The BEST part of the trip!

It makes some kind of statement that these are the only photos I took of the trip...

Comp Weekend

Well I survived 20 hours of driving... yowza! My ass is still a little sore. I could have let some of the other people take shifts driving, but we took my baby. I'm still not ready to let anyone else drive my baby; that's only happened once, and that was because I was very ill and she got special privileges...

anyways... back to the comp! I'm not so sure we're gonna go back to this one next year. It seemed pretty poorly run, and they were just anal nazis about how things worked. They were generally difficult. For example, they wouldn't let anyone add any events. There were only three couples signed up for 10 dance (only one actually took the floor) and they wouldn't let us add. It wouldn't have made a new heat or anything, but they just wanted to be difficult. They did that to a lot of competitors from all over this weekend. Plus they had the crappy music guy. The guy that did TO this year. I don't like him. He's generally a creepy douche and I really hate how he just fades the music up for the second half of a heat. It's not fair. The other competitors got the first part of the song with the phrasing of the intro, the second half should too; and it takes a little longer to find the phrase if you don't start from the beginning.

I'm pretty happy with our results though. We got 4th in Silver std, placing just behind our closest rival competitors, and 5th in Gold std (our nearby rivals didn't make that final). Then, the second day, we placed 1st in Silver Latin and 2nd in Gold Latin (the couple that beat us in gold also won novice, and we beat the second place couple in novice... I think its time for some open choreography!!!!)

I got to wear my new syllabus latin shirt... I think I looked pretty good in it. I'm a dead sexy beast of a man on the dance floor... I'm just sayin. I ordered another shirt from the same place. This one will be white and for open work... so I better get some open choreo!

One of my irritations is that I messed up paso! I worked really hard on that paso routine and then I got off the phrasing with it. I think we bumped into another couple (they were all standing still cuz they didn't know any paso...) and I tried to get back on. I waited for the highlight and hit it... but I was still four counts early! It was a different song, same counts, but different so it was harder to judge. We still got 3rd in our paso... but that could have gone better and I'm peeved with myself that I let us get off from it.

ML felt really good about our latin, and so did Wayne, but I felt a lot of flaws in my technique, so I really need to start pushing myself. I'm not getting the stretch half of the compression like I need to, and my syncopation in samba is a ltttle off, and my volta action just didn't feel on target at all. I need more speed in my cuban breaks... my chasses need to be tighter, especially my twist chasse... I need to use my core more in my rumba hip action... my arms are horrible... I need to think more about when I want to be quick versus slow and smooth... I need to actually make some jive routine... and then ML and I really need to work on lead follow, connection, and elasticity... and that's just the latin stuff that I know about...

Lots of Work ahead.

Belive it or not!

SO... it was kind of a cool coincidence that I made a post last week about The Greatest American Hero, because that guy was in the season premier of Heroes! In case you didn't recognize him, he was the reporter who cornered Nikki (or whoever she currently is) in the parking garage... he called her an ice queen and then she touched him and he froze and shattered into a million little pieces. Sadly, he died... or did he? She's never had the ability to freeze anyone before. Maybe he froze himself somehow, and he will later put himself together again (the T1000 did it, and Plastic Man can do it).

Wouldn't it be cool if the Greatest American Hero becomes a regular on Heroes?

AHH!!!

I saw this in PetSmart. The expression is priceless ...

Feel free to provide subtitles :)

Fun Day

I had a pretty good day. I slept in for a while, listened to the first half of the football game, watched the second half (where we stomped all over ECU in overtime!) while I ate some honey bbq wings, went to bug fest (where I was surrounded by all things bee), and went to a USA Dance and dinner.

Fun times, but I have to say the most interesting part of my day involved a nose bleed...

I have a rep

So it seems that I have a reputation on the dance team... well I'm sure I have many reputations on the team, but tonight I am specifically talking about my reputation as a "smooth talker." Earlier today I heard that someone had described me as a "smooth talker" and I chuckled a little. I won't try to argue that I'm not a flirt, but I don't know if I can be classified as the team's "smooth talker." I pointed out the couple of other guys on the dance team that also do a lot of flirting and chat up the ladies just as much, if not more than me. My friend agreed with me that there are other flirts on the team, but she pointed out that the key difference is in the 'rate of success'... apparently mine is much higher...

Although many of the people on the team have never even dated anyone, so I'm sure their perspectives are a little skewed.

Belive it or not... It's just me.

I often sing this song when I'm in a good mood, or when I'm in a sullen mood and I want to put myself in a good mood. It makes me feel good cuz it's right in my vocal range, so I can really belt it.

Bonus points if you can tell me what sitcom Andy Gibb often guest stared in, double bonus if you remember he dog's name :)



Then I just found this one cruisin youtube

Girl likes ATTENTION

Hey FRIEND, how you gonna make eyes at me while you're standing right next to your boyfriend? The first time I'm like, Naw... I'm just seein' things; she's not really lookin at ME with those eyes. But the second time... the second time I could feel her eyes piercing me. I raised an eyebrow to say 'I caught you' and she raises hers and cocks her head to reply 'yeah, I'm lookin at you. what you gonna do about it? maybe I wanted to get caught' ... ahh, the non-verbals of a bar.

But she's totally doin it to string me along for attention, and I totally fall into the trap. Women... they can weave a wicked wed indeed.

I once dated a girl who had the ability, with one look, to make my heart beat faster and my blood pressure rise (if you know what I mean). I miss that look... sometimes I even miss the girl ;P That look is definitely a requirement in the woman I end up with.

International House Of Price gouging!

5 pancakes = $5.99

3 pancakes = $5.79 ?!?!?!

WTF Mate?

Blue Grass!

I love going to a blue grass show. I haven't been to one in a while now, but they're always so much fun. I love the acoustic jam style of it and the harmonies of the voices.

A friend of mine told me about these guys about a month ago and I had forgotten about it until they just popped up as one of the 'currently being watched' videos on youtube. They're a little more new age than I'm used to, but I like 'em.

Old Crow Medicine Show


Now these next guys I've seen a couple of times. They always put on a real fun show. Everybody's always just so happy at a bluegrass show!

Chatham County Line

Cuteness overload!

"I swear! I didn't steal anything; I have never seen that bamboo before in my life!"


I'm sure there are better captions, but I'll leave that up to you, my readers. If you want to see even more cuteness follow this link. But beware! You may experience cuteness overload

What am I doing?!

So, WTF?! Right now I'm all sad and downtrodden because of a girl! I'm not really that down, but the point is this girl shouldn't have an affect on me. I didn't even really like this girl. She's kinda cute and one of the few girls around who is in an age range that I don't feel really dirty and swarmy when I hit on her. Seriously, I wasn't really interested in her at all, she's someone nice who I could kill time with. We have all sorts of small world connections, but I doubt we have very many common interests. She often talked about how she was looking for a guy who would be serious and that she couldn't find any college guys that would. That college guys only want one thing, and that's not marriage. Well, I may not be a college guy, but I definitley don't want marriage right now, and I don't think I want 'just one thing'. I'm freakier than that, I'm sure I can come up with at least two or three things to do...

But the thing is, I was just about to totally come clean with this girl and tell her that I am not the guy that's gonna be serious with her right now. I was gonna tell her that I liked hanging out with her, and we could continue to have fun with each other and see where it goes, but that she shouldn't get her hopes up for anything bigtime.

She beat me to it! But she did it in a chickened out way. She just started to ignore me a little. And don't know that as soon as I start to feel ignored (and I lose control of the situation) is when I want to talk to this girl. So I ask her, "When are we gonna hang out again?"

She sort of wrinles her brow and avoids eye contact for a few seconds and says, "Gee... I'm really bad at this..."

I ask "Bad at what?"

"I think that... it might be better if... we do the just be friends thing."

What the hell?! She was really in to me less than a week before, I mean it seemed like she was really really in to me. So in to me that it was a little off-putting (I like to use this word a lot now that I figured out its not off-pudding). So in to me that I thought it necessary to tell her that I'm not the serious guy she's looking for.

She beat me to it...

So now I ask, "What am I doing?!" because I keep talking to her. I keep flirting with her. Now that she doesn't want me I find that I want her. WTF? Am I seriously that messed up in the head that I only want girls who reject me? REally? I am doomed to horrible relationships becasue the only girls I'm happy with are the ones who don't really like me, and the ones who will go to the ends of the earth for me I could care less about. What happened in my developmental years to make me like this.

I don't know if I can, but I'm gonna blame my dad. Even if this isn't his fault he deserves to be at fault for something. In fact... most things that suck in my life I might blame on my dad. Sure, why not.

What part of the brain is responsible for feelings of rejection? Does it get bigger everytime you get rejected, so that every rejection hurts more than the one before it? I wonder...

So yeah, she says that she really likes me and she still chats with me online and talks to me in person a lot, but really what am I doing? Every time I talk with its just a little reminder that I have been and continue to be rejected.

Oh, and in less than a week she's already bounced to another guy... so even though she says she's looking for something serious, it doesn't really look like she's looking for something serious.

All this is going to bite me in the ass. Because, you see, she reads this blog. So, if you made this far to see these last few lines, "Legs", that this blog is a place for me to vent and bitch about things that chap my ass (it says so in the description), and I never said your name so no one know who you are exept the two of us. I really do still like you, and I really do still want to talk to you and hang out with you... and even smack your ass a little... who am I kidding, A LOT! I'm just complaining about my own silly tendencies and I'm a little jealous of the time your spending with the guy who came after me.

The Four F's

So I'm slowly getting through this Physiological Psychology book. Really I'm only reading it for about 30 mins twice a week, and it's pretty dense stuff (for me at least) so I'm only about 90 pages into it. I really like it, this stuff is so interesting. Did you know that if you unfolded the gray matter of the average brain it would stretch out to about 2.5 feet square? Or that your brain is so gelatinous that, without your skull, it wouldn't be able to support its own weight and would likely squish itself all over the place? Neat, huh?

Well, I'm reading along and I get to a section discussing the hypothalamus, a part of the brain that "organizes behaviors related to survival of the species -- the so-called four F's: fighting, feeding, fleeing, and mating."

Mind you, I'm sitting in the quiet reading room of the library when I get to this... I pause and think to myself, 'that's only 3 F's...' Then I, pretty loudly, let out a single "HA!" when I figured it out... F*CKING! I guess the author was a little concerned about dropping the F-bomb in his textbook, or perhaps his publisher didn't like the idea. But really, if you're gonna say "The four F's" then you need four F's. I've seen this before in other books and they do just fine with the word fornicate. Although, maybe the author is having a little fun leaving it ambiguous, this way his readers get to fill in whatever enthymeme they want to, whether it's f*ck, fornicate, or fondle... although I don't fondling can be considered a necessary to the survival of the species.

No Sunkist for you!

What does this even say? "Aot For Odre" ?!?! I guess it's trying to say 'Not For Order' which might be a literal translation for 'Out of Order'? My spanish speaking readers will have to help me out here. How do you say 'Out of Order' in spanish? Does it literally translate to 'Not for Order'?

This is at the I <3 NY Pizza on Hillsborough, go check it out for yourself. They may not be able to write a coherent message, but damn they can make a good slice o' pie. I had Lasagna Pizza today... a departure from my usuall Itallian Chicken glory.

Passed over

Rejection always hurts a little. Regardless of what form it comes in, how much you really cared about it in the first place, or what you're being rejected from. Think back to when you were applying for college. Most people apply to several schools with a few that they really don't want to go to (they apply because their mom likes the school, or some other trivial reason), but then when you got deferred from one of the schools you could care less about you still felt bad. Why doesn't that school want me? Did I write a bad essay? I thought my interview went well; they seemed to like me while I was visiting. But, for some reason, now they don't want me there.

I suppose the nature of rejection is to ask why. Why wasn't I good enough for this job/program/person? Maybe we think that we can learn what to do differently in the future to avoid a similar shunning. And you always scrutinize the next person they interview or hire and wonder, what's that person got that I don't have?

You know it's not a big deal. There are other jobs out there and you've got a couple other interviews set up, but you still feel sad. You invested time in that application process and they're moving on without you so quickly. The fact that they can move on so quickly means they didn't even read your application. They don't even really know you, but they've already made a decision about your 'fit'. Even if you haven't invested much effort into it, it still hurts to be shot down. I get a little upset when friends don't call me back to hang out, much less tell me they'd rather just be acquaintances (... ok, that's a stretch).

I'm pushing myself to learn more about the brain, and I think I want to figure out why we feel heartache or sadness. Emotions are created in our brains and yet, we feel physical manifestations in our bodies. For some reason the emotion of sadness causes the muscles in our chest and throat to tense and create a dull physical pain to accompany our emotional strife. I wonder... did natural selection choose this, or was it simply a byproduct of other selective processes.

Either way, when someone tells you 'you're great, but we want to keep looking' it's never really much fun. If only you had been able to tell them 'I don't really want to accept this position' before they rejected you, you'd feel much better about it... right?

O h w h e r e... is my haircut?

More and more I have been considering cutting my hair and donating it to locks of love. In order to donate you need to give at least 10 inches, so I'd have to give just about all of my hair. That's not really a problem though since I don't really plan on using scissors to cut it; I have a friend who is really good with a pair of electric trimmers. BUZZ!

I will succumb to the typical style of the day; short, slightly messy and gelled. That style looks good on a lot of people, but I'm nervous for how it will look on me. Maybe there's a reason I've only had short hair a few times in my life (probably because I'm too cheap to get haircuts). I've got an oddly shaped head. Although I wonder if it just feels odder than it actually looks. Then there's the fact that I wear glasses. I still don't think glasses look as good with short hair, or at least they stand out a lot more on your face if your hair is short, so you need good lookin glasses. Since I can't afford new glasses, that's another risk.

But man would it make my life easier. No need to dry my hair, no need to really do anything to my hair. Getting ready for comps would be much faster, no more hair shedding everywhere and clogging up my Roomba, no more strangers thinking I'm a chick, no more messing around with my hair when I'm trying to mess around with a girl.

There will definitely be an adjustment. I'll look like every other guy out there... so I don't know how I like that, although people do tend to conform for a reason. I wonder if it will make me look older or younger... I hope neither, I'm happy with how old I look.

No worries, I won't do anything drastic soon. I plan on putting my hair up into a full Mo-Hawk before I cut it off. Perhaps I'll throw a mo-hawk/shaving party soon. I will need many pictures to document the events.

Things must be pretty good...

So yeah, sorry I haven't really posted in a while, but things have been pretty rad for me this week. It seems like I get the urge to post more often when I've got crap that I want to bitch and moan about... I should try to get over that. Although, that's a major part of what this blog is for; an outlet for me to vent. I just haven't really needed to vent about much this week.

Sarah Palin was chosen as the Rep's vice presidential candidate. I can't say I know anything about her. I mentioned her in class today and the response (in my most red class I think) ranged from "I want McCain to die so she can take over" to "She's hot... I'd totally tap that. Even after 5 kids, I'd hit that sideways." Again though, I don't know anything about her excpet her political history in Alaska and that her 17 year old daughter got knocked up. I'm not surprised that everyone can't seem to talk about anything other than the baby mama, but I don't really think its that big a deal. I'm sure it's 'a good story' for today's ignorant celebrety gossip driven American public, but seriously it's not a big deal. I mean, what else is there to do in Alaska but get drunk and screw? Of course teenage girls are gonna get preggers there.

The funniest part about this to me is that all the people who are standing up for Palin, saying that 'this just shows that politicians are regular people too' are the same people who've said something like 'did you hear so and so's daughter went and got herself pregnant? So and so is such a horrible mother, but I'm not too surprised... you know the apple doesn't fall far from the tree' and then so and so doesn't get invited to the church bizaar that year.

Anyways...

This weekend promises to be a pretty good one. It's already started out to be pretty fun. I went shag dancing last night. They had a live band... the lead singer would shout a bunch of unintelligible words between songs, and the keyboard/saxiphone player looked like the little dude from Smokey and Bandit, but the music wasn't too bad. They played more bluesy stuff then beach music, but we still had a really fun time.

The Crowders are in town tonight, so there will be a lesson and dinner. Then a movie afterwards. Then I'm not sure what else, I may hang out with the Nicks tomorrow night. Whatever I do, I think I'm going to enjoy it.

Things are looking up...

Kick Ass Weekend!

This weekend has been pretty darn fan-tab-ulous! It has been jam packed with fun experiences, shared with all sorts of different people. A great reprieve from the depression created by this rainy lonesome week. I won't go into detail of everything that's happened; that would take too long, but I will make a list.

*Babylon AD - terrible Vin Diesel movie, but fun with a group to make fun of it
*Edwards Mill Bar & Grill with the same group
*Reading Neuroscience!
*Flea Market Adventures! - If you're looking for some cast iron topless mermaids, now's your chance!
*Bo Jangles Chicken Biscuit - YUM!
*More Neuroscience!
*DWW Pool Party! - Hot dogs, ka-babs, pool, hot tub, movie, and fun people to share it with!
*Bo Jangles two piece dinner - double yum!
*Even more neuroscience (although I think I've only gotten through about 20 pages total this weekend... so far)
*Mall Ramblings - Didn't find anything, but still a fun trip
*Bicycle Journeys - always fun
*Dr. Horrible's Sing along Blog - I mentioned in my last post, you should totally check it out! Do it, now!
*Farmer's Market Seafood - I ate shrip until I wanted to puke... perfect!
*Farmer's Market - sampled peaches and the first grapes of the season, Nick had never tried one before... also purchased some cacti
*General Hang out time with a buddy

So, I've done a lot of fun stuff. The best part of this weekend is that it's not even over for me yet! I don't have to teach until Wednesday, so I've got another day of weekend! (try not to be too jealous)

Captain Hammer can suck it!

I'm having a totally awesome weekend! I may tell all about it later, but for now... let's talk about Dr. Horrible!!!

This totally made my night last night! If you're a Joss Whedon fan and haven't seen this then you need to. I love the music, I think I need to find the sound track.

Plus its Neil Patrick Harris... kick ass!