Four-Ninety-Eight

Oh man is it good to be back.

My laptop keyboard came in the mail yesterday, and I installed it today. I can finally put myself on the road and get more work done, something that I've been lacking thus far this semester. The new keyboard is tight, coarse, and firm... a stark comparison to the old, greasy, and busted keyboard I used. Next up: a new power-adapter that will make my mobile workstation complete. I'll be home a lot less from now on :-)

Time for a hit list!

• I've finally settled on a new short story concept for my next writing project. If "I'd Rather Buy a Gallon of Gas" was a test of scene and story flow, then my next work, tentatively titled "Woodpecker" will be my love story. It'll be fairly interesting. Stay tuned.

• I did get my vacation from work! I can't wait. MiniBash will be a freaking blast. I'm looking forward to spending quite a bit of time relaxing on my own, writing, and reflecting on my recent past.

• Despite a rather stressful two weeks socially, and despite all problems being resolved, a part of me still seems hesitant to trust my own feelings. It is as if attachment is more of a dangerous thing than a good thing. Anyone else ever get that notion?

Ah, yes, I feel like playing video games. Woot!

Anywho, my next top five list.

My Top Five Favorite Places to Escape

1) The Towpath Bike trail
2) Hyrule, circa 1998
3) Roche de Boeuf island on the Maumee River
4) Grounds For Thought
5) My backyard

Four-Ninety-Seven

Distractions are always around the corner for me. Amidst an insanely-busy school semester, I'm finding myself drawn to old favorites: from games to music to activities, I spend a lot of my time discovering what has worked for me in the past instead of what I think should work for me now. Take games for example: "Rune Factory" is currently my favorite game (insanely deep and easy to get lost in), but it takes a huge time commitment to make progress in it. In order to satisfy my gaming itch, I've found short, easy-to-control spurts of "Day of Defeat" and "Day of Defeat: Source" much easier to handle, and quite satisfying after a long day at school.

On the music side, because of events in the past week surrounding a friend, I've turned to long-time favorite songs that I assembled into a collection I call "Redemption" - comfort music spanning from my high school years through present day. I wish I had the damned playlist with me so I can publish it. I'll do that next post.

Anywho, I have a busy couple of days ahead of me, followed by what I hope will be an explosively insane Saturday, the start of my vacation from Meijer. Third Eye Blind is also this weekend, so I have a lot to look forward to.

Anywho, on to today's Top Five list.

The Top Five Things That I Want The Most

1) To make someone else smile
2) To wake up happy and stress free, everyday
3) Someone to hold and be happy with
4) To lead a meaningful, fulfilling life
5) A certain, concrete future

Four-Ninety-Six

Thus far, a stress-free week at BGSU. Classes are simply boring, but not difficult, which is nice. It appears as though Meijer may actually give me my vacation, so I don't have to worry about that place for a while. On the other hand, I've become terribly distracted by quite a few things in my life, mainly my technology: I'm swimming in gadgets everyday, pounding at my keyboard for hours on end at home, and am sucked into my DS more than I should be when I'm out.

I'll most likely be spending my vacation from work next week away from my computer as well, which will be one hell of a change for me.

Anywho, time for today's Top Five list.

If I Could Be Anything Else (and Why)

1) a gentleman - because doing the right thing just rocks
2) dead - because life is temporary, afterall
3) a woman - just to know what it's like to say 'no' to myself
4) my computer monitor - to know what it's like looking back for hours on end
5) a tree - I want to grow old with grace and still change every six months

Four-Ninety-Five

As promised, I will begin a series of Top Five lists from now until post 499, followed by my five-hundredth post later this week. These lists have no real coherent meaning, but are simply random mashes of "stuff I wanted to countdown." Enjoy.

My Top Five Favorite Songs

1) "Breakdown" by Tantric
2) "Far Behind" by Candlebox
3) "You Learn" by Alanis Morissette
4) "Black" by Pearl Jam
5) "Livin' For You" by Boston

B3 out.

Starry Eyes

Anyone else ever stop amid a hectic early-morning rush, walk outside, and look at the stars? In the surprisingly cool, crisp fall air, I spent my first half hour awake outside, and what a difference thirty-minutes makes. Maybe it was the stuffy heat of our house or the immediate stress that builds on my mind, but once I stepped outside and laid in our grass, I was completely comfortable and forgetful of anything that bothered me.

Hmm...

Hunger Strike 2.0

October 7th, 2007 will kick off the start of a one-week hunger strike.

Similar to my strike last December, I will consume only a limited amount of daily calories (one small meal's worth, about 400 kilocalories).

Unlike last December, however, I won't be keeping a separate blog to track the strike. I will instead track my progress on Critically Correct. Also different from last December, I will make damn clear what is my reasoning for the strike. Stay tuned.

I'll post details in the coming days.

Next up: my Final Five countdown to post number five-hundred!

When the World Is Against You

Does history repeat itself? I have not felt this down and out for quite a few years, even including my breakup with Lacey in 2005. There is a rash of reasons, all including close friends, work problems, and too heavy of a school workload.

But are things as bad as I feel they are? After all, a being 22/23 year old looking back on my high school years, it is easy for me to realize that many of my stresses then were not as severe as I thought them to be. But how can I look at all of my combined situations that fall on me today and not legitimately stress?

The logical and safe answer is, of course, to make decisions a day at a time and not look too far ahead into the future. I find that debating future possibilities is a worthwhile effort for much of my life, but at a time when the outcome of any of my problems could be cast in a negative light, it is painful to think of the future. Hence, I only consider my problems in the short term, knowing that much of the long-term outcome of my actions today can only be left to fate. I will not, however, ignore my mistakes (eek...).

Turning away from, stresses in my life, I can now try to push onward towards a brighter future.

Take for example the other day. A couple days ago, I had an incredible day in downtown BG: I ate Qdoba, bought two CDs (Counting Crows collection!), sampled The Cookie Jar, and met a wonderfully nice person in the process. Unfortunately, a day like this is few and far between for me, and of course, on a night like tonight, it's back to work for me :-(

I sure can't wait for that vacation to start next Saturday.

Counting Down to 500

What's next for me?

I wish I knew...

But with school destroying me and unimaginable social stress digging deep inside me, a wonder what my course of action in the next month will be. Two major decisions lay at my feet. Interestingly, both can't end happily for me. It's either one or the other. And more interestingly, I plan to take dramatic action despite either outcome. I suppose I'm SOL.

But I'm still pressing on towards my birthday, a vacation, and blog post 500. Speaking of which, begining with post 494, I will count down five Top 5 lists. I have not determined the nature of these list, but I'll certainly make 'em interesting. Post five hundred should come early next week. Stay tuned.

Out.

Dream On

Dreams are insanely powerful.

That is the central idea that I want to express via Event Horizon.

But until then, man, what a ride.

My alarm went off at 7:20 this morning, to which I awoke depressed, miserable, and not wanting to touch my day (read: last night's post).

Apparently I didn't make it, however, and I drifted back to sleep for about twenty minutes. What a difference that time makes. Somewhere in the half-conscious state between sleeping and alertness, I had a dream, one of which I remember every detail incredibly well. Despite featuring one of my least-favorite persons in the world, the dream was amazing - more influential on me that anything in the past few weeks has been. It moved me in ways I can't begin to describe, and I'm having a wonderful day at this point, not more than forty minutes removed from originally waking up feeling like crap.

I might have to sleep in a bit more. B3 out.

Walking the Line

"Whatever happened to our inner glow?
Whatever happened to the song, the soul, the me I used to know?"
(Blue October)

I feel that I am walking a very tight line.

And I've been here before.

If nothing else, the full stress of the school semester has arrived. Each and every one of my four classes pushes me to the edge of my tolerable limits in studying, and I can't stand spending so much of my day lost in school work. I want out.

And if school was not enough of a mountain to climb, the other two-thirds of my life revolve around an impossible-to-keep-up-with social life. I want to throw it all away. I really do; give up, actually. I can barely take the stress and workload of four classes, let alone trying to deal with several escalating social issues, all of which are oh-so-familiar to me.

Perhaps that's the problem. The situations that I'm approaching are all old news to me: been there, done that. I know how the outcome will be, and I know where things will lead. I just do not want to walk down and of those paths again.

But suffice to say, what I must do is just the obvious thing: hold my head up high and push onward in all my endeavors as best as I can. But man, if I can't juggle it all at once, I might just implode soon.

Two major events are in the process of happening that just might... MIGHT, drastically change my outlook on this semester as a whole.

More tomorrow. B3 out.

The Loveless Man

In my venture to rewrite Event Horizon (well underway, by the way), I've stumbled upon a bit of a realization.

I've become fascinated with the love story.

Not the love story in the classic, boy-meets-girl sense; I'm more interested in the small nuisances of relationships: the why, the how, and the possibilities of chance. If an arguments between two characters makes for interesting narrative in a story, then I'm interested in exploring the narrative as a means of uncovering the root cause of said argument.

I've avoided the love story in my fiction. I've secretly dabbled with it from time to time, but have never crafted a narrative based solely around the love story. It's difficult to properly do. Event Horizon was not intended to be a love story. Then when I finished it and read the first draft, I realized that, yes, it was most definitely a love story. And I think a damn good one at that.

I've been inspired by music more than anything. Evanescence, Lifehouse, Creed, Buckcherry (!?), Hootie and the Blowfish, Alanis Morissette, Fuel, Elton John, Counting Crows, Boston... the list goes on, but I've found a ton of inspiration in my favorite music. Many of the raw, emotional concepts presented by these artists have generated ideas for short fiction. I only recently have begun to seriously consider writing a legitimate love story. I intend on my second English 313 workshop story to be a short-piece love story to test the waters of my writing.

Perhaps it is that I am so purposely loveless myself that I find the concept so intriguing to explore. I don't mean to sound desperate or lonely or emo, as I know I have lots of opportunity in front of me, including many recent female interests... but in the end, I find that I work better by studying love as a concept, not by practicing it.

Weird, aren't I?

B3 out.

Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock

Pardon the short post. I'm loaded with homework that feels like it will take a week to drudge through, still beat from a long weekend at Meijer, and trying to suppress social stresses that are otherwise going to tear me apart.

If I don't update for at least a week, it's because I have been killed under the weight of school. Hopefully not, though.

My October vacation can't come soon enough.

Counting My Crows

Colleen pointed out the fact that my Google Calendar has not been displaying properly since I updated the BrandonBruno.com portal. Thanks, Colleen! All fixed now!

Anywho...

As a birthday present to myself, I'm currently collecting every single Counting Crows album released, from 1993's August and Everything After to the upcoming November release of Saturday Nights, Sunday Mornings. I discovered their music many years ago, but completely fell in love with them during the Toledo Zoo concert a couple of weeks ago. Thus far I have purchased two albums, both being mailed to me, and have plenty more to hunt down. I can't wait.

MiniBash has officially been rescheduled for October 5th, in light of several votes from those wanting to attend.

Time for bed. Out.

All Smiles

After a week of being rather down and out, I'm all smiles again. I've set a whole bunch of new goals for myself, and I've found quite the motivation to accomplish them. For some odd reason, I feel like a whole different person than I was a week ago, and I'm loving it! Now to answer the hard question: why?

By the way, MiniBash now has an event page on Facebook, but I have yet to invite anyone, so hang tight if you think you'd be on the list. I'll be sending invites once a few details are tied down.

I've also made a public event page available, viewable here.

Time for bed!

Announcements

The anniversary design for Critically Correct is up!

Sometime after my 500th post I'll also introduce a completely new layout for Critically Correct along with new seasonal graphics.

In other news, to celebrate my anniversary, I'll be holding several contests and giveaways for my (rather diverse) readership. I have not settled on exact prizes, but roughly $60 to $100 worth of goods will be up for grabs, with the possibility of iTunes gift cards, dinners, and shopping cards at the forefront.

Stay tuned. The next two weeks should be a blast.

EDIT: Soon to be announced:



Check Facebook in the coming days for details!

B3 out.

Fifteen And Counting

Why am I updating so frequently? Twice a day? Maybe three posts today before I'm done? I don't know, but given how things have been lately, writing is one of the few solaces that I have (yes, even video games bug me).

I have a very busy weekend ahead of me, which is mainly because of work, but I have plenty of reading to do too for my English classes. I'll also be introducing a 500th post design for Critically Correct, as well as introducing a few new items that should help me celebrate two years an five-hundred posts. Only fifteen posts to go.

In the mean time, I'm going to be doing LOTS of thinking... I have a feeling that I suck a lot.

Morning Post?

What the heck should one do when he does not feel like leaving the house ever again? The long school day that I have ahead of me doesn't bother me. I really don't have any desire to get around or see anyone today. Why should I have to? I really hate this semester thus far...

Eh... I'll probably post again from school today with some updates too... If I ever get Photoshop to work for me in the lab. Maybe it's time for some blog changes too.

Story Time!

Just as I did last semester, I will be posting first-draft and final-draft versions of the fiction that I write for my classes this semester.

For example, "I'd Rather Buy a Gallon of Gas" is a short story that I wrote for my Fiction Workshop class, scheduled to be workshopped in just an hour and a half. This story is very young, but I will be posting the revised version in December or so.

PDF Format: I'd Rather Buy a Gallon of Gas

Out.

The Possibilities

I'm supposed to be spending much of today rebooting. (For those unfamiliar with my rebooting concept, stay tuned for a near-future post.)

Instead, today has turned into something more important for me. If I was completely unable to function mentally yesterday, then today I was the sheer opposite: I've been on mental overload since the moment I woke up.

And with so much going on in my head, a few notions have come to surface.

Event Horizon, in all of its final-revision glory (read: it's done), does not please me. I've held onto this story for three years or so (two? I honestly forget), and now that it's done, I hate it. It's bloated, overwritten, and confusing. Therefore, my next writing project will indeed be a new short story of sorts: I'm rewriting Event Horizon as a short-story rather than a novella. My hard work thus far won't go to waste, however. I will be publishing the full-length manuscript online soon. Stay tuned.

In other, happier news, I finally broke down, walked into GameStop, and purchased Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon for the Nintendo DS. Thus far, in my first few hours with the game, it has rocked. I'll have a full review up in a week or so.

A rather interesting, if not incomplete, event has come to light recently. It seems that a theory I devised over the summer isn't only quickly turning to fact, but I'm also facing every challenge that I feared one day encountering. Every hypocritical thought, every fear, and everything I make myself out to be... I suppose it's time to test just what I'm made of and see if I've changed AT ALL in the two years since I've been with Lacey.

Bottoms up, I say. B3 out.

The Day of the Bad

I can't begin to describe how today went. But I'll try anyway.

Going into today, I was beat from a lack of sleep (thanks a lot, Nintendo DS), and almost in a near-accident with some debris on King Road (thanks a lot, fog). After making it to Colleen's place and subsequently dropping her off at work, I ventured to Meijer for what was supposed to be a rather "normal" shift.

So leave it to the supposedly "professional" Store Director at good ol' Meijer #156 to ruin my day. Immediately upon coming in to work, Al finds me, throws his finger in my face, and gives me something along the lines of "Brandon, I've been getting a lot of customer complaints about pricing in Grocery, and if you can't do you're job, we will get rid of you and find someone else who can..." and subsequently walks away without letting me say a word.

Thanks for appreciating your employees, Al. I rarely let words get to me, and in fact, I make it a point to not take anything personally, ever. But I considered his words not mean, but outright unprofessional and impolite to common mores: among my top pet-peeves.

I'll leave the details from the fallout of this for later, but this was just the bad start to my day: between a crunched workload, dumb customers, a long, long, long English class, and boring-ass homework in the evening, I've just been burnt.

The result of such a shitty day (haven't had one in a while) is that I'm completely drained of energy, will, and creativity. Games? No interest. Dairy Queen like I promised a friend? No interest. Writing? Nope, not that either.

Instead I'm off to bed - to curl into a ball and to sleep my worries away. Tomorrow is a reboot day. See you Wednesday.

Out.

Some Day We Could Take Our Time

To me, progress through life can generally be defined by a series of "realizations." That is, a person realizes something about themselves, their place in the world, an emotional truth, a physical reality, etc.

To some people, this concept is called "maturing" or "experience" or "learning." I thus define age as a partial function of personality: how many of these distinct realizations fall within a given time frame defines how a person's personality is defined.

A young child may realize something on average once a week (a new word, behavior norms, etc.). A hormonal high schooler may try to realize something every day, maybe every hour (read: drama). A young adult may come to a realization when something life-changing occurs (new friend, promotion, loss of family, etc.).

One important point to get across, however, is that realizations never stop occurring, may not always be accurate, and are always subject to change. Wrong realizations are called "assumptions."

There, I'm done philosophizing for the night. Now go grab your cookies and think about that for a while - but not too much; you don't want to stumble upon too many realizations at once.

Out.

The Night I Almost Landed on First Base

And so it begins, again. The school semester is in full, unadulterated swing. Beginning Monday (although more likely Tuesday), I'll be altering my daily schedule to include four daily hours of school-related work. Right now I'm generally able to spread my workload out over the course of a couple days, but beginning next week, I'll be lucky if I find time to eat a decent meal come the afternoon hours. For example...

On any given day I'll have to:

• read a fairly large portion of a novel for my Modern Fiction class.
• download, read, comment on, and ready my opinion over a short story from my peers in my Fiction Workshop class
• work on my portion of the project from my Software Development class
• coding, testing, and debugging of a daily Java class for my compiler class

In short, EEEEK! It'll be a hellish rest-of-the-semester.

But I do have some things to look forward to. Time for a hit list!

• I've been on a roll with concerts this year: Silversun Pickups, Counting Crows, and next up: Third Eye Blind. So far, these are among some of my favorite bands, and I can not wait for September 29th to see 3EB in concert. The best part? It's at BGSU, which should make the entire experience insanely comfortable.

• Not only is September 29th the 3EB concert, it's also the kickoff to my week and a half vacation from Meijer. In short, that Saturday will be huge for me, and I can't wait to enjoy some much-needed time off work. I posted earlier that I was considering returning to the mountains this fall, but I've decided to spend my vacation a bit closer to home, obviously... which leads me to...

• I was considering, pondering, and eventually talking about an idea that Korinne sparked at me. She mentioned the idea of having a Wii party - getting people together to play Wii one night. I took it one step farther, and have decided to explore the possibility of hosting something along the lines of "MiniBash." The time frame for this? Over my vacation of course, which coincides nicely with my birthday. October 6th, anyone?

And with that, I'm going to spend the remainder of my wonderful Saturday off work doing... what else? Homework.

Figures. Out.

The Greatest Concert On Earth

I've not been a devout follower of the Counting Crows. I've certainly loved all of their major singles, and I've dabbled in some of there non-mainstream stuff. I'm also a HUGE fan of their live material, bootleg or otherwise.

So imagine my utter surprise when I was promised a ticket to see them at the Toledo Zoo tonight. In short, of the dozen-ish concerts that I've been to in my lifetime, the Counting Crows put on the best show yet. It's not just the tight light show, the perfect playing, the humor, or the sincere songs. The Counting Crows played in front of a crowd of about 4,000 people tonight, but they played their set like they were in front of 30,000. High-energy from front to back and incredibly tied together from one song to the next, the entire show was jaw-dropping.

They promise to return next year. I can only begin counting the days.

Crying For Free

I was pleasantly surprised yesterday to learn that Ubisoft has released a few of its PC titles for download - absolutely free. Among them is Far Cry, the 2004 shooter that upset the first person shooter category and stunned just about every gamer with tight game design, incredible graphics, and a modern story.

Free, of course, does not come without some caveats. The game is obviously a test of what ad-sponsored gaming could be. My opinion on the experience thus far:

The ad-supported version of Far Cry does not include in-game ads. That is, the levels have not been altered to include advertisements. Where you will get banners and short, 15-second clips, however, are in the game menus and before certain loading points. The banner ads certainly feel out of place in the menus, but they don't obstruct or distract at all. The video clips cannot be skipped. This worried me most, as Far Cry is a difficult game that will require reloading quite a bit. Luckily, out of about ten checkpoint reloads, I only saw the video once.

Also, the game version is 1.4, the latest version of Far Cry, as far as I can tell from the Ubisoft website. I have not tried to enable the quicksave feature of the game, nor have installed any mods. But the full-functionality of the game is thus-far intact, and I'm enjoying my time playing through it.

Thus far, if acquiring a free game means seeing only a few banner ads and the occasional short video clip, sign me up. If nothing else, this is a great way to release older titles for free, and I hope Ubisoft's experiment goes well.

Random Changes

Today I randomly decided to alter the BrandonBruno.com portal page. There was absolutely nothing wrong with the original design (technically it was version 2.0 if you're keeping score), but I felt that I needed to spur change somewhere in my digital life. The design is not 100% complete, but you should have a firm idea of where I'm taking it thus far. Expect lots of new shiny, reflective things.

The Unexpected Fall Break

After much debating and some last-minute realizations, I've decided (but not finalized) on plans to spend my Fall Break this year mountain climbing in the Appalachians, much as I did two years ago over spring break (see here).

I'm going to begin research into the possibility of such a trip in the fall, and if all else fails this fall, I WILL go next spring. It'll be a hell of a way to go out of college.

The Fastest Post Ever

I leave for work in a few minutes (work at 4:00am = poop)... but not before getting a quick entry out.

• Thanks to 106.5 doing a Smells Like the 90's Weekend, I've been listening closely and acquiring a ton of new, classic 90's songs... It's quite a list and I forgot how awesome 90's rock music was, especially the then-new grunge.

• I found out that being up at 2:10am and taking time out to enjoy the dead stillness of the night sky is the most relaxing thing in the world. I hope to spend time like this every Sunday.

• I'll try to post tonight after I get back from the Fulton County Fair, which I'm looking forward to more than anything right now.

• Third Eye Blind is gonna be at BGSU. Between that and Against Me at Headliners, I'm looking to have a busy month ahead of me. Woot!

Out.