In Association With Wamzlee.com

It seems that whenever I look at the clock I always see 9:11 or 11:11.  One invokes images of that day in 2001, or perhaps an emergency call, while the other makes me wish like upon a star.  It’s such a strange coincidence that I see those times, considering I don’t look at the clock so often and its usually around those times that I don’t have to be looking at the clock.  Most of the time, I have to be at something on the hour, so either I am 49 minutes early or 11 minutes late.  I never like to be one of those suckers who make a wish at 11:11, but I can’t help but do.  And for what it’s worth, I can say it’s done more than just come true.

Can Ctrl+Alt+Del get any worse? It pains me that people find the comic so great.  It’s not.  It’s terrible, so damn terrible.  I will admit that I haven’t read it in a while, but I can tell you that every comic sticks to the same formula.  Creator Tim Buckley rarely deviates from the “four panels”, which creates an issue for his writing.  As a result, a basic punchline ends up being preceded by a wall of irrelevant text.  Granted, he does have a story arch, but what Buckley fails at as a writer is that when it comes to comics, much of the story can be implied without being explained.  In such a case, it is up to the reader to imagine what is being implied, and that creates a joy in reading a comic, or even a story.  There is a trick that is employed when reading CAD, and its very interesting.  “Remove one of the frames in a CAD comic, and then ask yourself, ‘Does the jokes/story still work?’”  You will be surprised by the result.  I wish Buckley would learn “Less is More”, but who am I to pass judgment?  He clearly has a dedicated following who is willing to fork over cash to any project he endeavorers.

I wish to not have turned this post into a rant, but I heard someone else ranting about CAD and couldn’t help but to weigh in.

You may be wondering why this post is called “Cyndi Lauper”, well, I originally started writing about Time, and is conjured up lyrics from one of her songs.

While sticking to a theme starting with the last post, I’ve been noticing that old friends have been contacting me a lot more recently than they have in the past two, maybe three years.  One of my best friend from high school, texted me a couple weeks ago to let me know I got a new phone.  We texted each other back and forth for a while as I was eating dinner with my parents at the Potosi Brewery. He says he is finally settling down in the Dells after traveling the country-side.  A majority of my run-ins have occurred over Facebook chat.  No one normally chats to me on facebook unless its direly important.  Well, a couple of old classmates, my 2nd cousin, and a couple of old friends all struck up conversations with me with-in a week.

Is Fall the season of nostalgia or reminiscence?  It was great to hear from them all, but its odd that it would occur together like that.  Maybe its a profile picture I put up that caught their attention?  At least this way, Facebook is serving its actual purpose of socially connecting old friends.  I was surprised that my 2nd cousin got a hold of me, I haven’t talked to her since I was a sophomore in high school I believe.  Her smile reminds me of her grandma’s (that be my aunt) from her picture.  She lives in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and she said she was watching television one day and noticed that a guy on there looked surprisingly like me and thought it was my brother.  I was quite surprised she’d be able to tell, because she said never met Lance before, but I guess everyone thinks I look more like Lance than I do Adam, but I’ve always heard otherwise.  I wish to get down to Cedar Rapids sometime to visit Lance and maybe even see her, assuming that it’s no longer a flooded wasteland. hahaha…oh…too soon?

One question that pops up from my old acquaintances is, “Don’t you miss high school/home?”  Short answer, I can say No.  Considering I’ve only been home only four or five times this year, as opposed to my 20+ times every year prior, I feel I am becoming comfortable with living on my own.  I love going back to see the family, and I love when they come visit.  Home has changed.  Mainly for the good though!  But when something such as “home” changes without you, can you still call it home?

I just realized its Noon.  I must mosey off to State/Local Government.

People have been creeping me out. Okay, not so much people but just creepers. Okay, not all the people are creeping me out are creepers. I’m not really conveying this idea correctly, maybe I should draw a Venn diagram?

It seems these past few weeks, I’ve had the unfortunate luxury of running into people that I don’t want to be on good terms with. They don’t know where the line is, and they cross it without hesitation. What’s worse is when these people who I haven’t hung out with in forever, suddenly want to hang out with you, but you clearly know their intentions. It’s sort of funny because they don’t know that you do know, so they persist to act the way they do.

In my Politics and Violence class, I heard a person mention that his friend was on Student Senate. He said that his friend doesn’t care about politics, and so it surprised him he would have even wanted to run for senate. I know a few people on the Senate, and only a select few I know definitely excel at being representatives. However, the others, I just laugh at. I’ll avoid the major details, but they are the type of people whose primary concern is repealing the “dry campus” policy and would believe that they saved a dying species in doing so. I contemplated running for Student Senate, but not if that is the way the integrity of the organization is.

Relaxation. I haven’t been overworking myself, but I just feel I need to get out of Winona. I was about to go to Rochester last night, but had plans. Downtown Rochester is fun, and I wish to get there before the snow falls. I miss the bar with the rooftop beer garden on its 3-story-building. It almost felt like I was in a big city again, but away from the small-town college crowds. I wonder if Jake still wants to open up that politics bar we were considering.

Right now, I am day-dreaming about being in the British Virgin Islands, docked near an isolated coast and the sun setting in the West. I just want that feeling of lying in my schooner, feeling the waves push and pull me against gravity.

One intelligent musing that Dane Cook probably has ever uttered was “that’s not a sleep, that’s a coma” in response to people who over exaggerate, “oh, I slept like a thousand hours last night!”.  I suppose even mentioning Dane Cook has maybe lost interest for some for this post while gaining others.

These past few days, I’ve been sleeping a considerable amount, even through things.  I swear I will sleep through a gun fight….maybe I will even sleep through an Obama victory.  Or a McCain? Haha.  I caught a little bit of the debate tonight, Senator McCain seemed to be on fire.  I even got to thinking tonight as well, about how if Obama becomes president he will be the first of many things.

He will be the first president:

1.  To be of black ethnicity.

2. The first Senator since JFK to be elected.

3.  The first president to use the internet (much like FDR was the radio - read this one on digg)

4.  The first President to not have served any military service.  (from what I could find out)

Numero cuatro seems very interesting as I don’t recall a President who hasn’t served in the military since Franklin Roosevelt? I would fact check, but I am currently in a weird position in my bed that doesn’t allow me to do such things.  Forgot what they call it…oh yeah! being lazy.

I had promised to never really divulge much personal feelings into my site here, because out of some sense of civility, this site is meant to give ideas and opinions of and by myself.  Is this blog educational?  I don’t think so, but maybe someone can take something away about me.

I just wish I had a personal journal somewhere, with a fake name, and I can just dump everything that’s on my mind.  Perhaps I can do things the traditional pen-and-paper-way but there is some sort of gratification in the fact that someone is reading what you’re feeling.  And a part of me wants some sort of commentary on my life…under a pen name.

We did a test of human facial expressions in my Politics and Violence class, where we had to match up a feeling (anger, apprehension, happy, sad, etc.) with a picture showing that feeling.  The pictures were all of the same person, so expressions weren’t overly exaggerated to make it easy.  I scored remarkably well compared to the other students.  No one got more than 6 right out of a possibly 15.  It just goes to show that people can’t read others very well, and I always know that I was terrible at it, although the test showed otherwise.  Long story short, I think people want their feelings to be expressed for the world to see.

I have been carrying a lot on my chest lately, and I know I am going to have to answer to people sometime soon.  I know a few people, especially family members, are upset with me, and even some friends because I haven’t made any time for them.  But I feel that they need not worry, and wish for them to know that.

Finally got around to paying some bills today.  It looks like Xcel Energy took into account that I over paid my last bill by…um, let’s see. $250?  So the only charges I seem to have to pay is just random fees for just having an account.  Let’s hope this is correct. I really love online bill pay, because if they didn’t have it I don’t know if I would ever find the motivation to buy a stamp.  With the internet, so many postal items are becoming obsolete.  In these days, I argue that the Post Office is only good for delivering packages…granted they don’t do it as well as UPS, but it is the only thing they are good for.  On the other hand, of course, getting a letter in the mail is something extra special.

Went to my brother’s engagenment party camp-out thing.  I was a bum most of the time.  I don’t know what my problem was, maybe it was the age difference or just the fact that I was missing homecoming.  I don’t feel bothered missing homecoming except I did miss some friends.  Pretty much everyone at the camp-out that night was either married or engaged or whatever, so naturally they talked about things that uninterested me. I was put off the next day when my brother refused to help me to take 30 seconds of his time to take a photograph for me for a school project.  I worried about my homework, and felt I wouldn’t get any of it done if I didn’t go back to Winona.  So I left early in the day so I could grab my tripod (I almost wrote iPod, hah).   It sort of bugged me on the ride back that they weren’t willing to help me when I needed it.  A push of a button was all that mattered.  I was frustrated until I got to hang out with my buddies.  The night turned out great.  Fell asleep watching Beetlejuice unfortunately.  I haven’t seen the movie in its entirety in so long.
The Pack are on tonight, hopefully it will be a good game.  I am contemplating driving to Rochester to buy my buddy Jake a shot after or during the game.  I will have to see how much energy I have later.

I pondered this today. Is there such a thing as a “good hangover”? The reason I ask this because I feel I experience such a strange phenomenon once every blue moon. After a night of drinking until I forget that I don’t own the U.S. Treasury, I sometimes wake up feeling like I’m a $100 (£55). Far removed from the expected “my brain is being trampled by a herd of horses, looking at natural light only makes them go crazier” feeling some normally get.

Let’s put it this way: I’m in the best-mood of my life! Rest assured, I checked and there wasn’t a cougar lying next to me — I went to bed alone. I can’t really explain it, there is no justification for it. Nothing happened during the previous night of drinking that would have caused it. As I walked to my car this morning, my windshield greeted me with a $14 parking violation. Woops. I didn’t care, in fact, I welcomed it with open arms.

It’s a pretty good feeling. It gets me singing all day, and its just nice to look at things and not have any problems with it.

That’s just my thought on the day.  Last night, I went to visit my buddy Jake in Rochester.  We went to this bar we had been to before.  It’s always a little dreary inside, but then we discovered they had a rooftop lounge/bar area.  It was amazing, but got chilly.  I wish more bars would do this, or have a beer garden. That’s what’s great about Ed’s (No Name) Bar here in Winona.  The ales are great (but pricey) and there is a place to sit and enjoy the fresh air.  I need to get my others friends to keep going there on a regular basis since Jake isn’t around too often.

*insert Zelda sound f/x*

In an attempt to spice up my blog again, I decided to give it a new layout. In order to actually use a pre-made one from Wordpress, I had to upgrade. So I went ahead and upgraded, but the links didn’t work properly. So I exported my entries, deleted wordpress, and uploaded from scratch. However, when I went to import my entries, WP refuses to do it. Ugh. Oh well, might as well start from scratch right?

I don’t know how long I intend to post. Like most, I want to do it forever but life outside the Intertubes yearns for my presence. Who knows when I will be dragged away. I’ll see if I can set up my Macbook to get me into some routine.

School has officially begun. I will admit that I wasn’t fully signed up for my classes until a few weeks ago. If asked why, I can only admit that I was just scared of finishing my minor. My minor: English Creative Writing. Most people I’ve told began gagging at the thought. I had originally sought Political Science back my freshman year, but was shocked to discover I had put English instead. Instead of switching, I stuck with it, figuring it would improve my writing skills and actually use it to be able to analyze and deconstruct texts. Attending classes today, I finally realized that I was definitely mistaken. I was surrounded by people passionate about Edgar Burroughs, Lewis Carroll, and Olivia Newton-John. So I jumped ship, and landed on the USS Polisci, eventually turning back and waving to my former minor as it sank into the abyss of its own Romantic glory.

Looking forward with the blog, I don’t know if I will delve into my personal affairs as much. Although I would like to, but things wouldn’t be as special. I want to find a focus, but I am still young….okay I’m turning 23 next month. Fuuuuuuck. For right now, let’s see how I fair this next week.

If you have reached this point, please comment! I have installed a security feature that will allow people to post without having to sign-up. I am sure you have no idea what to comment about so I will post a couple of questions right now. Atleast answer one of them.

1. How do you know me, Westley Wamsley?

2. Do you like tennis?

3. How did the Chesapeake (Va.) and New England (Mass.) colonies vary in their settlement patterns?

BONUS QUESTION

If I have 6 eggs, and you took away 4, then where did all this grape juice come from?