If every word I said could make you laugh, I'd talk forever.

If there is one thing that I will say about myself, it is that I love to laugh. Laughter, to me, is a way of expressing emotions. What you laugh at changes from day to day, depending on what happened over the last 24 hours and how you dealt with it. It changes from who you talk to, to what music you listened to; from how much sleep you got the night before to what the weather is currently like. Basically, laughter is such a simple action that is affected by a complicated mosh pit of factors.

Today was such a good day! I got up, feeling refreshed from a good night of sleep, to drive to class with a really good friend of mine. Class was short, we joked around a lot, and all was well. Then two of my best friends hung out at my house for a while, eating pizza and playing video games. Then something fantastic happened. Right after they had left, I received a call from the local PacSun store, which I had applied to, saying that they would like to schedule an interview for tomorrow. I am so excited for that, and it completely made my day. But if that wasn't enough, I topped the day off with a surprise birthday party for yet another one of my amazing friends. The party was such a success and it was so much fun.

But one thing I noticed about tonight was how much I was laughing. Sure, I laugh a lot anyway, but tonight just seemed like the right time to laugh. I was getting a break from how things have been going lately, and I was in such a positive mood, I was so ready to just party. Now I'm pretty sure I was quite annoying with my very loud and obnoxious guffaw, but I really enjoyed myself. And as tired as I am, I am feeling this tranquility that tells me that everything is alright. That I'm doing ok. That no matter how I mess up, or what mistakes I make, or what wrong decisions I may execute, it's ok. It's ok.

So, as much as I don't want this day to be over, goodnight.

I am, I am a machine.

So remember my post the other day about instruments and how I said that I wanted to learn the harmonica? Well, today I was looking online at new iPhone cases (mine is being stupid and tearing...) and remembered that with the money I had left on Amazon, I could probably purchase a pretty decent harmonica. So I told my dad I was looking at harmonicas, and he proceeds to tell me that we have one in the house. And I said "POR QUE?!?". Well, no, I didn't, because "por que" means "why?" in spanish, and that just doesn't make sense. But anyway, he found the harmonica for me, and said that he bought it for my sister a while ago, but she never uses it. So I cleaned it off and claimed it as my own.

I love it! It sounds so beautiful even though it's a fairly cheap harmonica. Still, I spent a long time today trying to crank out some hardcore blues jams on the thing. Actually, maybe they weren't hardcore, but they were still awesome.

Whale Wars

I was watching "Whale Wars" with my dad earlier today, a show about a group of Anti-Whalers, who sail international waters look for the Japanese whaling boats, throwing rancid butter and booby traps on the whaling boats in an attempt to stop whaling. Now, I'm not too sure about the rules of this show, per se. It seems like the Japanese have all the right in the world to whale if they want to, but the Anti-Whalers, let's call them contras ;), feel that it's barbaric and inhumane, so they try their hardest to stop their opposition.

On the last few episodes, the contras had caught up to the mother ship of the Japanese whaling fleet, the Nise Maru, but were having trouble keeping the ship in sight. So they sent a very small, very fast ship, The Ady Gil, to follow the Nise Maru and try to hinder it going any further. After a few tricks by the Ady Gil, it seems they have slowed down the mother ship, but have exhausted their fuel in the process. Now they must wait 3 days for a friendly ship to arrive and refuel them.

But as they wait around, recalling their wins and watching the other Japanese ships pass by, they realize that one of the recon ships is sailing dangerously near to them, and eventually it crashes into the Ady Gil, slicing the ship in two. The crew is fine, but now there are only two ships left in the contra fleet. Now, for some reason I can't seem to understand, in the next episode the captain of the sunken Ady Gil is going to try and board the Japanese Recon ship for what reason? We don't know, but we have to watch to find out.

What I don't get is, why? I understand the whales are important, but does one really feel the need to fight so hard for their cause that they want to put human life in danger? It would be one thing if the cause was about humans, but it's not, it's about whales. When does a cause become too ridiculous to fight for? When does retaliation become too much? When human life is at stake? Or do we have to wait until a life is actually lost? Or maybe it gets to be too much when the human emotions just can't take it anymore?

I'm not sure. I think that it's much more complicated than that, but right now I think I'm done with this post. Sometimes, a cause is just too much to fight for. The question is, what cause is worth going through hell to fight?

I. Prelude

I am a musician. Well, in the lightest sense of the word. I play the bass guitar, and I have been for about two and a half years now, and yet as long as I've been playing it, I'm not all that good. That is because I just don't practice enough. I've always liked the bass guitar, and I've always thought it was an interesting instrument. It sure is an important one. If the drums are like the heart beat of a song, the bass is the lungs. You just can't keep a song alive for very long without some sort of bass sounding instrument. I've also loved how easy the bass is to pick up and play. Once you figure out the basics, anyone can do it, even though it takes years and years of practice to really get good at it. I'm proud to play the bass guitar. I enjoy slappin' da bass! I think I've never seen the bass as a good solo instrument, even though it can be.

But over the past year I've become really interested in other instruments and genres. I really want to learn the piano, and I signed up to take it in my senior year, but they didn't give me the class, which really made me sad. I think the piano is a beautiful instrument, and it would be awesome to learn how to play it.

I've also been bugging my parents to go take me to see the San Francisco Symphony. I love orchestras and symphonies, and I would be just giddy to go actually see a professional one. I really like violins, but I am totally amazed by the cello. To me, the cello is probably the most beautiful instrument that has ever been created by man. The sound of it just cuts through the air like a knife, yet at the same time it's soothing and allows you to enjoy the euphoria it gives off.

Another instrument I've really been wanting to play lately is the harmonica. I was watching a certain comedian play his guitar, the harmonica, and tell his jokes all at the same time, and even though his jokes were funny, I found myself focusing on how good the harmonica sounded. I'd really like to buy one. They aren't that expensive, so maybe soon? In the meantime I'll just sit here plucking away on my bass guitar. Ohhhh, yeah.

Cricket, cricket...

I've had a very fun last couple of days and I have loved it. It's so good to be able to have a good time with people you love. But not that I have nothing to do, I'm bored out of my mind. I sit around at home thinking of things to do, and anything that pops into my head I either can't do for whatever reason, or it doesn't interest me.

I've been wanting to write a lot lately. Wanting meaning that I want the have the ability to write whenever I feel like writing. But I can't seem to do that. When I try to write, nothing creative comes out. But when I'm doing something, all of a sudden a spark happens and I sit there and write for hours. It frustrates me, because I really want to move along with what I'm working on, but I just can't seem to do it.

Well, hopefully I find something to do, because I hate whining like this

A bad workman always blames his tools.

A lot has been going on in the world lately. Hurricanes, Tsunamis, Earthquakes, riots, and oil spills; you name it, we got it. Although, I've noticed something that should've been, and probably has been, realized from the instant time began.

As humans, we have this knack of always finding someone to blame. Blame is an interesting concept. When we are angry or upset with something or someone, we think of a reason why it wasn't our fault. A reason why we shouldn't be the ones who are required to suffer the consequences. But sometimes, we become so afraid of responsibility that we look for any possible way to get out of what we know we have to face next. So we turn on our fellow humans and place the sights of judgement on them. If you think about it, it's really a very savage way to live.

I recently saw a Facebook post about a petition to blame the BP oil company for the damage done to wildlife around the Gulf. I mean, it makes a lot of sense. What did the animals do to deserve being covered in oil and suffocated from the "black gold" in their lungs? And it's very true, BP has not made the best decisions on stopping this oil from spreading, but do they deserve to be charged with Criminal Animal Cruelty? There's a key word there that I'm focusing on: Criminal. In order for an act to be criminal, it has to be either planned out or done with the utmost ignorance one can possibly scrounge up. I don't think BP planned to cause this oil spill and kill the animals, and I also don't believe that they are ignorant enough to think that this issue isn't affecting the wildlife, therefore I don't think BP has committed Criminal Animal Cruelty.

Now I know there are two sides to every story, and although this oil spill was unintentional, BP still needs to accept the consequences. That being said, I think they should repay what damage has been done directly because of them, not because of how chemicals and nature works.

I'm sure you've all heard of the things going on down at Bart and in Oakland lately, so I don't really think I need to go into them. Apparently, what happened was a accident. According to the Bart cop, he didn't mean to shoot the man, he only meant to pull out his taser. Maybe this is true, maybe not, but either way, he should take responsibility for it. The people involved in the riots were angry over the sentence for that same cop. You can be angry, that's completely fine. But don't just take the actions of the cop into consideration. The young man who was killed had just been in a fight at the Bart station, and therefore because of his actions, the Bart cop acted the way he did. Not all of the blame should be put on the cop.

Wow, this was a long post, but basically what I'm trying to say is that although we will never stop our behaviors, the way most of us act to situations is sad. Well, that was a nice little rant. :) I've had a really good day today, and as tired as I am, and as pissed off as I seemed to be earlier, today was a good day.

I'm heading home. Yeah, but I'm not so sure that home is a place you can still get to by train.

Last night was a bros' night. Basically two of my best friends and I just listening to music, eating food, playing video games, and joking around until 3 in the morning. Usually, it is just that, but of course last night was different. It was the only bros' night where we actually had a challenge going on. Mitchell was going to try and beat the whole Halo 2 game before Ranbir and I could figure out how two beat 3 separate Special Operations missions on Modern Warfare 2. Well, Ranbir and I were getting killed, so we decided to look up a little "help" on the internet. Now that I think of it, it was completely cheating and we didn't play fair at all, but that didn't matter, because just when we had finished the second Spec Op, Ranbir got a call from his mom saying that their neighbor, who is a cop, saw two girls in a white honda writing stuff on one of our cars.

Well, considering that I drove Mitch to Ranbir's, and Ranbir's car was in his garage, it was obvious that mine was the victim. We ran outside to see what was up and found that someone had written "I heart Miley Cyrus" and various song names and lyrics all over the windows of my car. At first I had my doubts of who it could be, but then I remember that my friend Alyssa had said she was going to do something to us tonight, but I didn't think she was serious!

So after trying to get Alyssa's car, failing, then trying to get Olivia's (the accomplice :p) car and failing, we finally got Alyssa back. We got lotion and face wash and squirted it all over her windows, then wrapped toilet paper around the car. Apparently, "apparently", she watched us do the whole thing, but I don't believe that.

Basically, even though I had to wash that stubborn paint off this morning, it was a very fun war that had commenced last night. It just goes to show you that when sometimes things don't go the way you planned, they can turn out great!