I HATE ANTS! Stupid ants, don't they have better places to look for food than my bathroom of all places!!? Jeez. Crazy mofos they are. BUt I've found that some windex sprayed from wherever they're entering from does the trick. They don't seem to like windex. Lucky me. Plus, my mom doesn't like that Raid stuff (or similar) because she says it might be harmful to people too. So windex it is. Damn ants. They caused me to not post anything of value tonight, so I'm going to take a shower after a trip to the beach today. If I feel up to it, I'll post more in a few minutes. F#@%'in ANTS!

Things I Like #20: Items that have dual-purposes not originally intended. Like the windex in stopping ants. Or heavy objects as paper weights. Or stuffed animals as pillows. I'm sure you can think of plenty more.

Crooked I f/ Sisqo - So Damn Hood This song r0x0rz!

Well I was sort of looking through online websites of job listings and I realized that all of the jobs in the entertainment industry that have anything to do with "interships" are just a way for the respective entertainment companies to get cheap labor, but instead of it being cheap, its free. Sure, they claim that by participating in this basically volunteer work that they will get "valuable, priceless" experience and while this may be true, to me, it seems like a bunch of bull. But I guess if I ever go out for something like that, I will change my tune and be like "What're you talking about!? This job provides me with unmeasureable amounts of experience." BLAH. Anyways, for some reason, tonight I have a renewed sense of urgency to find a job. I'm not sure why, its not as though anything has changed since last week except maybe the passing of time. Perhaps it is that passing of time which makes me feel that sense of urgency. But whatever it is, hopefully this week will be more productive than last, although now that I'm out of that "must find a job trance" of a just a few moments ago, I am feeling more realistic and thinking ahead, knowing that I probably won't find any job.

Lately I've realized that whenever I watch Dodgers games that I think in terms of sports headlines. Like if the Dodgers get a couple of runners of base but don't get them home and they do this a lot, I'll start thinking about how the newspapers will write it up, saying things like "The Dodgers had many chances to cash in big for a jackpot but like a losing $1 Lotto Scratcher ticket, you've always got 2 of the 3 needed to match up." Or some other stupid line. Those are rare instances when I can think up creative correlations between baseball and real-life, more often I'll just end up with headlines like this: "After a poor outing during the Padres last visit, and a poor start this time out, in the 5th inning, the Dodgers finally got to Brian Lawrence with Shawn Green taking him deep on a fastball that hung out over the plate." And often I'll think ahead. If the Dodgers are losing I'll think about how the next game's headline or whatever will have to do with the game that I am currently watching. I'm not sure if I should find this mental trend of mine disturbing in the sense that my mind wanders and that I'm overly optimistic or if I should find it encouraging in the sense that I have a future in newspaper writing, or headlines at least and that being positive is always good for mental health.

Whats even weirder is that I've started finding myself thinking about my own life in this way. Certainly my life won't be making any headlines in any newspaper but I find thinking things like: "Today I woke up at 11:00AM much like the last few days and after a string of disappointing days, I've finally broken out of my slump and had a memorable day." Or something like that. That isn't an exact quote and I sort of paraphrased my own mind's internal monologue, but whatever. Its just one of those cases of I'm thinking faster than I can talk, or type, in this case. In fact, it isn't really like a newspaper headline or article more like I'm just reasoning with myself, I'm not quite sure I know how to explain it yet. Another examplantion of it would be like I'm thinking about my life in terms of a movie of my own life. Thats certainly a better description. I'll think about how I would write a certain event (or lackof) into a movie of my life and how it would be portrayed. But unlike the baseball situation in which I'm unsure as to how to feel about it, good or bad, I'm pretty secure that this screenwriting of my life by my mind's internal monologue is negatively affecting me. Why you ask? (Or at least feign interest and meekly mutter "Why do you think this?) Well, heres how I figure it. The only reason that I would need to do this for my life is because there is just so much nothing going on in my life that in order to fill my boredom I must create my own movie. Or maybe I'll become some sort of movie director some day. But more likely than not its the first idea.

Things I Like #19: Bonus items. Allow me to explain what I mean by this. When you go buy cereal, usually people already know which they want to buy right? Or at least its between a few choices. Well, I usually eat Corn Flakes, Special K, sometimes I like Shredded Wheat, Bite-Size, not those giant blocks of shredded wheat. I usually like those because thats what I was raised on and its more of a aquired taste than anything I guess. At any rate, I'm going to buy one of those at the supermarket anyways, so when there is some sort of promotional item in the box, like a free phone card, or maybe some other manner of freebie, that just makes my day. Its like an extra surprise that you don't expect but are always glad to get. Thats what I mean by bonus items, for a lack of a better description. Hope that makes sense, it does to me.

Eminem - My Dad's Gone Crazy

Got my license, finally, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. Heh. I did only have six errors and the testing lady actually told me that I drove too slow! She said something to the effect of "Its a nice day for driving, no reason to drive under the speed limit." Well duh, but since you're in the car, I don't think I'll be trying too hard to keep even near the limit. Crazy lady. But she was nice. At any rate, all day today I was feeling very bored. But not just the bored where you sit around and do nothing, more like a combination of useless and bored. Hopefully I won't feel that way again any time soon.

Things I Like #18: The "Last Channel" button on television remotes, very useful.

The Temptations - My Girl

Whoa, I just realized how fast time has passed. I was over at Yahoo! Fantasy Sports and I was signing up for Fantasy Football and I when I was registering for a live draft date I noticed that in a week its going to be July 25 and in 2 more weeks its going to be August. Jeez. Time passes fast. This means that I've been home for 1 month now. And in another month I'll be 19 years old. Or perhaps, 19 years young. Glass half full, glass half empty blah. Time passes much too fast. Heh, another one of those moments when I realize that life is precious, or however that goes. *Sigh*

I still have no dog. I'm waiting for a perfect one, or at least a very good one. I mean I'd love to adopt just any dog, but i figure if the dog will be with me for the next 10 years (hopefully) then I should try to be compatible with it.

Speaking of time passing quickly. My summer is probably one of the most wasteful time that I can have. No class any more or anything. No job. Nada. Zilch. Zero. Sure, I'm reading, but thats hardly an excuse for an unproductive summer. If anybody knows of any charitable organizations that would like my volunteer services, let me know. I'm down to volunteering. I realize that theres nothing wrong with volunteering, but I started with such high expectations of myself. Oh well, I guess thats what I get for aiming high with no serious action besides last ditch efforts, oh well.

My mom, and dad a few times, has been suggesting to me that I go somewhere, as in travel, before the summer is out to make it productive. They keep telling me that these are great times to travel and stuff. I was thinking about going to Washington DC because I read in the LA Times about this new museum thats opening called the International Spy Museum and it seems really cool. It opens this Friday, so I would love to check that out. And of course theres other tourist attractions like The White House so that'd be cool to check out. But my parents tell me that its too hot to goto in August, but I wouldn't really mind all that much. I mean NYC heat didn't kill me last summer. So if anybody wants to go with me to DC!!! Huh? Yeah? No, seriously, I'd really like to go with somebody. Heh, probably not, eh? My mom also suggests I go to Japan and Taiwan to visit relatives and because Japan is an interesting country and stuff like that. And that brings me to another point I have.

I feel bad about spending my parents' money now. I'm not sure why though. I used to readily accept their cash offers and use them without consequence, but now, whenever they offer me money, I feel really bad about taking it and often don't. I guess thats me getting more responsible and getting OLDER (none of that 19 years "young" bullcrappy). But its kind of more than that, but I'll have to think through that later I guess. Sleep calls me.

Things I Like #17: Chocolate Milk. Not to say that I don't like regular ol' milk too, because you need that stuff for MMM MMM Cereal, cookie dipping and other great things, but I also happen to love chocolate milk too.

The Beatles - Let It Be

That was pretty amazing. My grandma was talking about how hot it was going to be tonight and I heard the pitter-patter of raindrops outside my window. Okay, so that isn't amazing but I think its pretty cool. And I do like the rain. But its stopped now anyways.

No longer will I be going to Cerritos College because of circumstances beyond my control. The class had too many people and the teacher wasn't very accomodating so I didn't feel sticking around hoping for somebody to drop out was the right choice since my spot was neither guaranteed, nor was paying $60+ for materials my idea of money well spent. So instead, I think I'll go find myself a nice volunteer job somewhere so my time will be put to good use since nobody wants to hire me for a paying job as it is and I'm not poor or desperate enough to work fast food neither. Somebody's gotta want my volunteer skills, right?..... right?

Hey! It started to drizzle now and a nice breeze is blowing! Sweetness!

This morning when I woke up, the sun was out, and it was rather nice. I got up and was on my way to school to check out the art class one last time but on my way there I decided otherwise. I instead made a stop at Barnes & Noble instead. In a further effort to make productive use of my summertime, I've decided to take up serious reading. After browsing the bookstore for nearly 3 hours and reading magazines most of the time, I decided to pick up a book to read. Thats something that I sort of like. A lot of people like to check out books from the library and what not, but not me, I like owning the books I read (besides schoolbooks) because I guess I like to show off and say "Hey look at me, I've read all these books, woohoo for me!" Something along those lines. Anyhoo, I picked up The Shipping News by Annie Proulx. I didn't really know anything about this book, but it was made into a movie with Kevin Spacey and he's always cool, and the book won the Pulitzer, so it can't be all that bad. I started to read it on my way home on the bus and the story isn't exactly enthralling like some murder mystery or what not, but the style of writing is most interesting, to me anyways. I can definately forsee this book helping me, as far as using adjectives, similies and metaphors goes anyways.

The rain has stopped again.

Things I Like #16: Subscribing to the idea that my "Magic 8 Ball" (which is actually a "76" ball from Unical 76 gas station) has some sort of bearing on my future.

Headboard - See You Around

Ugh. Tomorrow, well technically today, I've got to wake up early for Cerritos College classes. Well, actually, just one class, and its only art, Freehand Drawing, but still! I must sleep and wake up early! No more sleeping at three, four AM now. Sigh, oh well. Its only for 8 weeks anyways, it can't be that bad. After re-reading my last post, I realized what I've been neglecting to write. So here are some things about what I've been doing/thinking/whatever.

The last two weeks, I've been trying to adopt a dog. I've been going to SPCALA in Long Beach (next to El Dorado Park) and looking at the dogs that are available for adoption. I've been there 5 times now. The first two times I was there, I saw one dog that was the best dog! Basically what happens there is they're all in their own cages (although I hesistate to use that word because they aren't like small cages that are dirty, in fact, this place was very well kept and the pets all have water, food and everything. I can't say they're absolutely happy, but they certainly could be worse off) and what happens is you go around to the different cages to look and if you want to see a dog closer, they take them outside into these big open, fenced areas and you can play with him/her for a while. Anyways, the best dog I've seen there was this one Husky. I can't say I remember its name, but it was black and white, more black than white and his eyes were different colors! I know, it might sound a bit weird, but it was really interesting. And my mom, who has to pass judgement on every dog, usually just saying "He looks dumb" or "He looks jittery" said he was very smart, so even my mother agreed. At any rate, this Husky was too big and alas, I was unable to adopt him. But on the upside, the next time I went there, he was already adopted and hopefully he went to a good home. As far as other dogs go, theres a giant Chow whose name is "Bear" and well, he's big, quiet and I like him lots too. Too bad my apartment in the fall will only allow small dogs and common sense would dictate that a dog living in an apartment shouldn't have long hair unless i like vacuuming, which I certainly don't.

In other news, I haven't done much else this summer. Saw Men In Black II and it wasn't as good as the first. It was good however. Not much else to say about that.

Lately, with my odd sleeping habits, I've been finding it harder and harder to fall asleep. Once, about two weeks ago, I was going to go out the next day around 11AM and I figured, okay, I'll goto sleep earlier. I got into bed around 4:00AM (this isn't particularly early, but it was good enough at the time, so I thought) and i couldn't fall asleep and at 4:30AM I got up to watch a World Cup match, US beating Mexico, and then at 6:30, I went back to sleep, or bed rather, but then I just lied there. I watched the sky outside my window get brighter and brighter until the sun was shining at around 7:00 and I still wasn't asleep. I'm not sure what time I fell asleep, but it was before 8:00AM. I don't know why I've been having these problems. In college I could fall asleep within 5 mintues of hitting the pillow, more or less, but at home, I guess I'm just not exhausted enough to stop thinking and just fall asleep because often I'll just lie in bed thinking "I'm never going to fall asleep, when am I going to fall asleep, if I keep thinking about falling asleep, I'll never fall asleep." But I'm sure in the future I'll wish I only had to deal with odd sleep patterns rather than whatever is in store for me so I guess I should cherish this sleeplessness while I still can. Ha.

Jeez, I really need that notepad I've been talking about getting, but I just haven't been able to find one that I've been pleased or consistent with. I just don't have the mindset to write down everything, although I wish I could. Maybe if I just had better memory. Oh well, since school is starting, I'll carry my backpack with me everywhere so I'll have paper in there. Perhaps then, I will have more to write.

Things I Like #15: Filesharing. Sure, people say it promotes piracy, blah blah. If it weren't for filesharing, I wouldn't have heard of a lot of bands that I love now and I wouldn't support them! So in conclusion, I like filesharing, MP3's for everyone!

Lenny Kravitz - Stillness of Heart