Sports

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=2094

Dinosaur Comics is here.  Go read this one.

Dinosaur Comics is one of y favorite webcomics.  Somehow by using the exact same illustrations day to day, this guy (Ryan North) makes just about ALL OF THEM hilarious!
And every now and then, like this example here, it rings almost painfully true in a way that makes one's elementary, middle, and high school experiences come rushing back in a wave of clumsy emotion.

Results

My partial media fast is over today!  I screwed it up only about twice:
I did read through the archives of a comic I hadn't read and I played pandemic 2 for a bit.
I didn't ever go on Facebook, so that was a win.  I admit sometimes I yearned to just go on Facebook and kill some time (especially right before work) but I practiced ukulele or drew things instead.  Win.
In fact, my creativity went up while I was away from video games and overly social media.  I drew more comics, I played more ukulele, made a few vlog posts, and actually got out a few times with some folks who I suppose I might call friends.  Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to be back to FB and Minecraft.  They're fun diversions!  However, now that I now how much they hindered me before, I hope I will cut back on them quite a bit and thus make my life a better place to be.
All-in-all, I recommend it.

My Lord, what a morning

       Ah, 'tis the morning here for me.  I slept beautifully with no silly waking up with headaches which oft happens when I sleep in.  As it's thanksgiving break, me, two of my brothers and they're significant others (one's got a wife, the other a fiancé, I get along very well with both) and my cousin who I've not seen for awhile are all staying the time at my Grandma's place in Southern Utah, which is a BEAUTIFUL place, let me tell you!  On Wednesday we went to all the neat rock shops that are in this little town and then helped my Uncle Keith put up a ceiling on the patio.  Yesterday was devoted to the thanksgiving feast, which was a coma inducing joy.  I acquired a surprising liking to stuffed mushrooms, which is odd because usually I don't like mushrooms or onions, which were in them.  After that me, my brother Jake (the engaged one) and my Uncle Keith had a good old hillbilly music time (Keith is a man of the mountains through and through.  He also randomly owns a lot of stringed instruments.  I got pretty good at the autoharp and I'm not bad at the mandolin).
        All in all, everything is fine.  I kinda wish school wasn't coming on Monday, but I think that I'm ready for it mentally/emotionally yadda yadda yadda.
    Alright, love you all!

Hello Freaking world

       Sometimes I have trouble writing down the things I like.  I'm not saying it's a common practice of mine to do so, but when I join a website, update my Facebook (still on the fast from it, haven't broken!), add to a blog or something it's something I do.  And it's freaking hard!  I don't think that I'm just bad at liking things, because I do like plenty of things!  I think the world is beautiful and such (when I'm down I get upset at the world for being so beautiful and mocking my bad mood.  Did that make sense?  I hope not.)  It's just that when called to put those sorts of things down I just.... can't.... recall.... ANYTHING!  And it's slightly frustrating because then I wonder what I like and do I like anything and blah blah blah.

blah.

      I don't like blah.  It's just there to fill space.  No depth to blah.  Might as well not be there for all anyone cares with a blah.  blah blah blah

NO! 
 I can't be blah.  I am doing what I can not to be blah!  There's too much life to freaking live and too many freaking adventures to freaking go on to freaking mope and say I'm freaking blah, which is what I was going to freaking do.  I freaking say "freaking" a lot when I want to rile myself up.  It kind of freaking works.

I recommend it to any freaking person who wants to just freaking sit there and freaking sulk.  And don't freaking use it to belittle yourself.  USE IT TO FREAKING WORK YOURSELF UP!!!

AH FREAK THAT FELT GOOD!

Goodness!

      Sometimes I feel the need to check the stats on this here blog (I usually follow my comic blog's stats more diligently) and I've been surprised by a frequent viewership from Russia.  I doubt it's more than one or two people who read this, but it looks like it's kind of consistent.
     I'm touched!
     I regret to say that I know very little of Russia, it's past or any of its culture.  Despite that, it's always been a country that intrigued me.  Here's the very little of Russia that I know from the top of my head:
- It's HUGE  (biggest country in the world, right?)
-A lot of the hugeness is from Siberia, which is cold and probably pretty uninhabited.
-Russia has a small company that breeds and sells domestic foxes.  I want one.
-We didn't get along to well in the Cold War, but that was before my time so no hard feelings, right?
-Peter the Great?  He was Russian right?  I forgot why he was so great.  I do know that he was freaking tall and apparently met Napoleon.
-If someone tries to invade Russia, it won't work.
-Russian women apparently make great models (so I've been told)
-Cossacks were Russian...
-My name (Mikhail) is Russian in origin, despite the fact I have no Russian blood.  Mom, dad, I still don't get it...
-Stalin was a jerk.  Was Lenin a Jerk?  I don't know...
-Cyrillic is the Russian alphabet.  I don't know it, but it looks cool, and Russian sounds cool.
-Mussorgsky was Russian... I thiiiiink. So was Tchaikovsky.  Both good composers.
-Czars were the rulers of Russia before the Communists came to power.

      Huh, I guess I knew a little bit more than I thought.  It still doesn't do it any justice, I'm sure.  I should look up more about Russia.

      Hello to my Russian follower(s)

Randomness #9

I don't know if it's because of my therapy or my media fast, but my depression is going on slight decline.  I'm actually quite impressed with it all!  I'm meeting people, almost talking to girls :3 and doing more creative things.  I wouldn't go so far as to say I'm a happy person now, but I'm improving.  Is it just a phase?  Maybe, but I'll enjoy it while it stays.

Re-read The Screwtape Letters. It's an excellent and somewhat sobering view on sin from the point of view of a devil.  If you're Christian, than I recommend you read it.  It can be slightly eye-opening, despite it's age.

Last week's ballroom classes sucked.  I buffed the final on quickstep because the restart is fricking hard!  However, this week I randomly got better at it, and my waltz is getting pretty good.  I was considering not taking social dance next term, but now I most definitely will.

Word of the moment: Vulpine adj.  It technically means foxlike, but can be used to mean craft or clever or something like that.

Dreams still interest me because things I thought long dead are coming back to me in my dreams.  This used to happen to me when I finished being in a play or musical.  What I mean is that about a month or two after the show I had a nightmare of the show going completely wrong.  My theory is that this is the point that my mind is entirely forgetting my lines, and trying one last hurrah to get them back.  As it can't, the show goes wrong.  Maybe my mind does that for memories that I'm making peace with as well.

I need to say "frick" less...

A good way to sound condescending is to reply to a foreign expression with "Sorry, I don't speak Dutch".

Why do you want to sound condescending?  That's not very nice...

If you subscribe to my comics, then you already know this, but last night I saw the tap dancing master, Savion Glover.  It was amazing!!!  Then I got to meet him and he signed my hat!  Unfortunately, I was nearly last in line for meeting the guy, and I could tell that he was pretty tired both from tapping up a storm and from signing things and taking pictures.  All he could muster to say to most people was "Yeah, man".  Ah well, can't blame him.  It was kinda funny actually.

This is actually the second picture we took, because my phone camera was being dumb, the first one had us arms around each other.  I kinda like this one more.

Parameters

I think a total media fast (No computer, No cell phones, No TV, etc.) is really kinda stupid.  I mean, I couldn't function that well in a social scene (well, I already function poorly on the social scene) without my cell phone.  It's just a convenience.  Now if I texted for 5 hours a day, I would take a break from it, but I don't.  I really just use it to hang out with a few people.
So I'm doing a partial media fast.  Even though I'm allowing myself some things, it's still going to cut me down quite a bit.  Here's the parameters of it, and I hope I'll follow them religiously:
-NO Facebook.
-NO Video Games, with the exception being if they're for a date, which is highly unlikely
-Can only check webcomics on the day they update and ONLY the updated comics (no going through the archives)
-NO Netflix (easier since my family cancelled their plan) except at friend/family house.
-Can only watch updated YouTube channels and only the updates.  The exception is if I'm at a home other than my own and a video is showed to me.
-Blogging's alright, but a minimum of 30 minutes of reading blogs is allowed a DAY (not sure where to put comic blogs in this)
-I will still update my comic blog Monday, Wednesday, Friday.  This is just a hint that you should look at it...
-Looking up things on Wikipedia and other related sites is cool, EXCEPT for Minecraft wiki...  That's honestly a problem.
-Fast will start TOMORROW 11/15 and will be allowed to end on Monday the 28th!

     My whole reasoning behind this media fast is to motivate myself to do more things.  I noticed (and so did my therapist) that I just can't get myself to do things a lot of the time.  Realizing that two of the main culprits were Minecraft and Facebook, I chose (am choosing) to implement this fast.  Last time I did this was to get a date and was only video game related in my fast.  It kinda didn't work because I got a date only a few days later, which was (I think) only coincidence.  That's why this one has a definite set of dates.  I can get the coolest date ever and fall madly in love and I still have to wait until the 28th to add her on FB... probably (I guess that might be extenuating circumstances, but probably not going to happen anyhow).

MEIN RESOLVE!!!

Caligynephobia

Caligynephobia is the fear of beautiful women.  Now, I've jokingly said that I'm afraid of women (well, honestly it's not that jokingly, but I'm not incapacitated from it).  It seems that there is a legitimate fear of attractive females, otherwise why would there be a word for it?  Does it affect girls?  Probably.  Does it in all honesty affect me?  Recently.  Will I overcome it someday?



FRICK YEAH!

Meh

Why, I ask myself, did I wake up today?  It was a pretty poor move on my part.  My bed was warm and comfy and I got up and the world b-slapped me, and I shoulda stayed in bed.
But if I sleep too long I get migraines...
So I guess I had to get up to avoid that.
...
words are here.
...
Frick.

Possibility of Pain

If anything at all is important to you, then it is possible to get hurt.
It's a vulnerability that just about everyone shares.
    To really water it down, avoiding unnecessary physical pain is important to all but the masochistic.  So when we fail to keep this important thing, we are quite literally hurt by it.  If we didn't care about avoiding this, we would still be physically damaged to some extent, but probably not as surprised when it does happen.  Probably a bit more apathetic about it too.
     Another example is other people.  Is someone important to you?  If so, then you are vulnerable to being hurt for or by this person.  If something unfortunate happens to them, then you feel bad for them and in a small way you are affected negatively by it.  If you didn't care about that person, you wouldn't really care what happened to them.  Also, if they inexplicably did something unfortunate to you, the amount of negative reaction to it would probably be based pretty much on how important of a person that was to you.
     Now, understand, these are musings.  I don't recommend avoiding getting hurt so much that you choose apathy as a way of life.  At that point there's not much to go with.  Getting hurt and having things important to you is part of life.
I guess that's obvious, but sometimes we need to write the obvious things down to really get them.
sorta

A year

Well, I'm 19.  Let's all look at what I did while I was 18!  Why the frick not?

+ My last marching band event ever was on my 18th birthday.  Hard to imagine it would ever end, but sadly it did.
+ Got accepted to and began to attend BYU.  Kinda disillusioned about it all, but it's still a decent place to be.
+ Changed my nickname from Mack to Khail.  Some people back home still call me Mack.  No real reason to press the issue.
+ Fell in love or something.  Fell harder than I thought I could.  Fell out of it too.  With a good, sturdy, bone-breaking thud.
+ Started a vlog!
+ Started a comic site too!
+ Graduated high school with honors.  I didn't think I did well enough for honors, but was pleasantly surprised.
+ Got my first personal computer
+ Got my first speeding ticket :P
+ Was in the play Snow White as an old creepy man
+ Went to prom with Spirit
+ Acquired a deep love for kites
+ Went to Florida on a band trip where I experienced (that is the correct word for it) the best cream soda ever
+ Composed my second brass choir
+ Got three different jobs, one typing, one lifting rocks, and one cooking/cleaning.
+ My motto for our class got chosen (anonymously)
+ Learned Ukulele
Etc.
Of course I did way more than that, but my memory's not too good.  Still, it's been a year of my life I can't go back to or redo, and y'know what?  I think I'm ok with that right now.  Not always, but right now I'm fine.

The Stuff here and now.

My post titles have gotten lamer of late.  Ah well.  Get used to it I suppose (talking to myself there, which is what I honestly do in most of this blog).

Well I was off Minecraft for almost two weeks and I just broke that little reprieve yesterdayish, maybe the day before.  And by broke, I mean SHATTERED, I've been playing so much minecraft and it's been awesome.

My sociology test was a train wreck.  But not a flaming, everyone-died, train wreck.  There were a few casualties sure, but many survived with only a few broken bones and some burns.  They might even be able to save the caboose as it made it out essentially unharmed.

My Birthday is on Sunday.  I never know what I think of my birthday.  My 13th was grand I think.  My 16th was actually pretty lame, but the consequences of turning 16 were good.  Last year's was a blast since it was the same day as an indoor marching band concert, where most of my friends were anyway.  Just being older, although technically only one day older than the day before, is significant on a birthday.  In the eyes of society I might as well be a new kind of person depending on the age.  I mean, look at my 18th birthday!  I was an adult just like that.
Y'know, Senior year was actually pretty good, looking back.  Being a Freshman again is sometimes... frustrating.

Well, I'm in the mood for MORE minecraft now.  Ok.
yup.
cool.
right.
seeyoubye!

No reason

     I think I'll stick to BYU for now.  I talked it over with folks and if I move too close to home I might just be trying to live a past life, and while I still miss plenty of people there, it's time to move right along and admit I need to start making a life here that I might then possibly take back with me to the midwest.  Probably for sure maybe.  It's an open line of thought.
     Halloween happened.  It was alright.  Stuff happened, nothing particularly relevant to anything.    My birthdays on Sunday, my counseling starts tomorrow.
     Oh, life.  You certainly are a bucket of squirrels.   Hmm, that metaphor made more sense in my head than typed out.  Ah well, interpret it how you will.
      I suppose with Halloween over that thanksgiving is next.  Me and my brothers out here are assuming we're going to be invited to our Grandma's house.  That should be excellent!  She's a spectacular cook.  Then comes Christmas.  Then Valentines day.  I don't think this upcoming V-day will have any significance to me.  But who knows?  Fortune can be arbitrarily kind sometimes.
       Sometimes life's like country music.  It's all the same and is pretty lame for the most part.  But that's just brain chemicals talking.

So go have yourself a wonderful day.