Boy Meets World

Now that I'm on Christmas break, I have a bit more free time. All I have to really focus on outside of family and girlfriend is work, and that's only shifts at a time. Today I've got the day off and I'm realizing a lot. It's amazing what you can think of when you just stop to think deeply about it. It's really hit me hard lately that I'm really not a kid any more. I'll always still have that kid-like spirit, but it's just not the same as having that amazing innocence I once did. That phenomenal naivety that made the world appear to be wonderful, when it's realistically colder than it seems. But life's what you make of it, and I still choose to have hope in this dark place. Gotta stay positive.

This past week's really been interesting. My dog passing away, and last night's snafu with a few posters online that said some unnecessary things, it's just been raw emotions lately. I've snapped a little bit and gotten relatively rude, and for those reading this that I've affected, I do apologize.

Earlier today I was flipping through DirecTv, and saw that MTV2 had an episode of Boy Meets World playing. Funny enough, I hate MTV, but midday they're showing an episode of one of my childhood shows that I used to faithfully watch. This episode had to have been a God-sign, because it was all about accepting change, and learning to just let things go and move on with the future. It nearly had me tear up, because it's exactly what I needed to see. I could relate to having to let go of the past and accept the reality of growing up and becoming a real man, and not just a boy anymore.

This show really needs to be a visual guide for television script writers today. Boy Meets World was one of those shows that literally showed life through a camera. Now that I'm close to Corey's age, I can REALLY understand what the characters were going through, and can easily relate. My question is this: Why is there not shows like this anymore? Why do we have 'reality' shows like 16 and Pregnant, and fictional teen soap operas like Secret Life of the American Teenager, and then the unfortunately glammed up Disney channel with concepts that couldn't be any more foreign to the common teenager?
(Disney, listen up: I can guarantee that no one is a secret life pop star, and no one is a Wizard living in New York. Get back to Lizzie McGuire and Even Stevens-esque shows, PLEASE.) The world needs more depth. We need to THINK. We need to UNDERSTAND and COMPREHEND the real reasons of our emotions and what we're going through. Candy coating and for lack of better words, babying us isn't going to help us progress and cope with life.

With the way entertainment is run today, we're constantly in front of a screen. From Computer, to TV, to iPhone, to tablet, there's a screen with some sort of visual activity there. Shows like Boy Meets World gave the right doses of drama with comedy, mixed with a heavy dose of great realism to it. It was like watching your best friend go through whatever issue it may be that week. From girlfriend fights, to failing a test, or sneaking out late to hang with your best friend, it was all things kids did and still do. Why can't we help people with fictionally realistic stories now, JUST like this show did back in the 90's?

Old Yeller, Marley and Me..Now It's My Turn.

We all love to hate movies like Old Yeller or Marley and Me. Heck, even Air Bud got me to tear up, and the dog didn't even die! These movies tug at our heartstrings so cleverly and evilly. Drawing us in with cute puppy faces, then laughing and smiling at every doggy bath time escape, and upturned trash can scene. 

The fact is, everyone at some point has the 'it' dog in their life. This time around I had the 'it' dog. When I was in the second grade I begged and pleaded with my parents to have a dog. They caved and I got to pick out a golden retriever. At the young age I was, I had a big hero (still do), and I couldn't think of any better way to honor my hero than naming my new found best friend after him. So my puppy was rightly named "DJ". If anyone knows my favorite team, they'll deduce that he was named after the Yankee's rockstar shortstop Derek Jeter. 

Throughout the years of growing up together, DJ and I had many hours spent in the backyard playing soccer and football together. As he grew up, he got bigger than I did, and as he tried to tackle me, he just bit my sleeve, and pulled me to the ground. He's the dog that would go to the beach with me on family trips, and run miles along the coast line in the sand during football season when I needed to stay fit. In the house, he'd always be right be me, in ANY room I was at. 

He was always a dog that never peed in the house, or got into trash. Dj was intelligent. He knew the rights and wrongs to things. He really was awesome. Always greeted me at the door or gate when I got home. Had a near panic attack when I would leave for a few days. Dj loved me to death. I loved him. He was everything anyone could ask for in a dog. 

By now, the past tense verbs and adjectives I've been using, you can guess that he's not here anymore. 

We had to put him to sleep yesterday. After a night in LA with my family, girlfriend and friends, I slept in a little bit. 9:00am rolls around, and I'm woken up to my bed shaking. I roll over to see what's going on, and DJ's halfway under the bed, moving pretty vehemently. Running on his side, almost. I figured he was either trying to get something, or something was wrong. After trying to get his attention, and not getting it, I saw that something was wrong. After a few seconds of waiting it out, DJ crawls out a bit and comes to his senses for a sec. I let him sit there and get my mom to see if she can tell any difference with him. He had peed in the room, and when we came back into the room, he was hiding behind the door with this wildly dazed look in his eyes. I could just see the fear behind them because he never does that in the house, and he knew it too. He just didn't realize how he did it. 

About an hour later I'm in the room next to him, and I hear something stirring up again. I walk over to check on him, and he's 'running' again. I yell at my mom to get in there, and he's seizing for the second time. We hold him and just like a human, make sure he doesn't hurt himself by moving so much. At this point we're both a complete wreck, because we realize how this is coming down. 

To spare even more of a lengthy post than this already is, within the two hours (9:00am to 11:00am) he had anywhere from 10-15 seizures. I was a complete wreck, knowing that my childhood best friend is slipping away from who he used to be. We get to the vet, and doctors tell us that it's neurological, and would cost more to save him and not even have strong results back, than to just have him go to sleep for good. I swear to you, that was so hard for me to just get the words "alright, let's have him sleep" out. Seeing him laying on that table in the back room at the vet, petting his hair one last time, rubbing him right behind his ears, I couldn't even get a tail wag out of him. All I could say to him was "Come on D, we gotta go back to the beach one more time. Just get better. Just stay fixed. We gotta go run one more time." That's all I could keep saying, and he couldn't even look up at me, he was that far gone already. I walked out of the room at that point and sat out in the parking lot. I have his one and only collar from the years I had him, and now a small part of him is going to be riding with me in the car, as it's hanging on my rearview mirror. It hurts to come home and not see him, but just like time, I have to make myself move on. He'll always be my Big Red Dj. 

Me and DJ two Christmases ago. 

Rise and Shine!

Saw this on a friend's facebook page, and thought it would make your day, hopefully.

So sad. Please join me in remembering a great icon of the
entertainment community. The Pillsbury Doughboy died
yesterday of a yeast infection and trauma complications from
repeated pokes in the belly. He was 71. Doughboy was buried
in a lightly greased coffin. Dozens of celebrities turned
out to pay their respects, including Mrs.. Butterworth,
Hungry Jack, the California Raisins, Betty Crocker, the
Hostess Twinkies, and Captain Crunch. The grave site was
piled high with flours.

Aunt Jemima delivered the eulogy and lovingly described
Doughboy as a man who never knew how much he was kneaded.
Doughboy rose quickly in show business, but his later life
was filled with turnovers. He was not considered a very
smart cookie, wasting much of his dough on half-baked
schemes. Despite being a little flaky at times he still was
a crusty old man and was considered a positive roll model
for millions.

Doughboy is survived by his wife Play Dough, two children,
John Dough and Jane Dough, plus they had one in the oven. He
is also survived by his elderly father, Pop Tart.
The funeral was held at 3:50 for about 20 minutes.

If this made you smile for even a brief second, please rise
to the occasion and take time to pass it on and share that
smile with someone else who may be having a crumby day and
kneads it.

a Tin (Tin) full of Swag

It's been fun today. Photoshop work in the morning, work in the mid afternoon at Chick Fil A, and then spent the afternoon with my girlfriend at her house, and then dinner with her and my family tonight. Now when I get home, I check my mail, and see I got the new issue of Entertainment Weekly, and a few Christmas cards...and then a orange box. Thanks to Klout.com, I signed up for some free stuff they gave out on their website. Usually it's stuff I'm not totally interested in, but since this was film based, I figured I'd go for it and get the free stuff. On the site it talked about two free tickets to see the Adventures of Tin Tin, the new movie by Steven Spielburg and Peter Jackson. Now that I realized what I signed up for, it's really cool stuff! Check out the photos below..

Word. 

Stuffed Plush of Snowy? Yep. 

This photo doesn't really do the size justice, but the poster's pretty big!

A bit smaller than the one's you see advertised at the theater, and you'll get the idea of the size.

And then free tickets!

Facebook: Slamming the Cover on Etiquette.

Lately I've really picked up on the lack of etiquette online. People are just flat out inconsiderate to what they say, lazy on how they type, and generally slacking on how to actually have a presentable image online. Granted, I understand not everyone's going to ever be proper about things, and sure I get lazy at times myself, but there should be general guidelines to follow (or at least attempt to) that would really make the online world a better place, and in turn, make the world a better place because the drama and idiocy online would be slimmed down. Here's some ideas for proper facebooking, tweeting, and other social networking..

1) Would You Like Some Cheese with that WHINE? 
These types of people tend to be always negative, complaining about how something is wrong with their life in one way or another, and they can never find a way to fix it. I get that some lives are hard to live, but when the person lives in a good house, with a car to drive and food to eat, I always think of the people that have less than that and are happy with just the clothes on their back, and food they get. It COULD be worse than not getting your fast food order right, or getting cut off in traffic. This usually falls under the stuff like #firstworldpains. At times it can be humorous if used right, but when it's a consistent stream of these, it just makes you look pathetic and that you can't handle anything in the world because it's SOOOO HARD to deal with.

2) Your dirty laundry is meant for the hamper. Leave it there, and not on your status.
We don't care that you got into a fight with your mom, girlfriend, dad, best friend, brother, sister, even teacher. It happens to everyone. It sucks, sure. But it's never classy to go out and bash them online just because you're mad at them. It makes you look like a fool for saying mean things that you ultimately don't mean, and a few days, even hours later, wouldn't say otherwise. Keep your anger filled posts off the page, and instead, call up a close friend to vent to. It's easier, and you can actually get more sympathy out of it.

3) OMG, th!s iz tot@lly aw3som3.
We've grown up in an age where things have been so condensed, and shortened, that people have legitimately forgotten to spell correctly. How do I know this? Helping friends out with homework and reading what they're writing. It scares me to see how people write anymore. Look, there's a reason people WAY back in history decided to create a literary version of our english language and put words to characters we use to write what we say. USE THEM THE RIGHT WAY. Sure, the minor TTYL, LOL, or BRB is cool and find and dandy, but when you get to use things you make up on your own, and people have to try to guess what you're saying, that's when it gets absurd. Stick to writing grammatically correct. It's what Chaucer would have wanted.

I could easily go on with things to say on how girls should leave their provocative photos offline if they don't want the attention by horny guys, and how guys should find better things to say than the foul mouthed language that makes them 'appear cool', but then I'd be writing a novel so big that Hemingway himself would yawn just at the size of text alone.

A final note though: If you don't want to be hacked or spammed, LEARN TO USE YOUR SECURITY SETTINGS. It's not that confusing, and if you have time to read through 769 Tumblr pages of Spongebob .gif's and Twilight/Harry Potter memes, then by iMac, you have the time to secure your site's page. 

Christmas vacation: continuity issue

This is by far my favorite Christmas movie. Great humor and a perfect showcase of how chaotic this season can really get. But in a very famous scene with Clark attempting to turn on his Christmas lights, a few camera angles show some continuity issues. If you look at the photos, look at the lower right of the first. Cousin eddie's RV is parked in the drive way before they show up and everyone notices they arrived.

 

Back to Blogging

It's been too long. I feel bad for not blogging as much, because this is something I really do love. Writing in general, actually, but even more when it involves social networking. So I guess I should play a bit of catch up for you, right? 

Girlfriend - For those that don't know, yes, I'm dating someone again. Jami's a great girl and I really do love being her boyfriend. She's such a wonderful girl and I love getting to spend as much time as possible with her. I couldn't ask for anyone better. We're actually going to be at Disneyland this month on the 28th. So if you see us, feel free to say hi!

School - Finished my first semester of college. Thank goodness it's over. It was a lot of fun, but highly stressful, just like every other college kid's life. Glad to get one semester down, and onto another one to get my general ed classes out of the way, and onto my major in a few years, hopefully down south. 

Work - Just like any other job, it DOES have its stressful moments. But I really do love working at Chick Fil A, and think it's a lot of fun. There's a marketing manager position available, and I was fortunate enough to get a meeting with the owner this next week to talk about the job. I really think that I could do a good job at that position because I LOVE talking to people, and networking. Not to mention, it's a really great challenge to me to find great and creative ways to advertise and present something. It'd be fun, and I'd be doing something I love even more if I got the job. But I don't know if someone out there is better than me, and I don't know if the owner would consider me a good option for the position. I just hope that I impress enough to get the job and follow through with my actions on the job in the future. If I don't get the job then I still don't lose anything because I'm working for an awesome company still.

Disney and theme park stuff - I've been laying low with this for the most part just because people are crazy in here for the most part. I love the parks and still have a good amount of insight to whats going on. I just don't talk about it much because I haven't felt the need to, and I don't have the time to get into arguments with people over what choices the theme parks are making. 

However with that said, there IS a chance that I might be helping start up a new website with some friends, that might be a happier, positive corner of the fan site world. the area needs it, especially with places like MiceChat and being so negative about things. 

And now with that, I'm going to sign off for the night, and finish watching Jerry Maguire on DirecTv. I am definitely going to try to blog at least weekly from here on as much as possible. I enjoy writing, and need to keep it up.