Its me

Explosions in my Brain

The more I think about it, the more I am moved by the Explosions in the Sky show I went to last night. It was in many ways a very simple and powerful expression of I am not really sure what. All I know is that as I took everything in I mused about how 4 dudes with normal instruments (normal in that there weren't any keyboards, apple computers, synthesizers, or the like - just 2 guitars, a bass, and a simple drum set) could make me feel they way I was feeling at that moment. And here I am 24 hours later more affected now than I was during the show. How does it happen? I do not know, but I am eternally grateful for it...really.

It is experiences such as this that cause me to really think about the things that are really important in life. It is strange that music can do that. I think I may have lost sight of what is important in some ways. I don't know. I think that because of the rapid change I have experienced lately it has left me...well, again I don't know. And I don't think I am really ready to explain it because I just don't know. Anyways, I am going to work on getting a clip up from the show.

bad

for the sake of getting started again, here is an update:

now orange belt
i am competing in a tournament this weekend
i will be in 3 events (self defense, sparring, and #1 kata)

i saw explosions in the sky tonight and it ranks in the best shows that i have ever seen. in fact, maybe i can put together a rough list of the best shows i have ever seen:

1. Mogwai (5/2006)
2. Sigur Ros (10/2005, 5/2006)
3. Cave In (6/2000, 2001, 11/2006)

OK this is hard...those 3 rank so close together that its really hard for me to rank them.

4.Explosions in the Sky (3/2008)
5. Death Cab For Cutie (3/2004)

Alright I dont know if that is completely accurate. I will have to think about it more.

6. A Silver Mt Zion (8/2006)

Boring post, but thats that. Life is great. This is the happiest I have been in ages. Life is so funny sometimes...and right now I really have no idea where it is taking me. I like that.

Here we go again

Welcome to my first post in 3 months. I apologize. I should have been updating, but blah blah etc. Anyways, in the fashion of my own personal journal I will attempt to "catch up" with everything that has happened in the last 3 months. But actually, maybe I wont because it isn't all that fun.

But here is something that is fun: I have recently come under the impression that now is the time for me to pursue things that I always wanted to pursue but could not. We all have those things that we wanted to do really bad when we were younger but Mom and Dad said no (but not like drugs or anything). To answer this impression about a month ago I decided that I wanted to start taking Karate lessons. I shopped around for a little while and decided that it was too expensive at the places I wanted to take it, and the more affordable places didn't have programs that really impressed me that much. So I bagged it. But then a week or 2 later I decided again to do it and I called the dojo that I wanted to study at and told them I wanted to start. Last Thursday was my 2 week mark and I absolutely love it.

I am studying at a place called United Studios of Self Defense. They claim to teach the the ancient art of Shaolin Kung Fu as taught by the Shaolin Monks of China. They also like trees.




Yesterday I tested for my yellow belt. The test was not exactly what I thought it was going to be. For the test I needed to know certain maneuvers and a few other things. But the test ended up being way more than just a simple display of what I had learned. It was also a test of endurance, self-control, and discipline. It lasted around 2 hours (and I am told that was actually a shorter than normal test) and it was balls to the wall the whole time. It was awesome. But today I feel like I was hit by a truck. I figured out how many push-ups I did yesterday (among other things) and I came to about 170. That may not be a lot for some people but for me it is a whole lot. Normally in a day if I do push ups I do about 25. However, I passed my test and I am now officially a Yellow Belt, or in cooler terms I am a 5th Rokkyu.

Some day this will be me:

Simply put, or maybe not

You do not start to become who you want to be until you are honest with yourself about who you are right now.

Sometimes you need to be honest with yourself about even the stuff that "sucks" about you. From time to time I feel like I am trying to force myself to be a certain way or to think a certain way, for whatever reason. But in forcing myself, I can never fully assume what it is that I think I should assume. It isn't until I have let go - or rather honestly assessed that I am being stupid or forceful or dishonest with myself - that I am able to truly see what it is that I want to become, that I should become, and how to get there.

Funny how brute force/self-fascism doesn't work with ourselves either. We hate it.

Dawn of a new era

Dear friends and fans-

I hope I haven't lost you for the lack of writing in my blog. But then again, did I ever really have you?

It is funny how life changes and how you have to adapt more to yourself than you do to your environment sometimes. It seems like that is my case most of the time. Change sucks but it is ultimately good. Here are some good changes:

My computer.

I have recently upgraded my computer. Here are some links to some of the fancy parts I decided to purchase:

• eVGA GeForce 8800GTS 320MB 320Bit Video card


• An extreme power supply from OCZ

AND

• a new case courtesy of Coolermaster complete with a pretty blue led fan in front.

I have also installed Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit version on my computer as a dual boot with Windows XP Pro. So far I like Vista alright, but sometimes it has some quirky things with some of my hardware. My sound was working, but now it has a really empty metallic sound that I like to call "tingy." So this change might suck.

I wanted to post my new benchmark scores with my new hardware using 3dMark06. I don't have them on me, but I can tell you I went from about a 3200 to a 6900. Quite a jump and it is pretty obvious in game play.

Speaking of game playing, I have a bunch of new games, but I haven't really spent time playing them. The one I am most excited about is Half-Life2: Episode 2


I feel like the Half-Life game series is pretty underrated, but what do I know really?

Anyways, not exciting, but that is about it for now. Bless you all.

Matt

Hello, World.

I lie to you a lot lately. I don't mean to, but I just do. I am a rather honest person, but with some things I just rather not be honest. I don't lie about things I have done, or stuff that I own, or anything of that nature. It is just mostly about how I am doing. So sorry about that. I kind of want to stop lying, but right about now I am not so sure I am being honest with myself. Oh well. Maybe I will tell you all a dark secret:

I am addicted to cussing.

It's not so dark of a secret or even a secret to many of you. But to my family, I am sorry. I just can't stop. I try regularly though. And I really want to not cuss. It just comes out. But hey, at least I'm not addicted to drugs or porn anything like that.

Speaking of porn, at work today I got to smash a couple of hard drives with a hammer that were apparently stock full of pr0n. I think the cops confiscated the drives and I was given the honor of smashing them. And believe me I smashed the hell out of them. With malice. I smashed so hard that I was told to go outside to finish the job. It was messy. It was awesome. Here is an image to help everyone with this social malady:



Sometimes I feel like I am faced with decisions that are grave enough that whatever choice I make I wont be able to go back on. It is a stressful feeling. I feel like I have a few of these decisions in front of me. But what is worse is the nagging feeling that I am always making the wrong decision.

I will keep you posted. Or maybe I will just lie about it.

---

---

---

matt