It's been a while...

Since I wrote on this damn thing. I'm going to write with minimal proofreading for fun, so bear with me please.

So today has been the first day in a long time I've had a boost of motivation despite the "hardships" I've been facing in the job search. Yes, since graduation I have been chasing various positions based on semi-scientific guesses as to what career would best suit me. The problem in Sacramento is, there just isn't anything to satiate the misguided. I am misguided, and soul-searching. It seemed like college was leading up to something of epic proportions, but alas, was a slap in the direction of the bleak outlook of the rest of my existence. I would now enter a world of bills, insurance, and creating a pile of numbers to add to my dwindling bank account. But I digress, for some reason today, I had an epiphany that almost all types of jobs offer rewards to their participants. I understood that most people respect a hard worker, no matter from any walk of life. This in itself is motivating, simply because no matter what I choose to do, if I become good at it will be fulfilling by nature.

Thus, I took action:

I decided that I need to have some kind of income to supplement my current position. I don't know if it was the Red Bull I had at about 1 o'clock or if it was one of those random days where you wake up and think you can tackle anything. And we have all had those days.

Today I walked in to a Nameless Company with my newly found fervor, and asked for an employment application. I was told to access the companies website for an online print-out to which I queried, "I did not see any applications on the website". The manager helping me winced at the computer screen for a moment, then spouted, "Yep, don't feel like your stupid, cause it's not on there." He then proceeded to tell me that they weren't actually hiring, and that I should come back next week. Hmmmm, not hiring yet come back I thought, this is trickery.



So hopefully this is a precursor to a newly found motivation that I have not had before. Or, perhaps I'm impatient and hoping to find things too quickly based on my current fleeting living situation.

-I'll keep the nobody that reads this posted

Christmas

Christmas has always been one of my favorite times of the year, as it is for many other people. Though, as you grow older, as with other holidays, it seems less and less important. I remember from the ages of 4 to 16 Christmas was something I looked forward to all year. I would relish in the idea of getting a new video game system, or a new bike. I could hardly fall asleep at night, knowing what was coming in the morning. I always hated the people the slept in, that you had to wait for to wake up, just so you can open your presents. Now I am the guy who sleeps in.

From ages 4 to 10 were by far the best, mostly due to the fact that I thought Santa was real. We would put the cookies out Christmas Eve, and low and behold they would be gone the next morning. Clearly there could be no other explanation for the disappearance.

It seemed like Christmas had some sort of spirit to it, with the whirlwind of food, family, presents and whatnought.

Today, I can rarely think of something I even really WANT for Christmas.

Giving people my wish list seems like a chore, and usually results in getting stuff I would usually pick up with my own paycheck.

The food and family are still there, which is probably the most important thing. I have begun to realize that Christmas is really about family, plain and simple. It is the time of year where people feel obligated to spend time with them, most feeling better about it than others.

It's funny that the only day where we seem forced to spend time with one another, happens to be on a day that we give each other presents.

Maybe I am just in a "limbo" so to speak, where I am detached from my family, and lacking a real family of my own. Maybe someday when I decide to have children, it might reignite the magic that Christmas used to have. But for now, I'll have to sit at home sipping on egg-nog watching the Harry Potter movies on ABC for the 15th time.

Religion and McDonald's

When I was about six until about 13 years old I attended church almost every Sunday. I had a holy communion, went to religious study groups, and was a lot more involved in community affairs than I have ever been. I thought back to those times and wondered, what made me such a motivated and religious sprout back then? I thought it may have been for several reasons:

1. For some reason I always liked the part of Mass when people would say "Peace be with you" to one another, and shake each others hands. It seemed like everyone was so happy during that time for no reason - for something as stupid as shaking someones hand.

2. It was a great place to see a lot of my friends from school. Growing up in Folsom, before it became the large community it is now, was much smaller when I was young, and most of the kids I went to school with attended the same church. Often times we would hang out after Mass.

3. It gave me a sense of relief. In confession, I was able to admit all my wrongs in the eyes of God, and be forgiven, kind of like withdrawing money from an ATM. Usually it was about something stupid like cursing in front of my mom, or stealing the last candy bar from the cupboard and not telling anybody.

4. Finally, the king of all reasons: Almost every time we went to church on Sunday, we got the McDonald's breakfast! To me - this was the only real reason to wake up on Sunday at all. The Sausage McMuffin no egg, without a doubt, was the tastiest little devil ever, and paired with hash browns, they made an unstoppable pair.

To be honest, I wasn't that much of a McDonald's fanatic, and I almost never eat fast food now...But there was something about that McMuffin that made the three to four hour excursion more endurable.

Sure, I can be criticized my for lack of real commitment.

But I what I finally understood later in life is that, if I am forced to do something I absolutely no will of doing, there HAS to be some kind of incentive for me TO DO IT! This is the type of person that I have grown to be.

Of course I still help people all the time, most times not ever asking anything in return. I AM A GOOD PERSON!

I think that most people are like this.

Everyone has to be getting something out doing something they don't want to, and if they aren't, they are probably lying. Ironically I haven't had a McMuffin in almost a year now, and have found I have lost my need for them at all.

Maybe this wasn't the best reason to get me to do something, but overall I don't think it did much harm to me in the long run. If someday my children require McDonald's Breakfasts to get straight A's in school, I'll be the first one in the drive-through at 6:00am.

Want to buy a computer? (PC)

The other day I was walking through a Best Buy, and started to browse their computer section out of curiosity. Having worked there for almost three years, I suddenly noticed something strange. The price to buy a laptop or desktop computer was a lot lower than I remembered it being, so I began to think about the last computer purchase I had made.

In 2004, I bought a near top of the line 15-inch Toshiba laptop for roughly 1,300 dollars with the extended warranty. Now, the most comparable laptop to the one I bought, costs half the price, brand new. Also, the average price for when I was shopping 3 years ago has dropped by almost 3 to 400 dollars, for equivalent specs for that time. Never had I seen such a drastic shift in price, than in these 3 years.

It seems that the price of computers, especially laptops, are dropping to rates in which most people with lower incomes, can afford them. Eliminating them as a luxury item slowly over time, makes me start to think that they are coming closer to the status of a household appliance, like a dishwasher or a telephone. Will computers be something that every home will have (though they pretty much do already), I think yes. But, is this a good thing?

Are the manufacturers cutting costs, and building the same reliable product? Or have materials and costs for production been lowered over these years? Nowadays, most manufacturers strongly recommend buying a kind of extended warranty with a new machine; (I know because I was forced to sell them) Are they doing this to help the consumer, cover a shoddy product, or instill false belief that warranties are alway necessary?

Was there once a time when you got what you paid for? Were warranties unnecessary? I think that lowering prices to make computers more affordable is probably a good thing, because having a computer is better than not having one at all...

Disc Golf...If you don't already know what it is...

Disc golf is a sport very similar to standard golf, that started around the 70's and has since gained popularity. The game is played with a player or players that attempt to throw a disc into a large chain basket, trying to use the least number of throws possible. The basket is roughly 2 feet in diameter.

Each basket is placed far away from the "tee", and like golf, has a Par associated with it depending on the number of obstacles or distance from the "tee". Courses vary in structure, they can be anything from: forests, grassy fields, dry dirt paths. They sometimes contain man-made obstacles.

Generally your first throw will be your drive, second will be your approach or "upshot", and then however many approaches it takes you to get within putting distance.

The discs that are used are built for different purposes. Like golf clubs, each disc can be used for: high angle shots, distance drives, approaches, low angle shots, and putting. The leading manufacturer of these discs is currently the company Innova.



You can play on teams or by yourself, and most courses you play at are free. The game is simple to play, but surprisingly complex to master. Obstacles, wind patterns, and throw style are just some of the things you have to think about while playing disc golf.

Over the past few years my friends and I have played the game quite frequently and have been quickly improving.

We have played with veterans of the game, and you can tell that the experience they have is a huge advantage. They will use throws you have never seen before, that will seem to go exactly where they want them to. They are modern day Olympians.

Some consider the game is consider a "hippie" sport, I consider it the sport of kings.

The future of Disney's 2-D Animation?

Yesterday I was pondering about how there hasn't been good Disney cartoon in quite some time. I remember when I was young, in Disney's hayday they came out with classics like: Aladdin, The Lion King, The Hunchback of Notre Dame.

Since about the late 90's there hasn't been a Disney film that I have deemed worth seeing, and with the recent popularity of Pixar and 3-D animation, I'm now wondering if the genre is all but dead.

I think it would be quite ridiculous if it were, simply because of the fact that I think animation is art in all of its forms. I don't think one style of animation that "looks better" or is "more flashy" determines whether it needs to be seen or not. If I saw a trailer for a cartoon with stick figures that had a decent plot, characters, and dialogue I would go see it.

Though I do think that the new 3-D movies have transfered much of the essence of the 2-D ones, I just wish that they could coexist.

In the end, companies like Disney are just looking to make money, if something becomes less profitable then they will cut funding, or stop production all together.

I wonder if in the future my children will be able to experience movies like I did when I was younger, or if the Disney animated film is all but dead.

Why buying an IPOD is pointless...

Every holiday season everyone is looking to get the best Christmas present. From past experience working in retail, the Ipod was by for the most requested product during the holidays. Best Buy's phones rang off the hook every day after Thanksgiving for people checking stock on them. To the point where employees stopped answering the phones, in place of an automated message.

Apple is all about advertising. And with every year apple has some flashy new commercial, and some hip new song to go along with yet another cosmetic update to the Ipod, putting the older models to shame.

My question is, what is the point of buying an Ipod, if your flashy new toy is outdated every year?

I think it is because the idea of owning an Ipod is so gimmicky, and gives the consumer a feeling of "needing" to have it. My advice is: if you are going to buy an mp3 player at all, you should probably find something that is going to suit your needs in the long run (i.e. storage, size, compatibility).

Apple focuses too much on aesthetics, rather than functionality. If you have ever owned an Ipod you would know that the product requires everything to work around the ITunes program, which is a huge hassle. Not to mention the number one product our repair center serviced at Best Buy, was the Ipod.

To quickly summarize, don't waste your time buying an Ipod, they are: overpriced, too gimmicky, not very resilient, and outdated too quickly.