas State last night, and he asked me to come in and talked to him. So I did. I'm not really sure what it is that he wants to talk about, but we scheduled a meeting next week and he wants me to prepare a piece for him. Yeah, in six days. I'm freaking out like crazy right now about this. This is the first time he gets to hear me play before my audition and I really want to make a good impression. So my goal for this week is simple; completely prepare and memorize the fugue. I have have of it memorized in a months time and I'm pushing myself to memorize the other half in less than a week. Oh my goodness, I'm gonna die.

Why I hate toasters but love poptarts.

I've kept this a secret for years but I have never put my poptart in the toaster, but for on a very few occasions. Is this healthy? Probably. Is it still delicious. Yes!

You see, the toaster isn't necessarily bad in itself, but it just takes so much freaking time to cook the pastry! And why go through the toaster when I can go straight to the pastry!?!? But the toaster still has it's uses. Like making toast or the frozen waffles! Mhmm. Boy, do I love me some waffles.

And can we agree on one thing? Cherry poptarts, even if they aren't your FAVORITE poptarts, are definitely the universal poptart. If you don't know what kind of poptarts your roommate gets but it's your day to buy groceries, get the cherry. Even if you're wrong, the chances are they still can appreciate the cherry ones, too.

If you clicked on my link thinking I'm going to discuss the "Why I Hate Religion but Love Jesus" video, you're wrong. I'm talking about poptarts and toasters. Seriously. Old Tyler would have made a post trying to be clever and use toasters and poptarts as some sort of obscure analogy to discuss the rediculousness of the video. But new Tyler will discuss toasters and poptarts because he likes them, and then straight up tell you the new video on Religion and Jesus is dumb. Most of my Christian friends are too polite and Christian to say it, but it is. I hear a lot of people sugar coat it with statements like, "He makes some valid points but I don't agree with everything he says", and "I can definitely see how he could come to that conclusion, but he is missing some major points." No. Just...no.

"What if I told you Christ came to abolish religion?" I'd say you were wrong! What if I told you Christ said the smores poptarts were the best? I'd be lying too!

I'm frustrated and not making sense. It's time to play piano and eat poptarts. Good day, all.

KNIVES CAN CUT FLESH?!?! SINCE WHEN?!

AH! KNIVES! MY ONLY WEAKNESS!

SO...

I was trying to eat a Freeze Pop the other day and in order to do that you have to open said package. Usually I just bite off the end, but for some reason I decided to use a knife. After cutting open said package I accidentally dropped the knife and my stupid reflex was to try and catch said knife. I caught it awkwardly and ended up putting a decent sized cut in my finger. This is both a win and a fail. Allow me to explain;

Win: It is a win because this is something hardcore guitarists used to do. They would slice open their finger tips and when it healed partially they would play on the cuts and suddenly the tips of your fingers have fantastic calluses. I'm going to be playing a lot of guitar this semester so yes, this is a win.

Fail: It is a fail because for a day or two I'm going to have to avoid playing piano because it hurts still. It's not excruciating pain, but it's just not comfortable. I'm better off letting it heal before I play.

Fail: It's also a fail because I cut my hand open, and in no way is that ever going to happen and not end up as a fail.

Bacon: There's no bacon involved in this story. I just think about it constantly.

I've named my keyboard Emma Watson. She responds to Hermione Granger.

SO...

I've decided that this summer I will keep an eye out and try to get a few weddings going for cash. And if I get into the school of music I will even start to give a few lessons, ideally. It all rests on my audition 55 days from now, though. I don't want to give lessons if I'm not a piano major, but I will still do a few weddings.

I may have found a Cellist to work with for gigs such as these, too! I don't know if it's for certain, but having cellists and singers on standby would be awesome for a few weddings or so, but I need to get the word out now to parishes that I'm available if I want to start getting ready for the summer.

As I sit in my living in the living room staring at a picture of a dog named Lassie (that my roommate from A&M swears is named Reveille), I begin to wonder how my life would have been different if I auditioned two years ago rather than now. And then I realize I'm hungry and the picture of Lassie starts to look like a cheese burger. How strange.


I want tacos.

In other news, I'm buying my first Chick Corea album today off of Itunes after practice. THIS...will be epic. Why do I even have this blog if I don't say anything in it?

I like bacon.

The History of the word "Pwned"...

I was going to title this blog, "Ever Get the Feeling You're Being Powned By A Fly?", but I feel like I should explain the change.

I was very unsure about the word "powned" and it's spelling, so I decided to Google it. Turns out, Powned is in fact properly spelled "Pwned". I've seen this spelling before, I just thought it was internet speak short-hand for another internet word. It's not, though.

From what I could gather from the Google machine, Pwnage came into existence on accident. A computer hacker was once trying to mod a map on World of Warcraft and one of the modifications he made was to flash the phrase "You Just Got Owned" on the screen whenever you died in the game. This failure of a nerd had misspelled Owned for Pwned and the phrase stuck with computer nerds everywhere. Eventually, it branched out into society where the CIA has been unable to contain the epic nerdage outbreak.

So what about the original title of this post? You see, I have a problem. My piano playing attracts flies. A multitude of flies, in fact, and they seem to like to land on my face while I practice. It happened a lot at home, and it's still happening at college. I only wish it were possible to drop-kick a fly...

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO PRACTICE PIANO WITHOUT MY DIET CHERRY DR. PEPPER!?!?!?!

Meh. Today is gonna be my break, I guess. My back hurts, I've played piano like crazy today already, and it's 10:45 and I haven't even started playing scales yet for today. I've practiced, don't get me wrong, but scales will be continued tomorrow.

I am working on memorizing some more and I'm getting myself ready to get back into the swing of the new semester, but the big thing on my plate is preparing for the funeral tomorrow. No, it's not anybody I know. Somebody's asked me to play, which is kind of new territory for me. I've done weddings before, and I've attended funerals, but never have I ever played piano AT a funeral before. Why I emphasized "at", I'll never know...

Here's my beef for the today. Say you have a hobby, like playing the piano (or juggling fiery chainsaws whilst covered in gasoline), and you decide you really want to get on Youtube and see what other people are doing with their passion for piano or juggling dangerous weapons covered in flaming hot dangerousness. So you type in "Piano" or "Fiery Chainsaw Accident" and the first few things that appear are kind of boring. You flip through some until you get to the results that say something like this;

"Three Year Old Whiz at Debussy's Revrie", or "You Pianist Better than You" or "Kid playing with sharp fiery objects and somehow getting away with it, and being good at it."...

Those children need to not be allowed on YouTube. Prodigies should just not happen. I realize we'd be losing a lot of wonderful musical talent in the world, but I'm sure we'll get along. Or at least we need to make all prodigies take a slice of humble pie and be required to work at a McDonald's one day before they graduate college so they can taste what it's like on this side of the fence. I hate working my behind off to learn a piece to discover that there's a child somewhere in the world who could play the same thing upon exiting the womb!

I'm working myself up, here. Maybe I should play scales tonight. I need Dr. Pepper, first. To Wal-Mart! AWAY!!!

I'M A WIZARD AND I JUST STUPIFIED THAT BENCH!!!

There is a growing collection of everyday household items in my house that want to murder me and the next one is my piano bench. I sat on it and it made a weird sound that most would have translated to a squeaking sound, similar to the groans of an old house creaking but I most definitely heard it make a sound more like a voice saying "I WANT YOUR BLOOD!" so I drop kicked that sucker and got a new piano bench!

So today I'm talking about the Karate Kid, because that's what I feel like right now. Allow me to explain...

In the Karate Kid, Daniel (that's right, I even remembered that fool's name!) is training to be a ninja assassin warrior of revenge and cliche'd movies and such or something. He begins his training by doing the most random household for the benefit of his trainer, Mickey. Actually, I think Mickey trained Rocky, but whatever. About three years into his training or so (don't quote me on that number), Daniel began to wonder why he wasn't learning any martial arts but was instead acting as Mickey's (or whoever's) man-maid-servant-butler-thing. Only then would he discover that by doing these seemingly meaningless tasks would he realize that they were only seemingly meaningless and were, in fact, unseemingly meaningful. He learned how to do karate by doing chores, only proving once more that our parents are Jedi knights and we should probably listen to them.

How does this relate to me? Well, it all comes back to my audition. You see, I have three pieces I have to learn and memorize and I'm currently spending a total of 0 hours a day actually playing these pieces right now. 5 hours a day (give or take) are spent playing through exercises. And here's the craziest thing; I tried to play my songs today and they actually came out fairly decent without much actual practice. I'm spending my time getting down fundamentals first and then learning the pieces, because I don't want to learn them wrong or anything. So, scales it is. Wouldn't you know it, my band directors were right about practice habits. THEY ARE JEDI KNIGHTS TOO!!!

P.S. If this blog post gets to you before I see you again tell my family the Bench is feisty and will stop at nothing to get the flesh and blood meal it desires. Don't go near it! I play the piano only at my own risk.

P.S.P.S.P.P.S.S.S...P.
 I am very much aware that the information on the Karate Kid is incorrect so don't think I'm an idiot. Or at least don't consider me more or less of an idiot than I actually am. I only permit you to judge me of the correct level of idiocy.

Salieri VS Mozart!!!

If you haven't seen "Amadeus", you should. It's kind of legit, and although quite a bit of artistic license was taken in the telling of the story, it was actually kind of accurate. What's most amazing to me is that the story is told from Mozart's rival's point of view rather than Mozart himself. But one thing has always captured my attention, and that's the differences found in each of the composer's beginnings.

Antonio Salieri wanted to study and compose music from a very young age. He prayed for it, thought of it constantly, and made it his passion, even though his father wouldn't allow him near any instrument. Mozart, however, was thrust into a world of musical virtuosity at a very young age. He wrote full scores before he was seven years old, showing that he was a musical genius, and his contrastingly strict and harsh father forced him to pursue the greatest depth of his potential. His father's discipline and demanding nature turned Mozart into one of the greatest musicians the world has ever seen.

This isn't unlike the world of piano and the way it is being flipped on it's head currently. In the United States, piano has been taught in a very specific way. We start with the foundations, often not even beginning with how to read music, then slowly inch our way towards, dynamics, staccato vs. legato touch, Sight reading, and often ending with how to use the pedals (unfortunately). But this is starting to change now that the United State's no longer has the greatest piano players. I'd venture to say that era ended with Glenn Gould, as well as the end of the Jazz Era (before the Bebop years).

The United States is slowly beginning to pick up the Chinese approach to playing piano, which is very similar to what Mozart would have endured as a child. In China, a child is often given a difficult, classical piece of music to start their musical journey. Everything is asked of them from a young age (often five years old!); pedaling, dynamics, legato or staccato touch (depending on the song, obviously), etc. They are so successful in what they do precisely because of their attention to detail and desire to command a great amount of knowledge and skill early on. This is in everything they do, from memorizing, sight-reading, scales, or whatever. And the United States is beginning to learn our lesson.

Pushing our youth harder in music is slowly becoming the new trend, and it won't take but another generation or so until we not only have another Glenn Gould, but a new Viktor Borge and our own Lang Lang as well (some consider him to be the greatest pianist alive right now). A new breed of super pianists are on their way within the next generation or so, and I pray that they hold off until I find a secure job so I can have work too.

The point in all of this? Mozart was encouraged in his endeavors and he is known as one of the greatest musicians of all time. Salieri was NOT encouraged and he is known as the man who killed Mozart. Just saying...

MY PIANO HAS MORE SCALES THAN A DRAGON!!!

HELLLLLLLLOOOOOOO!!!!!

Guess what I've done with my day today. I bet you can't. I hope you can't. I'd probably assume you were stalking me if you could and I wouldn't even be able to do anything about it because getting a restraining order on my few readers would definitely hinder this blogs already poor readership...

So, I played scales today. That was fun. I woke up early, reviewed the fugue for my audition, saved the fridge from imploding, and played scales until my left hand literally fell off my body. I was in the middle of the Db Major scale and my left hand was like, "Hey, Tyler. We've been through some great times these past 21 years, but you are working me too hard. Here's my two weeks notice. In two weeks from now, you're gonna notice I haven't been here in two weeks. See ya!" And that was that.

So then I played Halo with my brother, played guitar with one hand (obviously), and struggled to turn to page 394 without Snape getting ticked off at me (with little success). It was somewhere between throwing a grenade at aliens and right now when I blogged about nothing (yet still successfully referenced Harry Potter) that I began to realize that during the course of this break a very significant yet not entirely unforeseeable event has occurred. When I am not by my piano, I am practically a nobody. I seem to put myself in a position where I don't have an existence away from the piano, unless that existence is to review my piano music away from the piano. I could be out with friends, but my piano is my BEST friend. I could watch a movie, but it usually ends up being a movie about a piano player (there are plenty out there, trust me). I could play video games, but that's my reserve for when my hands cramp up and playing piano is no longer an option.

I would just like to say that at first I was quite ticked off at Nintendo for making a system that worked entirely off of motion rather than pressing buttons like any video game conglomerate would have designed. But when your fingers refuse to move, just having to swing your arm to kill bad guys is kind of a blessing.

That's my post for today. I'd be icing my hand right now but thankfully my house is cold enough so I don't have to. I'm gonna go watch youtube, maybe another movie, and find SOMETHING to do with my life that doesn't have anything to do with piano.

Beethoven and Mozart and trying to murder me in my sleep...

I am in the process of completely clearing out my room, and one of the joys of this is finding things I had completely forgotten about. I have a small collection of busts of famous piano players and composers that I had assumed diasappeared off the face of the earth. But I also have two Mozart and Beethoven "action figures" that had been buried beneath my pile of junk for a while. I busted them out, set them on their piano bench accessory, and began to realize how much of a nerd I really am.


I found a Bach action figure online and I want it!!! Because that's just the type of guy I am. Am I still a nerd or does this thrust me into Geekdom? One day when I have my own place I will have my own piano, and you can bet that there will be these composer action figures up there. If only they had Debussy!!! But anyways, this is my life right now. Piano piano piano, still. Just in the nerdiest (hopefully not geekiest) way possible. Nerd is cool. Being a geek is my worst nightmare!

"I'll be Bach!" -Arnold Schwarzenegger