Weekly Meh. and other news.

So after doing this for a whole month now... I think I've come to a conclusion.

My life is boring. Sure I do Airsoft when I can afford it, and there are the occasional RPG's with my friends, but the only real thing that I do on a consistent basis is play around on the internet. This has been on my mind a lot lately because of my poor grades. So I have come to the conclusion that I need to turn my addiction into a healthier thing. I want to start a rant that gives a shout out for my addiction of the week. Each week I will be showing some love to the game/comic/website that consumes the most of my time. I have not decided wether I want to do this here, or on another blog. I do want to keep up a semi personal journal along with this weekly project. I could also start a website...

While I mull over the possibilities, this week's "Time Consumer of the Week" award goes to Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook. I do not understand what it is that makes this game so addicting. I think part of the appeal lies in the fact that it is reminiscent of all the puzzle video games I use to play as a kid. You know, Tetris, Doctor Mario, Yoshi. I spent hours upon hours playing games like this, and I can honestly say that these puzzle type games are among my favorites these days as well. Another addicting factor in the game is that it lets you compare your score with everyone else that you are "friends" with that plays the game. This gives it the competitive edge that it needs so that you don't get too bored playing it. I don't know how many times I've said to myself "Just one more go." or "This is the last game I swear." and the next thing I notice I receive a message saying that I've played 40 games in a row. So here's to you Bejeweled Blitz. Thanks for making my dull hours only slightly less dull.

In other news... In exactly 6 weeks from now I will be well on my way to seeing my baby in China. In the mean time I am living off of Ramen Noodles so that I can afford the trip. At this rate the rest of the semester is going to creep by so slow I think I can already see a snail passing by and giving me the finger...

Self exposition: Procrastination

Ok... It's been a few weeks. Time to see where my ramblings will take me.

I've been doing good with my exorcise schedule. It's not quite a schedule since it keeps getting adjusted, but it is still happening. This week I did a mile run twice and a day at the gym. The last few days were spent desperately studying for a Chinese test that I ended up almost failing anyway.

Procrastination is the bane of my existence. The thing that tends to provide my procrastination with the opportunity to present itself to me is the internet.

I play a game called Evony. It's a fun game that lets you build a city, build defenses and attack other cities. It's so simple that you can play it at anytime anywhere without to much distraction because most of the game is sitting around waiting for your buildings to be built. It gets addicting because you end up chatting with other players online, and if you put yourself in a good alliance, it becomes fun to help out the other players in their goals as well.
Since you can attack others, it's only natural that you can be attacked as well, and there are some pretty tense moments when a large alliance sets their sights on your city or your friend's cities. This constant checking to see if you need to do something to prevent an attack can lead to many distractions when you are trying to be productive.

Reason #2 that the internet leads to procrastination: Webcomics.

I've expressed my love for this art form before. I love how people can tell stories with pictures and words. I don't even mind a crudely drawn story if the comic is really well written. Take the comic XKCD for example... the comic is nothing but stick figures. It doesn't even tell a story. However, it speaks volumes to the geek inside of me. It causes me to ponder about the random things it talks about. Last night after playing Vampire with a couple of my friends, I spend over 4 hours reading this comic. Then I was up the rest of the night pondering how I could implement a 28 hour day into my schedule, or how I could modify my mattress so that it would be actually comfortable to cuddle with my soon to be wife after we get married. This kind of comic is especialy dangerous to my productivity because I love things that make you think. My favorite animes are Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop. They are my favorites because they force me to think about the message within and look at the world around me in a different way. That is what XKCD does for me. So yeah... it's more addicting than Megatokyo, FANS, and The Devils Panties combined.

To make the webcomic thing worse is that because I read them so obsessively (I follow about 18-20 different titles every day) I will read one untill I catch up with everything the author has done. Sometimes this takes 10 minutes. Sometimes this takes 10 hours. Sometimes it take days or weeks. Once I'm finished, I look for another one because I hate to be bored... It's like Fat Bastard once said in an Austin Powers movie: "I eat because I'm depressed, and I'm depressed because I eat. It's a vicious cycle."

Reason #3 the internet leads to procrastination: I love to know stuff. It doesn't have to be anything I will remember, or need to know. I just like reading up on random things. I'm not a news junky. I don't like reading that depressing crap. But articles on Asylum or the Chive can keep me busy for hours. If I ever tapped the full potential of Wikipedia, the internet would officially become a black hole and suck in any kind of productivity that I may be able to muster out of my life.

Do I need help? Yes. Do I want it... Hell No. It's a problem, but one I can live with. Right now, I have what's important to me. I've got a beautiful fiancee that loves me. I've got friends that care about me. I've got a family that looks out for me the best they can, and I've got a killer internet connection thanks to BYU's network. All I need is a plan to keep my hobbies hobbies and focus on the more important things in life... like actually having one... Or I can find a way to turn my hobbies into an income source... if anyone has got a good idea on that one, I'm all ears.

Ok... I want to say more, and I want to explore other avenues of thought today, however, I need to start on that plan on keeping hobbies as just hobbies. I need to get ready for church, and start studying for the upcoming school week.

So zai jian for now!

Good Times

Listening to: Diary of a Madman by Ozzy Osbourne

This has been a good week. It was very trying, very hectic, but I have learned a lot. It's been very good to me.

I've been trying to keep up with a new exercise routine for the last two weeks.. This is not the first time, but like this blog, I am determined to keep up with it. Every other day I have been going down to the track in the Smith Field House and running a mile. I must say, it's been quite intense for me, but I feel like I'm in the best shape of my life. Of course, given my track record (no pun intended) that's not very hard to do. I have surprised myself in more than one way by doing this. First of all, I have been running the fastest miles in my life. Around 11-12 minutes. I know that many would laugh at my pathetic attempts to "run" however, I feel great about it. I know that improvement will come in time and I'm not in a rush to get it to happen right now. I think the key for me will be patience. Unlike how I am feeling right now as I am waiting for the oven to heat up so I can cook a pizza. (I know healthy exercise and unhealthy food don't mix, but one major hurdle at a time. Ok?

Today I switched it up by running up to the gym afterwards and doing some weight lifting two. I've got two goals for myself:

Listening to: Stand Here With Me by Creed

The first one is to be able to run a 5K race by the end of next year. I don't expect to finish first. I just want to finish. The second one is to improve my physical appearence by loosing some excess body fat (especially the man boobs.). I don't think I'm being two hard on myself when I say this. I know that I'm not the worst looking person in the world, however, I see room for healthy improvement. I don't want to look like Hulk Hogan, or some other muscle bound retard. I just want to feel good about myself. Somedays I look in the mirror and ask myself who that good looking bastard is. Others I just wish to be better. I think it's more for my fiancee than myself. However it's changes that I want to make, and that makes all the difference.

Listening to: ???? by Jay

Did I not mention her? How stupid of me. It's time to Brag.

I met my fiancee while doing an internship at Disney's Hollywood Studios. I was assigned to work at the front gate taking tickets. After a week and a half of being there, the new international college students came in for training. I talked to

Listening to: ???? by Jay

Erica (name has been changed. I'll change it again as soon as I find a cooler nickname like mine) on her first night working at the park. That day, I noticed something different about her, but I could not put my finger on it. It wasn't love at first sight that's for sure. I just felt some need to try to get to know her a little better is all. So over the next week or so I tried to talk to her every once in a while. I found out that she is from Shanghai China. I also found that she had never seen half of the Disney Cartoons because they were not all imported into China. "BINGO!" I thought to myself. "That's my way in to get to know her!" So I invited her over to my apartment and rented Aladdin (at least I think it was). We had a nice evening with my roommates watching the movie, and I still did not fulfill the desire to get to know her better.

The next week I invited my brother to the park. As a last thought, I invited Erica to join us after her shift was over. She did, and we had a great time together. Of course, I ended up leaving my brother out by trying to ride with Erica on all of the rides, but boy was it fun to hear her scream her head off on the Rocking Roller coaster Staring Aerosmith. That evening we went to Hard Rock Cafe, and I ended up picking up the tab for our little trio. I didn't know it would make Erica mad, but it did. She wasn't infuriated or anything. She just explained to me in China

Listening to: Faint by Linkin Park

that they liked to go dutch. I had a great time, and it was that night that I decided that I wanted to try to date Alice. It had a lot to do with how cute she was. I also liked her personality. Her willingness to try new things

Listening to: ???? by Elva

and her fun loving attitude. It also didn't hurt that we ended up hearing the song "I Don't Want to Miss A Thing" by Aerosmith twice that evening. (One of my favorites, and very romantic. I took it for a sign.)

To make this long story short, the very next week I found a way to take her to EPCOT just the two of us. After a fun day of touring the nations, and riding rides, we watched the fireworks from porch outside of the fancy restaurant in Japan. When the fireworks ended, I hung back and waited for everyone around us to leave. I could tell that Erica knew that something was up because she was kinda tense seeing me stay behind like that. Most of the time I did not look at her. I was very nervious after all. More or less, our conversation went like this:

Listening to: Black Rain by Ozzy Osbourne (I've got the playlist on shuffle. Don't Judge me.)

Listening to: Promise by Kellie Koffey from the EPCOT Tapestry of Dreams firework show. ON REPEAT (Happy now?)

Me: "I've really enjoyed getting to know you the last few weeks. I really like you... What would you say if... if I asked you to be my girlfriend?"

Erica: "... I don't have a lot of time... I go back to China in four months..."

Me: "Well, what if we just tried it... Just see where it takes us. What do you s ay to that?"

Erica: "Well... I would have to say... (seconds seem like hours, and my heart is threatening to stop) ... yes."

Elated, I slowly put my left arm around her, and pull her close... My first girlfriend. My first meaningful hug... The first time in my life that I ever felt that everything was as it was suppose to be. We walked to the bus leaning on each other the entire way, huge smiles on our faces, and a few tears in my eyes. That moment, we found "our song". It was playing then, and it's the same one I'm playing now. It was also this moment that I knew that I loved this girl. I know it sounds premature. But every fiber in my being was screaming at me that this was right and something that I needed to try to see through. Of course I didn't share this information with Alice for another couple of days.

From that evening, we spent almost every free waking moment together. There wasn't 24 hours that did not go buy that we did not see each other, and I was happy. Erica had left her laptop in my apartment one night (She figured she would just end up taking it over to my place anyway) and the next morning before she came over for a visit, I looked up how to say "I love you" in Chinese. It really shocked her. She thought I was going very fast. I felt that if I had only four months with her, I wasn't going fast enough. I wanted to enjoy every moment that we had together wether it ended or not when she left, and in order to do that I knew that I needed to be honest with her about my feelings and not hold back anything. Every time I had thought about it, the feeling grew stronger and stronger. The more I learned about her, the more there was to love. Erica is very lovable like that. Even when she is disagreeable, it's hard to not love her. (Luckily my parents felt the same way when she finally met them). Soon after that, we shared our first kiss. It seemed like I was in heaven when I was around her, and it was a fairy tail dream come true. If it was a dream, I didn't want it to end.

After about a month or so of dating, I knew I wanted to ask Erica to be my wife. I didn't know how. I didn't know when. I wanted some kind of grand spectacle in front of Cinderella's castle. Every time I even hinted at the idea of us spending our lives together Erica would withdraw. It scared her for reasons I did not understand. On October 15th we had planned to go to the Polynesian Resort to sit out in a hammock on the beach and watch the fireworks across the lake in the Magic Kingdom. Before I met up with Erica after her shift that evening, I bought her a small present. It was a novelty ring that she had bought and decided to return. It was only meant to be a gift. She had liked the ring, but needed to return it because she bought it before figuring out her budget that week, so I bought it for her as a surprise. As we were laying in the hammock together I told her that I had a gift for her and pulled out the ring. She was very excited about the ring, and all night long she teased me that it could be her engagement ring. I was not expecting this at all. Just a couple days before she didn't even want to think about the possibility. It's as if a switch was flipped. She couldn't leave me alone about the idea. I was the one who wanted nothing to do with it. I knew that I was only going to propose to a woman once in my life, and I wanted to do it right. I wanted a real ring. I wanted to plan every aspect about it. I panicked and just went silent about the subject.

That night I couldn't stop thinking about what Erica had said. The next morning when we were together, I asked her a question that I had asked many times before: "What can I do to make you the happiest girl in the world." Again her answer came as a surprise. "I think you know." At that moment I knew that she wasn't kidding. I was silent a few moments while I said a quick prayer. The feeling was so strong... even stronger than when I first asked Erica to be my girlfriend. Again, every fiber of my being and then some was shouting at me "YES! DO IT! DO IT RIGHT NOW!" So I finally replied... "Alice... Will you marry me?"

If I have to finish the story for you to figure out the answer, then you haven't been paying attention. For the second time in my life, I was the happiest man in the world, and it felt as if everything was Exactly how it should be. Of course I soon got Erica a proper ring, and re-preposed properly. The way I wanted to. On one knee, ring in hand, in front of a grand castle... Well, the Washington DC Mormon temple counts in my book. Even better than Cinderella's Castle if you ask me.

It's been almost a year since I proposed to Erica. We are in the middle of the process to get her visa so that she can come back to America to marry me so we can live happily ever after. Just last week our first petition was accepted. We still have got some more paper work to do, but we hope to have the visa by next August. I truly look forward to that day. Every time I envision Erica in her white dress (no I've never seen it, but I can imagine) a smile warms my heart.

So now that I've said a *koff koff* little *koff koff* about Erica, I can continue on my original story...

However, I'm not feeling in it now. Right now I just want to bask in these warm feelings and memories... and dream a little about the future.

I'll write more later.

Goodnight.

First time's a charm.

Welcome to my new blog.

I know. that sound's quite cliche, but what else am I suppose to say?

If you have enough interest, let me introduce myself... as far as anonymity admits.

Those who are familiar with my online presence call me Vash. Where did I come up with such a name you ask. Well quite simply, when I was a little twat looking to find a cool internet nickname I was searching through a Suncoast store and found a keychain that I liked. It was a depiction of a cartoon character by the name of Vash the Stampede. Anyone familiar with Anime will recognize this name as belonging to the lovable protagonist from the show Trigun. Anyway, the depiction was of him as a chibi, a super deformed chariature with a large head and small body. I thought to myself... "Vash... the Chibi..." and thus a monster was born.

I am currently a student at Brigham Young University in Provo Utah. I try not to be too proud of it. For some reason a lot of people that live away from Provo look down on BYU students as snobby stuck up pricks who think that they are better than everyone else in the world. If you have a similar attitude towards my chosen school, let me just make one thing clear... I am not "one of those" students.

I don't know how I got here. Just lucky I guess. My grades were better than many (I was in the top 23rd of my class I think), but that isn't hard when you grow up in a rural area where the people are more concerned about teaching children a trade rather than preparing them for college. (I have nothing against my old school or the people that work there, I just hope that they can open their eyes to the great potential they have.)

I'm not rich, as a matter of fact every penny that got me here has been my own with the exception of the small amount of help my parents and extended relatives can offer. (I now have a scholarship and government grants helping me out a great deal, but I still have a 20 hour work week on top of a 14 credit hour class schedule just to make ends meet.)

My family doesn't have generations after generations attending this school. I'm the first one in my entire family to ever attend a University, so I've got nothing in that category on my side.

Despite all of this, for some reason I was accepted into this school, and trust me, I don't look a gift horse in the mouth. If I had to explain why I chose to come here, it would be for several small reasons:

1) IT'S CHEAP. Tuition here is about $1,200 a semester, and I pay $250 a month for a private dorm room. Say what you will about the LDS Church, but they sure do take care of their own. Even student's who are not members of the Chruch only pay a fraction of the cost for a formal education elsewhere.

2) REPUTATION. Yeah as much as I say I'm not "one of those" students, I am looking forward to putting "BYU graduate" on my resume. The school is really trying it's best to compete with the top schools in the country on many fronts, and I'll be happy to ride that to a nice fat paycheck one day.

3) I FEEL AS IF THIS IS WHERE I'M SUPPOSE TO BE. I don't care if you believe that there is a force out there that has a higher plan for us or not. I feel as if I was lead to come here. Everything that is good that has happened to me has been because I, or someone close to me has followed those "gut feelings" that just say "this is right." I'll explain more on that another time if I feel so inclined.

My idol's in life are (In no particular order)

1) My Grandfather- the man who introduced me to a lot of the things I love. He took me on my first Roller Coaster. Outings to the local Amusement Parks or Disney World with my Grandparents were par for the course, and they sacrificed a lot just to spend the time with my brother and I. I will never forget them for that, and especialy my Grandfather who believed in me and what I wanted to do. He never said "No, that's too hard." He always wanted me to follow my dreams and be happy. Pops passed on over four years ago, and I miss him dearly. If he has the opportunity to look down at me from above, I hope he can be proud of what I have become.

2) Walt Disney- a dreamer and a kid at heart no matter how old he got. Mr. Disney embodies almost everything I want to become in life (spiritual matters aside). In a very real way, I feel a great debt to him because of the joy that his ideas have brought to my life and the lives of my family. It is my dream to one day work for Walt Disney Imagineering and pass some of that joy down to others through my own ideas and hard work.

3) Nephi- If you don't know who he is, then you should read the Book of Mormon. Nephi was the man that every man should be, brave, noble, god-fearing, strong in body and spirit, and a great author to boot. Wether or not you believe the Book of Mormon is true, anyone can gain insight on how to be a better person by reading it's words. And it all starts with Nephi's efforts to follow his father and obey the commandments of God.

With all this said, I am not some kind of bible thumping goody two shoes who exalts himself above mere mortals with his extreme righteousness. I try my best to follow the teachings of my religion, but I've got some skeletons in my closet, and I'm not afraid to admit that. Of course I want to change some of those things, but I realize it will take me years to reach the point where I would consider myself a "righteous" person, if I ever get there at all. So don't be surprised if I'm all gushy about the gospel one minute and all Ozzy Osbourne the next. I like Ozzy, and I'm not afraid to admit that he sits on the opposite shoulder of the angel. (I haven't given him a name yet.)

About my hobbies... Here is where the confessions begin. I... am... a... NERD! Not only am I a nerd, I'M PROUD OF IT! It's taken me a long time to come to terms with this, but I know where I belong, and what I enjoy and so I don't need to hide it with anything. I enjoy playing table top RPG's, watching Anime as well as American Cartoons, Reading (novels, and comic books), Music, Movies, and yes, Video Games. I've done Live Action Role Playing (LARP: Verb. An event where a bunch of nerds run around in the woods beating each other with foam padded sicks and pretend to be something cooler than they actually are.) I'm just now getting into a sport called Airsoft (A lot like LARP, only you shoot each other with plastic BB's.) My fiancee really wants me to start taking better care of myself, so I've picked up running on the indoor track here at school. I'll tell you how much I like that one as soon as I figure it out. I also enjoy riding Roller Coasters and studying Amusement Park rides. (I know Utah is a GREAT place for that.)

I am addicted to web comics. They are free, and have a lot more variety than anything Marvel or DC puts out (even though I do love X-Men, Spider Man, Batman, and the like). I like reading them because it gives me an escape from the every day. A release if you will. Here are a few of my favorite comics:

The Devils Panties (It's Not Satanic Porn, I swear!) www.thedevilspanties.com

Megatokyo (My first ever infatuation with web comics) www.megatokyo.com

Sandra and Woo www.sandraandwoo.com

fans www.faans.com

Sister Claire www.sisterclaire.com

Looking For Group (Richard is a hoot) www.lfgcomic.com

This list is no where near exhaustive of all the comics I read, but it gives a good idea of the variety I read. I must admit that I have spent many many hours reading these comics, and if you are like me, you will get hooked on them too, so prepare to say goodbye for the family, friends and dog for a while. However, if your reading this, you probably have done that already.

Well, It's getting late, and even though I love to talk about myself, I've got an airsoft event to go to tomorrow morning and I need some sleep so I can bust some caps... er... plastic BB's.