"Life's Obstacles"

"Life's Obstacles"

The last time I met you,
It was by the sea.
You were too strong,
All I could do was flee.

But here you are now,
Blocking my path,
You’re pissing me off,
You’re enticing my wrath.

It's you who should move,
Time to step aside,
I'm stronger than before,
With my friends by my side.

But no, you just lie there,
With that grin on your face,
You barely lift an arm,
Like you own this whole place.

That's it! I'm through!
It's time I fight back!
I'm done running away,
Now it's time to attack!

I try my best,
I fight, I burn!
But you roll out your punishment,
During all of your turns.

I whittle you down,
To the very last drop,
But you rest it off,
This madness won’t stop!

This is it! I've won!
Here comes the final blow!
I'll take you out now,
With this final throw!

One! Two! ...
Wait, where is three?!
Dammit Snorlax!
You broke free.

The Wonderful World of Spencer

Wow. I've been busy. Actually, I lie (please forgive me), I haven't really been busy. But I've been lazy. I've had a lot happen these last couple of months. Some stuff has quite literally been life changing, other stuff, not so much. I might post something about that stuff later, but quite frankly, my mind has been to scattered as of late to put together any coherent post about one single subject. So instead, I decided to post twenty three random facts about myself, many of which are probably totally new to the world at large. Why twenty three? Because I said so, that's why. And don't worry, I'll post all non-video game related stuff. If you really want to know about the subject I always talk about anyways, feel free to message me or something. Anyways, without further ado, here are twenty three Spencer facts you may not have know (with annotations too!).

1. You can tell how tired I am by my eyes. When I am really tired, one eye is open more then the other. I have a hunch that this is because for a while, I would keep one eye open and one closed before I went to bed. When all the lights turned off, the eye that was closed could see better in the dark (it's pretty cool, you should try it). I did this for approximately a year on and off.

2. I recently got an umbrella that looks like a katana from my sister. This is by far one of the coolest presents I have gotten to date.

3. My favorite colors are yellow, then at a close second, is red. Ironically, I am not the biggest fan of orange, even though my two favorite colors combine to make it.

4. I am the youngest child. And by youngest, I mean I am the only one left that's not married.

5. My first two favorite movies were Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid. I'm not quite sure how this happened, but I would like to pretend it had something to do with my sister. However, whenever the subject comes up, she says she never liked watching them, especially since I wanted them on 24/7.

6. My first favorite song was Semi-Charmed Life by Third Eye Blind. I had the single CD, and listened to it on my CD player pretty much all day. And for those of you youngin's out there, CD stands for Compact Disc, and back in my day, the thing that stored the music, and the thing that played the music, were two entirely separate entities.

7. When my family and I visited New York one time, an Asian tourist group randomly came up to me and started taking pictures like I was some kind of celebrity. Myself and my family both see this as the precursor to why I am so fascinated and intrigued by Asian culture.

8. When I was a kid, I loved watching Jurassic Park. However, it always gave me nightmares that a Tyrannosaurus Rex was breathing above my head as I was falling asleep. This didn't stop me from watching the movie over and over, though.

9. While we are on the subject of sleeping, I sleep with my head under my pillows. I'm still not quite sure why.

10. Self promotion time. I have a Twitter. Follow me there at twitter.com/@godzilla_2000. Not quite as cool as my normal fun facts, but close enough that you should follow me.

11. I used to skateboard when I was a kid. This was back in the day before any random person could pick up a longboard, ride two feet, and say "Yea, I skate." You know, back when you had to do things like ollie.

12. I don't have an appendix, but not because it needed to be removed. I had other problems (the uniqueness of which would require to much space to type here. Message me if you are interested) and they decided they might as well remove it while they were "already in there."

13. I am quite a clean person, but only because I am lazy. I figure, the longer it stays clean, the less times I will have to clean whatever it is.

14. I wish I had a spiffy suit and tie that was specially designed to allow for extreme movement. That way, I could do martial arts, and look stylish at the same time.

15. The first time I ever went to Disneyland, I wasn't even a year old yet, and up until recently, my family went there annually. (We aren't from the area, so it's not like a "Oh, lets go to Disneyland" kind of thing for us).

16. This last school year, I found out that I sleep better the closer I am to the floor. My bed at school was ridiculously high off the ground, to the point where I had to jump up to get on to it. (Given I am short, but still). When I lowered my bed to be closer to what it is at home (roughly a foot off the ground, give or take) I slept much better.

17. My favorite toys back when I was a kid were Legos. I once made a snowboard park out of them. It was pretty legit.

18. I hold my pencil with both my middle and index finger pushing down on it, rather then just the index. This has caused me to develop a small indent on my ring finger where the pencil rests.

19. I have been prone to randomly breaking out and laughing hysterically for no apparent reason whatsoever. A prime example of this was freshman year in high school in English. I started laughing so hard I was crying. My teacher told me to go outside until I could calm down. Finally, when I came to, I went back inside. By the time I had reached my seat, I could feel the laughter build back up to the point that I just turned around to go back outside. I am pretty sure everyone thought I was legally insane after that.

20. I used to have a ponytail in high school. My favorite thing to do with it was if a girl started talking about something like split ends or what-not, I would pretend like I was all concerned about my hair too.

21. When I was smaller, I used to love to make "pies." These pies would consist of any random things I could find in fridge or cupboard. I would mix them together, put it in the fridge, and voila! A pie would be there in the morning. I later found out that my parents would run to the store when I went to bed, buy a pie, and replace mine with that one. I also found out that my siblings would convince me to make a pie when they wanted one. I don't blame them, though. Now I legitimately like to cook, and I think I am fairly decent at it.

22. My favorite type of food is seafood. Ironically, I found out last year that I am technically allergic to all sorts of shellfish. Thankfully, it is such a mild allergy that my doctor is not worried about me eating them.

23. And finally, one of my favorite bands is an all girl Japanese Punk band called Shonen Knife. Their music is just so happy that I always smile and instantly become in a good mood when I hear them. If you ever want to ask me for something, I would suggest playing one of their songs to me before doing it. It would likely increase the chances of me giving you the answer you want. Here is one of their classic songs!

And since I like them so much, here is one of their new songs!

(Note that they have an English version of this song too.)

Well, those are some interesting Spencer fun fact! Now, When you are at a bar or a party, you can impress all your friends with you immense Spencer knowledge.

Week at a Glance

    So, if you are on the quarter system (for school) it is likely that your Spring Quarter just started. Even if it didn't, mine did, so I decided to take note of all the going-ons, first impressions, and general shenanigans that happened this week. And yes, I had to legitimately take notes to remember all of what happened.

Monday: First, I had Linear Analysis. I am not the biggest fan of math, so lets just say I wasn't looking forward to this class. Most of it went off like any other class. The professor passed out syllabi to all of us while we awkwardly looked around at each other to size up the class (most likely determining the amount of math-savvy people so we could estimate the kind of curve we might expect during midterms and finals). However, part of the way though passing out papers, we ran out of syllabi, to which a student exclaims "We need more syllabuses." Now, just as a quick note, I am sometimes a stickler for grammar. The plural form of syllabus is syllabi. But by NO means do I ever correct someone, especially on the FIRST DAY OF CLASS, unless I already have some relationship with that person (in which case, I am probably giving them a bad time). The girl behind me, though, obviously took some offense to the use of the word "syllabuses", and corrected the guy with a quick and demeaning "It's syllabi." This girl proceeded to got though the entire class period answering every question the professor asked, but not in the "Oh, oh! I know the answer!" kind of way. No, she answered them with the "If you don't know this, you are stupid" tone. Other then Hermione Granger behind me, there was also this guy who sat in front of me. Now, normally, I like to wear my beanie that I have. Anyone that knew me throughout high school will vouch for the fact that I was almost never seen with it off. However, I have been trying to change this, so recently, around spring and summer, I have started to wear this black Castro-hat I got up in the mountains. The guy in front of me, though, obviously thought it was still snow season, because he was wearing both a nordic beanie (the ones with the stringy ear pieces) and goggles. That was pretty much it for Linear. Oh, and the girl next to me was reading a book and using a Pokemon leaflet as a bookmark. There is nothing special about this, but as a video game geek I feel obligated to mention it.

    On to Statics. For those of you that never have to take science class again (or at least physics), or maybe you just haven't reached it yet, statics is an area of physics that involves making sure things don't move. This is applicable if you want to build a bridge, or suspend something from a rope, or whatever nonsensical example physicist can think up (and lets face it, science professors, no matter what focus, can think up some pretty ridiculous situations). But yes, that is statics. An entire class were you answers should all essentially turn out to be zero. The building this class is in reminds me, for some reason, of the scene in Indiana Jones were he is teaching. I don't know why, the classroom is pretty modern, but maybe it's the awkward position of the building and the poor lighting. The professor of this class is also unintentionally funny, at least to me. Just the way he talks and his mannerism crack me up, and I have no clue why.

    After Statics, I went on to get my books from the bookstore, so, you know, I could actually DO the work that my professors had begun assigning. Finding the books wasn't to hard, but the line, OH MY! It snaked back and forth on itself four times at the front of the store, then proceeded to wrap around half of the rest of the store. All I can say was, at least I got to look at the art supplies while I was waiting.

Tuesday: Tuesday wasn't all that exciting. Linear again. This time, the guy with the beanie decided to take it off in class, and LO AND BEHOLD HE HAS A RED MOHAWK! Instantly, this guy jumps up near the top of the "People I don't know but think are cool" list (which also includes this guy at my school who has a bald head which makes him look like Billy Corgan, the lead singer of the Smashing Pumpkins). Miss Granger still insisted on answering every question. One thing that did strike me as odd, though, was the fact that my professor's age is really hard for me to tell just by looking at her. From certain angles, she looks young, but others she looks old. She has the mannerisms of an older person, but at the same time, she dresses like a not completely old person (but not completely young person either). I don't know, but I'm sure I'll figure it out sometime this quarter.

   Yay for hour breaks! I had time to kill between Linear and Healthy Living, so I was able to get lunch. Vegan chili and a salad, yum!

     Anyways, Healthy Living was PACKED! Just for reference, the biggest class at my school is approximately (at least to my knowledge) 180ish or so students. A majority of classes are around 30-something students. So to see Healthy Living in one of the bigger lecture rooms completely full took me by surprise. In all honesty, though, next class will most likely have half the amount of students. Healthy Living lasted for only an hour (it's supposed to be two), most of which was the professor taking role so that he could add wait-listed people. While role was being taken, I was able to read the most absurd sentence in all of syllabus history. The first sentence of my professors syllabus begins with "Your success in this course requires more than intelligence." Now, I know what he means, but the way it is worded makes it sound so ridiculous. But the worst part of the class, though, was the fact that I found out the book I got wasn't the only thing I needed. No, I also needed an access code for this website. Basically, I had to pay fifty dollars so that I could turn in homework online.

Wednesday: Oh Wednesday. I haven't missed a single class all college. I haven't even been late to one. But my welding lecture on Wednesday might break that record. It's at 7 A.M., so each Wednesday I get to wake up at 6 to ensure that I have enough time to make it to the Silo (our name for the lecture room that it is in, due to its shape) going at my slow, meandering "I'm tired" pace. On the plus side; I get to see the sunrise every Wednesday. This welding lecture is by far the biggest class I've ever been in at around 160 students. Looking around, though, I would say that a good 152 were most likely sleeping that entire hour. This brings up my biggest concern about this class. Just as a note, I have welded before. I am by NO MEANS an expert, though. But I do have enough experience to know that welding is something you have to pay the UTMOST attention to when you are doing it. Basically, the way welding works is that you have your electrode, and it arcs from the welder to the piece, which is grounded to make a complete circuit. Then, you have your filler (oftentimes the filler and electrode are the same) which melts and bonds the two pieces of metal together. Now, I was never any good with numbers, so I can't give you exact (or even approximate) power outputs, but I can give you an example of what welders can do. To put it simply, the power welders can put out is so hot, that just being CLOSE to it without the proper protection can burn you. It's so bright that looking at it without eye protection is like looking directly at the sun (it can blind you). Saying that touching it will cut through you like a hot knife through butter is an under representation. To sum it up, welding is very dangerous.So I am not very sure who thought it was a smart idea to learn how to operate these hazardous machines at 7 in the morning, when most of the students will be asleep in class, but they really need to rethink that.

    After that was more statics. Nothing special. Still the same old Indiana Jones building, and the awkwardly funny professor.

Thursday: Thursday I would have had Linear and statics again, but apparently my school finds it necessary to give us Caesar Chavez Day off, so, no school for me! My roommates and I did go eat sushi which was awesome. Other then that, I guess I just screwed around and did normal Spencer stuff all day.

Friday: Friday! Friday! Gotta get down on Friday! Sorry, I couldn't help myself. But yea, Friday. For the first time since I want to say Kindergarten, I was actually excited for school! Today was the day I was going to be able to weld! To my disappointment, we did not get to weld in welding lab. However, we did get to take a tour of the lab, which was awesome (at least to me. I geek out at machines and whatnot). And the teacher for the lab was hilarious! I can already tell that welding lab is going to be my favorite class this quarter by far.

    More Linear and statics after welding lab was over. More of the same boring old stuff. At this point, I already realized that I am burnt out on math.

So yea, that was my week (school-wise). It is actually surprising how quickly it went from feeling like the first week, to feeling like "same-old, same-old." Well, I have got to rest up this weekend for week two. I don't have a photo of my week (that would be ridiculous. I don't have remotely enough photography talent to capture a picture that expresses my entire week. As a matter of fact, I have NO photography experience) so please enjoy this photo of my bonsai tree that shares my room with me. I love this little plant, and it has grown immensely since last year (when I got it) which makes me proud.

Dear,

Dear bed,

   I love you, but why do you have to be so cold each night when I go to sleep?

Dear hail,

   You were pretty loud today. Kudos to you for being obnoxious.

Dear parental units,

   Please get some more blankets. Whenever I come home, they are all either dirty, or the dogs have been using them.

Dear room,

   I somewhat regret painting you brown. Now it always feels so dark in you.

Dear hallway girl,

   After a whole quarter of sitting next to you, and talking to you occasionally, in the hallway, for half an hour, twice a week, before we headed off to our respective classes, I still never found out your name. Oh well. Maybe I'll ask you sometime Spring Quarter. We did find out we are neighbors after all.

Dear other neighbor (the loud one),

   You are still way to loud. I don't appreciate it very much.

Dear warm snow socks I am currently wearing,

   Thank you for warming up my feet. They were quite cold.

Dear bass,

   I am sorry I haven't practied more. Please forgive me.

Dear iTunes,

   I do not appreciate you glitching out on me right now. I want to listen to music!

Dear Blip,

   Thank you for always being there when iTunes is glitching out.

Dear Martial Arts movies,

  You give me something to do other then play video games.

Dear Video Games,

   Thank you for taking up vast amounts of time that I will never get back. You are anything I could ever want from a form of entertainment, and more.

Dear Nintendo,

   Thank you for making a vast majority of those games.

Dear Japan,

   You are one of my favorite countries. My wishes go out to a speedy recovery for you, and my condolences to all those that have been affected by the natural disasters that happened there.

Dear beard,

   Thanks for keeping my face warm while I went snowboarding back in December. And sorry for shaving you off after that. But it's good to see you back.

 Dear Wolverine,

   Thank you for showing that vertically-challenged people can still kick tons of ass and be super awesome.

Dear April,

   Please come faster. I want it to be my birthday already.

Dear dreams,

   Sometimes you confuse me. Life is already confusing enough, so please stop it.

Dear internet,

   I spend a LOT of time on you. There is much hate and anger on you. But as long as there are creative, joyous, heartfelt people like this, I still have the utmost hope for you.

SPENCER used Geek Out! It's super effective!

Okay, first things first. This is technically like, two weeks old. Midterms suck. Projects suck. Both take tons of time out of your life. New games (post coming soon about them!) do not suck, but also take up vast amounts of time (or at least, of my time). Long story short, I've been busy for the past two weeks. So busy that I've forgotten to go the the grocery store and stock back up on food. Anyways...

So (approximately) two weekends ago I went back home for the event to end all events. To build up the hype for the two new games in the Pokemon series that are coming out March 6, 2011 (Mark your calenders!) Nintendo has been putting on a nation-wide tour showing off Pokemon Black and White. This "Pokemon Tour: 2011" included a raffle/treasure hunt, where you ran around the mall like a crazed Poke-fan trying to get stamps from different stations so that you could win cool prizes, free screening of the newest tie-in-movie for the new games (which my friend and I unfortunately did not see), a "Pokemart" to buy neat swag, a community area, where you could watch the first couple episodes of the newest season of the anime series (the TV series, for those of you non-Japanese-media-loving people) as well as take pictures with the three new starter Pokemon, a station where you could play a fifteen minute demo of the games, and finally, a station to download a special Pokemon (Celebi, for all you Poke-geeks out there wondering which one).

Needless to say, I had a fun, event-filled day of acting like a kid again, running around the mall, looking at the cool new Pokemon. I wasn't the only one though. You would be surprised (or maybe not, I'm am unaware of my readers knowledge of the Pokemon fanbase) how many people over the age of at least fifteen, maybe even twenty years were not only at the event, but participating in it as well. There were people cosplaying as their favorite Pokemon (dressed up, again for those non Japanese-centric people) and displaying some of their most prized gear from past events. As a matter of act, I looked like one of the NORMAL people, with my Super Mario shirt on.

But this huge spread in age of the fans there just shows how much of a success the Pokemon franchise is. Sure, people poke (ha ha, get it? Poke... Pokemon? I'm so silly) fun at it, but the fact of the matter is that the games have become a juggernaut in the hand-held market. Their easy to pick up, hard to master (yes, Pokemon is indeed hard to master. Just Youtube any high-level battles, and you will see there is a ton of though and time put into building the perfect team) game mechanics, lovable characters (lets admit it, everyone has a favorite Pokemon), and a simple but enjoyable story all contribute to what makes these games so great. (Though I will admit, it is mostly the first two parts. Pokemon has never had the "riveting" story that games such as Final Fantasy have had).

All this makes me proud when I think about it. Why, you ask? Because, although I obviously had nothing to do with the development of any of the games, my generation was almost personally responsible for the success of the series. It was us who were the original target audience or "Subject Prime" as I like to say (cause it sounds cooler), for the first generation of games (Pokemon Red, Blue/Green (in Japan), and Yellow). A good 99.9% of people my age can recall stories of one sort or another, be it from the video games, trading card game, the comics, or the TV show about what at the time was the greatest thing in the world. And although most people wont admit it, I am willing to bet that almost everyone (except that .01% of people who for some odd reason, were never able to experience the joys of Pokemania) still have a soft spot in their heart for the game. It was literally something that defined our generation.

And with that, I shall go and reminisce some more over my fleeting childhood. Please enjoy this picture of myself and Tepig, the new fire-type starter for Pokemon Black and White.

(And in case you are wondering, my favorite Pokemon is Charmander and its evolutions, Charmeleon, and Charizard.)

Purple Cows and Random Thoughts

So this morning I was having a dream. It was one of those lucid dreams. You know, the kind where you can control what happens and/or what you do, and you have like an actual recollection of what happened? (In other words, you are somewhat conscious). Well anyways, so like, I was in the boonies on some ranch-like house that had a playground. On the swing set was the hottest of hotties. So, naturally (being a dream and all) I went up to her to strike up a conversation. To my dismay, she responded by making fun of me!

 Here I had to take a QUADRUPLE take! A double take for myself in the dream, and a double take for my real self. I mean, lets think about this for a second. This was MY dream. I could have made it rain purple cows if I wanted too! I could have turned her into some giant robot, gotten in, and fought monsters! (Knowing me, it's actually surprising that the latter didn't happen).

This leads me to one of two conclusions. Either my dreams are trying to tell me that I am subconsciously self-conscious of my own flaws (if that even makes sense), or that I need to get out and socialize with the opposite sex more. (Or anyone, for that matter. Sometimes I do act like a hermit). Unfortunately, my alarm went off at this point and woke me up, so I was never able to discover what the dream meant.

However, this coupled with the fact that it was a BEAUTIFUL day today, gave me some food for thought.

First off, I decided that I would rather be cool then hot, both literally and figuratively. Literally, it is just easier to bundle up when it's cold then to have to deal with the heat, something that at a certain point (namely, if you where totally butt-naked sitting next to an air-conditioner) you couldn't do anything about. Figuratively, I look at it this way. A person can be hot, but that doesn't mean you want to hang out with them. But since cool is something more based on personality, its something that makes that person more appealing to be around. Lets look at this as if it where music. Here are two songs sung by female artists, one would be what I consider cool, and one hot.

Okay, so the first video would be my hot video. Sure, the Pussycat Dolls are attractive, and all, but the actual song is just not my cup of tea. In the end, its just eye-candy and nothing else.

The second song, however, rocks my socks! Garbage is legit (at least I find them so) and I could listen to this song all day. I will admit, Shirley Manson is not as attractive as a majority of the Pussycat Dolls, (not that she isn't attractive) but that doesn't matter, cause I am willing to listen to this song all day! I can't even make it halfway through the other song.

On to random thought number two day. Quick and simple. It was a ridiculously warm and nice day today, and yet I still saw MULTIPLE girls wearing Uggs. I have this thing with Uggs. I find them neither hot, nor cool. There is just something about them that rubs me the wrong way. But my own personal preferences aside, those things are warm woolly boots! By no means should you wear them on a day that feels like it is summer.

On a final note (cause this is getting a little to long for the average human attention span) this is generally the logical flow of my ideas. If you were to ever talk to me in real life, this is most likely exactly how a given conversation would play out. So with that I will leave you until next time. Please enjoy this picture I drew of Mario (from Super Mario. Wow I am such a geek).

Welcome (A word to the wise... I think...)

Hey random Internet goer/web surfer/blog aficionado. You have happened to stumble across Spencer S.'s fun fact #0:! Congratulations! (You didn't actually win anything, though, so don't wear-out that hand patting yourself on the back). Maybe you were my friend on Facebook, or maybe you happened to accidentally click on next blog while you were getting a little to emotionally drawn into your friends post about their new Russian Dwarf Hamster. Whatever the reason, I have your attention now, so let me explain what you are looking at.

First off, you may be wondering, "Why fun fact #0:?". Actually, if you came here from Facebook, you should know, so in that case, tsk, tsk, to you. For the other .0001% of you, on Facebook, I sequentially order all my status with fun fact #[insert number here]:. I guess some could say that I might be a little anal, even borderline OCD, and to that I say… maybe…

But anyways, on to the main point of this blog. Here I will post my thoughts on day to day life, weird things I see, movies I watch, games I play, news I hear, and whatever else I come across or is on my mind, spelling and grammatical errors and all. I’ll try not to get to deep, though. I’m not that deep of a person. If I see a cloud in the sky, it probably will just look like a cloud to me. Unless of course it’s big and really dark, in which case I might make some stupid passing reference to James and the Giant Peach and the cloud turning into a rhino, but other then that, still just a cloud to me. If you where a fan of the original fun fact’s, then think of this as the Director’s Cut. If you where not a fan of the original fun fact’s, then honestly I have no clue why you clicked the link in the first place. If this is your first time to any of my fun fact’s, well, hopefully I intrigued you just enough to where you are curious to see where the next couple ones go.

And with that I will let you go. Thanks for your time (not that you where likely doing anything important in the first place. Lets face it, you made it this far, you where probably using this to waste time). Hopefully you will be back here in the future to read more. Now go back to your Russian Dwarf Hamster. It’s calling you.