Why I hate social networking sites.

Okay, I am on Facebook. I hate it, just like I hate MySpace. However, I use them, mainly as a means of communication with people I don't see often. I'm busy, my friends are busy, so delayed communication such as eMail, Facebook, and MySpace are what work best for us. Also, I'm the only out of all my friends that has a job where I can answer my cell phone at work.

Anyway...Facebook has application (a bit like Blogger, I guess, where you add things on the sides, top, and bottom of the blog) among of these, is one of the most popular, called Compare People. I got Compare People pretty early on, and it does just what it sounds like. It shows you two friends, asks a question, and you choose a friend for the answer. The questions are pretty trivial, such as who would I rather date, kiss, sleep with, go to a party with, shoot up with (okay, not that one)...I stopped using the application about a month after I got.

However, Compare People is definitely one of the most popular applications, like I said. A majority, if not almost all, of my friends had it, and used it actively for quite some time. It is a fairly good (okay, well, not good) way to pass time.

From time to time, Facebook will send you an eMail, telling you how your friends compared you recently. I check my personal eMail about once a week (work eMail, about four times a day).

I went through my Facebook applications the other day, deleting almost all of them, including Compare People. I decided I just didn't like the concept anymore. Plus, my rankings were starting to suck, as I didn't have as many Facebook friends as most people, so I was coming up fewer times to be rated than other people, therefore, lowering my rankings.

Anyway...I noticed today, I received an eMail from Facebook about Compare People. My final one, regarding my ratings.

Read below:


"Here is what your friends think about...

... your strengths:

most punctual
kindest
most kiss-able

... your weaknesses:

most talented
most fashionable"

So...I'm on time (Porter gene, we already discussed), kind (yeah, okay), and most kiss-able (?).

And I'm also...untalented (ouch...), and unfashionable (yeah, right).

So my friends would all want to kiss me, but think I have bad clothes?

At least I'm on time, and nice, I guess.

1986 brought you:

Something I was less than thrilled with. I Wikipedia'd music in 1986. I didn't recognize a whole lot. So I picked the only song I did recognize, off the top ten.

Sorry.

Update on my return to Michigan.

I realized I haven't really told anyone (including my immediate family) when exactly I'm coming back to Michigan.

RIGHT NOW, this is how I hope things will be working out.

I go on vacation next month. I'll be back for about ten days, it'll be nice. Then my lease here is up June 30th. I plan on moving a majority of my things back to Michigan after that, however, I will still be in Indy.

I'll be staying more on the North side (I live on the West side now), in...I'm not sure what to call them. They'll cost me about $70 a week, to stay there. My last day at the Hyatt McDonald's (and McDonald's Corporation, for about five years) will be August 8th.

My SOAR (some thing I'm forced to attend for SVSU...we're Cardinals...soar, get it?) date is August 13th. I believe orientation starts about ten days after that.

I have a bit of a rushed summer. I'm realizing as I type this out, it's going to be rough. And makes me just want to come back in June, when my lease is up. However, the restaurant I'm in right now really needs me as long as they can have me. While our hours of operation are minimal (we're only open about 15 hours our longest day of the week, which isn't even that bad to work the whole thing, I've done it several times) we only have four managers right now, and only three of us are able to work any time. And two are hourly, so they can't have overtime, meaning any left over hours go to my boss and myself (okay, they go to me).

Anyway.

Inventory today. Well, the other half, I did a lot last night, so I could sleep in an hour longer today.

Open management interviews tomorrow (my day off).

My life.

A video.

I'm sure you all hate when I post videos, because my sense of humor is quite different than most everyone else.

That being said, I showed this video to my dad once, and he thought it was hilarious. I showed it to my mom, and she was thoroughly disgusted with me (and yet, I was a bit surprised by that).

Anyway. It's by a comedy group called DerrickComedy. They have quite a few videos on their YouTube account, and I enjoy quite a few of them. I'll probably post a few more of them along the way.

Enjoy.




Happy Easter.

National Hug A Red Head Day.

It's today! That's right! Everyone's favorite day of the year.

Find a red head near you, and hug them!




(This is what we look like.)

Photo credit: Joni. I believe this is the last time I saw her. I visited her randomly one night last semester. So randomly, in fact, those are her sweatpants (I forgot pajamas).

I miss you, Joni!

Think I'm overdue for an oil change?

Sorry these are so blurry.
My camera just wouldn't focus on what I wanted it to, and I was losing patience.




That's 94,920. Not too bad, considering the car had a high 50k when I got it.

When I need my next oil change.




This one is much harder to read. Sorry. It says 12,434.

Anyone else think I need an oil change?

(What actually happened...I did get an oil change last week while I was in Michigan, and I realized later that night driving somewhere with my friend Jill, that the girl must have accidentally switched the stickers with the car in front of me. Needless to say, I laugh everytime I look up at it.)

Tyra Banks is a psycho.

Credit to this video being in the know goes completely to Joni. She showed it to me probably a year and a half ago to two years ago, and I couldn't get enough of it.

I wanted to show this video to my dad not long after, but alas, YouTube had required whoever posted it to take it down, due to copyright infringements.

Anyway...I found it again, and I thought I'd post it. I'm not at all a Tyra fan (in fact, I'm a bit anti-Tyra).



All that, over Vaseline...

What a cult we've started.

My all-time top ten favorite things in order as they come to mind. Credit to Shaelynn for starting this.

1. My sisters. It's true. I love my sisters, I will always love my sisters, and it's a bond that's very special to me. I always wanted a brother, that's true, and even now as I make friends with people who have brothers and are close to their brothers, it's hard for me not to have one. However, I wouldn't trade my sisters for anything.

2. My parents. Although it may not always seems like it, my parents do rank second on favorite things that come to mind. We do have our disagreements (and quite often), and rarely understand each other, but my parents are supportive of me, no matter what crazy things I think of to do (moving to Canada, moving to Indiana, taking an almost three year break from school). I know I've probably turned out to be the most difficult out of the three of us (Shae is often quick to remind me), but I keep reminding my parents I'm also the most fun out of the three of us (sorry Kate and Shae).

3. Spanish. It's becoming pretty widely known I speak spanish. Unlike a lot of people, I don't speak a little bit. Or am able to say "Hi, how are you? What is your name?" I can carry on conversations, and have friends that don't speak any english, and we usually communicate just fine (usually). There are days I speak more spanish than english. I love speaking and learning more. It's getting more difficult, because I'm starting to learn the finer points of the language, so naturally the progression of my learning is slowing down at a really fast rate. Plus, I really, really, really like latin girls. A lot.

4. My friends. From everyone here in Indy (Emily, Juan, Bryant, George, Aurelia, Naum, Isaac, Cindy, and Chelsea), to people I met at Bethany I'm still friends with (Chris, Julie, Ashley, Nicole, Tiff, and Nate), to those back in Michigan still (Joni, Michael, Emily, Trish, Shelby, Jill, Libby, and Jenny) I love my friends. It'll be hard to someday mend these worlds (the language barrier being the biggest obstacle I see), but I do hope someday to get almost all these people together in one room, because absolutely nothing would be better.

5. Ice cream. I use ice cream as comfort, and am not ashamed in the least to admit it.

6. Working. Yes, I'm a workaholic (which is why I suck at dating). I sometimes complain about the amount I work, but I put myself in the position I'm in. I fought hard for my promotion, received it, along with about 30 more hours of work a week. Thus is life, being salaried, I suppose.

7. Music. Performing, writing, listening, creating, I love it all. I no longer believe in genres, only because so much of music has blended together (meaning music being made modernly...today). Music was so much of my life until these past few years. I stopped playing music, and haven't sang in well, years. I struck a deal with my mom, regarding a certain song I would sing, only if my dad and sister did it with me (Shae, because Kate can't sing...seriously). I listen to everything. When I worked at Hot Topic, people would always ask what kind of music I liked and I'd say "fun".

8. Fun. Naturally. Ha ha. I love fun. I don't mean like, outrageous, drunken, crazed fun. In fact, I rarely drink, really. Fun means anything from going out with friends, to driving all night for nothing, to going downtown at 4 AM to try to find the canal (we never did, because I got all turned around), to watching documentaries with my dad (a favorite past-time of mine, when I lived with my parents).

9. My innocence. My friends often sayI'm one of the most innocent-seeming people ever. I have a very care-free look on most of my life, while still managing to really care about what's important.

10. Loyalty. I've also been told I'm a loyal person. But more than that, I love when people are simply loyal to what they believe. Upon meeting me, a lot of people rarely realize how strongly I feel about a lot of issues (politics, religion, abortion, immigration). I'm loyal to those things. I'm loyal to the people I love (which is almost everyone, anyway).

This got hard as I went, for sure.

My top 10 favorite things.

I hope to see your's soon.

Thanks, Shae. I enjoyed this.

What happens when I move out.

I used to have my own bathroom in my parent's house. Ever since Shaelynn moved out my sophomore year of high school, I basically had the entire basement, and 2nd floor bathroom to myself. Katie slept upstairs, but used my parent's bathroom, because she was still too young to do most things on her own.

This is what apparently happened, though, when Shaelynn ended up moving back to my parent's, and her and Katie got an idea (I think Shae got an idea, and Katie followed suit).



Now, whenever I stay at my parent's, I use their guest bedroom (which was my bedroom originally, before I moved to the basement). What's right outside that room? This hideous mess.

One of my all-time favorite pictures.

I like the picture itself, but I did edit it a bit.

Anyway...this is one of my favorite pictures of us, because we were both completely natural (as I didn't even know it was taken until much later).

So I sort of really love Mo Collins.

She's an actress on MadTV. Well, she used to be, I should say. I'm not sure she still is.



A Shakira parody.



Alanis Morrisette parody.



And one last one I found just now. Alanis Morrisette doing a parody of well...herself, sort of. Ha ha.

No more!

Today was my last day as the store manager.

My boss returns in the morning, and I can finally go back to just being the Assistant.

: ]

Not to mention, after tomorrow, I noticed I have three days off in a row.

What a good week.

There are days I feel a bit of guilt.

I read a post written by my cousin John today. About my grandparents, but in particular, my grandpa.

I won't pretend to be close to him, or any of my extended family, really (except Joni). Most of them don't ever really know what's going on with me, or anything. It's what partially got me to start this. I want my family to know about me, and I want to be able to discuss things with them when I see them. As things are right now, I think I am, by far, the best at distancing myself from them, and I don't think I know why I'm doing it.

So often I feel incredibly guilty for taking off to Indianapolis. My motivation: my career. My real motivation: part of me wanted to just get away from that damned dirt road. My childhood wasn't bad. I wasn't exactly an easy kid to deal with, that's for sure. I rebelled, in my own ways. Often, without anyone really even knowing.

I never liked living in the country, and it wasn't a secret. Everyone knew I liked cities, and always wanted to live in one. When Bethany didn't work out, and I moved back to my parents for a few months, I was constantly working on trying to get back out, on my own. I remember moving to Midland, it was great. Far enough away I didn't feel like I was idle in my life, but close enough I got to see my parents and my sisters (which turned out to be pretty rare). From Midland, I came to Indy. I remember sitting in my 2-bedroom apartment the third or fourth day here, and just feeling lonely. I missed everyone already. I think I visited my parent's within just a week, or two, of moving down here. I decided I had the time, I should go. So I called my dad, to let him know I'd be there pretty late, and sure enough, spent a small portion of a weekend with them.

So much has happened to my family over these past couple years. Living in such a small community, if something happens to one person, it happens to everyone. And so often, I've chosen work over things that I should have been at. I chose work over just being around right now. While, yes, things are amazing here. I love Indy, and I'm sad to leave in the summer, to go back to school full-time. I'll miss it the entire time I'm away.

I guess I just feel that constant guilt, hearing stories about people I should see, and should be seeing, that I'm not. That I don't make time to see when I am in town (which is getting rarer and rarer).

Hopefully that will change in June.

No secrets.

It's no secret what I do for a living. I work for McDonald's, currently as an interim store manager (about to step back down to an Assistant next week, and not a moment too soon).

Anyway, part of my current job as an interim store manager is going to all kinds of meetings (as you can see in the post below). Some are at the regional office here in Indy, some are in different cities, some are in different restaurants. Either way, I'm starting to learn more and more about Indy, simply because I drive around the city so much to all these different meetings.

Anyway...I went to our brand new regional office today, for a Market meeting, meaning about 27 restaurants were represented from in and around Indy (we're the Indy West market).

Right before lunch my boss introduced me to everyone, stating that I had taken over my restaurant a few months ago, and I did a good job, blah, blah blah.

So then she noticed a few people had just filed into the back of our conference room, and she asked her boss at the back of the room to please introduce them. So I turned in my chair to look at who walked in, and one man looked incredibly familiar to me. In fact, he looked like a man who I used to work under back in Michigan, who had recently taken a job in a different part of the country. This man also just happens to be my cousin. That's right, guys...Ray was at my meeting today. Only weeks ago I was telling my boss about Ray, and she said she had heard of him, but never really met him.

Anyway, after we broke for lunch, I walked up to him, shook his hand, and told him who I was. So we talked for a few minutes, and awhile later he walked by my table, and my boss invited him to sit with us during lunch.

I've known Ray by face, and met him for the first time as a shift manager about three or four years ago, in my first restaurant (Sanford). My old boss there introduced us basically saying "Ray, this is your cousin, Michael". I've talked to him since, but usually only while waiting on him at work, and the conversations are short, and pertaining to his orders. Today was meeting him on a very different level, and I have to say it was really great to have the chance to actually talk to him, and really understand why so many people adore him as they do.

Mostly for my mom.

A lot of my friends thought it was a bit funny I sometimes have to wear a suit to work, and wanted proof.

So a picture was taken before a meeting I had (I have another one much like it in the morning).

Superbad: Relatable

Okay, I know I'm probably the last of the 25 and under crowd to see Superbad. That's alright with me. I could have waited longer, I suppose.

By the way, if you haven't seen this, and honestly care, stop reading, because I do go into detail about the movie.

First impression. Crude. The movie is just crude, and I'm not a fan of crude humor. It's easy to be funny, while being crude. There's no wit, or creativity involved in that, and it bothers me, I guess. Do I make the occasional crude joke? Yes. Who doesn't? And depending on who I'm with, I may make a few.

However, I did laugh. I'm sure I was laughing at all the wrong parts, but laughing, all the same, right? It's a comedy, it's what you do.

Anyway. The very basis of this movie is basically two best friends, trying to set themselves up for an epic last summer together, before they go off to seperate colleges (the main focus of their summer seemed to be sex...I'll get around to that later). They like totally different types of girls, and have completely different approaches to how to go about getting the girls.

This movie, over and over, reminded me of myself and Michael (yes, my best friend and I have the same first name...that partially fueled the switch to Mickey). Michael and I are so alike in so many ways, however contrast each other in very similar ways as Evan (myself) and Seth (Michael).

Now, for anyone who has seen the movie, Michael is not nearly as disrespectful toward women as I felt Seth was. However, he and I do have very different views on where lines should be drawn in many situations.

But more than anything, there's a scene near the end, where they're (drunkenly) lying on the floor in sleeping bags after a party, and talking. Talking about things that have been bothering them, and a secret Evan was keeping from Seth. In the end, the two best friends start feeling comfortable telling each other they love each other.

I've actually heard of that scene. It's a scene I found out a lot of people found strange, or even a bit "gay".

A majority of my friends routinely tell each other (and myself) they love each other. I'm the same way. Half my phone calls end with "Love you, too." Half my conversations. Half my eMails. That includes all the guys. I don't find that strange. They're my friend, and I love them. Almost every single friend I see, no matter how often I see them, we hug.

In a drunken state, I too, felt it had the possibility of going a "bit far" but it didn't. They simply got comfortable saying "I love you" and said it over and over. They expressed their desire to scream from the rooftop that they love their best friend.

I live six hours from my best friend. I see him once every few months, if I'm lucky, since we're both incredibly busy. And yes, I do tell him I love him. I miss him daily. I hug him every single time I see him, and every single time I say goodbye to him. My friends are like a second (but inferior to the original) family.

Okay. Quick thing. I'm so tired of every movie directed at my age group (or really, just the general public) revolving around sex. I've expressed this further before in a pretty long blog on MySpace once. Am I the only person my age that has something better to think about than sex right now?

Apparently.

Overview: Superbad, funny, but not amazing. If you have a friend, call them and tell them you love them. Find a new hobby.