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by LFSC Admin
Nobody Loves Me
Avelino has been AWOL. That?s right folks, Away With Out Leave. I?ve neglected this little chunk of cyberspace that I call mine, and there?s no excuse for it. Sure, I?ll say that school has started again, and that is eating into my time. Or, I could say that the new job I took on is another burden. I?ve already tried using the ?I was playing Star Wars Galaxies? excuse, but you?re used to that, so I won?t do that anymore. I?ve been absent, for so long I think, because I?ve lost a lot of the motivation I once had for doing this site. I have a blast, and part of me thinks it is a worthwhile effort. However, constantly I wonder if anybody is ever reading what I write here. For example: during the month of August, the Avelino.Stasistech.com home page was viewed 42 times. Now, a lot of those were from me checking that a news post looked right, so, what the actual number of visitors really was I don?t know. And even if people view the site, Archon is the only person who ever mentions it to me. He?s the only person who tells me straight away that
America
Introduction As you may or may not know, I ventured on a 2700 mile journey across America. Now, I’ll mention quite a few tidbits of information in my article “Where’s Avelino,” but I felt it necessary to devote a separate article to this topic. And again, some of you may or may not already know that America is going to the dogs. For those of you who are aware of this development, this article should provide further vindication of your belief. If you didn’t know that America’s character is in a state of decline, consider this your first lesson. Now, I could begin listing reasons like the Bush economy and the Bush Screw Your Neighbor? Doctrine of Foreign Policy, or the fact that we’ve seen so much legislation aimed at regulating citizens that I want to move to Canada, or we could look at the latest information on corporate scandals. But, here at the Stasistech Network, we like to do things a little bit differently. Instead, we’re going to look at only two factors: the inability of Americans to follow simple directions, and the inability of Americans to pee into the toilet, as opposed to on the toilet. Yes, You
Slacking
Well, I’ve been slacking a little on the “blogging” front lately, and for that I apologize. I do have two reasons, though I’ll let you judge the merit of my excuses. For starters, I’ve been helping some people from my Dad’s church stucco a Huge-Ass-Wall?, so that’s taken up a little of my time. Also, being away for three weeks means I’m trying to play catch-up on DF-BHD. Archon is a full three ranks ahead of me, and though I doubt I’ll catch him, I’m going to try. Speaking of stucco, if you’ve never done it before, don’t feel that you’re missing out on anything. It consists mostly of your left arm holding this plate like a waiter, which you pile up with cement. Now, holding this plate of cement up in the air, you use a trowel to scoop the stucco/cement off the plate onto a wall, pushing hard to get the mixture to stick to the wall. Once all the cement/stucco is gone, you pile some more onto your plate, and repeat. Like, I don’t know, 7 million times. If you’re neck, back, and arms aren’t in serious pain by the end of the day, you’ve been stuccoing
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I had the opportunity during the last several days to play with some children. Cousins, mostly, and young. And I have to tell you, it was fun. It?s been years since I played hide-and-go-seek. I?d forgotten how I truly didn?t know I was missing the game until I was playing it once more. I actually sat in a hiding spot as my younger cousin was looking for me, and thought to myself, ?Ooo, I really have to pee.? ?Playing? is a concept used frequently by the Dave Matthews Band. DMB is, and probably always will be, my favorite musical group. One thing I find appealing is the music, but what really draws me in is the lyrics. Mainly written by Dave Matthews, the lyrics to many songs stress how we should live our lives to the fullest, because there?s no guarantee tomorrow will be here. The most striking example of this would have to be ?You Never Know.? Here?s a snippet: There?s not a moment to lose in the game Don?t let the troubles in your head Steal too much time you?ll soon be dead So play I?ve thought on several occasions about the value of playing. To be young
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Well, I?m heading on a three week or so trip, so I wanted to let everybody know that I shan?t be doing much for the site while I’m away. Archon has access to the news system, so maybe he?ll stop over and post something really quick some time. Otherwise, I?ll try and keep you updated, as I should have Internet access during the majority of our trip. A quick itinerary: leaving Silver City, NM, and traveling to Oklahoma City, then on to St. Louis, and from there to Chicago, where my sister is graduating from Northwestern University. After spending a few days in Chicago, we?re moving my sister to Washington D.C., which is were my mom is currently employed. Should be spending a week, maybe two, in D.C., before heading home via Nashville and Dallas. So, should be quite the little trip. I call it my quasi-vacation because I’ll bve driving with my dad for trip. If we manage not to kill eachother, I’ll deem the trip a success. Behave everybody, and of course, head over to the main site if you get bored. I?m sure the forums are cooking up something special, and you?re definitely invited. Until next time,
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So Archon and I went camping last week. We spent two nights, three days in the wilderness. Yeah, we had water, meat, tents, firewood, marshmallows, and alcohol, but I still like to say we were roughing it. For the most part, we just sat and chatted. However, there was occasion to discuss more important things than the sheer number of times this one woman made trips to the bathroom out there. So, Archon let me know he was interested in doing some, I guess philosophical, writing. I think he’s going to be exploring some social aspects, but that’s as much as I’m going to tell you for now. We discussed a few things in depth, and came to the conclusion that we would both be writing a piece, and then posting at the same time. We’ll see how our respective arguments develop, and whether or not they’ll conflict with or corroborate each other. This also means that this web site will have its first article up soon. Stay tuned. I’ve been jamming out to two CDs my sister sent me recently. Jack Johnson’s On and On and Zwan’s Mary Star of the Sea. I’m working on reviews of each, but
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Well, I guess it has been a few weeks, so it must be high time for another blog entry. Tomorrow’s my birthday as well, so I probably won’t get around to writing if I don’t do it now. But, what to write about? The fishing line that was strung across the street last week that almost took me off my bike? The Matrix: Reloaded? Catching up with old friends? Why not all three? Tuesday afternoon, I was biking around town. I visited one grandma, then another, and then went over to my mom’s place to work on the yard. I was riding down Silver St. and suddenly “THWACK!!” At first I didn’t know what was going on, I had been jerked back, I felt something snap, and then I was moving again. Once my head cleared, I realized what had happened: somebody strung a piece of fishing line across the road. As I was riding down, it close-lined me at the neck and, fortunately, snapped. It left this nice red line across the base of my neck. I filed a police report, but they said they couldn’t really do anything. Which makes sense. The Matrix: Reloaded. Where to start? My
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Well, I had an incredible weekend. It all began on Friday night, when I went to see the new X-Men flick. I’ll post a quick review of the movie this evening. For now, I’ll say that I honestly giggled about 15 times during the movie. Also on Friday, we put together a futon using instructions that might as well have been written in hieroglyphs on papyrus. We began the process at about 6:00, and 3 hours later we had disassembled the first two pieces twice because the instructions forgot to mention where some parts went. We went to watch the movie, came back and finished the futon, only to find that we had put it together backwards. Now, I’ve put together a lot of “Wal-Mart” furniture: bookcases, shelves, a different futon, a computer desk, some bed stands, etc. Never before had I so completely put something together so badly. Needless to say, I was a little upset. Saturday, I volunteered with the Tour of the Gila. This is the biggest cycling race in southern New Mexico. I spent the morning sweeping the roadway of debris, since the racers come flying by at about 35-40 MPH. A tiny little rock can
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I was browsing over at Tech Report last night, and the site’s owner, Damage, was asking about DirecTV and TiVo. I offered my own advice about his dilemma, and then started thinking. I used to be a real TV junkie. Back when I was living with my ex (another Blog entry, maybe someday) we had UltimateTV. Truly, it was wonderful. Anyhoo, back to me thinking. Yeah, yeah, shut up. I was trying to determine if I had actually cut down on my TV viewing time, as I believed I had. Back with the ex, I watched TV whenever I was home. Sure, sometimes I got online and immersed myself in Diablo II, but if I wasn’t at work and I wasn’t online, I was watching TV. Heck, I used to go to Spoons with some friends, to play NTN Network games. It may be that the amount of TV that we watched ended up contributing to the end of our relationship, but she won’t tell me what happened, so this is only speculation. However, upon reflection, I really don’t watch as much TV as I used to. I get out and mountain bike, and hike with Archon. I spend time
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This afternoon I picked up a few copies of The Mustang, since this was the issue wherein my first story appeared. I had a half-page spread and a picture. Yes, to my resume I can now add ?Published Writer.? To celebrate, I decided to pick up Steven/Archon for some dinner. I offered Wendy?s or Taco Bell, because frankly I?m a cheap bastard. Steven decided on Taco Bell, so after a quick stop by his mom?s place we headed in that direction. Being a lazy bastard as well as a cheap one, I went for the drive-thru. We were greeted by this recording: ?Welcome to Taco Bell, would you like to try one of our new Cheesy Gordita Crunches? Please order when you?re ready.? Before I could start, the recording was immediately followed by a woman who said, ?One moment, I?ll be right with you.? This should have been an indication of things to come, but we simply laughed it off. After waiting the customary few moments, the woman returned and asked what we would like to order. I said I wanted a Cheesy Gordita Crunch combo with an extra Cheesy Gordita Crunch. The woman on the other end of the
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First off, apologies for not updating recently. I said earlier that I was sick, and this week has been staggering in the amount of work I’ve had to do. Yessiree, it’s that time of the year: research projects are getting completed, book reviews are being finished, and finals are just around the corner. Well, to start off this post, I’ll relate the story of my Saturday. I attended a symposium entitled “The Native American Experience.” It was held at my school, WNMU. Basically, it was a day of events aimed at introducing various aspects of Native American culture to the public. Why was I there, you ask? Well, I was writing an article for The Mustang, the student newspaper here on campus. Yes, I have a new gig, “semi-regular writer.” It seems as though their online issues aren’t current-current, so unless you can get a hard copy you might not be able to read a story of mine for quite some time. Oh well. Regardless, the symposium was wonderful. I could write an entire post on the discussion of Native American spirituality, but I’ll only remark that the speaker had an incredibly sound outlook on life. To quote him, “You
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I’m sitting here working on a review of my iRiver iMP350, and listening to Scarlet’s Walk again. I’m truly amazed by this album. I listened to it during another hike today, and when I got back in my truck to drive home I felt cheated, since I wasn’t still listening to Scarlet’s Walk. Suddenly No Doubt didn’t seem good enough. Some of you might think No Doubt is ever good enough, but that’s another topic. I’m looking forward to tonight’s showing of Bill Maher’s Real Time. One of his guests will be Arriana Huffington, one of my favorite political speakers. She has a new book out that I want to pick up, and her weekly newsletter is always an interesting read. She managed to put Dennis Miller in his place the last time she appeared on the show, which IMHO is no small feat. After Real Time is Da Ali G show, which is some of the funniest TV I’ve seen in quite some time. Combined, these two shows provide an hour and a half of quality viewing. Though Bill Maher usually puts a leftist view on things, he also has a good spectrum of guests which balances the discussion.
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I went for a hike today. Nothing that would normally be seen as out of the ordinary, except this time I went alone. Usually, I try and head out to the trail with my grandma or with Archon. But, I was tired of reading and studying, and decided I wanted to get outside and think about a few things. I also decided not to ride my mountain bike. When I ride, my mind is too engaged in staying unhurt and on the trail that it isn’t exactly relaxing. So, I filled up my Camelback, grabbed my walking stick and headed for Little Walnut. I also decided to take some music along, in the form of my iRiver SlimX. I started out on the trail, and got going at a pretty good pace. I was hiking up to Gomez Peak, a fairly strenuous climb that basically entails a series of switchbacks up the side of the mountain. My pace may have been influenced by The Chemical Bros., and after I started huffing and puffing I switched over to Tori Amos’ Scarlet’s Walk, a CD I had not listened to twice since picking it up 6 months ago. The music was more
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Well, as Archon pointed out over on the main page, it’s a new month. He said something about the year going by very quickly, and I must agree with him. It does seem like the year is progressing at a steady, fast pace. I tried to put my finger on it, and it took me a while before I could really determine why. My first thought was the situation in Iraq. But upon further reflection, I figured that the news was too monotonous in the first 2 months of the year. Now that I think about it, the news only made the time drag. My next thought was of school. In my situation, I think that’s a cause, for two reasons. The first being my sister’s upcoming graduation from Northwestern University. Now, she started a couple of years after me, and although I took a few years off, I’m still feeling a little, ahem, jealous, of her… Heh heh. At the same time, I feel immensely proud of her accomplishments. It does seem, however, that the time of her graduation is approaching rapidly. She only has one quarter left. I almost think I feel the stress of her graduation as
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In response to my colleague’s recent writing on the meaning of life, I felt I should add my take on certain aspects as well. It is widely known within my small circle of friends, family, and acquaintances that the previous 2.5 years of my life could be characterized as tumultuous, and blessed. While this partially speaks to my friend’s idea that we’re always clawing our way through life, I also find that sometimes good things happen to us that we did not strive for, plan for, etc. Hence, my friend brought up the age-old (well, not really) question: is life like a box of chocolates? Do you ever know what you’re going to get? So I sit here in front of my computer monitor, that glorious portal to this thing called the Internet, and I read my friend’s words questioning the essence of human existence. And many different things come to my mind, sometimes in waves, then singularly. Questions of faith and religion. Thoughts on politics and government. Ideas about humanity, mortality, adventure. Hope. Joy. Joy. Is that what Archon was referring to when he mentioned ‘the first kiss?’ Incidentally, I have few memories of first kisses. Several stand out,
