Welcome to the New Year

So in starting this new year I've been reflecting back this past one.  And it was a hell of a good one.  I got out of a seriously unhealthy relationship.  I moved out of state and started mostly fresh.  Which was terrifying but it has worked out reasonably well.  I live in the nicest place I have ever lived (that is not my parents house anyway) and have one of the best roommates I have ever had.  My job... well its' still my job but it  hasn't been terrible and it pays well enough to survive out here.  And the icing on the cake, I met one of the most amazing people, and although I don't know exactly where that is heading I am truly grateful for the time spent and memories had thus far.  And I can't wait to see where that goes with this year.  So it is official 2015 was one of my best years to date.  Here is to hoping 2016 is at least half at good.  And if your 2015 wasn't very good, well my 2014 was awful, so it can get better.

How I can keep up with this and nothing else in my life I'll never understand.

It is that time of year again.  Time to reflect back on a year of adventures and experiences.  Or if you are me time to make sure you kept up your on going plan to read 2 books a month every year.  So I will apologize now, this blog will probably be quite boring since its just a place for me track how well I have done on this so far.  So in no particular order here we go:

1. The Short Drop

2. Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

3. A Call from the Dark

4. Dexter's Final Cut

5. The Picture of Dorian Gray

6. Looking for Alaska

7-9 Hunger Games Series

10. The Time Machine

11-13 Miss Peregrine's home for Peculiar Children Series

14. Ready Player One

15-17 Maze Runner 1-3

18. The Martian

19. Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

20-21 First two in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

22. Beautiful Chaos 

23. Binge

24. You Deserve a Drink 

Alright so I guess I completed my goal for the year a couple weeks ago.  Which means I can't finish any of the books I have started until next year, at least if I want to get ahead for next year(Which I always want to do).  Possible book reviews coming soon.  In pure asshole fashion as always.  You're welcome.  

The future is out there, and I can't wait to meet it

The vacation is over.  Back to all the fun at work.  I had a great vacation though.  Spent a week with my sister in which we accomplished being ninjas and day time drinking.  Although these events occurred on different days for our safety and you know not getting arrested for puking on a small child.  Also saw the new Star Wars film, and fuck yes it is good.  I tried very hard not get my expectations particularly high, but this turned out to be unnecessary.  J.J. Abrams did an excellent job, hopefully Disney can keep this up for the rest of the trilogy and all nerds can live happily ever after.  

My first week of vacation I was supposed to be very productive, which didn't really happen.  I worked on a few projects for youtube, but am not nearly as far ahead as I was hoping for.  The lack of productivity was worth it, I had a fantastic week and have been unbelievably happy.  Realistically I think this is the longest things have gone well for me.  I'm not sure if that means bad shit is around the corner or if for the first time I'm getting it right.  Either way it was worth it.

Horn Intro

So it's been a week and I'm already being awful about updating this thing.  We are off to a brilliant start.  But i'm having a fantastic week.  Like seriously amazing week.  I can't remember the last time I felt this good.  I'm about to make Harry Potter joke here about Felix felicis, so yes I'm that cool.  Can't wait to start my staycation.  It has been a long year at work and this is the first time I'm really taking time off since we got bought out two years ago.  What is ridiculous is i'm sure after day three i'll be bored out of my mind and part of me will wish I was at work.  Let's hope that is not the case and I can actually enjoy chilling out.

Back to Modern Times

Although depending on when you read this, the title could be incredibly outdated.  So I suppose back to my current time in my existence.

Apparently I was quite productive in 2011.  I do have to assume this was also mostly related to still working at TCCI and have unbelievable amounts of free time at my disposal while at a computer.  I no longer have that at my disposal.  Not that I'm actually doing a different job now than before.  Although working swing shift is a different experience altogether.  My free time is typically limited to a couple of hours as long as a day is not busy now.  Oh well, less nonsense for me to write and you to read.

Bucket list item number 37 - Repost from sometime in 2011

Alright so my bucket list includes the making of a list of all of the bands I have seen and to keep it running. I have no idea where to begin with this but I think I'll just start listing bands I have seen in no particular order until I come up with a system. So um... yeah here we go.<br /><br />1. Chuck Ragan<br />2. Hot Water Music<br />3. Ben Nichols<br />4. Tom Gabel<br />5. Lucero<br />6. Against Me!<br />7. Tim Barry<br />8. The Get Up Kids<br />9. Pretty and Nice<br />10. Thursday<br />11. Circle Takes the Square<br />12. The Locust<br />13. Poison the Well<br />14. Throwdown<br />15. Divide the Day<br />16. Nevea Tears<br />17. Bleeding Through<br />18. Martyr AD<br />19. Calico System<br />20. Saves the Day<br />21. Say Anything<br />22. Armour for Sleep<br />23. The Catheters<br />24. Appleseed Cast<br />25. As Night Falls<br />26. With Honor<br />27. It Dies Today<br />28. Shai Hulud<br />29. Madball<br />30. Everytime I Die<br />31. Superheros of Hardcore<br />32. New Found Glory<br />33. H2O<br />34. RX Bandits<br />35. The Color Fred<br />36. Taking Back Sunday<br />37. My Chemical Romance<br />38. Melee<br />39. Stretch Arm Strong<br />40. Mc Chris<br />41. Mc Lars<br />42. The Matches<br />43. Whole Wheat Bread<br />44. Big D and the Kids Table<br />45. The Vandals<br />46. Assorted Jelly Beans<br />47. Pennywise<br />48. Bad Religion<br />49. The Bled<br />50. Letter Kills<br />51. 18 Visions<br />52. Yesterday's Rising<br />53. Anti-Flag<br />54. Guttermouth<br />55. Bouncing Souls<br />56. Atreyu<br />57. Juliet Lewis and the Licks<br />58. Rilo Kiley<br />59. Tegan and Sara<br />60. Lady Tron<br />61. Blood Brothers<br />62. Thrice<br />63. The Faint<br />64. Bright Eyes<br />65. Depeche Mode<br />66. Franz Ferdinand<br />67. Daft Punk<br />68. Panic at the Disco<br />69. Dresden Dolls<br />70. Sigur Ros<br />71. Tilly and the Wall<br />72. Fucked Up<br />73. Off<br />74. Audacity<br />75. Death Hymn Number 9<br />76. Pinback<br />77. Crystal Castles<br />78. Alkaline Trio<br />79. Cursive<br /><br />Alright so I think I have come up with a system, at least one that will help me remember shows a little better. We shall be doing this by location. So more or less ignore the previous list, which shall be deleted upon completion of the rest of this list.<br /><br />Lets start with random locations that I don't typically go to:<br /><br />The Pond<br />1. Elton John<br />2. Back Street Boys<br />3. Mandy Moore<br />4. E.Y.C.<br />5. No Doubt<br />6. The Distillers<br />7. Garbage<br /><br />Random arcade thing in Redlands/Loma Linda<br />8. F.o.N.<br /><br />University of Redlands<br />9. The Adolescents<br />10. TSOL<br />11. Breakdance Vietnam<br />12. Broken February (showcase as well)<br />13. Eve 6<br />14. Finch (SD with NFG as well)<br /><br />Club Moscow<br />15. As Tall as Lions<br />16. The Union Line<br />17. Lilofee<br /><br />Coffee Shops<br />18. Far From a Masterpiece<br />19. The Flower Thief<br />20. Red Letter Day<br />21. The B Sharps<br />22. Hobo Jazz<br /><br />Train Station<br />23. Blue Print Car Crash<br />24. As Night Falls (amongst others)<br /><br />LA Pride<br />25. Joan Jett<br />26. The Start (CSUF, and random LA club as well)<br /><br />Coachella<br />27. Thrice<br />28. Tegan and Sara (Henry Fonda, HOB)<br />29. Lady Tron<br />30. Daft Punk<br />31. Bright Eyes (SOMA, The Grove)<br />32. The Faint (SOMA, The Grove, GH)<br />33. The Blood Brothers<br />34. The Locust (GH)<br />35. Sigur Ros<br />36. Franz Ferdinand<br />38. Depeche Mode<br />39. Dresden Dolls (the Grove)<br />40. Pinback<br />41. The Futureheads<br /><br />Warped Tour<br />42. 18 Visions (Chain, SC)<br />43. Yesterday's Rising (SC)<br />44. Stretch Armstrong<br />45. The Bled<br />46. Thursday (GH)<br />47. My Chemical Romance<br />48. Bad Religion<br />49. The Vandals<br />50. MC Chris<br />51. Big D and the Kids Table<br />52. The Color Fred<br />53. Katie Perry<br />54. Jeffery Star<br />55. Guttermouth<br />56. Letter Kills (SC, SOMA)<br />57. Every Time I Die<br />58. Against Me! (GH, Chain)<br />59. Say Anything (Chain, Avalon, HOB, Grove)<br />60. Anti-Flag<br />61. Juliet Lewis and the Licks<br /><br />Sounds Like<br />62. All or Nothing HC<br /><br />Bamboozle Left<br />63. Piebald<br />64. Something Corporate<br /><br />Verizon Amphitheater<br />65. Green Day<br />66. Blink 182 (amongst others)<br />67. Jimmy Eat World<br /><br />Hollywood Palladium<br />66. New Found Glory (amongst others)<br />67. Rx Bandits<br />68. H20 (Chain)<br /><br />San Diego - some university<br />69. Further Seems Forever<br /><br />LA Shows<br />70. Hot Water Music<br />71. Strike Anywhere<br />72. City and Colour<br />73. Alkaline Trio<br />74. Cursive<br />75. Gaslight Anthem<br />76. Murder By Death<br />77. Fucked Up<br />78. Off<br />79. Audacity<br />80. Death Hymn Number 9 (amongst others)<br /><br />Riverside<br />81. Assorted Jelly Beans<br /><br />San Diego<br />82. Brand New<br />83. Rilo Kiley<br />84. Reeve Oliver<br />85. Hot Like a Robot<br /><br />HOB<br />86. Social Distortion<br />87. Lucero<br />88. Saves the Day<br />89. The Bouncing Souls<br /><br />The Grove<br />90. Hello Goodbye<br />91. Mindless Self Indulgence<br /><br /><br />I am going to stop here for today as I have pretty much have only my old stomping grounds left to do.

Book Review pt 4 - Repost from sometime in 2011

You know how this goes at this point, lets skip the chit chat and get to it:<br /><br />When you are Engulfed in Flames - David Sedaris<br /><br />Alright, so I finished this over a month ago, but I think I'll be good on this one anyway. This is a collection of short stories, all humorous, as the previous Sedaris books I have read have been. Half of this book were stories about him traveling. Which I found entertaining but not particularly as good as most of the rest of the book. But as he travels for a living it does make sense that he would write about it so much. I love Sedaris' style, I think the way he tells a story is fantastic and really has the ability to suck you into the moment. The ability to do so is a true talent that not many individuals have, so for that in and of itself, this is a book worth reading. But to be entirely honest if you have not read Sedaris before pick up something else to be truly entertained. This book was laugh out loud funny from time to time, and a very quick read as each story was fairly short and generally not particularly dense, which works well with his style. Rating: ****<br /><br />Hocus Pocus - Kurt Vonnegut<br /><br />This is an interesting story, and written in a very Vonegut style, which basically means not in any real order. It is constantly back and forth throughout time in the story of Eugene Debs Hartke, a college professor and Vietnam vet. The story told by Eugene follows him from high school, to West Point, to the Vietnam war, to becoming a College Professor at Tarkington College, a University for children from rich families who have learning disabilities. Like all of Vonegut's work, this novel is a reflection on societies issues and short comings. Most notably in this work is globalization and the growth and destructive powers of capitalism. But also touched upon are race and class relations, crime and violence, and war. The life story of Eugene continues through a prison break that ultimately lands him in prison. The story was interesting and of course supported my socialist ideals which always increases my chances of enjoying a piece of literature. Ultimately this was not my favorite Vonnegut novel by a long shot. That spot is still reserved for Cat's Cradle, which is fantastic, entertaining, and mood altering. This on the other hand was entertaining for the most part, even humorous from time to time, but was not particularly moving. If I had to guess why this was, I would have to say it was difficult to connect with Eugene as a story teller. He was bland enough that you could neither like and root for him, nor terrible enough that he deserved to be hated. He just was, which was probably the point of him being the narrator, but it just didn't work for me. Sorry Kurt, but this was just a bit disappointing for me. Rating: ***