When I look into the mirror, I see a boy not a man.

Its been a long few days. School has gotten into its "destroy all human souls" mode and is going to stay that way until the middle of December. I really wish I did more during those first few weeks when nothing was really happening. All I can think about now is all the awesome things I wish I could be doing. Sadly, I have tests and homework to do instead now. Free time is a valuable thing I wish we could all have more of. Enough of that though. Speaking of, if you ever have free time you should stop reading my shitty blog and should venture over to Justin Salman's blog. Honestly, it's funnier and probably more relevant in all possible ways.

Warning: This blog will probably be scattered and disorganized as it will be representing the millions of scattered and disorganized thoughts going through my head right now. Enjoy (Trust me, I don't think you will.)

Over the last few days, I have been having a really similar conversation with all of the close friends I have. The conversation usually begins with how much we all hate school and essentially hate what we are doing there. We go into college with the mentality that we are going to discover what we are good at and in turn make a career out of that. It's really quite a feeling. I can remember the feeling coming out of high school. I was as excited as anyone was. I was going to have so many things I didn't have before. There would be freedom, more interesting classes, different types of people to interact with, and so much more. Did all of that happen? Well, yes and no. I did find new and interesting people with different viewpoints to interact with and I did find that some classes I took were slightly more interesting or relevant to me. But as far as the whole "what I'm good at" or "what I want to do with my life" thing, I can't say college has lived up to what it is made out to be. I understand that stuff like this also has to do with the amount of effort you put into it. Trust me, I hear that all day from family and people who think they know what they want out of life. But why is it that some people are able to hone in on exactly what they want to do while others are left standing alone wondering why they are even at school in the first place? The concept is difficult for me to understand. Do I wish I knew everything about what I wanted to do with my life? No, not completely. That would take out all of the mystery and make life a lot less interesting. I think a person needs some form of change and questioning in their life for it to be worth while. But, on the other hand, some general idea would surely make things a little easier. Its getting harder and harder to go to class each day and discover more and more things wrong with the career path you are on. A friend of mine asked me today "How did we end up in one of the most conservative majors in one of the most conservative schools in the country?". I never looked at it like that. But he was right. This was obviously a wrong choice. Sometimes you just don't fit in somewhere but have unfortunately just taken to long to figure that out. I ask everyone reading this in all seriousness. What is going to happen to us after college? Are we going to be doing something we love or are we going to get stuck in a ridiculous routine that never ends? Sure, its a serious question. I'm not trying to get really deep with this blog or anything, I just want to know that I'm not the only person who is confused with this right now. On the bright side, there are a few things that are making this experience a bit better. There are a lot of great people here who are willing to hang out and make you feel at home when they know you usually don't.

In other news, I had 4 tests in a span of three days. One on Monday, two today on Wednesday, and one on Thursday. Its relieving that its almost done, but also nerve wrecking to know that I may not have started off the semester as awesome as I was telling myself I would. But, eh, what can you do, right? I need to grow up.

So, at least there's music to make shit better. September is almost over which means October is near! "What's in October" you may ask. Well, let me tell you friends. Number one: Strike Anywhere, Polar Bear Club, Crime In Stereo, and Ruiner show on the 26th and 27th. The new Swellers album comes out September 29th. Ruiner album just came out. So much stuff is going to happen and all of those will lead up to what will hopefully be one of the best weekends of my life...Fest. It's something that most bearded listeners of punk hope to be at part of. Soooo many bands in 3 days. I sure hope it proves to be as unbelievable as everyone says it is. Way too excited.

We have a band that tries to play music. Apparently we might record within the next few months which would be cool. First we have to write more songs, and fix the ones we have already written. But that is a fun process, so I'm excited about that. Hopefully we can play some local shows here and there to get into the groove of things.

Anyways, as usual, I'll go ahead and apologize for your wasted time. And believe me, this time I mean it. I promise my goal was not to bum you out super hard. Everyone has these questions at some point I think and mine happens to be now.

Bye, now.

Please join again next time where we'll talk about happy things like puppies and rainbows.

I Know I'm Small Time.

Sup BROmos? Oh nothing? Well, good! That means you have some time to hang out and read this. Some pretty interesting stuff has happened over the last few days. Some good and some not so awesome. I would venture to say that more things have fallen on the good side though, so worry not. This will not be a sad, broken down rant. So here are some of the good stuff I'll blogz about today. Number one: I got a job of sorts. Number two: I got a radio show on the student radio station. Number three: I made some new-ish friends at school that I think will help enhance the experience of being in ho-dunk Texas. Number Four: We might have some help booking shows for our band this semester.

So, Number One.

So, I had been looking for a job a lot last year and applied to millions of places and hardly got any responses. It may have been due to the fact that when I say millions, I really mean like 6. But that's besides the point. I did get a few responses letting me know that the jobs had already been filled by people who I can only imagine were smarter and more responsible. So, that was good. At least with those I didn't have the whole anticipation factor. Either way, the point is that one of those jobs I applied for finally came through. I had applied for a tutoring service that services the whole Bryan/College Station area. A student needed some help with a freshman level business math class and contacted me. FINALLY. So, that was pretty neat. The first session went well. He's a a good dude and is really in it to learn something and not just get his homework done by someone. I think I would prefer a job like this where we can work out our own times and such.

Number Two.

Last semester I applied to have a radio show on the TAMU student run radio station. Once again, I didn't get a response for what felt like years. The reason I'm guessing was because I was applying for the following semester (which would be now). So apparently it got approved and I believe it starts next week. That should be fun. I get to play whatever music I like as long as it is not charted in the top 100 Billboard or pop charts. I think this will be a fun experience. I can be boring at times, so hopefully I won't be all lame on the air. Maybe I won't talk at all and just let the jAmZ speak for themselves. Who knows. Honestly, there will probably be a total of 4 people listening to it at one time. I never listened to it much when I lived on campus. You can hear it on your TV if you have suddenlink cable service or via dem innernetz by visiting kanm.tamu.edu.
My show is on Saturday mornings from 10 a.m to 11 a.m.

Number Three.

I went to a Have Heart show a little while back with some people I barely knew. However, I had a really good time. It was really quite cool to be able to talk to people about stuff you can't talk to most other people at your school about. We shared a lot of music interests and other general interests as well. I didn't feel uncomfortable around them and didn't feel like I had to hold my tongue in an effort to not offend them. It was refreshing. They are all involved in a student organization called MSC Town Hall which is a music oriented student group for people who are not into most mainstream media. They book shows, have cultural type events and other things like that. I've met a good amount of people involved in Town Hall and it's really making me want to join it. They all seem fun and interesting!

Number Four.

There isn't much to this. Our drummer's old band mate is going to apparently help us book some shows around the area. That'll be sweet!

Some Un-awesome things.

I have a Management 363 course. The class consists of a regular large lecture conducted by the professor and a once a week small discussion group conducted by a graduate student. The large lecture is fine. The professor is really cool and gets her point across well. The small discussion group is pretty yucky. We are graded on attendance and on participation. Here's where the problem lies. Attendance is all OK. No problem with that. Participation is my problem. While in theory I think the idea is good, I don't think it transfers well in reality. As soon as the grad student announced that she was going to grade on participation, the number of people that began to talk and raise their hands was unreal. It got to the point where people decide to leave behind reason and logic and say absolutely anything to get their points. It was obvious that they were saying almost word for word what someone right before them had said. But that didn't matter as long as their voice was heard. There's a certain point where people are obviously fighting to have their voice heard over their fellow classmates and that happened a lot today. Maybe I'm not as competitive as I need to be. I don't like the pressure of knowing I have to say something productive instead of just letting it flow. I don't like not knowing whether I spoke often enough. It seems sleazy for people to just try and have their voice heard over other people's just to get a grade. Maybe I'm crazy and this is just what the professional business world is like. If that's the case, I don't know that that's what I want to do with my life.


School is starting to get hard again. Lots of reading and online homework assignments again. I always love the first week or two of school because it means that you still laze around and suffer no consequences. But now, it's about to get real again. Me no likey.

New JaMzZ?


Well Jay-Z's new album The Blueprint 3 came out just this week. I just listened to it and realized again why I Like Jay-Z so much. He's cocky, sure. But I feel like he also gives out his dues to those who are deserving of them. Most rappers these days aren't the most humble of people anyways. Either way, the songs are creative and have a lot of guest appearances from other artists who are popular in the rap/hip hop and R&B fields. It's most definitely worth a listen.

Polar Bear Club's Chasing Hamburg has started to grow on me as many people told me it would. The songs are weirder and less layered, but nonetheless still better than most of the music out there. Sure, some songs sound like they are featuring Santana, but so what? Everyone loves Santana, right? It's moving up on the list of what is being played most often on my Ipod.

Well, that's all for now. Bye, now.

There Was a Time When This City Shined.

Herro there! So, I'm not sure why you're here. Whether it's your first time here or you've decided to visit again, know that either way you have made a mistake and will now have to sit and read through more of my dumb banter on subjects that have no real value to anyone! Sweet, I'm stoked as well!

So, whats been going on lately you ask? Well, school started yesterday (Monday). It was actually a little less intimidating than I thought it would be. My professors seemed relatively laid back and pretty interesting as well. I have a Management class and the professor is really cool, She seems like she takes care of business but in a fun and interesting way. Then I have this Information Systems Statistics class with a straight INDIAN professor with a heavy accent and that ruled a lot. I have some crazy Asian lady for Political Science and she might be my favorite so far. She was extra funny and really liberal politically which stumped all of the people in class. I, however, was extremely excited. I've had almost all super conservative professors in the past so it'll be cool to see a class taught from her perspective. I have some other professors that were also cool but not worth mentioning. So that's basically how school has been going. I think it will be difficult course work but that it will be taught in a well paced manner.

So, our band had our first practice since last semester. I think we were all expecting it to be kind of shaky since we hadn't played together in so long and all of us were pretty busy over the summer with work and stuff. To our surprise, it went a lot better than we thought it would. I mean, we're nothing special and likely won't be but it was still neat to see that we could pick up from where we left it all. We played some covers to get reacquainted and then attempted to turn one of our singer's acoustic songs into a full band song and that turned out kind of cool. I think we're all excited to play shows this semester wherever we can!

Tomorrow, I'm going to a Have Heart show. I like Have Heart a lot but am in no way a die hard fan or anything. And as far as the other bands go, I've only heard some of their stuff but don't listen to any of them regularly. Have Heart is a straight edge hardcore band that has a pretty large following so the show should have a pretty big turnout which will be cool. Plus they are breaking up at the end of this year so I think it's worth seeing them when I have the chance. I think it'll be fun. I've been to a decent number of shows but never to one that has exclusively hardcore bands playing. I'm pretty excited for that.

So, recently I made an OkCupid profile. Before you start making fun of me, let me at least explain the reasoning behind it. I live in College Station. While there is nothing inherently wrong with the people here, there is a lot of difference between mine and most of the girls who go here's interests. With a profile like this you can, in a sense, find out exactly what you want to know about a person. If I'm at a party and talking to a girl, it's likely that unless we are talking for a loooong time that I will ever find out her likes and dislikes, movie/music tastes, basic life story, religious views, political views, and other interesting stuff. With a profile like this, I can easily find the people who have similar interests and would likely get along with me with a minimal effort. I'm not saying that relationships shouldn't require effort, I'm just saying there isn't anything wrong with narrowing your field down to people you'd be able to get along with. What's the use in talking to someone for so long only to find out that they're only romantically interested in "Bros" or southern boys with cowboy boots? No use. So, that's that. One of my best friend's friend found her boyfriend on there and they seem to be getting along. Yeah, it may seem lame, but what can you do? I know plenty of great girls in different places, just not very many here.

Polar Bear Club's new album leaked. It's called Chasing Hamburg...and it was not at all what I expected. when they announced the release date and stuff, I was so stoked. I actually searched almost daily for a leak. I was going to buy it when it came out regardless so I figured it'd be all right. Today Razzy sent me a link that took almost 3 hours to download only building my anticipation level. When it finally finished, it was hard to keep that level of excitement. It was very mediocre in my opinion (which I realize isn't worth much). Some songs lacked any emotion and power. Jimmy, the vocalist, is known for his gritty emotional screaming as well as his melodic cleaner voice. This album has a lot of melodic clean vocals but almost none of the emotional gritty stuff. It was disappointing. No sing a longs, no anthems, no nothing. Just a couple of cool songs and maybe one or two really catchy ones. I guess Ruiner, Strike Anywhere, and A Wilhelm Scream will have to make up for it when their new stuff comes out. Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate Polar Bear Club's new stuff. I just didn't see a logical progression from the previous anthemic sing-a-long stuff. But if they're happy with it, then that's all that should really count.

Well, it's been fun. Sorry if I bored you to death with uninteresting facts about my life. If not, come again!

Bye, now!