Thursday, April 30, 2009

Don't Let Me Down

I was kinda down yesterday and I decided to watch some videos on youtube and I came across this video and I love it and I can't get it out of my head so I thought I'd share. This is a song called "Don't Let Me Down" by the Beatles and as you see in the video, it was one of the songs from their famous rooftop performance. Even though I have almost all of their albums, I had never heard this song before. I guess it was a b-side to their Let It Be album and was released on the Let It Be Naked compilation. I love seeing them play together cuz you can just see how much they liked to do it, how John and Paul always look at each other and smile. Its good to see and makes me reminisce about playing with my band. It really helped cheer me up so maybe it will do the same for you. Enjoy.

Sunday, April 26, 2009

Because Boxes Make The Best Forts

I've been feeling nostalgic for the good ol' days when everyday was funny back when I was a teenager so I thought I'd tell you a story from those days.
One day, I must have been 16, my friends and I, bored with the summer days and tired of the same old stuff decided that we wanted to build an amazing fort like we did when we were kids. This sounds more difficult than it sounds because you can't just use anything. You need big boxes and to make your life easier, finding big boxes that are all the same size is a good idea. We had no idea where to find these but since my friend's parents worked at Wal-Mart, we thought that that'd be a good idea of where to start.
We went to the Wal-Mart and found out that they DID have boxes and they were free but that we had to come at 6 in the morning and you had to just take what they gave you (meaning they would be all different sizes and shapes). Disappointed but not yet dissuaded by the idea, we thought well, we'll just buy them, I mean, how much can a box cost? Actually quite a lot, which we found out quite quickly. I think it was around a dollar and thirty cents a box, and to make a really good fort, we needed at least 30 boxes. Being poor teenagers, we decided that this would not work either. We didn't know what to do and were about to give up when my best friend all the sudden said, "Wait. I know what to do. Let's go back to the van and I'll tell you what to do."
In those days, my mother had a purple mini-van which I drove everywhere. I didn't have a car and my friends didn't either so my mother's purple mini-van was our only mode of transportation. We were so cool.
So, we went back to the mini-van and my friend instructed me to drive around to the back of Wal-Mart. He pointed to a storage closet that was on the outside of the building. He said, "I remembered that they store boxes over here that they plan to re-use. When I say go, me and him (my other friend) will get out and grab these boxes and we'll jump in and you hit the gas." I started laughing and I was about to protest the whole idea but we were already to the closet and before I knew it, my friend had yelled, "Go!" and jumped out and started throwing boxes in the car. They couldn't keep it together though. All three of us were dying of laughter and the two throwing the boxes couldn't even get any boxes cuz they were laughing so hard. They finally finished and jumped in and yelled, "Go! Go! Go!" to which I slammed on the gas and sped off.
I realized pretty quickly though that nobody had saw us so I slowed down and went the normal speed. I kept it that speed all the way back to the house. When we got home, we took all of our boxes to the back yard and began assembling. They were easy to put up because they were all the same size but we realized pretty quickly that it wasn't going to work. We didn't have enough boxes. The dream had been to build a fort big enough that I could walk through standing up straight. Being that I was 6'2", we needed quite a lot of boxes. We barely had enough for one wall. So instead, we set them up and then jumped into them.
But it didn't matter. The fun was in the journey. I really think that even if we had had enough boxes to finish the fort, we would have got bored with it pretty quickly. We were 16 years old. What were we going to do in a fort?
We were so happy with our victory. All we had REALLY wanted to do was to do something different and out-of-the-ordinary, to break from the norm and the beaten path. We had achieved that and to this day we all still remember it vividly.

Friday, April 17, 2009

Prayers Answered

I woke up this morning and looked outside and saw a whole bunch of snow clouds in the sky and realized that it was freezing outside. I got online to check the weather reports and saw that it was snowing over where we were supposed to have our campout tonight. Even more important was that the roads were getting bad. I called my partner and we decided to cancel the camping trip. Honestly, its a bit of a relief. I was worried about my car making it because its kind of old and beat up so I'm glad that I don't have to forge icy roads and whatnot. Thank you for all your prayers and support! Apparently they worked, in one way or another.

Thursday, April 16, 2009

Say A Prayer

I need everyone to say a prayer for me. Tomorrow, I'm taking four 11-year old boys camping for the night. I'm the assistant scout leader and my partner will not be able to go so I have to take them. Luckily, three of the four boys' fathers are coming so that will be nice to have some help. We're going to Bluewater Lake which is about an hour and a half outside of Albuquerque. I'm just hoping my car can make it and that we can fit all of the boys and the gear inside. It'll be tight. I'm worried about so many things but I'm trying to reassure myself that everything will be okay. If anything does go wrong or we forget something, we just have to suffer for one night, right? Anyway, do me a favor and pray for me. Pray with all of your fervor. I'm gonna need it. I'll report back afterwards.

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

I Dreamed A Dream

My wife showed me this yesterday and I saw it again today and thought I'd share it with you all. Some of you have probably already seen this but for those of you who haven't, its a real treat. Such a beautiful song too. You'll have to follow the link because they disabled people's ability to embed it onto their pages. Anyway, enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lp0IWv8QZY

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Babs Goes Pro

I've been keeping it to myself for awhile, partly because I don't like talking about myself and partly because I didn't know if it would pan out, but I have gone professional...sort of. I have begun to write reviews for a website called Randomville. It doesn't pay (at least not yet) and honestly, if it never does, I don't really care. The byline with my name on it means everything.
It is a legitimate website and everything I post goes through an editor who I am in constant contact with throughout the publishing process. I will do mostly game reviews since I know so much about the subject and since that is what they will mostly be lacking but my editor is open to almost anything I feel like writing, with the exception of religion and politics. Sometimes, I'll even do music reviews, and even though they don't pay, they'll send me a free cd and I get to keep it!
I know its not really a big deal and I'll only be doing it in my spare time, but for someone who's not had a lot going for him as of late, it is definitely a confidence booster.
If you want, go to the website, randomville.com and see my first review. If it sounds familiar, it is. I posted the review on my blog awhile back. Anyway, I guess thats all. We'll see where it goes.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

Everyone Wants To Be In A Movie (Unfortunately)

Throughout my whole life, I've noticed something strange. People often tend to be overly dramatic, over-zealous, and downright stubborn with certain things in their lives. I've known many people who thrive on drama, they constantly hate it publicly while loving it secretly, who can't go on living unless a million different things are going wrong. You can blame the parents, or society, the country, global warming, the Free Masons, Marilyn Manson, the weird spot on your body, or even the scary guy at the park that one time, and you'd be wrong on all accounts. It is none of these things, as treacherous as some may be. The real reason that people are like this is that everyone wants to be in a movie.
This seems like a simplified answer to a complex problem but think about it to yourself; has anyone ever said anything that was a bit strange? I'm not talking about something random or something out of the ordinary but something that you would only expect to hear in....well, a movie!
To exemplify what I'm talking about, I will relate a story. I have a friend who's girlfriend left him. It was not the first time she had done so. In fact, she had left him four or five times previously. In a dramatic flair, she packed up her things and left. My friend was heartbroken. I told him that I was sorry but not to worry because she would probably be back, just like she had all of those other times. In a dramatic flair, he told me, "Not this time." My eyes then proceeded to roll out of my skull in sarcasm. I left him to his pity party only to hear that the following morning, his girlfriend came back.
So, let's analyze this. If I was smart enough to know that his girlfriend would come back, then that means that my friend would too, since he has spent far more time with her and obviously knows how to push her buttons since she left, and how not to cross the line. So, if he knew all of this, why did he act dramatically and tell me, "Not this time" when he could have just agreed with me? It's because he wants to be in a movie. However, since he will never be in a movie, he has to act out his dramatic moments in real life.
In a way, I understand this. There are many moments in my own life, where having that musical soundtrack swell at the right time would make a good moment so much better. I've also always wished for that a-ha moment to come, where the main character of the film is in the dumps, and then is told something wise by a wise and unexpected person and then begins to turn his life around because of it. We also all play our own favorite parts. I'm the good-friend-you-can-count-on-who-tells-it-like-it-is-and-tragically-dies- to-the- detriment-of-all-like-Mercutio-in-Romeo-and-Juliet-except-that-I-don't- dress-up-like- a-woman-at-the-beginning-of-the-movie-because-thats-kind-of-weird. That's my favorite part to play.
The part that most people like to play though is not so much an actual part but more so a scene. And the scene they like to play most is the one-liner-that-sums-it-up. Hence, why my aforementioned friend opted to say, "Not this time". If we had been in a movie, he would have said it with a close-up on his face, staring off into the distance before cutting back to me for a reaction shot where I have nothing to say. The scene then would have ended.
Since we were not in a movie, I ended up wanting to puke at the over-the-top dramatics of the whole thing.
Everyone just wants to say something profound, something that people will remember. They seek to have those moments (or scenes) because they want their lives to mean more, whether to themselves or to others. But in all honesty, I prefer honesty. Why do we need to say something profound? Why do we need to give more meaning to moments that have no meaning? Let's live life in the here and now, and say profound things if we think of them rather than thinking of something clever so we can act in the secret movie that no ones watching or cares to watch. Just live with all of our inadequacies and our troubles. It's better than a movie.