Young.

Why be in a relationship? I'm young, I have my friends. And there's beautiful girls I can hangout with, without one on my hip gettin' jealous all the time that I just talk to them as another human being on this planet. I'd take this over being stuck with someone for right now in my life. I'm young. There's a globe with my name wrapped around it, and I think I need to pay a visit to it.

Why not go out in the world and live life? Go to a rave. Skydive. Taste the local drink. See the smiles of a foreign face. Make a friend.

Can't there be more than just small town USA? Yes. Not knocking it, 'cause it's totally radical for some of you out there. But there's bigger and better for me, and I want a city with a heartbeat that never dies.

It's time to live.

Coke A Cola Chapstick

So, I think tonight is one of those nights that I'm just going to...you know...NOT sleep. Thanks to math class, I had an Amp (energy drink) late at night, and now I'm just...up. Which leads me to somehow think of this story from junior year of high school. You seated and ready to go? Alright. Store that tray in its upright fashion, hit on the stewardess and pray for no turbulence, 'cause here we gooooooo! (admit it, that one was WAY better than any other one Al Lutz has penned. Geeks, you know what I'm talking about)

Link

It was a warm late summer afternoon. I was hanging out at the field my dad was coaching football practice at. Why? Because I had nothing better to do. I stand around, listen to music on my iPod, and then I get a text from this girl I knew. She was free, and wanted to hang out. I told her where I was, and she said she'd come right over in a few.

As I hang out, I can remember Jason Mraz's "A Beautiful Mess" playing as she pulled up. I stood there as she walked up in those short jean shorts, white blouse and her sandy blonde hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail. This was something I couldn't help but dream about until it became a reality.

We stand at the edge of the field, watch the players go through their drills (I would have played, had it not been for an ankle injury), and my dad yell and blow his whistle what seemed like a hundred times over. Practice makes perfect, right?

She ends up sitting down, and I follow suit. My lips were getting dry, and I try to carry around chap stick so I don't get chapped lips. It's a pet peeve. For some reason, my mom thought it'd be funny to get soda flavored chap stick for me as a little prank. Coincidentally enough, I had a coca-cola flavored chap stick with me this day, and what happens next, I kid you not, is something I will always remember, and never in a million years expected to actually work. 

I un cap the chap stick, and start to apply it, and this girl looks at me, and asks if it actually tastes like the soda. Usually, I'd say some "here's your sign" joke. But for whatever power that be, possessed me to tell this girl "kiss me and find out."


She did.

She pulled back, looked at me, and told me "Wait, I couldn't tell.."

Leaned back in, and kissed me longer this time.


Guys, this is when I realized that soda-flavored chap stick can be the best thing ever invented. And since then, I don't care if some guys think it's girly, and would rather stick to the "original" or "medicated" chap sticks. I'm buying soda flavored chap stick from here on.

College App

So, today I applied for the Disney College Program in Anaheim. I'm hoping I get a spot. If I don't, then oh well, it wasn't meant to be. But with that said, it's another step forward to trying to move down south and start the life I've always wanted. I'll hear back in a few days if I get accepted for a phone interview, and you can bet that I'll be hoping for that e-mail. We'll see how this one plays out!

Golden Horseshoe Dinner Revue Concept

Math homework. Whoever loves it, can you come save me, and do it for me while I think more about my blue sky ideas?


I just had thought about this idea, while listening to some old show audio from around Disneyland. What if they created a dinner Revue for Golden Horseshoe in Frontierland? It appears that right now the shows inside there are bouncing around locations. It's a popular place to dine with guests, so what if they created a dinner show and turned it into a reservation based location, and brought in a re-worked Golden Horseshoe Revue?

It could be close to the original, with some remixed characters and even guest interaction. Obviously I haven't thought much about it, since I'm typing this as I first came up with it, but it could be something that might work well with the land, and make for a very popular show. Something to think about..

The Bio of The Most Interesting Man In The World

I like Bob Marley music in the morning. I like painting. I like stuffed animals. I like being messy. I like keeping my Christmas tree up way past Christmas. I like having a heater. I like procrastinating.
I once stole first base while rounding second. 
Had lunch with the pope in a bar. Curator of African safari jerky, and distributor of Italian sliced Hams. Climbed Pikes Peak in nothing but jogging shoes and rubber ducky boxers. 

I am that little ewok in the background...no not the one with the spear. The one that stands next to Han Solo. That one. 
Pepsi is the drink of choice. Helped Alicia Beth Moore come up with the stage name P!nk, while sitting at a cafe in downtown L.A. drinking blueberry smoothies. I coined the term "Bacon is meat candy". Once won a round of paintball without getting shot, and only used a pistol. 

Foreign cars aren't so foreign to me. Expert in poker, veteran in love, outlaw in Peru. I can bake 30 minute brownies in 15 minutes. Redbox gives me two days to rent a DVD for a quarter. Tweeter of facts, blogger of sorts, connoisseur of exotic sodas.

My zip drives unzip themselves. While climbing a rock's face, it sneezed and blew me and three sheep into the next county. I landed on my feet, in a boat with none other than Jimmy Buffet captaining the vessel. He then motored us to shore where we went to Margaritaville to drink Pina Coladas. 

When VW Bugs see me, they punch each other. 
went snowboarding two of my friends. I used a surfboard. 

Drinking pepsi from a glass coke-a-cola cup is considered normal. I expect the unexpected, and punch someone when they tell me to expect the unexpected. As I walk away I tell them 'Didn't expect that, now did ya?'
Once made a foreign film in sarcasm. No one caught on. 

Ate a teaspoon full of cinnamon and never choked.
Western Personality, Eastern Mentality, Southern Hospitality.

Loose Cannon with a straight aim.

Once fist bumped the sky. The Clouds immediately turned black and started to cry. Or as humans call it "rain".

Window Shopping For Foam

This past weekend while I was at Disneyland, I noticed on Twitter that there was a increase in foamy tweets. I'm looking at all of you, Disney-specific fan sites. "Jake, what are you talking about?" you ask?

I'll show you.

 Some may call this loud, and in your face, but if you look really closely at what specifically is being advertised in the windows, it's done the best it can be done. Big Top Toys has louder style kids shirts and toys in the window. Hats balanced nicely along the left side of the street at Los Feliz. Same with paper goods and books in another window. 

The fact of the matter, folks, is that Disney is a business. Yes, Walt Disney Imagineering is the artists point of the company, and they have created an immensely wonderful land that is ideally the dreamy 1920/30's Los Angeles. Some try to compare it to the wonder of Main Street USA, but the fact is, it has it's own quaint, romantic charm that's totally a different heartbeat than the conceptually designed Midwest town. But...

Disney IS still a business, as stated above. There ARE number crunchers and marketing directors that's sole job is to sell their product inside the land WDI created. There's still a good story told here on Buena Vista Street. It's just doing what the outside world does so well, and sells their product through an age-old marketing technique called (shockingly enough) window shopping. 

Who-da-thunk, right? 

The thing is, most of these geeks that lament over it, are going to be walking out of the park late at night after marathon riding on Radiator Springs Racers, chatting about Tardises....Tardi? whatever that British Time Box show is, and they'll see a window of a hat, or a hoodie, or metal vintage sign, and say "I just remembered, I have to go get one of those for my never-ending collection of Disney stuff!" 

Then they go into Elias and Co., or Los Feliz..shoot, even Big Top Toys (scratch that. They'll buy that plush Oswald in there for sure.), and buy what they remembered they needed to buy in the first place.

And wham. Disney wins again, without them even realizing it. Funny part is, they don't recognize that this marketing technique worked, works, and will still work for anyone in the world. Putting your product in a window is not just great promotion, but also in a street sense like Main Street (Geeks, remember, the original park's done this for YEARS) and Buena Vista Street, because you'll see it in the morning, not want to carry things around all day, come back down the street, probably still see it, walk in, and buy it. 

This is what I don't get. Fans lament over and over again about how "it ruins theming" and is "in your face and forces buying things upon you". If you can't look at a window with items in it, say "thats cool." and walk past without buying it, then clearly their technique worked, and you just bought something because you saw it in the window and wanted it. 

I'm sure there's some imagineers that might be bummed about some of the historical items not being in the windows, and admittedly, they were really cool! But we can't lose sight of the fact that this is a corporation with multiple facets that need to have their hands in areas too. There's still a huge amount of small props that add to the beauty of this new street. Just because the windows now have merchandise in them doesn't mean it's the end of the world. 

Imagine Dragons in Class...

I usually don't post much about music or movie reviews, simply because there's so many of them out there. But since this now a daily (or almost daily) blog, I gotta find things to write about.

This band is definitely a new favorite. With a sound akin to Killers, this is a band that will soon be rocking stadiums as not just an opening act, but a headline. They've got an amazing sound, with really great indie rock ties. The album is available on iTunes for...last I checked when I bought it, around seven bucks. Or if you're cheap, I'm sure Spotify has it. But definitely check these guys out.

Alright, now I'm gonna get back to focusing on my creative writing class....

Happy Labor Day!

Hope everyone's having a fun Labor day getting in one of the final swims of the summer, or BBQ's with your family. It's another action packed day in the man cave with two college summaries and a government essay to write. Nothing really exciting today. But what I wanted to share today was a few blogs that if you're interested in Disney, then definitely check them out.

First up, my great friend Danielle has a terrific blog about past stories and experiences she had as a Cast Member at the Disneyland Resort. Some are humorous, others are sure to bring a tear to your eye. In fact, rumors have it that she's in talks with some people about a memoir book. She definitely deserves it, after all the networking and connections she makes with people. So if you want to check out her Tales of a Disneyland Cast Member, click....HERE

Second in the list is a phenomenal photography blog of Disneyland photography. Albert's a really great guy who happens to catch some really great angles and writes on them at his site. It's still relatively fresh to the interwebs, but I highly suggest checking out his photos HERE.


Also, if you'd like to follow them on twitter, their handles are here with direct links to their pages..

Danielle - @deemagicgurl

Albert - @corkscrewed02

Boom Went The Post

Look, there's just things that are cool to post, and not to post. Plain and simple. There's an art to generating creative posts to not just gain followers, but also keep them interested in the posts you post. It takes time to generate this art, as it's constantly ever-changing. But lets look at things NOT to tweet much about:

• Too much of a relationship. I've done this one, I won't lie. Not everyone cares that you and Honey Schmuckums just shared froyo for the 24th time since you've dated.
• Women: Your period and pregnancy issues. No one outside of Midol, Tampax and your husband or boyfriend want to know you're dealing with this on a public format. 
• Complaining. Now here's a fine line to balance. How does one say something is bad, without coming off as a sad sack of tears? Usually making the complaint light hearted and funny eases the posts tension about your issue of bad valet parking, or missing your favorite show because your kid dropped the remote in apple juice.
• Family/friend drama. So you and your bestie/Bro since Kappa Pi Gamma Beta split up the group for the 9th time? Old news. Now it's expected you'll reunite over drinks at the same bar for now the 10th time in probably record time, too. 
• Reviews. Everyone has their vlog of why they think the Na'vi should have been red instead of blue. But then we couldn't make stretched out smurf jokes. Instead, they'd just be laffy taffy bars with tails. Seriously though, Ebert and Roeper get paid to do what they do for a reason. Best to leave it to the guys that know what a Dolly Zoom is. 

It's cool to say that a movie or artist rocked. That you got into a relationship with your crush, even. But like everything, there's moderation and how you say things matter the most. 

I know I've pissed off a lot of people with things before. In fact, I know there's some that are foa-I mean fuming at me for posting this, and some other stuff. But when there's issues that people don't like, and a group thinks relatively unanimously of it, somebody's gotta say it. I'm gonna leave it at this. When you're confronted, it's not bullying when you tell someone how things are that everyone else privately has agreed upon. I know I would want to be told in a caring fashion that there's something I'd need to work on to be a better person. And if it was true, then I'd change. Because that's what makes people successful. That's how they can start handling their own stuff in the world. Otherwise they're going to fail and be miserable the rest of their lives. I know I wouldn't want that for myself. 

Friday's Gone Monday

Most of the time you'd think Fridays are the best day of the week. Especially with a three day weekend creeping up on your radar. Admittedly, my Friday started out really good. Work was easy going. Pranked some people by taping an air horn to the wall behind their office door. When they open the door, air horn goes off, papers fly, and then retaliation ensues. 

Not just the prank, but a end of the month party with free pizza and sodas made the day a lot of fun. Especially when we all sat down in the great room, and watched Hunger Games. 

But this is where it turns south for the afternoon. 

You see, I work with developmentally disabled adults. You may know it as autism, retardation, etc. So these clients I work with are typically and normally really good and mild mannered. After all, it's our job to keep them that way, and ensure that the best of interests is kept for them. 

A client in our room kept acting up, and we told this person not to keep acting up, otherwise everyone else was going to get a treat, and he/she wasn't. Well, their irritation grew (sometimes this just happens, no matter what we can do to help it.) and we tried to calm them down, and with no luck. Well, in the event of all this, the client ended up biting my bicep. 

I'm fine, no worries. But I had to take off and go get it checked out and start a round of Hep B shots. I end up waiting at workman's comp for a while, and I'm getting nervous, because I had somewhere else to be at 5:00pm, and it was eating away at my time. I had to still get ready and cleaned up from work, too!

So, doctor comes in, gives me the first round of Hep B shots, and then says "Oh yea, we're gonna test you for HIV, and other Hepatitis viruses. Go down the block to the blood bank." So now I have to wait for the rest of the paperwork to file through before I can leave. 

As I finally get the paperwork done, I walk to the blood bank down the street, wait again. File more papers. Wait, wait, wait....oh hey! They called me. I go back and wait again.

They stick this decent sized needle in my arm, and then add the vile to start drawing blood. Now, I'm not usually one to get super squeamish about this, but seeing the steady flow of blood lap over it's self as it rushes into the vile was really creepy to me. 

As they finished up, I rushed out of there, and then onto Target. I mean, I had to look presentable, and not just in some geek t-shirt. I still surprise myself though. I can make it out of Target in under $40. I ran in, found a plaid button up shirt on the discount rack, a white t-shirt to go under it, hair gel (because mine was a mess), and a pack of gum. $31.78 later, I ran into the bathroom of the store, and changed in the stall. As I walk to the sink to do my hair really quick, an older gentleman walks in and begins to wash his hands, and our conversation goes like this...

Man: Goin' somewhere spiffy?

Me: Yea, it's been a crazy day, and I didn't have time to go back cross town to my house to change. 

Man: heehee, I understand son. I've been there myself a few times before. 

Me: Oh yea? 

Man: Yes sir. Back in the day, I was always running late. Ended up doing the exact same thing you're doing right now. 

Me: Well, it must be a dude thing then, huh? 

Man: Sure is. So's buying flowers to make up for possibly being late. Don't keep her waiting too long, son.

Me: Speechless.

How did this dude know? Must have been wisdom with age. But I picked up some flowers, and went on my way for the evening...