Entry Level

          I pride myself somewhat in the wide variety of jobs that I have had since my working life began. It is a little depressing that I can't hold a job long enough to exceed an entry level position- but saying I'm well rounded at this point is a bit of an understatement. Going to school in a different state than where I live on a track system makes holding a job for more than a couple months nearly impossible. So I have had quite a few of them. It's safe to say I've dabbled my toes in every type of work there is except for the food industry (and that's only a matter of time unfortunately). Lets make a list shall we:

-Thrift store warehouse worker and janitor
-Paper boy
-Promotional advertising set up
-Sams club cart collector and door greeter
-Upkeep of foreclosed properties
-Door to door campaigning
-General screening and examination for an eye doctor
-Tax preparation
-Pool maintainence
and my newest and most fulfilling job venture....
-Haunting the forest at the Straw Maze in Archer Idaho.

           Of all the exposure I have had to different fields of work this has to be my favorite for a variety of reasons, some of them a little disturbing perhaps. I have certainly come to understand how unique activities can change the way we're wired. Negative and positive reinforcement have power and I've had riveting conversations with coworkers (Tyrel, Audi, Mary and Kyson) about how these incentives have been shaping us.

           In the past my work environment has taught me how to be a people person, how to be sociable and pleasant. I learned how to be helpful and do my best to make a product or service seem desirable. This new experience, however, has turned my world  upside down. The more uncomfortable I make someone feel the more complements I get. The faster I get someone to leave the establishment the better business gets. The more people yell at me the better I'm doing my job and the less approachable I am the more I get rewarded.

Hearing someone scream is elating while hearing jovial laughter is repugnant. My world is backwards.

           The fact that I was constantly thinking of new ways to scare people most likely isn't something my mom would like to hear so it's probably a good thing this only lasted through the month of October. The lesson to learn here is that the things we spend our time doing, especially when there's profit involved does shape who we are and our behavior. Anyone who would risk arguing that it doesn't is ridiculously misguided. Often we've heard the phrase that someone doesn't "like what they are becoming" like they are watching their development from outside of themselves. I've talked in the past about the disdain I have for my time as a tax preparer. At times it literally came down to being dishonest or not making any money and that was the transformation that scared me more so than my new found love for making people pee their pants. Manipulating the truth to achieve ones designs is a slippery slope and I'm glad I was able to escape with my morality intact. Makes it easy to see what I want in a future career and just what an important choice that is.

          Nothing stresses me out more than the uncertainty of my own future but I know what I'm not willing to compromise. Integrity is one of those things.
Even 'the hangman/puppet master' could be honest and upfront about his intentions.
Its a good feeling to be able to honestly tell an intolerable person you would like to string them up from the nearest tree and not get reported for it. Happy Halloween to everyone.

Have some pictures

that I might live in your nightmares

Don't Tell Me the Book Was Better

        It seems every time Hollywood tries to retell the stories of a popular book franchise I have the same conversation over and over. I've come to hate the phrase "the book was so much better", like books and movies are something that can be compared. In my mind that's like complaining that blueberry cheesecake doesn't taste like country fried steak. Why should it? Both serve different purposes and have different things to offer. The reason I prefer movies isn't because of my short attention span (although it may play a small part). People that get defensive about it are simply looking for a reason to argue so to humor them here's a blog to punch a couple holes in their silly crusade:
     
        With books the advantage is length not amount of content. The phrase 'a picture is worth a thousand words' holds true if you have the right camera man. Both can end up being a carefully composed masterpiece but one certainly requires a lot more effort.

-A book doesn't require a massive team of costume designers, makeup artists and architects to fabricate a world we can see with our eyes.

-A book doesn't dedicate months to creating special and visual effects to mystify its spectators.

-A book doesn't have entertainers we come to know and love who's job it is to deliver emotional performances that bring the story to life.

-A book isn't accentuated with a gripping soundtrack that can lift us up and empower us or tear our hearts out and emotionally compromise us.

-A book isn't as artistic in creating the perfect lighting, position and pacing to make things surreal but believable.

-A book is built to offer us a personal experience we enjoy privately while a movie is meant to be experienced socially. We can share the discovery of the plot with our friends and peers in the moment.

       Movies have so much to offer and its a world that will always intrigue me. To me anybody who thinks that a book is better than a movie has only ever watched Nicolas Cage films, and I'll never understand why anyone would ever do that to themselves.

Haters Gonna Hate

             It's finally finals week so like clockwork I am forced into inappropriate procrastination of sorts. As always I try to subject my mind to tireless study of terms, equations, and concepts so it repays me by sending me on tangential journeys. Once again it has forced me to look at the world and over analyze its weirdness. No offence world but you're a weirdo. One of those counter intuitive realizations I have once again realized is just how  much people love to hate things. See- LOVE to HATE- its a paradox. People don't always complain or criticize because they're venting their frustrations but they complain and criticize because they genuinely enjoy it.

             Common enemies easily inspire people at odds to be oddly chummy. Every day I hear students excitedly complain about their classes like it is their favorite thing to talk about and somewhat related to that my roommates and I have developed an obsession with watching and sarcastically endorsing horribly low budget films on the Scifi channel. No sooner had the semester started when a monster movie marathon blessed us with film after film of the worst acting and special effects that (not enough) money can buy. Sure, a blockbuster giant like The Avengers can bring in 18.7 million opening night but only the premier of the cheesiest of Scifi original movies can set twitter ablaze with a record 5000 tweets per minute.

            I'm happy to say I got to take part in the premier of "Sharknado", the gripping tale of a bold coastal cyclone which with a hypothetical heart full of malice picked up some rather dangerous sea life and rained them down on some washed out actors who hadn't been in front of a camera for a while. It was everything you could ask for in a natural disaster, that is of course if you were asking too much. Knowing that this would be the defining moment of our semester we made an event of it and were not disappointed. I've never enjoyed hating something so much. Our seemingly unquenchable thirst to be overly critical and facetious was effectively satisfied.

         






          So why do haters gotta hate? You could use the classic cop out that it makes us feel better about ourselves but I don't think that adequately describes why. I prefer to think that there are other reasons to be mean other than to be malicious. We're not all self conscious trailer park bullies after all. It's common practice to give a friend a hard time just because and I feel sometimes we ooze sarcasm as a strange form of proof that we are content despite imperfect circumstances. We tell an obvious lie to prove our desire to be truthful, we sarcastically tell someone we despise them to let them know we enjoy having them around or we declare how much we love a movie to emphasize how silly it is. Sometimes we do things that are so ridiculously far outside of our personality and against our character that the fact we're doing it is laughable and therefore enjoyable. How else do you explain 'bronies'.

         Enjoyment is a complicated thing when sarcasm is mixed in and I'm tired of thinking about it so on a somewhat more positive note here are some things I love to love.

Saw our next door neighbors building this to take to the lake. They were giving the Shelbourne apartments a good name so we went to go see how well it would float/ if they'd biff it on a jump.

 They didn't make it very far.

           I made a new friend yesterday, his names Morty. I saw him staring at me as I was hustling to class and was curious to see if he was still there after I was done. I whistled for him and obediently he came to greet me getting as close as he could while still remaining out of arms reach. I vented my frustrations to him for a couple minutes and he listened intently. After I felt better I said goodbye but not before telling him to climb another tree and pose for some pictures. He's very photogenic.
Tyrel, Gray and Brad have their girlfriends to complain to so I figured I could have a squirrel friend to complain to. Helps me forget about the death of our hypothetical sugar glider Geraldo.

         I went to photographize some roomies jump off a bridge. Kent has done it three more times since. Why jump off a bridge? Cause everybodies doing it.

       We accidentally started a tradition of having Tyrel photo-bombs whenever we're at a public gathering or unique place. We have quite the collection now.

         Our physics class was going to have a final exam buuuuut then we had a picnic instead. We also got to break a cinder block with a sledge hammer on top of a guy laying on a bed of nails. Physics is aight.






Love to hate, love to love, just don't hate to love cause then no one will like you you depressing loser.

We're All Adults Here

       

           On maturity: eehgghhhem. Sorry, I've been clearing my throat a lot lately. It has even gotten to the point where I am not annoyed at the fact that there is something deterring my routine breathing and speaking but simply because I find the noises I'm making to be irritating. You know it's gotten bad when you can no longer stand to be around yourself. I've never been one to enjoy listening to the noises some people unconsciously make when eating or otherwise so considering myself to be "conscious" of how I sound to other people I have been extra self aware. Much like when your cellphone goes off  while having a moment of silence for the tragic deaths of solders on memorial day except the phone is in your throat and the ringtone is not a trendy pop song but forced grunts. Oh and happy memorial day everyone!

            What do you mean 'why did I go on a tangent'? Talk about maturity? Ya I'll get to that, just let it play out (and I wasn't going to say patience is a virtue and call you an insufferably impetuous brevolinquent. Stop jumping to conclusions and criticizing my impulsive word fabrication). Webster's dictionary decided that the definition of immature is "lacking complete growth, differentiation, or development. I guess I can respect that considering I don't have a website dedicated to defining the meaning of words but to be more specific, to me the word immature refers to someone who has trouble understanding when doing or saying something is considered inappropriate (at least to certain types of people). If only we lived in a world where every ones mind filter was operating at full capacity to protect us from the stupid stuff that sometimes strolls through our overworked minds. Maybe in the next life.

           One might think that going to college might save them from such garbage only to discover that it is not the academic and professional oasis they had hoped for. Many of these people are fresh out of high school and without parental restraint to be fair. It wasn't until entering some three hundred and four hundred level classes where I was pleasantly surprised at the discipline demonstrated by my classmates and I wanted to take some time to appreciate them behind their back.

          This hasn't stopped me from finding humor in things people do. On the contrary in some classes the humor is much more enjoyable. Microbiology does contain some explicit subject matter that would defeat lesser men. The first week of class we were informed that we would be giving oral presentations on various diseases throughout the semester. We were then encouraged to raise our hands and volunteer for one on a first come first serve basis. This lead to some funny out bursts such as "I want Toxoplasmosis." or "Can you give me Herpes?" and " Sign me up for Dysentery please." without so much as a smirk or giggle. The class was so straight faced we put Arnold Schwarzenegger's performance in terminator to shame. It wasn't until after the second week when the teacher announced for the next lab we would be 'streaking' that two class members finally broke. He meant culturing bacterial colonies on streak plates of course and tactfully worded it to get a rise out of us. We have since recovered.

          I don't feel that finding humor in unlikely places is inappropriate and therefore immature. It all caters to a particular audience and we can never hope to please everyone as a whole but I like to think the community I associate myself with has a refined sense of humor.
If you don't think so then you've wasted quite a bit of time here. Go do something more productive.
As for the rest of you thanks for brightening my days by maturing in a direction I can relate to and sharing your perspective on the quirkiness of this world we all share.

Top of the Food Chain

        One negative thing that the past leaves behind are entitlements. An idea of being worthy of a title or position without having to prove yourself. It has been said since the beginning of time that we, as humans, are the top of the food chain. If I'm going to be the best at something you better believe I'm going to prove it to my inferiors. Anyone can say they have royal blood but unless they have a crown on their head I will continue to refuse to pay taxes (and a burger king crown doesn't count Donovan). So to earn this title of ultimate predator here was my "crowning" achievement.

        For a long time I have wanted to make an evening out of consuming as many different kinds of animals as I could sticking to the main animal classes and then some. This mostly consisted of a visit to the restaurant 'Hush Puppies' with my dad which is well known for their southern style food. The list of animals included the following:

Mammal

       Steak. Simple, common, spectacular steak. Not too much I need to say about beef. Most everyone already knows how wonderful it is. I had a cut of sirloin sprinkled with bacon bits before getting into the fun stuff.





Reptile

        To represent the reptiles I had some deep fried alligator tail. 'What does a gator taste like' you ask? Hard to say. Alligator is the Jack in the Box of meat, it doesn't know what it wants to identify itself with. To me it's a balanced mix of red meat, chicken and fish all in one. Whatever it is I thoroughly enjoyed it. 






Fish

   
       Catfish is one of my favorite kinds of fish so it was an desirable addition to the cause. Its meat is white and the flavor isn't powerful so it is wonderful when breaded and fried. I don't care how ugly you are friend. It's what's on the inside that counts.








Crustacean

       The crustacean category was represented by traditional grilled shrimp. I'm not a huge fan of shrimp but we get along alright. I've always been more of a crab kind of guy. Still some good stuff, just not as good.... no offense.






Muscle

     Oysters are normally very tough and rubbery but much like anything else that is deep fried it was fun to eat. Reminded me of fried Calamari which I love. If the world truly is 'my oyster' make sure to deep fry it first. Two thumbs up.














Amphibian

     Along with the alligator tail frogs legs are unfortunately an under utilized meat that I find very tasty. It's like getting a double-decker chicken wing that tastes like a cross between chicken and scallops. I feel for you mr. frog and am empathetic to your lack of popularity.




Fowl

       Supposedly everything tastes like chicken so it would have been wrong not to include a chicken sandwich on the list. After eating many different things I can say not all of it tastes like chicken. I mean no offense and am not trying to hurt the chicken's pride but personally I found this to be false. In fact I'm the one that should be offended. I don't appreciate being lied to mr. chicken. Don't worry, that wont stop me from eating you.







Insect

     Most of what I ate was perfectly agreeable and the fear factor wasn't an issue. Being afraid of the idea of certain foods has never been a problem for me. I decided I should involve something a little outside my comfort zone so I found a bug sucker that had an insect trapped inside. It took a good hour to free it from it's melon flavored prison and when I got to it I was pleasantly surprised to find that it tasted similar to an almond.

       I am happy to say that I now feel like I legitimately belong in the 'top of the food chain' club. May all beasts fear my appetite.