Whispers in the Dark

Last night just so happened to be a great end to my summer. Although I don't start school until Tuesday, I have to work and such between now and then, so last night was one of my final hurrahs.

Waldorf College was holding their annual Bash, and some folks I know down there told me to go down to see a free Skillet show. How could I turn that down? After work (it was a small truck and went by fast), I showered, changed, and went out to Tommy's. I had an idea of what time I wanted to leave, but he had a load of baby pigs to finish before we left. Mariah was there when I got there, so we waited for Tommy to shower then headed off to Forest City. After we got there, we were throwing the frisbee around a little, and Maggie walked by. A little later, we got Matt's attention since he didn't realize who was playing frisbee.

When we finally walked to the next block for Bash, we eventually saw all the people we knew. The first band (Holes In the Space-Time Continuum, a student band) was a little strange. They covered a couple songs, and they kind of ruined the mood (in my opinion) due to the swearing. The second band (Hillhaven Raven) was really good. They were all from Forest City, and I liked their sound quite a bit. After they finished, I walked with Tommy and Matt to Hardee's. My roast beef sandwich was one of the first things I'd eaten all day, and the insanely large amount of fluids I had had probably led to the story coming up. Kyle met up with us there, and we walked a block back to Bash in time for Skillet. Tommy and Kyle slowly made their way forward during the show, and eventually Tommy was at the stage. I decided to make my way up there too after a while. It was awesome until my stomach started bothering me a lot and I decided to go back out of the main crowd and watch with the M's.

After the show, we got the band's autographs. I was feeling even worse, and I made it through the line feeling like puking the whole time. I told John Cooper that he was one of my top 5 bassists of all time, told him a couple others on the list (that's for a future blog), and walked away with Mariah and Tommy. I had to hand them my stuff and kneel by a tree. The vomit wasn't going to wait any longer. The deciding factor for the hurling was most definitely fountain Gatorade. Don't drink it. It's not good. Nor is it good for you. I figured out tonight that I had had about the equivalant of 6 cans of pop plus the nasty Gatorade from the pop fountain. Not a good idea. It made me sick.

All in all, it was a great show. I called Deml with a couple of songs as messages, and I was texting him a little too. It was good to see how well Matt and Maggie are liking school so far, and I told them I would come down to be on their Friday night radio show at least once. It'll be fun.

Next show I'm going to (even though my mom's being a spaz about it): Mayday Parade, Alesana, As Cities Burn

It's that time again

Yes, it's time for me to once again backtrack through my life a few days and let you all in on the fun. What's that? You've been bored to tears by my previous reviews? Well, feel free to skip this one, but the Euchre story is your loss. I'm going to start with the latest events, and work my way back.

Today was a long day at work. Slow. Not a lot of people. A guy that was wounded in Iraq came back through town and there were people lining 169 to greet him. Yesterday was also a fairly long day at work. Neither one was very entertaining. I know. You really want to skip out, but bear with me. The Euchre story is almost worth it.

On Friday, neither Mariah nor I worked, so I agreed to go with her to MOA. I only planned on buying one thing while I was there, and I succeeded. I'm now the proud owner of a new Notre Dame hat (this one's actually white instead of "2 years of dirt, dust, and sweat" brown). My plan is to keep this one for three years to see how bad it gets. I had a second goal while at the Mall, and that was to keep Mariah from buying any shoes. If you saw her closet, you would understand. Sadly, she ended up buying some, but at least it was only one pair for just $10. Friday also marked my first time eating at Bubba Gump's. They have some great food there, and I'll probably go back next time I'm at the Mall (which could be a while, seeing as Friday was only my third time there in my life and the second time was this June).

Now for the moment Nate has been waiting for. Euchre story.

Nate and I played a few games of Gin on Yahoo! Thursday night, and we eventually decided it was time to show some folks how real men played Euchre. When we finally got a pair of opponents at our table, Nate started telling everyone to play faster. Eventually, the conversation led to Nate telling one of our opponents, named saffiresure that he loved her. Soon after, Nate said the three of us should exchange phone numbers. When she wouldn't give us hers, Nate said something to the effect of, "You need to give us your number too saffire." To which she gave the greatest answer ever, "Sure 555 yeast infection." I was laughing so hard I couldn't play for a few minutes. She said she would remember our names on Yahoo! in case she ever saw us again, and I hope we do get a chance to play against her again. It made my night. Good times....

Ok, so the Euchre story wasn't worth it, but it made you read it all, didn't it?

Wasted....

Why isn't either of my emails working for me? Hotmail is causing me trouble, and Gmail won't let me compose. I'm very frustrated, and pretty close to screaming. The whole "not enough team" situation is getting me down, and my email to rally the troops isn't getting to Greg. Unless time stops for the app deadline, I'm not sure if it's worth trying to send it out again tomorrow morning.

Anyway, on to better news....

As I had expected, the new Cartel album is absolutely incredible! I introduced Jodi Bob to them recently, and she said she likes their sound. I mentioned the song "Wasted" to be one of my favorites (there's also a remix that Wyclef Jean produced), and Bob ended up saying she loved it. I can't say specifically what I like about it, but just the sound (the drumline is amazing), lyrics, and Will Pugh's voice (apart from the sound of the song as a whole) come together perfectly. With that, here's the lyrics (I italicized parts that I felt kind of fit my own thoughts at times), and feel free to check out the entire album on their purevolume page.

It's 2:45, the baby takes his first breath
The mother never knew he only had a few left
And the father gets a call in the middle of the night
His breath gets short, and his chest gets tight

But he's 16, and he's driving too fast
Takes a turn to the left, it would be his last
Nobody knows what happens if he turns to the right
Nobody in the car would've died that night

But he's 32 and invincible
The cancer he had, it was visceral
He never saw it coming, thought he had his whole life
Sick in the morning, and he died in the night

We're all so
We're on the run
We're all
We're all
We're wasted
We're all wasted
We're wasted
We're all wasted

7 years old, got his bat in his hand
He's looking for his father, and he doesn't understand
'Cause dad's too busy, got some deals on the way
His son sits alone as the children play

And he's 18, he couldn't wait to move out
His parents wonder what all the rush is about
The never bothered with his dreams, only thinking of theirs
Wonders why he doesn't call and why he doesn't care

But he's 32 and invincible
With everything he is based on principle
He never had a truly happy moment in his life
He didn't want the kids, and he didn't want his wife

We're wasted
We're all wasted
We're wasted
We're all wasted
We're wasted
We're all wasted
We're all wasted
We're all wasted

23 now, got his life in his hands
He's looking all around, and he doesn't understand
'Cause life's too busy, things get in the way
We all feel alone every single day

And at 18 I couldn't wait to move out
It's been 5 years, and now I'm starting to doubt
Whether all my dreams are just aimless stares
Looking off to someplace that isn't there

When I'm 32, will I be miserable
With everything around based on principle
Will I have a clue, wouldn't it be nice
To never be alone in this wasted life

We're wasted
We're all wasted
We're wasted
We're all wasted
We're wasted
We're all wasted
We're all wasted
We're all wasted

I'm bored....

This is probably the earliest I've blogged in a very long time, and it just so happens I don't have much to say.

I helped my mom move some of Cody's things down to NWC today. I saw Reiter walking around, Carl with the longest hair and biggest beard ever, but I didn't get a chance to see Anna before I left. On the way home, we stopped in Worthington and I got me some new shoes. Both of my old pairs were getting horrible.

I was randomly looking at the MSN front page, and they had the Princeton Review top 10 lists for colleges. Two Minnesota colleges made it onto three lists. Macalester College (St. Paul) was #3 on the "Politically Active" list, and it made #1 on "Best Quality of Life." St. Olaf (Northfield) also made the "Best Quality of Life" list at #5, and it came in at #8 for "Best Campus Food."

Work tomorrow....not sure what I'm doing Wednesday (maybe swing in Roch?)....work Thursday....maybe MOA on Friday....hopefully I have the weekend off (miraculously) so I can hang out with Nate and Okon and witness the Giesen Draft Day....

The few, the proud....

I am officially one of an elite few Kwik Trip employees. When I walked into work tonight, Velma told me I had a secret shopper recently. My first thought was, "Oh, crap..." but she ended up congratulating me. Turns out I had the first secret shopper score in about a year, which I think says a lot for my ability to learn quickly (seeing as I've only been there 2 months).

Bowling on Thursday was amazingly fun (as usual). There were more great nicknames, but I don't have the ambition or memory to get them all. I'll highlight some of the best:
Mariah -- Dick and Jane
Hannah -- Oblivious, Grandma
Melissa -- Jose Offerman
Okon -- Mad Hops, [the other one was Nate's idea and won't be repeated]
Emily -- Galaxie [named after her ball]

I'm pretty pumped for this upcoming week. As of now, I'll be seeing Anna and Matt on Monday, going to Kato with Tommy someday, and going to MOA with Mariah (I'll keep her away from the shoes) on Friday (because I think I don't work, but the schedule doesn't go as far as I thought).

Since I don't anything interesting left to say (and what I've said already wasn't too interesting), I'll leave now.

What a world, what a life....

If I earned a dollar for each complaint I had daily, today wouldn't be very profitable for me. I can't believe how glorious it turned out to be.

First off, I went to bed way too late (oops), and I had to be up by 9:00. When I did wake up (right on time), I took a little longer than expected getting ready to go to Albert Lea. Still, no complaints. The weather was absolutely gorgeous as I got in my car, so I decided to drive with the windows down (my favorite) and crank up the volume of Anberlin (amazingness). I finally got to Perkins a few minutes after 10:00, and the one and only Levi Budd was standing at the door. We only had to wait a couple minutes for a table (Perkins was extremely busy), and breakfast was great. We were there for a good hour after we finished eating, and eventually the waitress kept asking if we needed anything else (a hint that we should leave because people were waiting for tables). I've never had the chance to just sit and talk with Levi, and even though we just jumped from topic to topic, it was great. Out of all of the people going off to college this year, he is definitely one of the ones I want to keep in touch with the most. He said he's going to try to make it down for the next TEC, and he'll be the first one I call if I'm ever near Northwestern.

I showed up to work at about 2:03, which is technically "late," but the time clock hadn't rolled over to the next 15 minutes yet. Nate stopped in once, and before that I surprised Leah Mortensen when she came in to pay for her gas and realized I worked there (fun fact: she lives on Mortensen Lane....ironic....). It was a good shift at Kwik Trip, minus the guy who got angry over six whole cents [complaint count: 1] and the Comdata card situation [complaint count: 2]. Although, we gave the trucker with the Comdata card some free food for waiting around so long, and he seemed to feel a lot better. He even came back around 10:00 to buy some things [complaint count: 1].

Tonight was the big night of the Perseid meteor shower, and I was pretty excited to see it all go down (there's still some time as I'm writing this until the "peak" time). Sadly, a few clouds have rolled into town and made it pretty tough to see the sky very well. As I hit this point in the paragraph, I checked back with the stars, and they were shining splendidly. I saw about 12 really nice meteors and a bunch of smaller, dimmer ones [complaint count: 0]. Two fairly good ones almost crossed, but both died out and left really nice tails before they got that close.

Today was fantastic, and I wish every day was just as great. Even if I would've ended up with 10,000 complaints I know that there's nothing to dwell on or worry about because there are days like these where everything just seems to fall into place. God is good....all the time....

Is this a joke?

I'm absolutely appalled at the Westboro Baptist church for their actions concerning the bridge collapsing. It's just disgusting; they seriously even have a song? I can't even say anything else about it....

"Yeah? Well, I'm Catholic. I don't want to piss Mel Gibson off."

Today was a pretty good day. I woke up this morning and went to Mankato with my mom to pick my brother's bike and get a few things for school. Then I came home and showered so I could go pick up my good friend Amanda. We had plans to go eat Chinese and maybe catch a movie. We ended up bumming around Wal-Mart after we ate, and I ended up getting some more great music (Michael Bublé anyone?). I made Amanda decide what movie to see, and we ended up going to "I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry" after some narrowing down. It's not hilarious through the whole movie, but there's moments where I had some great laughs. One of the best (that will be appreciated by you folks who read my blog) is the name of the captain of the fire department. I told Nate not to look it up because it would be much funnier for him to hear it in the movie. There's also a lot of quotable moments, but I have trouble with my short-term memory.

I ended up picking up a 2-10 shift tomorrow because a lady couldn't work tonight; I took tomorrow's shift for the guy who took her shift tonight. At least I didn't get stuck with the morning shift tomorrow like I was going to at first.

Council on Thursday....Relay for Life on Friday....good times....

Music make you lose control....

Music has been pretty amazing the last couple weeks for me. Between the random songs at the bowling alley and the jam session in the Frost gym last night, I just feel like taking a day to lay in my bed and do nothing but listen to good music. I won't be doing that until I have a laptop (hopefully soon) so I can have a music cache.

The Rocket Summer
As I said in my blog about the albums I anticipated this summer, I love the latest from The Rocket Summer. It's absolutely amazing, and I decided to pick up a copy (just so happened to be the last copy) at Wal-Mart the other day. Bryce Avary is a freaking mastermind. I am officially dedicating the song "A Song Is Not A Business Plan" to Tim Parrott because it fits in with his trifecta of blog posts about Christian music.

Cartel
Hey, hey, don't pay no mind. We are the second, you're minutes behind. So you say, 'Yeah I'm all right.' You are the fortunate all the time. Yeah, you are the fortunate... Officially 15 more days until the new album! There are no words to explain how excited I am....

Mayday Parade
Mariah asked me tonight if I wanted to go to their show in Iowa on her birthday, and I totally agreed. They're pretty incredible, and their show is with Alesana and As Cities Burn (whose album comes out in just 8 days). I'm excited for it!

Facebook iLike application
I've been randomly addings songs here and there on my list, but the best part of it is the dedications. My plan is to eventually dedicate a song to each one of the people I talk to the most on there.