Pink Floyd & The Wizard Of Oz

Some of you have probably heard of this, some of you have probably not. But I've done it and I must say it is FREAKY!

Of course I'm referring to the fact that the Pink Floyd album "Dark Side Of The Moon" playing on repeat will sync up with the action and emotions on the film The Wizard Of Oz. In fact, the CD will play 2 1/2 times, which means certain songs are actually heard 3 times. And all 3 times either the lyrics or the music will sync up to what is happening on the movie in some way.

Whether or not this was planned by Pink Floyd, I don't know. I can easily doubt it because of the fact that it would just take way too long and there's no real reason for it. Not to mention at the time the album was made there weren't any CD's or CD players with repeat buttons. You would have had to use a vinyl record, which would have songs on both sides and there's no way someone could flip over the record that many times and keep up with the sync.

But it is such a strange coincidence it's hard to imagine it being accidental. Anyway, Rolling Stone has posted a few small clips showing some of the syncs between the songs and the film. They posted a few good ones, but there are some that are even better. And in the last clip they posted involving the tin man, you can't really hear that at the very end when Dorothy and Scarecrow are listening to the Tin Man talk about wanting a heart, the song fades out into a heartbeat. But, here's the link to the clips.

Shrine Mosque

This post is to remind me I may be interested in:
Switchfoot
Monday April16,2007
Date Monday April 16,2007
Ticket Price $25.00
Doors 7:00 PM
Show Time Opener 8:00 PM
Seating All General Admission

And to inform Bobbie of this:
TNA WRESTLING
Date FRIDAY APRIL 13,2007
Ticket Price FLOOR FRONT ROW RINGSIDE $50.00
BALANCE OF FLOOR $30.00

Appearing live and in person will be Olympic Gold Medalist Kurt Angle, “The Samoan Submission Machine” Samoa Joe, Scott Steiner, Abyss, “The War Machine” Rhino, “The Phenomenal” A.J. Styles, Voodoo Kin Mafia, “Cowboy” James Storm, “Wildcat” Chris Harris, Miss Jackie, Gail Kim, The Naturals, Alex Shelley, “Showtime” Eric Young, Sonjay Dutt, Chris Sabin, Jay Lethal, Senshi and more!

Check It Out!

Can you guess what is in the picture? It's a robot built out of lego bricks. That's cool, right?

Can you guess what it is doing? It is holding a Wii remote. And it just bowled a perfect game of Wii Bowling. Check out the story and video HERE.

A Return To Normal

Well, it appears I have been given my third chance. Life has returned to mostly normal (minus my negative attitude). I don't really know much more than that at this point because there have been no "in-depth" discussions of exactly what Z's current feelings are. And that may just be something that never happens, I'm not going to push any issues. Instead I will concentrate on being a better me and let everything else fall in line.

To those of you who were concerned, I appreciate it. To those of you who were bored and/or annoyed by my whining - tough cookies. LOL!

Hindsight 20/20

My last breath is fading fast and I can barely see any light above the water. My lungs are burning and I really don't think I'm going to make it. Interestingly enough, the further down I go the clearer my vision has become of exactly how I got into this position.

Now, I don't want to concern anyone. All of these drowning metaphors are referring to a specific part of my life involving a specific relationship to the best person I've ever been priviledged to know. You remember "Z" from the last post. That's the person. But, I don't want anyone who reads this to think I'm in any danger on a physical level. If I can't recover from this then life will suck and I will carry the guilt and hurt with me forever. But, I will carry on. So don't let these posts scare you.

As I was saying, I've finally discovered what is meant by the phrase "hindsight is 20/20". For the past 3 months, as things have been going bad, I knew my behavior was causing problems, but I honestly thought my behavior was a reaction to things that were happening to me. And I knew that other people aside from Z were aware my attitude was going downhill, but I honestly never knew that it was actually affecting their feelings and opinions of me. Now that it's probably the end, I can see where me thinking it was about 80% my fault and 20% Z's fault was not quite accurate. For the past 3 days every different angle I look back at shows up as 100% my fault. I wish I had known that sooner, I would have stopped it before I got here.

I don't know what to do now. How can you convince someone that you've absolutely learned everything you needed to learn and that even though you blew your second chance you can gaurantee it will never happen again? Most people don't even get second chances, so why in the hell would I deserve a third? I don't. I don't deserve a third chance. Apparently I didn't deserve the second chance, because I blew it. But I know I want to continue my relationship with Z more than I want anything else.

And I'm not just saying that because I feel guilty for what I've done to her(yes, Z switched genders - got to keep you guessing). Obviously I do feel guilty. But I can honestly say I want to continue my friendship with Z more than I want anything else because it's the absolute truth. I've done nothing for the past 3 days but think about what I did, what I want, what she deserves, how it happened, etc. I can't sleep because my brain won't shut down. I can't eat because I'm sick with grief over the fact that I just killed a friendship and hurt Z's heart.

I know what I did wrong. I know that I was the only person who did anything wrong. I know I did this to myself. I know I don't deserve her friendship. I honestly believe the horrible thing I did to get me to this point was caused by some divine intervention just to get me to this point so I would finally freaking get it. And I do get it, but it may have cost me more than I ever wanted to pay. I don't know what to do. I don't want this to happen. But it's not up to me anymore. I don't deserve to be included in the decision about our friendship, because I'm the one who tore it apart. I don't know what to do. The worst part is that this all started because I hate my work schedule and I let myself become jealous of Z's freedom. Why? What made me think it would be okay to take my frustrations out on her? There was no reason why being frustrated at work should lead me to losing Z. Especially since I haven't changed anything at work, I still work the same stupid shift that I hate. My shift is beyond my control unless I quit jobs. But, I'm not even upset about my shift anymore. That quickly paled in comparison to the mess I've gotten myself into. If I could go back in time, I would thank my friends every day for working around my stupid schedule and fitting me in to their lives during my time off instead of being jealous of the time off they had together.

Again, I know what I did wrong. I know that I was the only person who did anything wrong. I know I did this to myself. And I don't know what to do now. I mean, at the time I guess I thought we were strong enough to handle it and she would realize that the problem was about work and wasn't actually about her. But why should she have realized that, I was making it about her. I understand she did not deserve to face constant negativity from me, especially at a time in her life when she's got so many positive things happening to her. I don't know how it happened. But I know how to keep it from ever happening again, if I get the chance. But, I don't think I'm going to. And that's my fault.

Update On Me:

For those of you who read my recent posts about treading water and Gray's Anatomy I thought I would provide an update for you.

When I last discussed how things were going for me I talked about making the decision to get out of the water before I drowned. And I did. Unfortunately, I had been dry about 2 1/2 weeks when I stumbled and my feet got wet. I managed to stay there for a few days, then yesterday I fell over and went completely under. Now I am not even treading water, I'm drowning. On my last breath. My only hope is that the person closest to me holds out a hand and lets me try to climb back out. And I'm really not sure if that person is going to hold out a hand. Let's call this person "Z". Now, Z is tired and has sore hands thanks to all the times I bumped into him and clawed at him while I was treading water. And if Z does decide to hold out a hand and let me climb out, should I stay on the beach with the rest of the party and risk drowning again? Or should I leave the beach and find a totally new place to party with totally new people?

I know what I want to do. I want to stay on the beach and party with my people. I know that if I make it out of the water this time I will never let myself get too close to the edge again. But, since I have fallen in twice will anyone believe me that it won't happen again? Why should they? I haven't proved that I can be trusted not to teeter over the edge. I've got 2 strikes against me. And they have both occurred in only the last 3 months.

I don't want to find a new party, but I can't help but wonder if that wouldn't be the best thing for the party on the beach. I want those people to enjoy their party. I care about them all so much. I don't want to dampen their fun by making them worry that if they accidentally create a breeze playing frisbee it will knock me backwards into the water. I want them to be able to do what they want/need to do to have the most fun they can have.

I'm torn. I'm hoping that the person closest to me holds out a hand AND asks me to rejoin the party. But should I accept because that's what I want or should I decline because in the long run Z would be happier without me at the party? I know I can rejoin and pull it off and prove myself. But, with my prior track record why in the hell would Z think I can do it? So, would Z be relaxed and party like normal, or would Z be constantly looking over his shoulder wondering what I'm doing and thinking about how I wounded him the first 2 times I was drowning. It doesn't matter how much I believe that I won't do it again, he has to believe it or he won't be happy. It's a tough decision. I want to be happy and party, but I know I won't be happy if I think someone is unhappy because of me.

I've been at this party for 7 years, I don't know how I can leave it. But, I may have to. If I even get pulled from the water.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Well, as usual the St. Patrick's Day Parade was cold and windy. But, as usual, it was also a total blast. This is either my 3rd or 4th year attending and I am never disappointed (except for the weather - can't we start doing this parade in May?). I called my mother and had her drag my neice Jessica and my nephew Charlie up here with her to stand outside and freeze alongside me. Their cousin Cassandra joined them.

After the parade, we went and chowed down on some Long John Silver's and then I took them for a drive around town since they don't get up here much. I showed them Pythian Castle, then went down to Sequiota Park and let them crawl around the caves. They thought the caves were awesome and now they are all highly impressed with how cool Springfield is. While at Sequiota, I somehow managed to reluctantly get interviewed by KSPR 33. They were doing a news story on what the ice storm damage will mean to the park system.

So if you watched the 10:00pm news tonight on channel 33, then you probably saw me. I feel bad that I didn't ask the reporter's name, but anyway she finally talked me into it by promising I would only be on camera for like 8 seconds. Then when I said yes I swear they filmed me for 4 minutes and asked multiple questions. So, I'm scared to see what they showed. Luckily, since I only moved here last year and I work alone at night, I hardly know anyone and I doubt anyone I do know caught the story. I didn't even get to see it because I came to work before it aired. I did, however, record it and will be checking it out in the morning to see how awful it is.

THE BEST PICTURE EVER !!!

Over the weekend, my cousin Sabrina & her kids, my Aunt Paula, my best friend Bobbie and her son and myself spent the night at the Grand Country Inn in Branson. We had a great time playing at Splash Country Indoors. But the best part of the weekend was the fact that I took the funniest picture ever of my cousin Sabrina.

Here's the setup: she had just gotten off of the big waterslide so she was completely dripping with water and she was talking to her young son Austin trying to get him excited about the slide. I'm just glad I was in her face with my camera.
Below the awesome pic of her are a few various other pics of our weekend.

Sabrina



(from left to right) Aunt Paula, Sabrina and Bobbie as the big bucket dumps and water rushes towards them......they did not give me permission to post any pics of them in their swimsuits, so I drew them a beach towel to share.




And here's Sabrina at the end of the waterslide

Stuff I Haven't Mentioned Yet...

Here's a list of some of the things that have happened recently which I did not have time to post about yet:

For the first time ever I saw a truck that was actually hauling caskets -



Grandma Beeson turned 80 -



Keaton turned 2 -




I went to Chuck E. Cheese - (Cordell and Alana playing a video game)




Grandma had some trees cut down -





Bobbie, Cordell and I checked out the Pea Ridge National Military Park in Pea Ridge, Arkansas -





Bobbie took her neice, Lexi, to Roaring River to feed the fish -





I guess that's enough excitement for now!

Need More Internet!

I've been fairly busy recently and have taken a lot of pictures and gone on adventures that I would love to post here. Unfortunately, since I no longer have internet at my "weekend home", I am falling behind on my blogging. So, I'm kind of stumped about what to do about it. I don't really want to post 3 or 4 blogs every Thursday, Friday and Saturday because posts get more attention when they can just sit at the top of your page for at least 24 hours. But, I want to talk about what I've been up to.

I think maybe the best solution will be to post one entry that includes several different topics and pictures in it. I'm going to try it once or twice to see if it will work or if it will make my page look too busy. Let me know if any of you have an opinion about it or have another option for me. Other than the obvious option of getting the internet reinstated at my weekend home.

The Picture Post

As promised, I took a picture of the original Disney sketch I commandeered for myself the other day. It measures roughly 24 x 17, so if anyone knows where I can find a reasonably priced frame with mat fairly inexpensively, I would appreciate it.

Hey Ya (Acoustic)

Don't get excited, this is nothing new. This video blew up on the internet around September of '06 and has been posted on thousands of blogs. However, I still absolutely love it and since it has died down quite a bit, I thought I would try to revive it a little.

Oddly enough, as wildly popular as this video was I did not learn about it until a few months later. And then I only found it because I was purposely searching for an acoustic version of the song. See, I had gone to a school music program that my neice was participating in and in between all of the various grades doing their songs, they let a group of 3 high school musicians/singers perform their own little song. Those 3 boys stunned me by wailing an absolutely beautiful acoustic version of Hey Ya. It was the first time I had heard an acoustic version and although these boys were very talented, I knew immediately it had to be something they had copied from someone else. As soon as I got home that night, I googled "Hey Ya acoustic" and BAM! - up popped thousands of links to the Matt Weddle version I have posted here. I have listened to it hundreds of times since then and I never grow tired of it. I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I do.

First Friday Art Walk

Well, tonight I experienced another "first" for me since living in Springfield. I attended my first First Friday Art Walk. Yeah! I had heard about these last summer, but the two people I know in town have no interest in them whatsoever and I just never bothered to go check it out.

However, one of my on-line friends from a forum I frequent is a fanatical historian of Heer's Department Store. And he has been mentioning for a week now that he would be hosting an exhibit of Heer's memorabilia. So, I figured that was as good an excuse as any to finally check out an Art Walk. I knew that a few other people from my favorite website were also going down to support Willard (his online name), so I headed to the Gillioz Theatre and got one of my first tastes of downtown on a Friday night.

The Heer's exhibit was pretty cool. While there, I met up with a few people I knew and after we had checked out the Gillioz we walked up to Walnut street and checked out another Art Walk spot. Then we headed over to South Avenue Pizza for dinner. I had never eaten there before and the pizza was awesome. We finished our food just in time for me to head to work so it worked out pretty well.

Hinder Concert

Last night a group of friends/cousins and I attended the Hinder concert at the Shrine Mosque and it was awesome! The opening band was Black Stone Cherry and they did a decent job, but their songs sound 80% better on the CD than they did live. The second band to perform was Finger 11 and they rocked their asses off. They played a great set, I just hadn't heard very many of the songs they played because they haven't had a whole lot of radio time. Except for their new song "Paralyzer" (which I absolutely love) and, of course, their song "One Thing" from their debut self-titled album.

But Hinder definitely stole the show. The whole band had a tremendous amount of energy and the lead singer knew how to pump up the crowd. Plus, he has a really cool voice and they sounded great live. I have been listening to their CD, "Extreme Behavior" for weeks in preparation and I was able to scream along with every song.

The really crappy pictures are of Hinder and were taken with my cell phone. I'm quite a bit older than the average age of the crowd that was there and back in my day, cameras were rarely (never!) allowed into concerts. So, I didn't even think about grabbing mine out of the car. However, once inside I noticed that there were cameras everywhere. I'm guessing that in today's world, where everyone has a cell phone with a camera, there's no way to prevent pictures from being taken so they don't bother trying to stop it. Which means that next time I go to a concert, I'm sticking my camera in my pocket regardless. And hopefully I will be going to more concerts. I seem to average about 1 a year, but I enjoyed myself so much on Tuesday that I really want to make an effort to see several this year.

.....................................Hinder on stage...................................



..................................Hinder during "Lips Of An Angel".........................



You'll notice in that last picture there are two people who are obstructing half of my view of the stage. They stood there through 95% of the entire concert, including during the opening act when things weren't that exciting. There were 3 people in my group who were not able to enjoy the show as much as we could have because of this. However, even though it was infuriating, none of us said anything to them because they paid for their seats and it was their right not to use them. What I don't understand is why they were standing in our way the entire time when they simply could have stood on the floor and not been in anyone's way. If you are someone who likes to stand at concerts, please be considerate of the people behind you.

It's Official!

Today was the day Bobbie and I randomly decided to head to a travel agent and make reservations for our Disney World trip. We decided to use Great Southern Travel just because they are "authorized Disney vacation planners", they're well-respected and there are so many convenient locations here in Springfield.

We went to the S. Glenstone office first and were told that Saturday's were by appointment only at that location. They very politely referred us to the Great Southern Vacation Center on S. National. So, we headed over there. The parking lot was actually quite full but I really didn't think much of it. I don't spend a lot of time hanging out at travel agencies, so I have no idea how much business is normal for a Saturday. However, when we walked in we realized that today was no ordinary day.

First, I noticed a sketch artist set-up near the entrance doing the most amazing pencil drawings of Disney characters every few minutes. Then I saw there were balloons everywhere, pictures of Mickey Mouse all over the place, people walking around eating popcorn, kids running wild - today was Disney Days! It was perfect timing on our part. We sat down with an agent, decided on the resort we wanted to stay in, added the dining package to our park hopper passes, set the dates, put down a deposit and now it is official.
I'M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD, BABY!

As an added bonus, everyone who booked a Disney vacation today got a free sketch from the sketch artist. I talked Bobbie out of it, because I'm mean like that, so I got a really awesome drawing of Lady from Lady & The Tramp (only one available). I'm planning on getting it framed and hanging it in my office because the artist who drew it this morning is an official Disney sketch artist who works at DisneyLand in California. In a few days I will try to get a good picture of it and post it here so I can brag about it again.

In the meantime, I'M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD, BABY!

Grey's Anatomy

I'm really not much of a TV person. Not because I don't approve of it, simply because I am a fairly busy person and I don't really devote a whole lot of time to watching it. But, over the past 5 weeks or so I have started watching this show and have quickly became addicted to it. Maybe because every single week something happens that leaves me bawling like a baby and with me being so emotional lately it allows me some release.

This week's episode was no exception - I cried. The episode dealt with the fact that the main character, Meredith Grey, had fallen into the bay while helping victims of a ferry accident. When she was rescued, she had been in the water long enough to develop hypothermia and was not breathing. At the hospital, all the best surgeons and doctors worked on her endlessly for hours trying to warm up her body enough to get her heart beating again. During that time, we got to see what Meredith was dealing with as she lay on the table dead.

Basically what it boiled down to was that while she was accidentally pushed into the water, she only fought to stay afloat for a few minutes and then she made a conscious choice to give up the fight. She had been depressed about a few things and was having issues with various parts of her life, so she quit trying to tread water and let herself sink. It was only after "spirit-world" Meredith admitted this to herself that she knew she had made a mistake. She realized all the things she would be missing just because she was too tired to fight. She suddenly didn't care as much about her issues. She wanted to live. And, since it is TV and she is the title character, she did live.

As I watched, I thought about the last post I made and how odd it was that I had just talked about treading water and the feeling of sinking. Pure coincidence, but still a bit disturbing. I don't want to wait until I've stopped breathing to realize I should have struggled less and simply gotten out of the water. I'm getting out of the water now.

Treading Water

For weeks now, I have been treading water - emotionally speaking, of course. Suddenly, I'm learning that you can't keep yourself "barely afloat" for an extended amount of time. For some damn reason, eventually you either have to sink or swim. And I assure you, I am sinking very fast. Not only am I sinking, but I am pulling myself down.

Now I have to figure out how to get back to the surface and break free of the waves. Unfortunately, everytime I think I see a shimmer of sunlight above me, I quickly open my mouth and intake more water. How does a cycle like this come to an end? Why am I using so many stupid water references? Is it weird that I suddenly have to pee?

Anyway, I seriously am my own worst enemy these days and it has gone from making things bad to possibly ending a great friendship that neither myself or my friend wants to end. And the more strained our relationship becomes, the more stressed out and psychotic I get. Which in turn leads to my stress causing even more problems in the friendship. I think one of the issues that is having the biggest impact is that I'm a natural-born "wise-cracking" smartass with a dry sense of humor. Have you ever seen those Maxine cartoons? Yep, that's the type of smartass comments I always make. Combine that with the fact that when I feel stress I decide to make a joke out of everything and you can see how that would not make another person feel good.

What I can't figure out is how to relieve my stress. The shift I have to work at my job is what started my spiraling downhill, but I can't change that. My living arrangements currently suck but there's no easy or immediate way to change those. The rest of it all revolves around my best friends and favorite people in the world and there's NO WAY I'm going to change them. Yet, therein lies the problem. Because if I don't change something and figure out how to be my old, normal self instead of a moody, weeping, sometimes raging, always cynical lunatic then my friends are going to decide they don't need to see me anymore.

One thing that might help the entire situation is for me to hire some big, ugly goon to follow me around everywhere and beat me about the neck and shoulders everytime I open my mouth to speak. I say that because I really think that if I would just smile and nod instead of spouting off my "funny" garbage that no one else is amused by, then my friendship wouldn't be as close to the breaking point as you can get. However, I have asked all of the big, ugly goons that I know and they don't like my work schedule either, so they have all refused the job.

So, I guess all that's left to do is to seek professional help. Which is something I swore I'd never do and actually still don't want to do. But, it has been suggested to me strongly several times and what I WILL do is ANYTHING that may fix this before it's too late. If that means I need to do something that I have no desire in the world to EVER do - then I will do it. GLADLY. And I hope that it's not too late.

New Addition

This is a picture of my new, precious baby cousin. Well, actually she's my cousin's baby so she would be my 2nd cousin. She was born on January 21, 2007 and weighed in at 7 lbs 14 oz. We are certainly glad to have her.

Seriously? Britney Spears?

I used to consider myself an intelligent person, but after realizing that I just spent a good 3 minutes writing up a post about Britney Spears, I'm not so sure anymore. Wow, what has become of me?

When I was younger, if you asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up I would tell you that I was gonna write stories that made people happy. At about 9 or 10 I had decided that I was going to travel the world and write articles for National Geographic. As I became a teenager I still wanted to write stories, but had discovered (and fell in love with) Stephen King's books. So I was determined to write horror novels. In my early twenties I started spewing out poetry really quickly and concentrated mostly on that. Now, in my thirties I can't even maintain an entertaining blog. Not only that, but my un-entertaining posts aren't even written that well. Damn that sucks! Guess it's a good thing I got a computer degree instead of waiting for money to come in from my first novel.

I would love to start working on fixing what's gone wrong with my writing. I really did used to be able to mold words into fathomable sentences and ideas. Unfortunately, I don't really know why it's gone bad. So, I don't really know where to begin to fix it. I do know that I still have my ability to take something written by someone else, such as a history report for school, and make it absolutely amazing. And I'm wondering if that doesn't indicate that my problem is more of an imagination/creativity issue rather than a word issue. Hmmm...I will have to think about that.

Anyway, sorry about the Britney Spears thing.

Britney Spears Is In The News...Again

Yesterday, former/current/wannabe pop star Britney Spears attracted quite a crowd as she stopped by a tattoo parlour in LA. But it wasn't the tattoo of lips that she got on her wrists that was causing people to stare. It was the fact that she arrived completely bald. That's right, she's gone from no panties to no hair. Will she ever not be in the news?