Weird Al's New Album

I've been a huge fan of Weird Al Yankovic since junior high when his Bad Hair Day album came out. I remember watching the Amish Paradise music video and thinking it was one of the greatest videos ever! I even used one his original songs for a project in high school english. Even better than those albums was his last album Straight Out'a Lynwood with his hit White and Nerdy. So enter is new album which was released yesterday called Alpocolypse. While not as good as his previous work it's a solid album. The covers are the best songs and his originals are just good this time around. One surprise is that the album lacks a long marathon song like many of this previous CDs. Last time we were graced with Stuck at the Drive Through, a parody of Trapped in the Closet by R. Kelly. I was a little disappointed to see that but I guess the idea just didn't come to him this time.

Something about him that always stands out is the sheer amount of talent this man possesses. Not only does he cover the song and sing well, he keeps the same rhyming patterns. For example, a line from his new song TMZ is "You're on TMZ" as opposed to Taylor Swifts line, "You belong with me." This doesn't just happen for titles either. He does it for nearly each line of each song and rhymes his line with the real line for almost each verse. I'm not sure he sits there with the real lyrics compares but thats what I'd have to do. Anyway, check it out if you want. Its totally worth the $9.99 on iTunes.

Missing Time For Which I Don't Apologize

Today I consolidated three blogs spanning the years of 2001 to 2007. This was not an easy task since these entries spanned three different companies. Some of the work I had already done years ago apparently. I had moved some entries from LiveJournal to Blogger, then to WordPress, then given up on WordPress and continued on Blogger, but somehow I managed to leave out several LiveJournal entries from the start. After lots of research and importing errors I'm glad to say I got it.

But for all my hard work tonight I still feel a little let down. You see, if you go back to the first entry on this site from 2001, you'll see that it's not the first time I started up a journal. I remember deleting many old entries from my senior year of high school due to girl troubles. There is also an obvious gap between 2007 to last week. During this gap, I worked on two handwritten journals. One of them bridges the gap from 2007-2008. It's entitled The Baby Chronicles and its contents cover most of my wife's pregnancy with our first baby. I'm sorry to say that after she was born there is nothing between June 2008 to June of 2011. Almost exactly three years are missing. No entries anywhere, online or otherwise. Nothing from raising my first baby, the only girl in the family in 30 years, nothing from my engagement except for a video I took setting up the proposal, and nothing from the first eight months of marriage. So much has happened that I just can't explain everything and probably never will be able to. I wonder, if I had journaled at some point in those years, what would I have said? In the flux of emotions that someone goes through during a huge turning point in their lives it would have been great to read my day to day thoughts. I remember most of them now but in twenty years I won't.

A warning to those who might be tempted to go digging around in my past: buried in some of the entries you'll find hookups, breakups, rock bands, drinking and everything else you'd expect from an 18 to 24 year old boy. I don't apologize for anything that I said in here during those years. A journal is a place to send my thoughts and emotions so that I don't have to keep them in. I know there are a few people who might read these and be offended. Well, it was ment to be offensive at the time. Whatever happened back then happened and I moved on. Some of these aren't thought out very well and some are just a few sentences ment to curse someone out. I haven't even read all of these entires so I may be shocked to let a few secrets out of which maybe I don't remember. But so be it. I'm 28 years old now, a father of nearly two and I'm done hiding whatever it is that might still be hidden.

I guess one reason I'm posting this now is because if I'm not here tomorrow, maybe my family and friends will read this and know more about who I really was. Maybe the new people who read it will understand who I really am. Maybe you'll all just think I'm weird, selfish, immature, or vain, but you don't have to read this either. I'm going to close this off tonight with a promise. A promise to never let another year go by where I haven't somewhere, at sometime, written or typed a journal entry. Here's hoping.

Chasing Amy

I saw the film Chasing Amy the other day for the first time. My friend kept telling me I needed to see it and that it was a great film but I just never got around to it. Now that it's on streaming Netflix, I sat down and watched. I think I can sum up my opinion of the film by stating that if I had watched that movie say...10 years ago... I would have been much better off. I can think of a number of girls I have dated that had I seen that movie before hand, the relationship may have ended differently. Notice how I said "may have ended" instead of "not had ended." There's no doubt in my mind that we would have still broken up eventually but the anger that I felt might have been a little less.

For those of you who have not seen this film let me paraphrase. Here is the scene where Bob tells the story about chasing amy. *SPOILERS*

I can't even start to tell you how much this story resembles my past. I could tell this story word for word and it would have been completely true. I was completely dumbfounded after this scene. All the sudden I realized how retarded I was all those years ago. This post will make me seem really stupid but I was never able to figure out why I was so mad at them for being like that. I mean, I kinda knew why, but I never had anyone put it into such a simple story before. The saddest thing about my story is that it happened over again. Even after the first girl who fit that story I found other girls who fits that story. It didn't quite end that way the other times but it still ended badly. 

Deep down I guess it was always the insecurities that led to the failure. I used to call it a failure of trust, which was partly true. I definitely didn't trust them after I found out more about their past. But maybe the reason why I didn't trust them is because of my own perceived failures. Jealousy can be a weird thing sometimes too. They got to have the past I never had and I hated them for it. Immature I know, but hey it's me. When I was growing up an idea must of been planted in my head somewhere that I was suppose to be the seductive, experimental one, and the girls I dated were suppose to be the innocent ones. I'm not sure at what point that idea got into my head but I definitely know it got there by college. Maybe it was me not being able to decide which type of girl I wanted. Every guy wants to get with the easy girl because they are experienced and...well easy. Every guy also wants to date the nice girl. Cool, calm, you're mom likes her, just nice and friendly. Somehow I seem to have found a few girls who fell into that grey area. Big surprise hu? Life not all black and white hu? Seems silly now to wonder how that happened. Not like my father was any help in any of this. He was gone by the time I was twenty so not having him to bounce ideas or feelings off of didn't help anything either. Who knew all I needed was a film to spell it out? One that had been out for years by that point! 

I wonder how many guys in the world this story can apply too. I'm sure it's more now than it was in 1997. It must be more than I use to think. After all, no one persons problems are that unique. There are just to many people in the world. If you're reading this you probably think I feel bad now for pushing those girls away, but I don't. I moved on and so did they. Funny that the same reasoning Alyssa gives for her past in the film I now use for mine. Sometimes I still even drop those girls a line on Facebook every now and again and seem to get a response back from one or the other. This is definitely a scene and a film I will always remember. 

Coffee, Coffee, Coffee, Coffee, Coffee

I don't think I could start my day off right with out my morning coffee I didn't use to think this was important until I started working here when I was young I just didn't care or maybe its the fact that I just had more energy that's probably it because I didn't have any kids back then so all my energy went to me now it just all goes to my daughter it would probably save me lots of money if I didn't go get Starbucks every day but I only get the tall black coffee which is like $1.60 and sometimes I'm running behind and I don't get it at all my wife says I should bring it from home but that just doesn't taste the same you know a co-worker says its because Starbucks over brews their coffee and thats why I can't seem to make it the same way at home or maybe my coffee pot doesn't get it to that super hot temperature that Starbucks does either way I'll probably just keep doing what I'm doing because if I don't I think that my days would be a lot more painful.

And Now For The Rest Of The Story

Every blog I have ever started starts the same way. "Lets see how long this blog lasts." I don't really understand why I keep doing this but I always reach a point in my life were things just need to get out for a while. Now that blogger lets me do better themes and customer domains, I think I'll give it another run. Maybe people will read this time. *GASP*

I plan on blogging about the baby boy thats on the way, the job, the family, and just anything that hits my mind. I think I can even post from my iPhone so that should make things easy. I'll try to keep the blog up at least until the baby arrives. I journaled for the last kid and I figure I can do the same for this one only this time why not let everyone else enjoy my rants!