QI

i've said it before, and i'll say it again: opening the day after you close should be illegal. it's always no fun, even if you work with awesome people [which i did]. on top of that, i got three hours or less sleep last night, and today is the day before mother's day. granted, i did have a lot of fun at work and the time went really fast because we were busy, but i was really tired by the time i got off. i had a pretzel from auntie anne's after work, which i bought with my tip money, and it was good... but not as good as the amish market. blah.

unfair comparison, really.

so i came home and spent some time with the wife. we went out to applebee's for her second day in a row, and got some delicious food, then headed home to watch movies. we watched 'easy a' [love that movie. emma stone and amanda bynes ftw!] and 'dead alive.' holy crap. i hadn't ever seen the latter before, but it was totally ridiculous. blood-and-guts b-movie horror status. i'd heard the name many times, but never watched it. now i need to see 'bad taste' to complete the peter-jackson-bad-horror-flick experience. but for now, it's bedtime. goodnight, sirs and madams!

Remember All That

ahh, friday. i closed up shop tonight and headed back home to work on excessive amounts of late homework that took way too long. meanwhile, my wife went out to applebee's with her friends and my co-worker/friend becky. boo them! well, boo homework for preventing me from going out with them. it's okay, i got everything done and that's good news. anyway, this class is good. i've got a 100% in it, despite the fact that i thought it was going to be way harder than my previous classes. good to know that i'm still good enough at school and research and study that i can pass a class that is actually somewhat challenging.

i'm also learning a lot in this class, a lot of it which is dispelling some pretty blissful ignorance. now that i think about it, a lot of my education throughout this degree program has done that. i know a lot more about the american education system, especially when displayed in the context of the global position and outlook on bilingualism [read: they support it, we don't] and it's pretty easy to get depressed and disillusioned. it almost makes me want to quit, but at the same time, it makes me want to change things that much more. i hope that by making educational resources aimed in the right direction and encouraging the right things, i can make a difference. hopefully i'm not just being idealistic.

Scram, Maggot!

no work again. instead, i stayed home and made this, which is a parody of this. you should watch both, but if you only watch mine, you'll still find it humorous. because it is. i didn't plan to do this video, but the other night on tinychat, cody, justin and i came up with the idea to rewrite the video to be about myspace instead of youtube while illustrating some of the absurdities of the original video. i think it worked out pretty well, and the response has been pretty phenomenal. love it. that is enough for today, i'm a tired monkey. goodnight.

Texas Tea

a.k.a. black gold? sure! i worked today, but it was only between 2pm-8pm. weird. oh, i didn't mention in yesterday's blog entry that i walked a lot and did the laundry. while the latter is not important [though it provided a means for the former], the former is kind of important. see, i need to exercise more, because i am getting what the french call 'le fat.' i know, i know, that's not really what the french call it, but it's what i call it to make something somewhat serious sound funny. i eat like hell, and i drink too much soda, and i am just generally a bad person in that department. that changes, starting today.

instead of pepsi, i'll be filling my massive, 44oz. cup with unsweetened iced tea, because it tricks me into thinking that i'm drinking something delicious in a way that just drinking water doesn't. the flavor has to be there, or i won't 'want' to drink it. yum. tea. anyway, i'm trying to eat a bit healthier as well, and working out is a gradual thing for me. i walked for about an hour yesterday, and tomorrow i'll be heading to the gym because it's my day off. i'm also going to film a video! it's going to be awesome, as long as i don't mess it up. i have a great idea, courtesy of justin strawser a.k.a. thejealousone a.k.a. justtubed. he's awesome btw.

anyway, more about today! i got to work with tibet and becky, which was pretty epic. we talked a lot and did stupid things and said stupid things. we decided that we need to start making some youtube videos and become famous there so we don't end up selling nail kits. long story. don't ask. maybe i'll explain it some time soon, but i doubt it. i got the results from my paper that i wrote on monday night [which i didn't tell you guys about], and i got a 100% on that. so i've got a 100% in the class so far, which is hilarious to me because i thought this class was going to be really hard and involved. it's not that way, really, i just have to pay a bit more attention and do a bit more research/study on it.

in other words, i spend 5 hours per week on it instead of 2.

when i got home from work, christin and i watched an episode of the cosby show together [she is almost through season five, which is impressive even for her] and once she went to bed, i watched a lot of youtube videos and chatted with friends on skype. my queue is down to 46 now, including a lot of videos that were posted today and a few that i found on facebook and twitter. i'm plugging away here, really, i am. i'll get caught up soon enough, then i'll have nothing to do but be productive and stuff. who wants to do that?!?!? well, maybe then i'll actually finish my album and website. ha! i should... probably prioritize those things, though.

Underapprehended

having a day off after only one day of being back to work from vacation rules. wow, that was a confusing sentence. anyway, today i made this, which is a response to this. you should watch the second link first. i think it came out pretty good. i like using buford as a sarcastic rhetorical device to illustrate the lack of common sense present in the world today. i sort of made that video on a whim, instead of the other video i was going to make today [talking about losing the contest] which i was going to make instead of the other video i was going to make today [with chinese me]. whew! full of confusion today.

i spent a long while last night [read: tomorrow] catching up on blogs, and i did everything but this one, so i'll be posting two tomorrow. i mean right now. i'm even confusing myself now! i need to type something non-confusing into this here box in order to make myself feel centered. hello. my name is buel burton newman the fourth. i like jellybeans. excellent! not confusing at all. and who doesn't like jellybeans, really? now i'm sitting here wondering if jellybeans is actually a word, or if it's meant to be two separate words. chrome apparently thinks it's one, so we'll go with that.

most of tonight was spent on tinychat with my friends cory and justin, as well as a bunch of other people that i don't really know that well from the internets. it was fun. i met a few people, but when more people started joining and going on camera, it just got overwhelming and weird. so i kind of tuned out for a while, then just left to work on clearing out that good 'ole youtube queue. i've got that massive queue down to something like 60 or so, including videos that have come out today, so i think i'm doing okay. too many subscriptions still, methinks.

speaking of which, i unsubscribed from like 20-30 people today, because i've realized that i can't possibly continue to watch this many people, and my subscription count was just too high. so now i'm under 150, which is good, and i got rid of some people that never made videos and others that just made stuff i didn't like. others included some big youtubers that i just don't care about that much, so i just dumped 'em. meh. they don't need me. i hope i never get to the point where i am regarded as expendable by people, though. that would be just really sad. i won't take it to heart, though. time for bed, as i am up way too late. goodnight.

Varian Wrynn

i didn't win. sad news. sad day. lots of depression had today, but also lots of encouragement from a lot of folks and friends of mine who support me and are generally rad. my wife is a big one of those, and i love her very much. we had a great weekend, and it sucks to come back to something like this, but sometimes reality has to slap you in the face. i'm trying to rationalize it and make it seem like not a big deal, because i couldn't really afford to take two months off from work and the whole thing would be really bad timing and i'd miss my sister's trip out here... but who am i kidding? it still really sucks that i lost.

had my first day back at work, and i'm kind of excited that i have tomorrow off immediately after that. i actually found out that i had lost the contest last night, and spent about 2 hours confirming that i had actually lost and watching videos made un-private by the people who had won. it was really sad, and i actually did cry. mostly because i felt led-on by youtube because of the verbage in the e-mail i had received. i think i made the finals and just wasn't selected by the schools in the end. it's okay, at least my friend gretchen made it. she's awesome, her video was great.

anyway, because of that whole situation, i hadn't slept much which made working at 9am to open the store pretty tough stuff. working with tibet made it a bit better. she's funny. had a decent day at work, and headed back home to hang out with christin. she made me potstickers [comfort food of choice for me] and we caught up on community and the big bang theory. awesome times. that made me feel a lot better — my wife always knows how to comfort me and make me feel better when stuff like this happens. it'll be okay, but i feel like i'm sort of entitled to a few bad, depressing days now and then.

Wall's Street

oh sunday, wonderful sleep-filled day of rest. i did feel a bit bad about not going to church, but we'd planned to be away today anyway. i was so tired from the weekend [less than 10 hours over three days] that i wouldn't have really been able to function in church anyway. christin and i got a lot of much needed rest today, and didn't really do much, so there's little to talk about. i'm excited that i get to find out for sure about the contest tomorrow, so i'll definitely be filling everyone in on that department when the time comes. sorry for the short [and obviously super-late] update. thanks for reading. ;-D