If you thought I didn't care last semester, this semester will be an impressive bout of apathy. See, here's my thing. I hate school. I want to drop out. But, I have only two more semesters to go, so I have to bite my tongue and just do it. Here's where the trouble comes in. Right now what I want to do is get straight C's and graduate and do something, anything, else. But back in my naive younger days when I signed up for this god forsaken english major, I also succumbed to the honors program. They sent me confetti in the mail, how could I refuse? But the thing is, I'm stuck in it now. I have to not only maintain a certain GPA, but I have to take "honors" classes. What is an honors class, you ask? It's a class much like a normal class, but with more work. In fact, the university I attend offers no honors english classes, so I have to make my own using an "Honors Option" form. What that means is I ask my teacher to give me more work in exchange for calling that class an "honors class." So what? Here's what. Instead of going deeper into subjects or doing mentally interesting and challenging things, I have to write more papers. More work. This is the honors program, and it sucks. When I signed up to the promise of more challenging, rewarding work for my extremely intelligent mind, I didn't realize that meant doing more of the same shit than normal people. And for what? Well, I didn't have to take a lot of shitty 100 level classes. And I got priority registration. But at this point, when I'm completely dissatisfied with the education I'm receiving (reading books and writing papers about them is not an education, it's just busy work), that's not worth it. If I had to do it all over again, I would take those stupid 100 level classes, register with the rest of my class, and coast on my lazy ass through this. Because the amount of love you take is equal to the love you make, according to the Beatles, sages for the ages, and this school is not making any love to me. I have no idea if that makes any sense. It sounded better before I wrote it. What it boils down to is this: I have no interest in this school because this school has not educated me so much as it has made me do more high school like busy work for four years, and I am fucking sick of it. Fuck college.

Anyway... I got my No Idea and Fat CDs the other day, finally, and I have been a much happier person ever since. Not that the above paragraph demonstrates that at all. But here we go: Against Me! is officially the best band ever. Or close. The acoustic EP is great, the DVD is awesome, and I would marry Tom Gable if it wasn't illegal. Gunmoll is also very good. Fifth Hour Hero seem to grow with every release. And on an unrelated note, if you haven't heard my spiel about Heiruspecs, this band will seriously renew your faith in hip hop. They are that good. Music saves the day! Ironically, Saves the Day isn't that good anymore.

Cartoons are excellent. Futurama is excellent. Aqua Teen Hunger Force is excellent. I don't know how people can tell you drugs are bad when they caused the Beatles' later work, and almost certainly caused ATHF. Drugs are good!

I have a new car. It is good. Thank you Dad for helping me, hopefully this one lasts for a while. It's a 2000 Ford Escort ZX2 and it is very fun to drive. Resident Evil 4 is out and I'd go buy it but I can't be spending money right now. Plus I still have to beat Paper Mario, Prince of Persia, and Megaman before I get it. That's my reasoning. But I do get sexually aroused every time I even think of playing it.

I got my new driver's license today. I look high in the picture. I'm pretty sure I smiled, but I think the guy managed to take it right before I did, so I have this stupid half smile on my face. Good stuff. I know their tricks to make you look stupid in your ID picture. The guy says "I'll take the picture on the count of three," and then he takes it at like 2.5, catching you while you're adjusting your face to your picture face. Sneaky.

Brian also posted here today, and his post is very happy and all jolly and other words that mean the same thing. I made delicious brownies. I am a master chef!

Happy new year, everyone. It's late, I know, but since when have Adam or I ever been punctual about, well, anything? I rest my case. I hope you had a good new year and blah blah blah blah blah blah. You've heard it all before, that's nothing new. January's almost over, there's no need for me to go back over that stuff. So it's 2005 now and that's still confusing me. Whenever I have to write the date, I always write "04" at the end, cause I'm dumb. That'll probably trip me up for another month, then maybe I'll get my act together.

Here we go, let's list some of
Brian's New Year's Resolutions

1. Start cooking real food: I'm doing pretty well with this, thus far. I got sick of always making the prepackaged stuff, so it's time I expand my cooking horizons. I'm gonna make the homemade pizza more often and learn how to fix chicken in more ways than just one (barbecue, even though that's really, really good). Not only that, but those vegetable things I hear about might enter the diet more often, too. We'll see.

2. Expand music horizons even more: I'm doing really well with this, thus far. Over break I got into Explosions in the Sky's "The Earth is not a Cold Dead Place" EP, and it is stunning. You really should check that out. Adam also told me about Heiruspecs, and they sound like an awesome hip hop group, so I'll be checking them out as soon as I possibly can. So indie rock instrumental/experimental bands and maybe some good underground hip hop, that's the direction I'd like to go in. Both are two genres I never thought I'd be interested in, but have recently really enjoyed listening to. I think that's all the proof one needs to realize that people do grow, that people do change. So go with it. The worst that can happen is I go back to thinking hip hop and rap suck and that instrumentals are boring. But I don't see how you can't be hooked on Explosions in the Sky after one listen of the song "Your Hand in Mine." Awesome.

3. Stop being so "angsty": I actually gave up on this a while ago, but I figure it's a good trend to continue. It's amazing how your life can turn around when you stop hating everything. Not like I hated everything before, but still. I almost feel less jaded now. I feel happy. This past week has been good. Some amazing things have happened, things I just couldn't have imagined. Could it have been a better week? Sure. It wasn't perfect by any means. But it was good. And if this is what it feels like to be feeling good, then I can't wait to see what feeling great is like. Bring it on.

Forgive me for ending that last sentence with a preposition. See, I'm taking a grammar course this semester. But it's not a normal grammar course, it's a grammar theory course. "What the crap do you learn in that?" you may ask. I'd like to tell you, but I can't. After three class periods I still don't really know where we're going in that class. Just that we won't be diagramming sentences. Not in the traditional way, anyway. Maybe there's some modern way of diagramming that's super complex and even less fun than the old way. The advancements in sentence diagramming technology, let me tell you about it. In a few months from now, that is, when I've maybe possibly gone over it in class.

The WXJM webcast is now up. So you hooligans out there in Colorado can now listen to our shenanigans out here in Virginia. Just look in the profile of WXJM DJ, there's a link. Our show's pretty good. And I don't often say that about things I'm associated with. Or, shall I say, "And I don't often say that about things with which I'm associated." That's a stupid grammar rule.

We got the first snowfall of the winter last week. It was pretty. I like snow when it's not a blizzard, but it still falls steadily. It's a nice payoff for the bitterly cold temperatures we had to endure this whole time. Waking up a 8 in the morning when it's in the teens outside is a real motivator to go to class, that's for sure.

I've been running on 4.5 hours of sleep every day this week. I don't know how much longer I will be able to function like this. The problem is, it's not like the work load is ever going to ease up. Thus presenting a problem. And, seeing as how I naturally have an aversion towards problems, I probably won't try to solve it, I'll just see how far I can go until I break. Which leads me to...

4. Stop making these stupid "breaking point" tests for myself: Pretty self explanatory, I don't think I need to expand on that too much. Although massive amounts of reading that I cram into one night falls under this category, sometimes I really can't help it, there's just too much other shit I've gotta get done, so reading that's due on Wednesday is not my priority until my work for Tuesday is done (which is usually around the early AM of Tuesday). That was an example of a run-on sentence, and I don't care because I use commas when I should use periods, but, you know, whatever, I think sometimes long sentences are good, even if they are a bit wordy and make it difficult for the reader to read. Cool, I'm two for two.

All right, that's four. That's good enough for now. Tonight I plan on sleeping for three times as long as I have each night this week. That sounds like a wonderful plan. But, like I said, even with the lack of sleep, this week has been good. I hope you've had a good week, too. If so, wonderful. If not, I'm sorry. It won't always be like this. Go listen to Explosions in the Sky and let your mind wander. I seriously think that helped me sort things out. I have no idea how, but that's just the power of music. Ok, enough dorky proclamations regarding music. Catch you guys on the flip side. Oh, and I'll leave you with this inauguration day song. Sing loud, sing proud:

I'm so happy we have such stability
secured in the office of our presidency.
Cause those gays they degrade the sacred vows between Mark and Georgie
even more than polygamy, incest, and orgies.

Who cares about the Constitution, that thing is so damn old.
Why, I bet it wouldn't even allow corporate conglomerates - so I'm told.
But I'm content just waving my AK47 down the street
and shouting "girly men!" at all the liberals I meet.

So sing with us now the praises of our bestest president.
Cause we hold these truths to be oh so self evident.

I'm so happy that stem cell research won't be viable,
cause those dead fetuses are just like you and me, and we're liable to protect their lives,
not some dumb foreign nation that's just survived a tsunami attack
with 350 thousand dead -- let's just give them a pat on the back.

Who cares about the environment, that thing is so far gone
that my jetski and SUV can't possibly be harming that swan.
We were right to invade Iraq, even under false pretenses,
cause Saddam Hussein had ties to al Qaeda, it makes perfect sense.

So sing with us now the praises of our bestest president.
Cause we hold these truths to be oh so self evident,
that he's our bestest president,
a c-average student,
our president.