Mark's blog: "And so it begins . . ."

Why is it that I see a lot of people, even people who profess not to obsess or beg for bling, posting statuses that hint at or say "I'd really love (insert bling here)". I'm guessing it fuels their ego and gives them a sense of pride if some person wastes money on some silly blinking icon that will eventually get lost on their page and forgotten about. Some of the bling costs a lot of money. Think about it, would you rather have a $50 worth of pixels that do absolutely nothing for you or $50 in real life that could get something potentially awesome and that has lasting value. Hell, how about $50 worth of food for people who are starving or homeless? What the fuck is with people's priorities these days?

Especially considering most of the people doing the begging don't even really spend much time talking to people, or whore out nsfw pics just to get their attention fix. That's exactly what a hooker or a stripper does. But you know what the difference is? They actually make real money while you get a lame ass cupcake, frog, or flower. Sounds like a great deal to me!

I've known it happens on here for a long time. But recently I've seen it happening on people who I thought I knew better than to act like that. Maybe I'm too judgemental. To each their own I suppose. Still, thinly veiled begging attempts at bling are just sad and pathetic. Yes, I have given people things in the past, but because I wanted to and because it was silly and had a purpose. If someone asks me for something, it's a sure fire way to have me ignore you from now on. Anyway, that's just my two cents.

My crazy dog swinging from a rope on a tree. He makes funny noises when frustrated that he can't yank it down.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jhl4COSc1JE

So I just finished my second month of school. The second wasn't necesarily harder, but it was definitely more time consuming. A lot more projects and presentations, but I managed to still keep my 4.0 with an A+. The school has kind of a hard grading scale.
A+ is 95-100% and is a 4.0
A is 90-95% and is a 3.5
B+ is 85-90% and is a 3.0
B is 80-85% and is a 2.5
Etc . . .

If school tneds to stay more on par with the second class, I might have to cut back to part time at work. Will have to wait and see though. I'm really enjoying school so far, but it's fairly taxing. I just hope I can continue to keep it up.

On Monday of last week, a day before my birthday, I went on vacation. I went to visit my friend Laura who lives about 45 minutes outside of Chicago. I didn't get in until fairly late at night. Long flight and a connection etc. I must say though, that the O'Hare is a weird airport. After the planes land, they taxi in on runways that go over busy streets below. Also, they have all these announcements and signs saying that solicitation is not legal at the airport. I was wondering if they had that many problems with hookers, but I soon figured out it had to do with taxis.

Anyway, I didn't do a whole lot the first night there, since we still had the drive back to her place. We stopped at a steak and shake, since I hadn't been to one of those before. One thing on my trips is that I love trying new foods and interesting restaurants. On tuesday, we played some miniature golf, which I kicked ass at and went to this big candy factory called Albanese. They had this huge indoor chocolate waterfall that was probably about 25 feet tall. They also had jawbreakers the size of a softball. Oh, I have pictures of some of these things from my trips, which I will be posting on facebook. I might post some of them here if I feel up to it. After all that we came back and I dominated phase 10 and some yahtzee.

Wednesday she had a bit of work to do, and I have some school work, so we went to lunch at this place called the noodle company that was pretty good. We didn't have one of those here either. After I got my school work done and Laura was done working, we went to Walmart and got some groceries for the week. Thursday was the day we went into Chicago. We checked out the museum of science and industry, went to the aquarium, and walked by soldier field (Da Bears). At the end we went to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. and I got this nifty drink with a glass that had LED lights that I got to keep. And the mall had this huge stained glass window exhibit. I mean easily over 100 different pieces. I took some pictures of those too. Chicago streets were kind of crazy. I would have liked to check out a few of the amazing theaters that they have there, but I didn't get the chance.

Friday we ended up going bowling and having some chicago style pizza. It was different, but pretty good. I haven't bowled in a long time, but I still averaged a 155 over 3 games. We played some pool and then spent most of the night watching movies. Saturday we went and saw Rango in theaters. It started out a bit slow, but it was pretty decent overall. I liked it. After that we had to check up on her parents' house since they were away on vacation. They had all sorts of stuff. Foosball, ping pong table, air hockey, and a few other things. We ended up saying there for a few hours messing around.

As my vacation came to a close, She showed me around her work. She works at this really nifty gymnastics place. And I got to jump around on these huge trampolines and mats. It was pretty cool actually. We ate at this restaurant called Industrial Revolution. The building is all brick and steel girders, and has statues of workers from that time period all over. The food was pretty good, but the design is what caught my eye. I had to fly out Monday. So most of the day was spent getting stuff ready and heading back into Chicago. It was a fun trip though, and she made me these woolen slippers that she knitted that were green and yellow for the oregon ducks. It was a pretty fun trip. Not overly thrilling or packed with excitement. But it was pretty fun and I got to relax which was nice.

Well, if you are here, I assume that you were hoping to find something insightful about my past, personality, or possibly just my current thoughts and feelings. I would recommend destroying the part of your brain that gave you that god awful idea.

In my stay on fubar, however long that has been (I'm too lazy to go look at my join date), I've never bothered with blog. Whether it's here, myspace, facebook etc, most of the ones I see are just whiny, boring, or leave you wondering if the person has an IQ above the single digits. Now not all of them are that way of course, but I just never get around to reading them mostly because I don't want to have to sort through the aforementioned ones in order to find the one or two diamonds in the rough.

Also, I really have no idea what to post in my own blog. Would anyone really care how my work day went? If my knee hurts? If I got to flirt ith an incredibly attractive woman (you should know who you are)? I don't do much. I work and go to school, and spend time playing games and reading mostly. Occasionly I will hang out with my friends, but most are several hours away if not more, which makes it farfrom pactical to make it a frequent occurance. So mostly I just talk to my friends online or play games with them instead.

I suppose I could talk about my love life and relationships. Well, to be more accurate, the lack thereof. I don't get out much. I just don't have any local groups or anything besides my RHPS cast. If I hve a reason to go meet with people, I don't mind being social. But going to the mall, bars and clubs to just hang out isn't really my thing. And I don't really tend to attract much attention besides. SO mosly I jst flirt and have fun with a few people on here, and that's about as far as it goes.

So that's it in a nutshell I suppose. Maybe if I think of something worthwhile, or if someone suggests a decent idea, I'll take the time to post again