Monday, June 14, 2010

World Cup 2010

BUZzzzzzzzzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZzzzzzzzzzz - effing World Cup. I can't even stand watching any of it, because it sounds like there is a massive bee hive is inside my television. How do the South African's possibly think their stupid Vuvuzela's are at all not the most obnoxious thing in sports ever? They're soooo annoying.

Okay I'll be honest. I probably wouldn't watch much of the world cup anyway. Watching people kick a ball up and down a field for 90 minutes and score a combined "handful" of points is painstakingly boring. Three or four points in 90 minutes is not enough for any game. In fact to entice more American's we should make each point count as 6 and shorten the game to 60 minutes. Then we could let the backs touch the ball with their hands too. In fact kicking the ball through a goal is stupid, lets say if the ball is kicked through the goal it's only worth 3 points. Then we'll make the new objective of the game to carry or catch the ball past the opponents first end line and before their second end line in a place called the "end zone." Play will stop after every tackle. I like the sound of this sport better.

So as far as I understand, International soccer is about national pride. We should be hearing songs and chants that represent each of the 32 represented countries along with widespread mania and yelling of the word, "GOAL" when someone scores, but instead all we hear is BUZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. Even the announcers seem to be droned out from time to time from the constant buzzing. Yes, constant. It doesn't just happen when the other team has the ball or after a goal or even "just" the 90 minutes of when the game is in play. It doesn't freaking stop. I'm all for tolerance and being unique in fan support, but this is absurd. You're not supporting your team, you're just making noise. Even South African players have said they have trouble communicating over the noise. It's not like college basketball crowds that make noise when the other team is on defense and the game is close, intermittently stopping to sing, chant or just take a break. No this is far far more obnoxious. I guess I can't completely blame South African's though. Quite often you'll see people in the crowd dressed in their countries respective colors playing a patriotic bee noise maker.

I guess basically all I'm trying to say is that I don't even care if these Vuvuzela's are a cool cultural symbol or something that brings something unique to the game. These factors of them are drown out by the constant droning hum they make to ruin the atmosphere of the game. No, they shouldn't be banned, as this wouldn't even really be possible and would cause quite the commotion. All I want to do is simply state that they are super annoying and a horrible tradition.

USA tied England. I guess I'm supposed to be happy about this since England is amazing and the USA is fairly mediocre when it comes to soccer talent. I find this difficult though, because it's a tie. No one won. I can't be disappointed at a loss to our Trans-Atlantic rivals, nor can I feel like we have bragging rights over them. All I'm left with after 90+ minutes of watching a rather boring and slow-paced game is an overall feeling of apathy and a realization that unless the USA makes it out of the initial round play there is nothing that's going to drag me in front of the buzzing swarm of soccer fans in Outer Lesotho.

Speaking of Lesotho, I learned that 40% of the country live under the international poverty line, which is approximately $1.25 American per day. I can't imagine what it would be like to live that way. I could not work for the next.. well I'm not giving an exact number as it seems incredibly stupid to state how much money I have online, so we'll just go with "while" and still be over the International Poverty Line. That's really sad and makes me realize just how much the United States rules. Not only do broke college students live well above the poverty line, but our citizens don't bring thousands of Vuvuzela's to sporting events.

Monday, June 7, 2010

My dreams are so trippy

So last night I had a trippy dream at about 6am. I woke up and texted myself so I wouldn't forget it. Here's what the text said, "pitcher penguin and walsur talking penguin handstcoe bic man coffe shop latte is ink cup."

My best translation of this (and from what I can remember) is that I was on the Weber State campus kind of at dusk and a penguin dressed in a baseball pitcher outfit was walking towards me with a walrus and the penguin stopped and did a handstand on a globe statue and I was thinking, "holy crap, now I've seen it all." Then there was a coffee shop nearby so I went inside, but there was like a 30 person long line of nothing but 5 foot tall Bic Pen men, which were all colored white. I skipped to the front of the line and ordered a mocha latte, but all I got was a cup of ink. I threw it away and went in the bathroom, but the toilet was out of order because something (can't remember what) was in front of it. This is when I woke up. I then realized I had to pee and was happy the toilet in my dream was out of service.

My dreams are so trippy, haha.

Dating in Utah blows

So I'm at my Grandpa's house tonight. Kinda bored. Found his little blood pressure machine and decided it would be fun to check my blood pressure. It's 135/72 with a pulse rate of 43. Am I dead? I'm not really that active, why does my heart beat so damn slow? Also the 135/72 thing doesn't settle too well with me. 72 is fine, 135 is pretty damn high though for a pretty regular build guy who isn't terrible out of shape. Then I found this other thing called pulse pressure. Supposedly you subtract the numbers and anything above 60 is pretty bad 135-72=63. Though one of the causes of this is hypothyroidism. I'm fairly convinced I have hypothyroidism. Now if only I had medical insurance I could go get it checked and be all medicated and stuff. I checked again a minute later and it was 120/80 with a pulse rate of 45. This is cool, pretty standard I guess. Oh well, I probably shouldn't worry myself over such dumb things.

So I basically managed to alienate myself from all 3 girls I was dating over the course of the last 2 weeks.
Girl 1: There was this girl from high school who'd I'd kind of started to develop a liking for. We'd been on two dates, one of which lasted quite a while and I was convinced she was attracted to me, then two days later she changed her facebook status to being in a relationship. Hmm, this slightly bothered me. About a week later she posted some pictures of her and this new boy and in my completely unbiased opinion if I were to rank him on a scale of 0-10 with Gary Busey being a 0 and Brad Pitt being a 10 I'd give the guy about a 2. When you're only marginally better looking than Scary Busey that's bad. This kind of bothers me too. Like, I don't mean to sound arrogant, but I'm fairly attractive. I'd say if you're into thin guys I'd be an 8 or 9. If you're not into thin guys I'm probably still a 5 or 6. So what the hell? Am I annoying? Do I talk to much? Did I not try hard enough? I suppose I could ask her, but I don't want to be all 10th grade about it. We went on two dates, I'm really not that bothered. Besides, she was divorced (yuck.)
Girl 2: About 2 days later I went to my ex's house to watch The Matrix. She'll read this so I won't put too many details into this, but basically we kind of came to the conclusion that we shouldn't be around each other much this summer since we tend to get into trouble. First of all this sucks, because I rather enjoy this "trouble" and secondly I rather enjoy her company and could see myself spending a lot of time with her, she's great. I hate that Mormon culture makes having a normal more-than-friends-relationship with a girl in this God-forsaken state so impossible.
Girl 3: Two nights later we had a get-together in Bountiful with some friends and a friend of mine who I've dated off and on for a while came. Anyway, somehow we ended up kissing and without even doing anything that would be considered dirty by Mormon standards we had to stop because she felt bad. I was so confused. We weren't doing anything "bad," we weren't going to do anything "bad" and she's fairly single as far as I know so... what the hell is wrong with girls in Utah?

Oh well, I'll stay friends with them.. except girl 1, she legitimately pissed me off. Besides we weren't that tight to begin with. Probably could've been, won't ever find out now. Oh well, I guess in a sense I was playing her, but not with the intention of getting a girlfriend any time soon. I don't mind people dating other people, that's normal, but had she said, "Hey by the way, sorta dating this other dude - it's clearly going somewhere fast." I wouldn't have wasted an entire Saturday and $30 on her.

Anyway, I guess I'll go back to my normal summer activities. Seeing friends very occasionally, dating almost never, working and playing too much Sim City 4.

It's funny how things change. Had this happened to me 5 years ago I'd be all depressed and torn up over it and now it's like I've had so many stupid scenarios with women that I care so little. I suppose after being cheated on by Nichole and having Shelly try to convince me that I raped her because I somehow knew that when she was saying yes what she really meant was no makes things like Kelley dating an ugly boy over me and Trisha not being able to see me for a couple months seem like nothing.

While I'm on the subject of girls, this time last year I was in Los Angeles probably asleep next to Rachel. That seems like so much longer ago than one year. I kinda miss her. Not necessarily her specifically, but I miss a girl who saw me as a good and moral person. She thought I was so clean and so respectful of her. I honestly think she's the only girl who thought that of me. Kinda wish her and I still spoke. Not to mention I wouldn't mind taking a road trip out to Los Angeles right about now. It was so fun living in a little house with just a girl and I making breakfast, lunch and dinner together and going out shopping together then reading or playing together and falling asleep in each others arms, even if just for a week. I bet that's what being married is like... also for about a week.

What if we could rewind life and do things differently? Sometimes I wonder, had I gone right to college at 18 I'd have been graduated by 23 and could have moved to Los Angeles with her that summer. Wonder what life would have been like then? What if I would have just had sex with her? I think I may regret not doing that for many years, but when I get those thoughts I like to think of Captain Picard saying, "There are many parts of my youth that I'm not proud of. There were... loose threads - untidy parts of me that I would like to remove. But when I pulled on one of those threads - it'd unravel the tapestry of my life." I wonder what life experiences in the last year I would have missed out on. At this point I really can't see any, but I'm sure they exist. I made a lot of good friends last year. How many of them will I keep though? Over the summer the only college friends I've even so much as had a phone call with are James, Emily, Matt, Trisha and Rachel (Trisha's roommate, not California Rachel.) Matt just called to ask something about utilities and Rachel I only see by way of Trisha.

I sometimes fear life. What if I don't amount to anything? Sure I'll get my B.S. in less than a year, but what good is that if I never put it to use? All it becomes is a waste of $20,000 and 4 years of my life. What if I never marry? I'll be alone for 60 more years. What if I never have kids? My mom never had other kids so she'll never have grandkids. I feel like my life is moving so slowly and there is nothing I can do about it because I'm stuck. I'm stuck in my career (which hasn't yet begun) because I can't get a real job without a diploma. I'm stuck when it comes to a family because when I meet someone I legitimately want I can't have her unless I pretend to believe something which no matter how hard I try I can't bring myself to believe because it's so obviously wrong on some subjects and I'm stuck in Utah for at least another year (maybe 3 if I do a masters) because it's all I can afford.

This is making me depressed, I'm going to sleep before I become as unhappy as I was 5 years ago.