Speechless...

Back again and yet it feels as if I never really left. Not literally, just that the past 2 weeks went by a bit too quick. Had a decent visit in Guam again. Didn't do too much. Didn't really want too. 5 days there, and I did almost nothing. Went for a run on one day, did a bit of shopping on another, and even watched a movie sometime in there. Yeah, it doesn't happen often. Got some nice action scenes out of Ultraviolet. I was looking for a bit of ultra violence, and was almost satisfied. Almost. Not enough to make me feel better, but at the same time I'd hate to see something like that. I got much more pleasure out of a music store. Not that the movie wasn't good. Nice action, and decent story. A bit too heavy on the computer generated effects but lots of originality (says my lack of movie experience). No, I was just really pleased with this music store. They had a decent selection. The best part was the had it categorized a bit differently than most. None of this pop/rock crap. They had rock, heavy metal, punk, and pop all sorted out. Now I don't have to wonder if that Nirvana collection is hiding behind Nsync. Then there was the fact that they didn't have 30 copies of Ashley Simpsons newest release. A smaller store with the same selection as a huge store. Very little walking required. The best part? The stores name was Cheapo's Music. Ha. I bought myself a new watch as well. One of those gadgety ones with a gps speed and distance tracker. Very nice. So I tried it out. Turns out I run a bit farther than I thought. And a bit faster. Averaged 8.5 miles an hour (or as my calculator says, about 7 minutes a mile). Of course I reached a little over 10 at one point. The only thing I can think of is when I ran by those cute girls. I was a bit disappointed during my run. There was this beautiful sunset with all kinds of purpley reddish streaks and palm trees. Damn the timing. No camera on me. Ah, but it did make the run that much more pleasant and almost inspiring. I'd hate to see what happens if I got inspired. Only God knows what I'd accomplish. I've recently found that one strong cup of coffee in the morning does wonders for my work ethic. I get the appearance of being motivated. I also quickly despise idleness. Ah yes, I'm much less of an ass, and almost a pleasant person. Almost. Of course my cooperation is much less satisfactory. Impatience coupled with the boost of coffee and my efficiency leads to me taking over or bitching about others work un till it's done by me or my way. Ha, it's always my way, never the high way. In other news, I've never been sure of anything in my life more than I'm sure I want out of Japan, and the Navy. A few more months and I'm out of here. 2 more years and I'm out of the Navy. There's no question about it at all. I saw a depressing commercial the other day. The air force was playing an ozzy song in the back ground. Not only do they have jets flying around, but they've finally topped the Navy's back ground music. Fine, keep the golf courses, and the good looking women, we'll keep... Don't have anything cool. Speaking of music, I forgot to mention what I purchased at this wonderful music store. I got the new Rob Zombie album Educated Horses. The new Atreyu album A Death Grip On Yesterday. And one I haven't seen any where else. Motion City Soundtrack - I Am The Movie. Even better, I didn't have to look under soundtracks. Stupid corporate music stores with managers who know nothing of music. I'm reminded of the issue sony had with a bar code logo. Turns out music store employees swiped the logo which happened to be charge something like 3 bucks. Sadly, we all know who missed the money. The artists. I wish there more stores like this around. Finally got our mail in today. I had 2 packages. The new Soil album True Self. Not as good as I had hoped, but still a good band. I also received my monitor color calibrator. The Pantone Huey. Tried it out, and I think it's the lighting, but now my colors are all washed out. A bit too much gamma maybe. My biggest issue right now is why musicmatch fails to operate correctly. I actually payed for it, and now it works like crap. It won't even update the cd's correctly. I'm managing, but barely. Went and ate at the outback steakhouse in Guam. I always forget how expensive it is there. Good food though. Also had a drink with some jack in it. Man, I've been missing out. I almost forgot the taste. It's been almost a year. Too bad I'm afraid to go out and drink a bit. Bad things have been going down around here. Bad things for no reason. I'm trying to stay out of trouble. I'm not doing that good of a job at that, so I avoid anything potentially trouble causing. I'll live, besides it's only a few more months... I'm done, besides, I need to watch Jarhead before I get a late fee on it. I rented Walk the line, got a late fee, and didn't even get to watch it. I hate late fees.

The long awaited post...

So it's been quite a while since my last post. Over a month. Not my fault. Thats what being in the Navy will do. Someones got to do it though. So here's my tale of the long month underway.

Not too much actually happened. Just the usual underway happenings. Almost. I've been fairly disgruntled lately. Not working much, just lounging around, and in general being an ass. Got my way, and thats all that mattered.

All this was caused by anger. For some reason I've been angry all the time. Ha, good ol' anger. Something I've seen far too much of. I don't really know what causes it. Some say it's my man period. Whatever. Quit bitching and get out of my way. Ha. Lovely isn't it. I can't walk down a hall way without finding something that makes me want to break things. Anything. A face, equipment, personal stuff. It's all fair game. Sadly, when it's my fist against steel, my fist loses. Damn you steel. I'll win someday.

So we hit up Singapore. Here's a tip. Large groups of people are not a good idea for random fun. Too many ideas and too much standing around. Stick to groups of 3 or less. Got to see some crazy contorniotist. Saw lots of cool things. Didn't have my camera around. Great. Ah, but I believe I'll be there again some day. Good food, and great shopping. Got me a nice Tamron 90mm macro lens. Only 450us. Can't beat that. Took a large amount of pictures. Posted some of my favorites. Check them out here. So yeah, thats about it from singapore. My memory isn't operating right anymore.

We stop by Thailand. Good fun there as well. Took some pictures. Lots of cheap stuff. Spending money left and right. Seems like I had a printing press in my wallet. I couldn't spend enough bhat. My pockets were on fire, and yet always full. Odd, but fun. I didn't get many souveniers. Sorry to all you expecting them. I believe I'll be there again someday as well. Got a good tan. 30 minutes in a speed boat. hour long bus ride. Nice beach area. Went to Pattaya beach. Lots of old guys around though.

And now were back on the boat again. Heading home. Stopped in Okinawa. What do you know? Another visit where I couldn't leave the pier. Awesome. Some day... Heading back some more. It's getting nice and cold again. Cloudy, rainy, and you can see your breath. I'm loving it. Still working on the good Japan photos. Hopefully won't be too much longer.

Of course, I've got to be up in the day during the weekends. I've been up for over 24 hours now, and I don't know why. Just me being crazy. Most of that time has been getting back in touch with all the real people wherever these little bits of data are headed. Took far too long. Thats the bad part of being underway. I'll live though.

A nice side story. I was writing a long and detailed e-mail with stories and all the stuff that makes an e-mail great. My co-workers see this huge e-mail. They thought I was writing a novel. So now my attention to detail leads to novels. Aweseome. Way to go details. Oh, and you guys are assholes.

I'm off to get some food that's actually edible. Breakfast that consists of more than grease strips (supposedly bacon), badly cooked rice, wooden hashbrowns, and the daily variety of eggs. So what do I get? An egg mc muffin. Ha

Snow...

I've seen my first real snow storm in over 2 years. That’s how often it snows in Japan. It happens, but rarely. I actually enjoy the snow. It's nice and cold, and has this silencing effect on everything. Especially when it's nice and deep. Sadly, it never got deep here. It didn't even stick. Just left the slippery slushy muck you get from melted snow. Several inches of slush is not a good thing at all. It's slippery, and there's this constant fear of busting my ass. Good thing I'm well versed in snow walking tactics. I finally got my pair of glasses today as well. I haven't worn glasses in a long time. Decided to give my eyes a bit of a break from my bad contact lens wearing habits. Taking some time to adjust to the difference. Everything has this slight fisheye look to it. I can see little reflections at the sides. There's dirt, water, and now snow to deal with getting stuck on the lens. Plus I finally look a bit more studious. Matches my character better. I've finally started thinking about what I'm going to do when I get out of the navy. Only a few years left. A few years seems like a long time, but then again, so did 4... College seems imminent. I'm not too sure what I really want to do yet. Way too many possibilities. I do know that I need to brush up a bit on all the basic subjects. The navy doesn't exactly promote proper writing or speaking for that matter. So while I'm looking into the future, it's still unclear, like staring into the snowy static from bad tv reception. There is a good chance that I'll end up in an electrical field. Mostly because I enjoy working with circuits, and mostly because that’s all I've been doing the past 4 years. So what do you get when you add two mostly’s together? A full reason? Not quite. I'm still working it out, but I'll more than likely impulsively make some un-thought out decision. Ah, but it happens. Just as I'm sure it'll all be alright in the end.

Try number 2...

This is the second attempt at this blog. The first one fell victim to an overly frustrated me caused by a horde of EQ players slaughtering the bandwidth of one stressed wireless router. I thought it was going to rain, but luckily it didn't. It was kinda misting when I came over here this morning though. Not that big of a deal, it's only a few minutes away. I found out about this "world" tour with Korn and Mudvayne. I say "world" tour because it should be more appropriately named North American tour. Got my hopes up for nothing. Scanning the list of locations for a possible over seas venue, and I see nothing farther than Canada. Ah, well I shall live. I also went and bought an album by "Morningwood". I had to just for principles. Turns out there's a few good songs on the album. I'm still the owner of morningwood. Listening to this album on an 'old fashioned' cd player reminded me why I put down 200$ for a pair of ear buds. I'm also reminded why I buy cd's. Of course, this huge cd player barely fit in my pants which takes me back to another good point. I now have a purpose for extremely baggy pants. You can carry all sorts of good stuff in large loose pockets. Like an 80's style cell phone, and a cd player with several albums. How about a cassette player? Good thing technology came along and shrunk things that are meant to be small, and enlarged things that need to be bigger. We still need to do something about the size of cd's. Maybe make a portable dvd player with no screen specialized for playing custom music dvd's. I could then enjoy several high quality loss free albums on one disc. Until then, I'll live with lower quality mp3's. I also need a cell phone. Not just any phone, but one with free international calling. Ha, something else not quite available. Until that happens, I'm stuck using payphones, and calling out side of work hours. Not an easy task, but it's manageable. With allot of patience.

Stupid rain...

Not really sure if this should be in a new post or not, but I'm not in the mood to care right now. I finally see a break in the rain. Thought I could make it all the way to the store. Nope. Only got halfway there, and it started raining again. Not too bad. Just enough to get me agitated. Pants only got a bit damp, and didn't start sticking yet. Sticky pants are bad... I'm having a good time looking at stuff, and browsing cd's. Bought a new psp game. Arcade style pinball game. Got all the classics in it. Not a bad game at all. Pinball is awesome. I purchase my items, and start to head out. It had started to rain pretty hard. I'm pretty much pissed before I walk out side. Normal people would have bought an umbrella. I happen to dislike umbrellas. I'm fine with my hair, and head getting wet. Even my shirt and jacket. Just the pants and shoes. Umbrellas only add to the wetness down there. All the rain runs off and falls right on your legs and shoes. So here I am power walking a 15 minute trek in stupidly hard rain. I enjoy the rain on my face, and the feel of it running down in little drops. Leaving the odd feeling trail behind. Sadly, I might as well have been walking in knee deep water. Had I had huge plastic bags, I would have worn them and been quite content. But nope. Now I have overly wet pants and soaked shoes. I've got a week of drying these shoes properly to fight odor, and swamp foot. Yes, I went there, it's not cool, but it's part of life. I have a change of pants in my locker, but I can't just stuff my wet ones in there. I'd have some crazy monster moss growing on them by the morning. Mad crazy monster moss. It'd probably even talk to me... So here I am, wearing cold, wet, sticky, and heavy pants just to properly dry them. I should have never left the building. The good side to this? I got a new video game with plenty of pinball machines, and you get to see a wet me. Ha, stupid rain.

Bad weather...

Not much to say here. Just got off the boat for once in like 5 days. It's only 1, but it looks more like 5 or 6. All cloudy, and rainy. Just bad weather. It's raining, but cold enough for snow or hail. I hate the rain, especially cold rain. It takes too long to evaporate. Thats more time for the wet pants to irritate me. Ah, but it's all good. I'm in a nice dry building. Had several nice surprises today, and a good day over all so far. I'm thinking of buying a new mp3 player. Yeah, it's mainly for running, but will probably end up as my main player. I like the 3 minute charge ability on it. Besides, it's a sony. I'm also in need of a haircut. Somehow I don't see it happening this week, or next week either. Too bad I'm in the military. I'd have some great hair. Definately some rocking hair. But enough of that. I've been severely addicted to Thirty Seconds to Mars lately. Just a great band, and I can't get their songs out of my head. Particurlarly The Fantasy, and Was it A Dream. Thats about all I have for now. Seems like I've been typing for days now. Thousands of words typed today, all from a huge back log created by 4 days of absence. Man, I've got find a way around that. Don't be afraid to send a letter though. I need the practice. My typing's been lacking lately. And right now, I'm gonna take off. Don't even feel like spell checking. Maybe later...

A bit of some thing different...

I started a new blog at http://somethingcyborg.blogspot.com. This one is a bit of a side project, and mainly deals with short stories that come up to me throughout the day. Actually more of a day dream, but whatever... Those of you knowing me in person, feel free to spread the news. I'm a bit isolated at the moment...

Woah...

Yeah, it's been along time since I've last written here. I'm sure many of you are wondering why. The truth is I wonder that as well. I've had plenty to write about, had the motivation, and even had a few typed out, but never did hit the publish button. Now your stuck reading my ranting and raving over many weeks and occupancies. This is quite lengthy, so get yourself a snack, and a nice beverage of your choice. First off, I'd like to that all of you who made my last visit a great time. Sorry I couldn't spend more time with some of you, and that I didn't even get to see a few of you, but with only 9 days, what can you do? I've also added a photo gallery here so thats where all my visionary shots end up. I've gotten a new lens as well, and I'm still learning to use it. It's a decent light lens. Definitely good for learning on, and thats what I'm doing. I've got a 70 to 300mm lens. Thats like a 10x optical zoom on a 35mm camera. Lets see... Had a few good conversations about my favorite subject, and it's almost a cliche, but I never end a good chat without mentioning music. In this particular incident, it was proven to me that I don't like certain bands, and I don't have any good reason for it. Well, I'm giving these a chance. Not only that, but I read a few interviews about them, that well... helps me relate a bit. It's funny how occupancies like coincidences always pop up at the oddest times. But fear not, for I've seen the light, and heard the light and now these great musicians have place on my ipod... I also was shown that there's one out there who hates ipod's more than I do. Burns me it does. I almost want to buy a new mp3 player just to rid myself of this ipod. So now that I feel petty, and cliche, I'll have to jokingly call this person a jerk. I think you know who I'm talking about... Still, you need to hear more of the amazing bands unknown to the public I have stumbled across. I think you should all listen to a band called "The Explosion" and particularly the song "Here I am" from the "Black Album". The entire album is great, but that one song is on a different level of being great. This just goes to make me realize that I still like punk rock more than anything. Of course I feel the ridiculous levels of categorization of the music industry is out of hand. Punk is punk, and rock is rock. No such thing as post emo industrial, or progressive rap metal. Just keep it simple. No one really cares if a new genre is created. Besides, who can keep up with all that? Just an irritation. And the irritations start already. Not even in japan for 1 day before I get my nerves rattled over some simple things. Some of it's just being in the navy, the other is being in japan. My mind is made up that I don't want to be out here any more. 2 weeks ago I wasn't even wanting to visit, let alone change areas. There's only so far ridiculously fast internet and incredible technology can take one. Even for me, I've had enough. I think thats been part of my problem lately, I don't really enjoy it here anymore. It's even possible that I've been lying to myself, and everyone else about my time here the entire time. Maybe not the entire time, but for the first year or two it wasn't bad. Maybe it's just my new command thats making this place unenjoyable. I don't know, and I don't care. I just want to be somewhere else. Another odd coincidence, one of those bands I didn't give a chance just so happens to have a great song. You should all check out "Mercy Me" by "Alkaline Trio" off the "Crimson" album. While I was having the time of many years, I visited a college community. Me never really diving into the depths of one of these communities found this to be most amazing. Of all the places I've seen and been, a college community has more potential for pleasing any one. It's all low budget, and sometimes ghetto, but all that is made up for by the simple fact that creativity is free roaming, and everything is fair game for anything. You can just feel it reaching out and grabbing you. Almost makes me regret becoming institutionalized in military ways. If my logic allowed it, I'd regret many things, but there's no reason for it, the past is the past, and can't be changed. The best option is to take responsibility, and make the best lemonade you can. I almost wonder where I'd be if I hadn't been so lazy. Never even applied to a single college. A bit off subject, but thats the way I think. Always in circles, with each thought re-in forcing the last. Now that a bit of ranting is done with, back to more current issues. I felt sick for the first time in months on the plane ride. Almost like sea sickness, but no, I think it was nerves. The vomit bag was looking real inviting for a few moments. Scared me for a few minutes as well. I can't be vomiting on a plane, especially on a ride as smooth as that. It's not even like I've had a history of it. I've had more take offs and landings than I can count. More turbulence than should be safe as well. Yet this smooth calm flight had me queasy. I hate that feeling and I hate the mystery behind the sudden onset of such for no reason. I hate finding myself stuck in a mystery, especially when the answer can't be googled. Damn you google, let me down this time. I'm sure it wasn't lack of sleep. I only had 2 hours the night before, but mid nap I woke up for no reason and felt like I'd been spinning for hours. I made it through the flight without further problems. At my layover, I couldn't even finish a small meal which added to the nervousness. I had a 16 hour flight coming up, and I still had yet to find the problem. By the time I had boarded the final leg of my trip, I had gotten over my wave of nausea. Probably the fact that there was no turning back now. No more thinking of ways to avoid the inevitable. Now I've got another problem on my hands. Work. I don't want to start, and I don't want to deal with the politics of the military. I think the college carefree lifestyle got a hold on me, and is dragging me back. But fear not, in only 2 and a half years, I may go that path. Moving on with no transition, the town I grew up in is still oddly the same. Maybe not oddly, more like predictably. Well, almost the same. The night life was dead. More so than any time I can remember. There's the addition of a decent coffee shop, and that's that. Nothing more, same town, new faces. Watched The Chronicles Of Narnia in the old and antiqued theatre. Good movie though. I also watched Ghost World and found it to be a great movie as well. I thank those that I watched these great movies with because without you, I would have stayed home, and missed out. There's no fun in watching a movie by yourself. I think that should just about cover anything I feel belongs on the public memo boards also known as a blog. Hopefully I won't have to write anything so amazingly gigantic, and spread the plethora of ideas and thoughts over many posts. I hope you enjoyed this in depth view into my thought out world...

One more toy

I just bought a new camera. So far I'm pleased, but I haven't gotten to try it out much yet. Probably should have gone with a slightly less expensive model, but I didn't and there's no telling why. I got the Nikon D50. The worst part about this camera is that it's got these cool sounding options and settings and I don't quite understand how they affect the resulting photograph. Some of it I probably won't use. It's got some way cool focusing effects, but I don't really see myself doing much with that. It also requires the use of a lens, which makes it impossible to do any thing stealthy. But that's the price you pay for high quality imaging with lots of options. So hopefully I'll keep my word, and finally provide some nice images for you all to look at. Oh yeah, as for my phone call, well it failed. I got up a bit late, but not that it matterd much today. This person happened to be out of town. I'm over it, and I'm sure they're over it. If not, too bad. Nothing going to change the fact that we can't quite connect. Oh yeah, almost forgot. I realized today that I seem to like cold weather. 45 degrees and no jacket. Just cold enough to begin to see the whisps of breath. Nothing more brutal than cold weather, and coupled with wind, it cuts right to bone with ease. Leaving you with the nice imagary of a wind searing skin off leaving only the bleached white bone, I'm off to go take some nice night scenery photos.

Your favorite explicative here

This blog has the potential to be voluminous, so I'm breaking my usual style of posting in short lines, and losing some of my style for more style else where. I started off writing a blog in the same name, and ended up complaining about things a bit too much. The abridged version of it is: I hate people who choose to be stupid, I hate people who whine, I hate people who never see the fault on their end, I hate people who fail to see the green grass on their side of the fence, I hate people who think work is time to whatever they want and then complain about being tasked, I hate people who complain, and fail to make a stand against what their complaining about. Okay, maybe not hate, it just irritates me to no end. If you want to make me an ass, I just gave you specific directions on what should be done. And that's where I left off. I like to think I'm nice, but sometimes, I'm not so sure. A perfect example: a guy in our shop is "already" (note the emphasis) listening to Christmas music. I tolerate it only because if I want to listen to my music, I have to be tolerant as they're tolerant to me. A good song - System Of A Down - Kill Rock N Roll from the new Hypnotize album. The reason I hate Christmas music? I dislike Christmas in general. It all seems so fake. Christmas always seems like a time for fake smiles, and many many happy holidays to people not normally cared for or even spoken to. How about the ritual of exchanging gifts? As much as I love free stuff, (who doesn't) and time off (I'm all about time off), it seems everyone tries to out do everyone on the gift giving. Vacation during the holidays? Expensive transportation and mad travelers. No thanks. How about gift shopping? All the cool stuff comes out in the last few weeks of shopping. What do you get? Rioting over a faulty (new link) Xbox 360. Rumor has it that microsoft purposefully under produced the unit to build hype and make the high price seem more just. Read the report here and make up your own mind. I'm sure we all remember the furby craze and tickle me elmo fights. What about the cabbage patch kids doll napping? And the final straw that makes me dislike Christmas is that everyone tells me to cheer up, it's Christmas. I don't walk around with a smile on my face 24 hours a day, and neither do you. If you want me to smile, tell a joke. You want me to be cheerful, be a pal and keep it to yourself. It'll make both our lives easier. Your feelings won't be hurt from lack of cheer, and I won't get irritated by being forced to make a fake attempt at being cheerful. Here's a great comic of how I feel about the over cheer full ness of Christmas. Before you all go thinking I'm always negative, I like to refer to myself as bipolar. So now for the euphoric side. I finally purchased some cold weather running gear. Sorry, I don't have a link for it. Just know it was all Adidas. I went running in the nice brisk 45 degree weather, and felt just right. I even match. I felt like the full 150 bucks I spent on it. For some reason I felt sleepy all day every day underway, and spent most of my time sleeping. Today, I get 4 hours of sleep, I went for a hard run, it's been 24 hours, and I feel great. Not a good thing because I have to make some calls tomorrow, and I have to get up early for the right time. You know who you are... At least I enjoy the night. Something about the Darkness. (the band has a new album out. Has more of an 80's hair metal feel to it) There's also something about the solitude. Only the crazies come out at night. Just me and my music. Almost forgot, for those of you wondering why I disappeared, there's a new policy out for work, and they blocked all the cool sites on the internet. Someone decided the cool things were counter-productive. Guess what? They were right. Instead of playing on the internet, I read a good book. It's Just Another Soldier. A book is the paper version of the internet. Heavy, can be used as a weapon, but the search function sucks. I'm sure of you won't like it, but I found the military humor in it great, plus it was a reminder that all branches are the same. A good example in civilian terms, duct tape and bailing wire can fix anything. Got our last advancement results back. Still didn't get advanced. Give me another year, and maybe... At least I'm studying this time. Who got the first heart attack? I hate leaving on the depressing subject of heart attacks. I just got my good ending. Since were on health now, and I love coffee, here's my last link for the day. Hopefully it's more true than the eggs are bad/good debate...