Nothing like starting off your day with a little sunshine! Obscure as it may be.

random link time!

Good luck to the EU convincing Texas to give up the death penalty.

Well, I am at Granny's and that is wonderful. The most exciting thing to happen today -- AND YESTERDAY -- was that today I got my car oil and transmission fluids changed! CAN YOU FEEL THE EXCITEMENT?!

Seriously though, I am always a fan of, as Saturday morning cartoons used to say, chillin' like a villain.

So what else to do on a long summer day but write emo songs!

Here's the prerequisite (always humorous) vocal warm-up and mic test, consisting of whatever song happens to be in my head, whether or not I've played it before, and capoed to a moderately ambitious key. Today that song is Avril's When You're Gone.

Followed by this reflective, button-all-your-cardigan-buttons little number called Rubber Boots. It's about not wanting to take risks and playing it too safe.

Recording is a never-ending struggle against my aging headset. I apologize for the static and for the completely random beeps, which was why I faded out the ending of Rubber Boots, a technique I normally detest in favor of actual resolve. If someone doesn't like it, then I will gladly accept if they rent me out a couple days at Abbey Road. ;)

I am always hungry

I randomly looked through some of my old posts (they are weird!) and found this statement dated September 2005, on the subject of Facebook.

"Now that I've clicked around and seen it, I don't anticipate it ever sucking a half hour of my time again."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA roflwoops

Hellloooooooooo august! Goodbyyyyyyyye paragraph breaks!

I am away from Longview for good! No worries; I shall visit you daft punks after school starts. I moved out and am currently living with granny in alto. Life is good. The job at IQ was really good and a big learning experience. Granny and myself are currently in Indiana seeing the Kokomo folks. The temperature is much the same. I have no pictures. The chocobunny, bless its semisweet heart, is consumed. With sufficient quantities of Mountain Dew, Coffee, and the occasional burst of juice, food is desirable though largely unnecessary. Much like proper grammar. And antiviral protection for your pC. PAX approaches. My goal is to not leave Seattle until I have a picture of me and Wil Wheaton. The Vanessa Carlton Song "1000 Miles" has renewed meaning after having actually traversed this distance by car yesterday. "Hey There Delilah" is the only song I think I have played correctly on the first attempt ever, which is a shame, though a nice song. I dislike posting without pictures, because everyone likes pictures. The battery on my Nintendo DS just ran out, so I cannot be a nerd and play FF3 anymore. Instead, here are some sweet action figures of the game. They look just like them. The Japanese are awesomely random.

Summer update! Wooo. Guess I should actually post this month. This post's title brought to you by Keane. Only the English could make depression so catchy.

This is my delicious chocolate bunny. His head is now gone. RIP



I'm still working at IQ and that is going swimmingly. The end is in sight, though, which makes me happy because for a little while at least, I can again join the ranks of the gainfully unemployed. (My theory on life: the surest way to cut expenses is not to have any expenses to cut. OK, so it doesn't really work.)

Speaking of expenses, I'm going to Seattle in four weeks. I'm so excited! PAX is a yearly gaming convention put on by the writers of Penny Arcade, a popular web comic on the same subject.

Over 20,000 nerds converging in a single location. An arch of alumnus greatness shalt be formed across the sky, in the form of such monolithic 41 personages as Shroud, Bubbles, Fuego, Gecko and Gizmo! Geoff too! But he needs a cell phone before he can join the pantheon. ^.^

Phil got a really nice digital piano! And there was much rejoicing in the apartment.





I have looooooved playing it and making up songs.

Yesterday's Chinese buffet fortune cookie reads:

"Be direct, usually one can accomplish more that way."

The run-on sentence in this pearl of wisdom may be pardoned due to its Far Eastern origin. Oh wait! The cookie comes from Wonton Foods in... Houston, Texas. Ouch.

Texas will not make up its mind whether to rain or shine, so it is doing both.

Let us speak of food!

Vanilla Coke is very good, and strangely, present only in Brookshire Brothers.

Speaking of coke, a gala of my recent summer meals...



That would be fish and fries baked together in a pot. It works. Wow. I had ice cream for dinner and this pictures makes me want fish and fries again.



That would be pancakes with enough butter to clog the Chunnel... which is a ridiculous notion besides being the biggest tunnel I could think of.

So, you can see, I am eating healthy and can expect to take up sumo wrestling by the end of the summer.

Geoff (of Dallas fame) and I went to San Antonio to see Dave and Karen last weekend. The river walk is fantastic. And my shoulders are still peeling from too much sun in the pool, which is a sign that summer is going better than expected.

Not much today, kiddos.

But there are two completely bizarre BBC articles you should read...

wheelchair man
"I'm fine... I think I spilled my drink"

and

bear medic rescue robot
"fuzzy wuzzy will saaaaaaave youuuuuuuu"

Have fun and laters

...in addition to being the title of a delectable Ivy album, is splendiferous!


The 30-second apartment tour of doom!

Let me say that have a living room is soooo nice. I am here on-campus at good old LETU all summer as the folks were kind enough not to kick me out (yet).

Carpicturewooooo



There she is folks, a '99 Ford Taurus. Having a vehicle = win, ladies and gentlemen!

I am working at IQ Integrated Systems, and their website is rather out of date, but that is OK. I pull wires and crawl in attics and screw lots of screws and drill lots of holes and put up cameras and anything else they tell me to do. I enjoy it.

Today we put up a 1080p HDTV in a guy's home. They are a lot to take in. ;)

The other news of the week is that I passed the insanely large colored bust of Bo Pilgrim in front of his chicken factory in Mt. Pleasant, Texas -- and even got a picture -- but I don't have a cable to get phone pics off my phone. You will have to take my word for it.

Tomorrow is Friday, and I'm going outside before the sunset.

I don't feel like ordering my thoughts into a cohesive essay.

Randomness!

Pomegranate blueberry V8 Fusion is amazing and overpriced.

My wee little brother is seventeen today. :D

Wow, that list of randomness was shortlived. I depart, leaving you with this comical though actually quite cool map that I randomly found...

I'm all gradgumicated! LeTourneau had me for four years, and after much gesturing and headscratching, the process was pronounced complete! A paper was given, chocolate was devoured, and somehow, this was all made to cost in excess of a good home, yet I pronounce the University and myself equal because I off-roaded with their nicest golf cart.

Let the partay begin.

And don't forget kids, like Dr. Austin said, today is the first day of the rest of your life. And tomorrow will be too. And the day after. And the day after. And the day after....



EDIT:
random thought... one year ago on this day, I did this

yay for graduation reminiscing

for...

Spanish
green tea
chocolate
rain
mercy
Texas
the Shins
bandanas
post-its
croissants & Doritos
new beginnings
health
notes in striped envelopes
family
lots of grace
love

I resubscribed to Flickr, so all my wonderful sets are back and available in all their ineffable glory.

And the adoring fans said yaaaaaaaaayyyyyyy

The campus trees of LeTourneau University are very brittle

and

could

break... potentially.

Don't ask.