Running low on creative gas.

I have some rants and random thoughts scribbled here and there (technically typed in my Evernote), but nothing solid enough to make a blog post. Then I remembered I had a few "blog" postings from way back in the day on MySpace, circa 2006. I think I shall post some until I get some thoughts organized.

Valentine shmalentine!

Just a friendly reminder that this a blog of rants, and not at all eloquently written.  It's pure babble, OK?

I don't know the history of Saint Valentine.  I don't really care to take the time to find out.  But there's really one main reason I dislike Valentine's Day.  It's a marketing gimmick.  Most holidays are, but this one preys so heavily I think it only comes second to Christmas (maybe third to Halloween) in its pervasive nature.  At least there's a "reason for the season."  But with Valentine's Day, not so much.  It's entirely for greeting card and candy companies, florists, and jewelers to pressure consumers to buy affection from their loved ones, sparks of interests, or what have you.  It's advertising at its finest.  They influence you to think, "If I don't buy this product, it means I must not care for my loved one as much as I say.  What will others think if I'm the only one who doesn't send flowers or candy to them? I haven't been very romantic all year; whatever I buy this day will make up for it!"  The only action that speaks louder than words on Valentine's Day is the act of buying.  If you really care for the person you're with, you don't wait for only one day a year to impress them.  Who you are and your actions every day make you desirable.  Romantic suprises throughout the year make your relationship thrive.

On the other hand, I won't deny that not having a Valentine for Valentine's Day stings me a little.  It's a reminder to me that I don't have a special someone of my own to spend Valentine's Day with, especially when last year I did.   It's even worse when I have an infatuation with someone and she is unavailable. (Story of my life and fodder for another blog post.) This year, I spent it with a date-rejected buddy of mine as well as a couple of other bartender friends working the other side of the bar.  I raged (half-jokingly) against Valentine's Day by getting drunk and putting bitter, anti-love songs on the jukebox. I shot pool. I joked. I laughed. I had fun. But I still went home alone.

Two years ago or so, when I held so tightly to a much more hopeless view of my life, I created an "Anti-Valentine" iTunes playlist.  It hasn't changed much.  I still add songs to it if I think about it, because I still listen to it when I feel a little heartache now and then. And because they're fun to sing to (alone of course). I won't apologize for any of them being cheesy either!

Heart - “Alone”
Miranda Lambert - “Kerosene”
Orgy - “Blue Monday”
Rolling Stones - “She’s So Cold”
Paramore - “Misery Business”
Dramarama - "Anything, Anything (I'll Give You)"
Marilyn Manson - "Tainted Love"
Plain White T's - "Hate (I Really Don't Like You)"
Justin Timberlake - "What Goes Around..."
The All-American Rejects - "Gives You Hell"
OneRepublic - "Apologize"
Kanye West - "Heartless"
Three Days Grace - "Pain"
Alice In Chains - "Nutshell"
Jimmy Eat World - "Get It Faster"
Fleetwood Mac - "Go Your Own Way"
Keith Urban - "You'll Think Of Me"
Linkin Park - "Valentine's Day"
Anberlin - "Feel Good Drag"
Metallica - "Die, Die My Darling"
Little Big Town - "Good As Gone"

Taking a step

One of my resolutions for this year was to read more books.  I just took a step that will hopefully force (uh, motivate?) me to do so.  I reduced my Netflix subscription from 3 DVDs at a time to 1 at a time, with unlimited streaming of course.  Most of what's available to stream is pretty crappy so I'll pretty much be watching one good movie per week, not including any theater visits.  Considering some of my friends live and die on TV, movies, and pop culture references, this may alienate me a little bit from some conversations.  I don't care.  When I make an honest evaluation of TV, it's a time sink and a brainsuck to spend time watching it alone.  I'm not a hypocrite.  I've enjoy watching TV shows and movies.  It's a great escape from reality 20 to 40 minutes at a time, but I'm also very aware by the evidence of clutter around me that I'm not accomplishing anything of value while watching it either.  It takes me longer to process information.  I'm not a quick reader.  I to devote more to reading.  And that means less time viewing.

Over the past few weeks, I've also been cutting the number of movies down in my Netflix queue.  It was maxed out at 500 for such a long time, I had all extra movies I wanted to watch "eventually" saved in a Google Notebook list.  My pack-rat nature had taken over. It started to feel like an overwhelming to-do list rather than a list of movies I truly wanted to watch and enjoy.  By cutting down the list, I think I've brought it to where, psychologically, I don't feel I have to get through a movie or two every day to stay ahead of my ever-growing queue.

I didn't put much thought into this post. Obviously not a rant.  Just a blurb.  Time to read a chapter or two.

The Ex

When I say "my ex," I'm usually referring to my ex-wife.  It's her birthday today, so I'm going to post a little about her.

I was married from December 28th, 1998 until July 15th (or was it 16th?), 2006. I was 22 when I got married. And I was immature. And a lot of other dumb things, I'm sure. I was 30 when I got divorced—and still immature.  I'm not delving into the history of my marriage, but needless to say my ex-wife and I developed differences that made a healthy marriage difficult to maintain.

So it's strange for most people to hear me say that my ex-wife is one of my best friends.  We're not buddy-buddy, "Hey let's go spend the afternoon playing some mini-golf for the hell of it," best friends. The fact she lives in another state makes that unfeasible anyway. But she is one of the few people I can really trust and rely upon.  She's incredibly smart, humorous, nurturing, crafty, skillful, grounded, and has the most common sense of anyone I've known.  She's beautiful.  She's helpful when I ask for help. She's quiet when I just want to vent. She emails me tons of informative stuff, quite often hooking me up with some good deals, or at least letting me know about them. (I'm a Google whore and since she's also gaga for Google, I learn a lot of cool stuff about Gmail, etc. from her). I can be quite open with her about my thoughts or feelings regarding people or circumstances. I'm able to receive criticism or praise from her, whereas before I would be in defense mode, viewing any criticism as judgement or ridicule. Her opinions are usually important to me now. 

I think I've come a long way in the time since our divorce. Having made friends and relationships during our separation and after the divorce helped me to see who I am, what I want to be, and what I won't put up with.

A couple of years ago, I was having a very difficult time coping with my life. My ex was one of the few people who truly gave me support, inspiring words, and encouragement.  In many ways, I think that when I really become interested in a certain woman, I still use my ex as a quality standard to measure her against. Except for music—we have very little in common when it comes to music! Nobody's perfect.

I do see her every once in a while.  Her family and I are still close and I'm still invited to birthday parties and the like.  When we see each other, it's like seeing any other close friend.  We can be serious, joke and tease each other.

And in case you're thinking, am I in love with her?  No.  Do I love her?  Yes, dearly. I have a deep respect for her and I hope we'll be friends for a very long time. It's awesome knowing that even though we weren't the best spouses for each other, we can still be great friends.

Mercedes drivers drive like douche bags

More often than not when a motorist has cut me off, nearly run me over, stole a parking spot from me, or just about any other offensive behavior they can display while in a vehicle, it's been by someone driving a Mercedes-Benz. They drive like they own the road and everyone else is inferior to them.

Yesterday, all of the below offenses were taken.

• As I walking from a parking lot across the thoroughfare to enter a building, a Mercedes braked hard immediately to my right as if they had just noticed I was walking across and then they acted annoyed by it. My friend last night told me that he nearly got ran over on the crosswalk to the restaurant where were meeting... by a Mercedes.
• As I was driving on the freeway, a Mercedes cut me off as they apparently suddenly realized they were in an exit only lane that was clearly marked for what I'd say was at least 200 yards. This incidence happens quite frequently.
• When I was searching for a parking spot last night, I came upon a group of people getting into a car. It seemed the car had started, as the illumined taillights had indicated. I sat patiently waiting for the car to back out. At least three minutes went by (an entire song played on my iPod) before I gave up waiting for that spot because another group of people got in their car and promptly backed out. The first group of bitches got into a Mercedes. The other group of citizens, a Honda.

I'm not saying that no other manufacturer of a vehicle has its rude drivers. Inconsiderate drivers are everywhere. But it's so frequent that Mercedes drivers seem to be the worst offenders when it comes to bad driving behavior. If you drive a Mercedes, I don't care if you're my best friend, my soulmate, or Jesus. Do not expect me to be courteous to you on the road. Do not expect me to politely let you move into the lane in front of me. DO expect that during traffic, I will have no problem wedging myself in front of you in your lane. Why? Because your kind has set the precedent. Learn the Golden Rule, Mercedes douche bags. You've done this unto others for far too long, and it's my turn to do it back to you.

CDs? See deeez!

I once had a massive music CD collection. I love music. I love (or subconsciously feel a need) to collect music almost as much as I love music itself.  Mind you, I can't play any instrument other than a CD player and/or an iPod, but nonetheless I need noise around me all the time.  Probably has to do with being an only child of deaf parents.

I got my first CD player in 1991, when I was 15.  In my sophomore year of high school a friend convinced me to join a mail-order music CD catalog/"club."  Every music club had an introductory offer that would usually give you a minimum of 6 CDs for free when you sign up as long as you purchased a pre-determined number of albums over the course of a year. When I realized they would send me offers to re-join once I fulfilled my obligation and quit the "club" and that they'd also send me offers with my name misspelled as if I were a different living person, I signed up with all the major music clubs with every offer they gave to take advantage of all the free CDs.  By the time I was a freshman in college, I had five concurrent music club memberships.  By the time I would have been a sophomore in college (4 years after I got my first CD player), I had literally over a thousand CDs.  Around that time, I needed some quick cash during a jobless dry spell, so I sold over half of them at $5 or $10 each, drastically reducing my music CD collection.  I went through the cycle again a few years later in 1997, just before I moved to California because believe it or not, boxes of about 200 CDs in each box is quite heavy and cumbersome to transport. A few years after that, I once again built my CD collection to well over a thousand CDs, losing (or ridding) only a significant portion to my ex-wife during our separation.

By the early 2000's the MP3 file format had been gaining attention, becoming easily accessible with Napster and software for ripping CDs. I found a new collection addiction. However, just like the physical media storage space was at a premium.  Buying extra hard drive storage wasn't that cheap.  So when it came to another round of reducing my CD collection, I would rip the CDs before selling them.  But I could only rip my favorite songs from those CDs.  I didn't have space for the entire album to be ripped.  So I would keep my favorite CDs as a whole and for crap albums like The Real McCoy, I would only rip "Another Night" and "Runaway."  Over time though, my cherished collection of CDs—ones that I would keep because there were enough songs on the CD as a whole that I would want to keep it—increased to a excessive number again taking up too much physical space. In an effort to reduce space, I would buy those big binders for holding just CDs and I threw out all the jewel cases.  Even though I have an MP3 collection that is now over 500GB in size, I still have those two big binders plus a few stacks of CDs I've purchased since the great jewel case purge of 2008.

But now I have hard drive space.  Lots of it.  Storage is cheap these days.  I have a media server serving as my central repository for all my photos, music and videos with a backup plan for that data.  So I can finally rip ALL of what's left of my CDs.  Not just the favorite songs, but the lame ones as well.  This will be quite a task, but it falls in line with my resolution this year to reduce clutter.  What a sense of accomplishment I'll have when I finish this project!

My Resolve

A little late already, but here are my New Year resolutions for 2011.

Resolution #1:  Read more books.

In 2009, I started reading books at what was a pretty good pace for me.  I'm a slow reader, so when it comes to reading books, it takes me some time.  Time during which nothing else gets done.  I can't really multi-task while doing it, and so I can't watch movies or listen to new music while I read.  However, I watched entirely too much Netflix last year, and I'm certain some brain cells died because of it.  So this year I need to read more.  Last year I'm not sure I finished more than four books.  AND one of those books was one I've read before.  It was The Eye of the World from the Wheel of Time series.  I've re-sparked my desire to finish that series (or at least get caught up).  The last book I finished when I first picked up the series was mid-way through book 6 I think, about 10 years ago.  And because it had been that long ago, I felt I needed to re-read those books to remember what's going on.  Anyway, this year I have a goal to finish at least 10 books, half of them being fiction. (I read a lot of self-help books... Not just "what's wrong with me?" books, but organizational and finance books, etc.)

Resolution #2:  Reduce the clutter in my life.

The first half of last year, not only did I watch a lot of Netflix, but I played a lot of video games.  That's another thing that limits my multi-tasking abilities, especially if the game has a good storyline that requires my attention (so no music playing in the background while I play the game).  Again, I was giving myself less time for productive things, like keep a clean room whatsoever.  My bedroom looked like a pigsty for most of 2010.  The fact I had no girlfriend coming over after we broke up attributed to that, I'm sure.  This year, I really intend to reduce the clutter.  I'm going to maintain a clean desk space, clean out my closet, and even clean out my pantry.  I don't think I'll be using that lamb curry marinade packet any time soon or ever, so it might as well be given/thrown away.  Not that I'll be living any kind of nomadic lifestyle, but I want to definitely want to reduce my possessions to where I could up and move fairly quickly if I ever wanted or needed to.

Resolution #3:  Lose weight. 

Duh.  Is that really any secret?  I'm fat.  I'm over 300 lbs.  I’m technically “morbidly obese.”  I should be under 200 lbs for my body-frame according to one of the last doctors I had.  So yeah.  I need to get to that before I have a heart-attack.  A recent visit to a doctor proved that I had very high blood pressure.  High enough that he gave me a dose of medicine in the office right there to bring it down.  He said I'm at risk for a stroke if I don't bring down my blood pressure.  So this year, I joined a Crossfit gym and I plan on going three times a week.

Resolution #4:  Eat healthier. 

This isn't going to come easy.  And really, it's not so much about eating healthy, as it is about eating healthier.  I need to reduce my portions.  I need to increase nutritious foods in my diet.  I know I'm not going to eat completely healthy.  It just won't happen.  And with Crossfit, that would be too much change at once overwhelming me.  I figure as I get into the exercise routine, my mind will naturally be more aware of the food I'm putting in my body.

Resolution #5:  Get some sleep!

I have a very hard time forcing myself to go to sleep at a reasonable hour.  It’s very typical for me to stay up near 2am on a weeknight and have to get up by 7am.  And starting Crossfit this year with the intention of going before work, requiring me to be up before 6am, I really need to get to bed before midnight every night.

Resolution #6:  Wear my retainer.

Yeah, it’s a bit random, but still a resolution.  Nearly two years ago, I had my braces removed.  Within the last year, I've been horrible about wearing my retainer.  I'm supposed to wear it every night for the rest of my life.  Well, a few trips I took when I forgot to bring my retainer with me led to a few nights here and there when I'd forget to wear it.  Next thing you know, I hardly wear my retainer except maybe once a month and it's obvious my teeth are shifting back to being not-so-straight.  I need to wear my retainer so I don't have to wear braces a third time in my life.  (But if I do, I'm going with Invisalign!)

So there you have it.  I guess other than the first two, the rest of the resolutions could be wrapped up into one:  Start and maintain good habits and routines. 

This will be the year of small steps to great results!