:: The Blurst of Times ::

:: 9.30.2002 ::

Ah, the final day of September... too bad it's going to be friggin' 91 degrees out. It just isn't cool to be that hot outside. Ha ha, little pun there. Eh... whatever.

Still working on that getting in contact with people - it's funny because I missed an opportunity to actually visit with someone on my list whom I physically saw back home, but I already had stuff to do and it's always hard for me to drop some people for others. So if you're reading, know I'm sorry and I will call soon.

One more day until the first Construction project is due. I'm a little concerned. It'll get done, but what's the cost. I still haven't shaken that sore throat that plagued me all last week (it was worse because of the drinking last Friday night and the soccer game on Wednesday), I already felt sick to my stomach when I got up this morning, and it looks like it will be about Wednesday night before I sleep again. I can handle that, but work and soccer are going to be tough on Wednesday. I feel worst about letting my teams (work and soccer) down. Oh well, I know what I have to do.

Which is go to work...

K'pow!
:: Freddy F. at 8:34 AM [+] ::
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Here's my reviews of Pop Culture:

Monsters, Inc: Gad, that movie is funny - I haven't laughed so hard in years. And so sad! I haven't been that close to crying in almost a year. And that little girl - so cute! It's almost enough to make me maternal.

Amelie: Another cute girl, but in a very different way. I thought it was a lot like Ten Things I Hate About You, with the whole "boy likes girl / girl likes boy, they can't actually come out and say what they feel for reasons of self doubt and image, they manipulate each other until it seems like things aren't going to work out, and then a single burst by one character or another places them in each other's arms, where, without a word they fall into wild passionate sex." The narrator was funny, the french was novel.

UHF: Yup, it's Wierd Al in DVD format. Well worth my "tithe" from my first week at work to Best Buy.

System of a Down - Toxicity: This is what metal is supposed to be - fast, loud, crack-your-back, headbanging fun. Not this pussy radio-metal or emo-metal or whatever the hell the latest lite rock metal sound is. And it isn't this we've-raided-our-moms-makeup-drawer-and-can-scream-and-put-lots-of-fake-blood-into-our-grainy-blurry-videos metal, that's theatrics, not music. Fuck MTV and videos and "images," let the music speak and if it rocks, it rocks.

Unwritten Law - Elva: I go half and half on this one. Some songs rock, the ones that I wear out the "back" button listening to over and over again. Some songs just sound like tripe, literally, the sounds that tripe make. I guess that is why we have CD players, right.

Props to the Motherland, for showering me with recognition and memories upon my every return.

Time to Masta' Plan...
:: Freddy F. at 4:17 PM [+] ::
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Ten days! Fuck me! Where have I been... this has got to stop. No more pushing the blog off. Five minutes and if I don't have that to spare each day, then I had better be damn well giving up the crossword too. Maybe I can just give up one of my classes instead...

Everyone's gone, I hear from no one. Not that it is not entirly my fault. I don't call people any more. When Newsie is writing and calling more than you are, you have troubles. And now I'm returning to the motherland for a weekend and am so out of touch that everyone was back last weekend and no one will even be there this weekend.

Alright, now I have a list of 9 people to talk to in the next week. That's right, I have one week to talk to nine people I haven't talked to in probably *sigh* a month. I'm going to do this and I'm going to keep up with the blog, too. You think I can't? You don't think I got the cajones? You feelin' me?

I just read this [soon to be linked, as soon as This Bitch Computer and Internet Exploer stop fuckin up on me] other blog, nice and random from the "recently posted" list. It was fun. I feel strangely moved by this blog - like I have made half of some sort of emotional connection. It was about girls and high school and was pretty nostalgic for 7.30 on a friday morning. They refered to girls as bird and "hunting" them was trying to date them, I guess. It's funny because I could have got anything and I got something that sounds a lot like where I stood four years ago.

I'm anxious to see fall in the motherland. It is a very peaceful experience for me. I love the smells and the burbs and the trees... peace, I guess. It ain't NCY, but what is, eh?

Now the list is ten people. It's fuckin ON.

Now I'm late for work...
:: Freddy F. at 8:53 AM [+] ::
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Alright, the ol' blog was fucking with me last friday, which discouraged me from adding any to it the last few days, but I'm ready to get back into the swing of things.

Here are the movies I have seen in the last week: SLC Punk, Swordfish, Hearts in Atlantis, Men of Honor... hm, it seemed like a lot more, but nothing comes to mind. But I now understand how my friends who constantly see movies and are constantly telling me how many movies they are seeing do it - if you have HBO it is just like watching TV. So I can flip back forth between say, a shitty Nebraska football game and the shitty movie Hearts in Atlantis, and feel like I just saw both of them. That's efficient TV time.

Here is what I did in studio this last week: Finished that damn group project, outlined a program for the creation of a mixed housing development, created a program analysis, performed a site inventory and analysis on the proposed site, drank some beers, cut some sections on the proposed site, and got an hour of my life taken away by allowing a single person to debate the symantic difference between "environmental" and "ecological" (environmental is the surrounding forces, ecological is the interrelationships).

Now we have the assignment to play SimCity3000 for a week and study the way people come to live in places. Here is the flaw in that, which I think will become my thesis when I have to write a paper on this: SimCity3000 is a computer program that is based on a highly European dynastic city philosophy that Growth =Progress =Good, that the faster a city grows the greater it will become. In the game, when an area gets filled, people don't stop coming, they keep coming and building unti the density is unhealthy. In someways this lemmings mentality is very realistic because there aren't the kind of sustainability laws that are necessary to regulate the population. There is also the beleif that Industry can shirk taxees in SimCity3000 that cannot be overridden. Let me tell you that if I was mayor, there would be no polution in the water or the air near residential areas because industry woul dbe cleaning it up - in fact, I doubt there'd be industry because I'd rather live in an area of low prodction rather than grand wealth. There are also guff I have with public transportation, power sources, and auto traffic, but hey, no need to bore you.

Here is what I did in my free time in the last week: went to the bars, drank brews, watched football on TV, slept and ate, went out to dinner, played soccer, ran, and went to a city planning meeting. Qualtiy.

Here is what I didn't do that I should have done: Called my friend in South Carolina who works at a vinyard, called this friend to make sure he's still alive, called my friend because her team lost, bought socks for soccer before now, written out that planning paper, and read my site analysis chapters. But I got four crosswords totally done.

Fred out...
:: Freddy F. at 11:09 AM [+] ::
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Go bluegrass go!

Man, the Freddy F. at 5:34 PM [+] ::
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I am finally getting that Bluegrass fix that I knew I needed, and I'm rocking right along with it.

We played our first soccer game last night and got smoked, 0-5. We just weren't as good a team as they were. We have really good players on our team, but everyone kind of plays by their own style (indoor, trap, press, 3-3-2, 3-2-3, 2-3-3). So they kept beating us on fast breaks. And the refs don't call offsides, so they just set one guy back and kick to him when our defenders are all pulled up. Oh well, the bars afterwords made it worth all the pain of losing an intramural game.

On the topic of making The List smaller, I finally saw Dr. Strangelove. It was really funny. I get the upper layers of the satire, but not necessarily the whole Dr. Strangelove character, or the multiple allusions to "love" when discussing the hydrogen bomb and the Doomsday Device. The best I figure is that the whole Second World War was fought to "free the world of fascism," but weapons of mass destruction are even more evil than any fascist ruler, and by selecting just a few who will survive the blast we are allowing for the sort of genocide that the Nazis advocated. I could be wrong...

"Ja wohl, Mein President"...
:: Freddy F. at 10:59 AM [+] ::
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I am the Napoleon of the multi-disciplinary design group, the Ghengis Khan of the Aging-in-Place, the Gandhi of intragroup communication. Apparently I am not the George Burns of anything, because people still aren't laughing...
:: Freddy F. at 5:16 PM [+] ::
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Here is what is important:

I am not dead. Girlfriend did not kill me because I locked her out of her house. She forgave and forgot, which makes her a better person than I who can merely forgive (and even then it's sometimes a little weak).

This whole group project thing went very very sour very very fast. After only one week, the group memebers are very much pointing fingers and passing the buck and throwing in the hat. I don't think anyone is pointing fingers at me, and I'd like to think I put some pretty good effort in to all of this, but the group is decidedly "busted." I wish people laughed more. Or didn't take professional criticism personally.

And as much as I tried to keep it a nine-eleven-free blog today, I do have a little something to say: Public greiving seems a lot like public prayer - a little shallow and a little hollow. All I know is that if someone killed someone I cared about, I wouldn't want it on the news everyday.

I still have more stuff to talk about - it's still to come. Just not right now, sweetie, I have a headache...
:: Freddy F. at 2:51 PM [+] ::
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I hate it when I am talking to someone who I know is extremely mad at me and probably wants to kill me, but they are talking all calm and are saying things like "Don't worry about it" and "Your life will end soon" and such.

Man, I'm in the doghouse now...
:: Freddy F. at 2:26 PM [+] ::
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I had the following things to write about today: Buying a car, watching Donnie Darko, working on group projects, shopping at Sam's Club, getting an awesome Sopranos picture, playing soccer, the essence of blogging, and talking to friends. However all of these things have been pre-empted by my latest story (not yet one hour old) of locking my girlfriend out of her house.


Yes, this is what my grandfather would call "a real boner" on my part. The set up: I mortally loathe crickets. My girlfriend lives in a basement apartment that has a door that locks at the top of the stairs leading outside, and a door that locks at the bottom of the stairs leading into her apartment. The top door is a dead bolt lock, while the door at the bottom of the stairs is a push-button lock that the inside knob releases. I have a key to the top lock (as does Girlfriend), but no one (including the landlord) has a key to the bottom lock.My key is a copy of Girlfriend's, made at WalMart that sometimes doesn't work very well to lock the top door. This morning: Girlfriend went to work as usual. I got up, showered and went to leave. Upon closing the bottom door, I saw a huge cricket sitting on the stiars. In my own cowardice, I jumped over him and ran out the top door. I tried to lock the top door. I tried for about three minutes, jiggling and rattling the lock, hoping the tumblers would fall. Alas, they did not. I had the idea to just lock the bottom door, like Girlfriend had done the other night (the idea that I had did not include the vital information that she was inside when she locked it). I went back down the stairs and saw the cricket had moved in between the bottom stair and the door. So when I opened the door the cricket got in. I chased the cricket in, kept it in the middle of the kitchen, grabbed some tupperware, spent five minutes trying to get the cricket under the tupperware, finally got it and flushed it down the toilet. Threw said tupperware in the sink, thinking Girlfriend would be so grateful I prevented the cricket access to her house, she would be more than happy to wash a piece of tupperware with her dishes. Then I proceded with the plan of locking the door and pulling it shut behind me. FUCK It hits me like a ton of bricks. Everyone is now locked out of this space. I call Girlfriend and leave a message on her cell. I bang head repeatedly on the wall. I am waiting for the return call. I'm so dead.

Fred, out...
:: Freddy F. at 10:18 AM [+] ::
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Wow, the last 24 hours have just been a mad rush of stuff to write - I will try to keep it simple.

I played in my first soccer scrimmage last night and I think it went very well. I kicked the ball well, not as hard as some of the other guys, but with a certain degree of accuracy. I had some steals, some blocks, some passes intercepted, some misses, some kicks to the shins, and a goal or two. I learned that I have good endurance, and as other people are waning, I can still sprint up and down the field. I also learned that I can get flat-out schooled, and some kid can dribble circles around me before I am able to even guess which direction he is going to go. All in all, it will definitely get me in shape.

So after said scrimmage, I decided I needed to wash up a bit before hitting studio. Since I was already in my dormitory living space I went ahead and used the dorm showers. The crazy thing was this was the first time I had used them. Now, before you think "Goddam that must be one smelly kid if that is the first he has showered in the last two weeks" know that I ususally shower in the morning - it wakes you up and invigorates the soul. And since I have the luxury of being involved with a girl who has a one-bedroom apartment, that is where I find myself when it comes time for me to shower, so I just shower there. But yeah, back in the dorm showers, one step above showering in the high school locker room.

I got back from the shower and lo, my mother had called. So I returned the call and she informed me that a wonderful firm in Tacoma, Washington wants to employ my services for the first eight months of next year. Sounds like a win-win to me!

There was also a development on the drumming front regarding why my band kicked me out last year. But all that is kind of a bummer of a story, so I don't think I am going to dwell on it. Let's just say "secrets don't make friends" and that should suffice.

That's all, y'all...
:: Freddy F. at 10:22 AM [+] ::
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First I'd like to thank the Boy of Stuff for letting me know that my links were not up to the par we like to keep here at the Blurst. I apologize for any inconvenience and now expect my counter to just start counting like mad.

It seems like everytime I go back to school, I make a few purchases that seem necessary, but also seem like something that I am only going to use for a short period of time and then leave to collect dust in my basement. This year I have purchased a pair of soccer shinguards. Yes, due to a late summer jaunt into the world of recreational soccer I have joined an intramural soccer league, which required me to not only play with shinguards, but skill as well. It is yet to be determined whether I have what it takes to compete against the people who have been playing since they were five. I am a little apprehensive about tonights scrimmage. If I think about it, this is where I will post all my game-stats. If I create any.

And speaking of game-stats, I'd like to be the first (only) to congratulate the Greatest Team in Baseball for finally winning at home. Jesus H it was about time. 26 games left, they are only 24.5 games back. They could pull it off...
:: Freddy F. at 12:12 PM [+] ::
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It was a weekend of big times and even bigger tits. Yes, that's right, the latest Playboys have arrived and while there is a literal plethora of lovely airbrushed Big 12 flesh, there is no Whitney. Eh, se la vie, we didn't want to see how much she had shaved anyway. But man, lets hear it for the "midwestern girls".

Returning to my domestic reality, I spent the weekend in Caldwell, Kansas, a quaint little town on the southern border. It was nice and relaxing, and amazingly I was able to do something I haven't really been able to do all summer: watch four very good movies in the span of 24 hours. The Client, Pretty in Pink, O Brother Where Art Thou? and Brewsters Millions. Man, that was all pretty rad. And for those of you who know the real Fred, you know I keep a list of media I need to be involved in - O Brother Where Art Thou? affected every aspect of this list - the movie was crossed off, the Odyssey was added to the books, and most importantly, the Soundtrack was added to the Albums section. Which leads to my latest epiphany: I have missed out on a lot of great music, but not having ever really listened to Bluegrass. So those of you who are hip to the Bluegrass jive, you gotta tell me what I need to know to be in this loop.

[This was crazy: for a while there my keyboard was not typing, it was just making little clicking noises. So I opened a few windows and closed a few windows and finally it began working again. I guess I'm just that good at fixing my computer. Whatever.]

I suppose that is enough for this fine day. Play safe...
:: Freddy F. at 11:40 AM [+] ::
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