2010 Highlights

This is a post to let the reader of this blog know the good parts of 2010 for me cause this has been honestly one of my least favorite years. So this post is also here to help myself remember the good and memorable moments in what I refer to as "The Year of the Black Rainbow" named after Coheed and Cambria's 2010 release.

01/01/10- New Years is always a blast for me. My individual dance party was cool as usual.
01/14/10- One Year Anniversary of going out with my now ex-girlfriend Anna, I made a surprise visit to her house with flowers.
02/01/10- 24th Birthday with tradition of trying a new restaurant (Smash Burger) and a movie (Edge of Darkness)
02/23- 03/25/10- Service Hours for the American Cancer Society's Road to Recovery Program
03/17/10- Last Spring Break Tradition Visit to Nickel City
04/02/10- Black Hats House Party in Provo, the first of a couple house parties I went to
04/16, 21, 22, 28, and 05/05- Hanging out with one of my best friends Steve
04/28- Finals Day for my last semester of school
04/30/10- Graduation Day!!
05/04- Reaching the much anticipated $100 amount in my change jar
05/27- Helping Orem High School move stuff from the old (now demolished) building to the new one giving me a chance to walk through and remember high school one more time
06/02- Job Interview with the Orem Owlz starting another great summer job experience scooping ice cream
06/05- Started going on dates again after breaking up with Anna
07/13- Paul McCartney Concert at Rio Tinto Stadium
08/13-19- California Vacation
08/29- Lunch and Drives with my cousin David and my friend Courtney
09/06- 1st Date with a girl from Saratoga Springs starting off the happiest two and a half weeks of the year
10/23 & 30- Hang outs with a friend from Riverton with non stop laughs and fun times
10/25- Hired by Freedom Academy

OTHER STUFF to Mention
-Great albums by Chromeo, Coheed and Cambria, Uffie, Kate Nash, and several others.
- Awesome movies including Kick-Ass, Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Iron Man 2, Toy Story 3, and numerous others
- Last Season of my Favorite Drama of the last decade 24
- Watched Conan leave and then come back to Late Night TV
- Hulu shows I got into were Kitchen Nightmares, Reaper, and Peep Show
- Food, Mug Runs, Walks,  and all the other usual stuff I did

My Favorite Music of 2010

01. Business Casual by Chromeo

-Album of the Year 

-Song/Video of the Year- Don't Turn the Lights On

02. Sex Dreams and Denim Jeans by Uffie

03. Year of the Black Rainbow by Coheed and Cambria

-Best Follow-Up Album

04. The ArchAndroid by Janelle Monae

05. My Best Friend is You by Kate Nash

My 2010 Playlist

ADD SUV by Uffie (Ft. Pharell Williams)
Sex Dreams & Denim Jeans by Uffie
MCs Can Kiss by Uffie
Animal by Neon Trees
Baby I'm Yours by BreakBot (feat. Irfane)
Cannonball by Floater   
Come With Me by ceo
Cynthia by Millionyoung   
Derezzed by Daft Punk
Do-Wah-Doo by Kate Nash
Don't Turn The Lights On by Chromeo
Hot Mess by Chromeo
Giving Up the Gun by Vampire Weekend
Here We Are Juggernaut by Coheed and Cambria
Pearl Of The Stars by Coheed and Cambria
The House You're Building by Audrey Assad
I've Got Tonight by Boss In Drama
I Feel Better by Hot Chip   
Nightcall by Kavinsky   
Oh, Maker by Janelle Monáe

6th Annual Best, Middle, and Worst Movies of 2010

Yep it's that time once again, my Best, Middle, and Worst Movies of the Year List. I changed it a bit this year with different categories- Great, Good, OK, Slightly OK, and Bad. Once again or for those that don't know, these are the movies that I saw in the dollar theater, the bigger named theaters, and of course DVD rentals since January 1. With the dollar theater and DVD rentals, there's a high chance that these were movies that came out theatrically last year but didn't get released on home video (or got to the dollar theater in the first part of the year) until this year. If a movie isn't on here it's probably because I was either lazy, forgot about it, heard some really poor reviews/wasn't interested anyway, or avoided a movie like a horrible disease.

77 Movies @ 3.06/5 Star Average
Thanks to Flixster.com once again for helping me keep track
I hope to see Black Swan, Tron Legacy, and a couple others before the year is over
These movies are in no ranked order but of course get worse as the list goes down.

GREAT

Kick-Ass

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Iron Man 2

Inception

Toy Story 3

Get Him to The Greek

Due Date

Cemetery Junction

She's Out of My League

127 Hours

The Fighter

Capitalism: A Love Story

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1

Avatar

The Town

The Hurt Locker

Crazy Heart

Up In The Air

Sherlock Holmes

GOOD

The Princess and the Frog

The Fantastic Mr. Fox

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl Who Played With Fire

Invictus

The Expendables

Easy A

Machete

The A-Team

The Losers

The Karate Kid (Biggest Surprise of the Year)

The Messenger

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

Precious

MIDDLE/OK

Red

The Kids Are All Right  

Edge of Darkness

An Education

The Blind Side

The Runaways

Daybreakers

A Single Man

A Serious Man

Winter’s Bone

Despicable Me

Law Abiding Citizen

The Men Who Stare At Goats

Greenburg

Just Wright

Dear John

Shutter Island

Charlie St. Cloud

MacGruber

Remember Me

The Road

SLIGHTLY OK

The Twilight Saga- Eclipse

The Other Guys

Everybody's Fine

Dinner For Schmucks

Hot Tub Time Machine

The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

2012

Leap Year

Alice in Wonderland

Chloe

BAD

Armored

Grown Ups

The Lovely Bones

When In Rome

Date Night

The Last Song

Clash of the Titans

Knight and Day

The Warrior’s Way

The Ghost Writer

Salt

The Bounty Hunter

Takers

August - Now 2010

jeez I have become super lazy at this
The last three and a half months have been very interesting to say the least
I'll just put up some topics and see what there is to say about them

WORK
-Worked for the Orem Owlz doing my awesome summer job of scooping ice cream until they lost in the first round of the Pioneer League Playoffs in Mid Setpemeber
- Looked for job for almost two months applying for something almost every day ranging from warehouse work to seasonal restaurant jobs.
- Then on October 25, a charter school in Provo named Freedom Academy called me up and offered me a custodial job I had applied and interviewed for in September. Since then I have been working during the week vacuuming all the classrooms in the building as well as several offices.

MUSIC and MOVIES
- Been putting up songs on my Facebook for over two months as a "Song of the Day" type feature and have enjoyed comments from at least one person about them.
- In September, the long awaited third album was released by Chromeo, one of my favorite groups to come out in the last 10 years. Their album Business Casual is very awesome and defines my year in a lot of ways making it a heavy favorite when I pick my favorite album next month.
- Another album that is getting good word of mouth and I enjoy is The ArchAndroid by Janelle Monae- The movies I've seen worth mentioning include Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Cemetery Junction , The Town, and Due Date.
- The pieces of crap movies I definitely don't recommend include Takers, Knight and Day, Grown Ups, and Salt
- Been busy watching The Simpsons Seasons 1-5, a very funny British show named Peep Show, and of course the latest seasons of some favorite shows.

PERSONAL LIFE
- In August I went on a vacation with my parents down to Southern California. While down there I stayed several days with my cousins who live in Hemet, CA just hanging out, eating out at yummy places, and watching movies. I then went down to Anaheim for a three day park hopping experience at Disneyland and California Adventure with my parents, my sister, and her daughter. I also spent a day going to Huntington Beach which was a lovely experience.
- Didn't really meet any new women in August. Then in early September I met a girl from Saratoga Springs, UT through a friend. I had a good time hanging out and sort of dating her for a few weeks and it certainly was the happiest time I've had all year. Then it all collapsed in a big horrible weekend over a hundred miles away from home when I went on a small trip with her and a few cousins of hers to Salina, UT which I refer to "East Jesus Nowhere". It's a long story but I'll just say it was a long weekend of confusion, sadness, and getting treated like total crap.The girl did apologize later about the whole thing but things were definitely not the same after it. Since then I've met and gone out with a couple girls I met online and it's a been pretty fun but not sure if anything with them will become serious.
- I've been very slowly losing weight making a total of 10 pounds in the last few months.
- I dressed up as Dexter Morgan for Halloween this year which was a lot of fun.

Thanks for reading

Recap of June and July 2010

 JUNE
- I finally went back to work scooping ice cream for for the Orem Owlz. I'm back in the cycle of loving my job and actually hating my days off, you know being single and all.
- I got the long awaited debut full length album by one of my favorite females in music named Uffie. I really like her album titled Sex Dreams and Denim Jeans for the songs I've heard for 2 years now and of course all the newer music.
- went on a mini adventure to Nephi one day and ate good food at the One Man Band location down there
- Did the usual traditions associated with Orem Summerfest 
- More food at many different places, more walking/hiking, and soda drinking
- More movies, I think I'm gonna try to beat my record this year which i think is 89.
- Saw several friends I haven't seen in a while, which is ALWAYS good

JULY
-lots of days at work, still going well. 
-watched my parents bathroom get remodeled (not completely finished yet)
- did a bunch of shopping with newly acquired money
- had my sister in town visiting with her two kids and boyfriend-type person.
-Went to the Paul McCartney concert on my mom's birthday July 13th. He put on an excellent show filled with many laughs and tears and of course really beautiful music.
- watching a bunch of movies from the list on imdb250.net which looks to be 250 most heavily liked films by moviegoers or something like it. Whatever it is it's been interesting movie watching experiences.
- been recording again with plans to make a new comedy album named Royal Flush.

thanks to anyone who happened to read this and I apologize for my laziness 

Month of May Recap

I still keep forgetting to post on this, soooo here I go now
My College Graduation on April 30th went pretty well, thanks for those who supported me and noticed.
-May 1st started my post-college life with a mix of happy and bad memories hanging out with Anna and her best friends.After that, this month was pretty much a mix of doing what I wanted to thanks to the brand new free time.
- Watched the final month of the TV season with my shows Celebrity Apprentice, 24, American Idol, NBA Playoffs. I've also been watching the new season of Real World Road Rules Challenge and of course, The Soup on Friday nights.
- Went for walks and hikes in Provo Canyon and Orem. Also went to the new store in Orem called Winco which I've been to before in California.
- Went and saw several movies including Iron Man 2, MacGruber, and Shutter Island. I also bought a bunch of cheap DVDs from a closing Hollywood Video store and watched them.
- Ate plenty of food from Rubio's, Chick-Fil-A, One Man Band, KFC, Smashburger, Carl's Jr., Daylight Donuts, Dairy Queen, Sonic, Iceberg, Bajio, Jimmie Johns, and Wendys. no wonder I'm gaining weight
- Finally reached my goal of loading my coin jar with $100, then spent it on the Complete Series of Daria on DVD, Mystery Team on DVD, Dr. Mario for the NES, and a CD
- Plenty of Mug Runs to Walkers and Maverick.
- I helped my high school, Orem High, move things from the old building that I went to years ago to their brand new school building.

and last, but not least, I broke up with my girlfriend of 16 months on Memorial Day. Our last date was on May 15th and the last time we saw each other as a couple was her birthday on May 19th. There's not much to say about it on here, it just wasn't working out.

Kick-Ass

Once again, I sucky at blogging, it's been almost a month, how ridiculous!!
Anyway, here's the update that my lazy butt has forgot to post up

First off, after months of waiting, I saw the movie Kick-Ass on opening day yesterday. I went in with high expectations and everything in the movie surpassed them. I could just easily say I loved every little thing about it. I love the entire cast, costumes/sets, the story in how it never took any cheesy turns and didn't become too predictable at least in my opinion. I knew how it ended beforehand and still was pleased with how it was done. I love the ultra violent nature, extremely bad language, and the raunchy humor which was hilarious. I loved that it was 116 Minutes!!  I loved all the movie references within the movie itself. It was one of the best movie theater experiences I've ever had and is definitely one of the best comic book/superhero movies I've ever seen. Finally! cause almost every movie that has come out so far this year just looked like total crap. I was shaking during the movie I was so excited.

Besides that here's other notable items
- Instead of being unprepared, I have been planning out most of the activities that my girlfriend Anna and I have been doing in the month of April 
- I hung out with my best friend Steve a couple times this week which was the first time we've done so in several months and it was very nice to hang out once again. 
-Started doing some weekly walks in the canyon since the weather is getting better and will start some weekly hiking up to Y in Provo pretty soon.
- Got the new Coheed and Cambria album this week, making it my first contender for Album of the year, it's pretty good but I can't currently say that it beats any of their other albums. Now looking forward to the new Kate Nash album on Tuesday and plenty more cool stuff to come out in April and May.
- I watched the Fourth Season of Dexter during the free Showtime preview (Comcast on Demand) a few weeks ago, so I've seen the whole show up to this point and hope they can somehow continue it. Speaking of TV, I've also finished watching over 20 episodes of Kitchen Nightmares on Hulu.
- I've seen several other movies recently. Dear John, When In Rome, and Alice in Wonderland but wasn't really impressed with any of them making my case for poor movies coming out so far in 2010.
- I got 2 more regular class days and then a couple days of Finals and I will be DONE with school after 18 total years of education. I'll skip the big speech about school and life for the moment, but I'll just say that I will be glad to be finished in achieving my life goal up to this point which is to earn a Bachelor's Degree which all my siblings have achieved in the past.

Thanks for reading
exciting and scary times to come

Bored on Friday night

Hello
here's what's up

 - I completed my Service hours yesterday for the American Cancer Society, if you didn't know already I've basically been driving cancer patients to their appointments cause they aren't fit to drive or just don't have any rides. I really liked the whole experience except driving on the Freeway between Draper and Murray, Utah several times.
- I saw An Education a few days ago, making it the 9th Best Picture nominee I've seen (Thank you Movies 8 in Provo for bringing these nominated movies and giving them a week run). I wasn't toally wowed by it, the performances were good but it is pretty forgettable.
- Got addicted to the show Kitchen Nightmares, I've been catching up with this season on Hulu.
- Watch American Idol for the Tuesday shows, my favorite is Siobhan (I love how it's spelled)
- Had a nice dinner with my family last night at P.F. Changs, a huge favorite for years now.

- I keep forgetting to mention that I got a new cell phone since my old phone (Razr) died, I like the new phone, a Sony Ericsson Equinox but haven't put any cool pics or music on it yet. 

That's pretty much
thanks as always for reading

Before the month is done, how about a post

Hey peoples
March has been a pretty cool month, I love the sun coming back, times changes, and all the goodness that I feel comes with it.
- Currently watching Dexter Season 3, still a great show but will admit not as interesting as the seasons before.
- Still going strong with the service hours, 6 hours to go.
- Got my graduation stuff, 42 days until the ceremony
- I've seen 8/10 Best Picture Nominees, I was so happy for The Hurt Locker. I finally saw The Blind Side and thought it was good, it had all the elements that one would expect in a family/sports film but will say that the story isn't sad enough to really care and about 15 minutes were pointless.
- Currently on my Spring Break and already did my tradition of going to the NickelCade (which is now Nickel City) where I played my favorites and won some prizes with tickets I got from various games.
- Still awaiting the arrival of good movies and albums to come out, all these movies coming out now look awful.


Can't think of much else
thanks for reading

February, just end already

Hi
been a couple weeks, what's been going on hmmmmm
- Started my volunteer service with the American Cancer Society's Road to Recovery Program, I drove a man to Murray which went well thanks to a practice run I did beforehand so I knew where to go cause i'm not familiar with Salt Lake County. I got about 16 hours worth of driving left to do and hopefully I can take the same man several more times in the next two weeks.
-FINALLY watched Dexter Season 2 and loved every minute and went through it in four days, now to stalk the library's copy of the 3rd season
- Saw The Princess and the Frog and liked it, not so much for the movie Leap Year which was really boring and lame compared to other romantic comedies and other Amy Adams movies. I also saw Percy Jackson and the  . . . . . and it wasn't really my cup of tea and certainly wasn't funny when it tried
- Went to the Diabetes Expo for the 4th or 5th time, not so many freebies this year, bummer. My dad has Type 2 so it's always good to go with him and be aware of what he has to deal with.
- School's going OK and I will feel better once I present this Wednesday for a group Positive Psychology Group Presentation. 2 months until I'm done
- watching American Idol and ready for the Top 12 to start, ugggh I hope the horrible people keep getting voted off, half of these people suck

besides that, just been doing the same stuff mostly
we added another TV in our house, so I got a better one than before
Excited for March, not for any particular reason, just because

Lazy Saturday

Hi

I've been kinda waiting to write a blog when I was feeling good, my head has been so cloudy and foggy with not so nice thoughts about everybody and everything. Anyway today is a lazy saturday cause I have nothing to do, my parents went to a funeral of a relative I didn't really know at all, and everyone is probably out having a great Valentine's Day Wekend.

Lately I've been watching a show on Hulu called The Loop (another show with Bret Harrison [seen above] of Reaper and Grounded For Life umm fame I guess) I watched the first season which was pretty funny and amusing. The second season however is really lame cause they gave a bigger role to some of the dumb characters and got rid of the two female lead characters from the season before.

In movie updates, I saw Avatar in 3D last Saturday with Anna and I thought it was visually amazing and not too bothered with the story so it was a good ol' time. Also I saw Armored at the dollar theater which wasn't that good or exciting, it's a case of seeing how it ends since the trailer gives it all away anyway.
School's going okay, I'll be more excited in a few weeks when some major assignments are out of the way.

Looks like I will start my volunteer hours on the 18th for the American Cancer Society. More on that later

Not much else going on
later

February's Finally Here

Febraury's here! That means I celebrated my birthday yesterday. For the fifth year I did a birthday tradition of going somewhere I've never been to eat lunch and going to see a movie, usually a mindless shoot em up movie of some sort. So this year I went to the latest competitor in the Burger War, Smash Burger which is appearing in the same cities/areas the other competitors (Five Guys and In-n-Out) have been popping up for the last couple years. It is comparable to a place like Fuddruckers, which to me means it's a higher qaulity burger compared to the top names in fast food. It was very delcious and can't wait to go back cause I had the most interesting items on the menu- The Beehive SmashBurger and their Smash Fries and I'd like to just try the avaerage items next time especially since I have the option to choose all the toppings you want. The movie I then saw was the latest Mel Gibson flick Edge of Darkness which was OK and had me leaving the theater quoting and giggling at Gibson's boston accent in the film.

Speaking of movies, as I write this I have seen 5 of this year's Best Picture nominees, I was stoked to see District 9 was one of them.
I've also seen a couple other films recently.
The Fantastic Mr. Fox- Very odd/strange but did have me laughing even when I didn't know why (which is the impression I get from all of Wes Anderson's movies). But I really appreciated the animation and some of the voice acting.
Everybody's Fine- A little better than I thought it would be story wise but was still just OK. I could see people of different ages finding at least one thing relatable to the family portrayed in the movie.

From my recollection, the last week of January was just a dull week, nothing much to say. I went to my little orientation for the Amercian Cancer Society last week which went well, now just have to wait for the background checks to end and then I can start my volunteer work. Besides that I continued to watch Reaper, went out and walked a bunch, got my hair cut, continued to put coins in my little piggy bank, etc.

One last little note, things are starting to look up when it comes to my search for some happiness. Not to say that I've been totally depressed recently or anything. I'm just saying that compared to other points of my life I've just felt kinda down at least in the month of January. It may be the fact that it's winter or cause of my lack of employment. My answer is always along the lines of my friends aren't talking to me as much as I would hope but at the same time I'm not totally putting forth the energy to commincate either. I just try to have a little understanding each day that most of my friends have lives which I always feel is something I don't have. But I really do appreciate my friends who follow this blog (comments would be nice by the way) and the ones who wished me a happy birthday yesterday. What I'm trying to get to in this paragraph is the readings from my Positive Psycholiogy class have really got me thinking about how to find some happiness. An assignment due this week for the class is a list of three good things that have happened for every day in the last week and getting over 20 birthday wishes is defintely on there. Some movies I've watched recently have also got me thinking that beling alive is great and that I should stick to some goals I have come up with (also an assignment for Positive Psychology) such as writing more to my friends. So even for all the busy work there is for the class, I'm really trying to put forth the effort it takes to live happily.

Peace out peoples
Thanks for reading

Blast You Snow!

Let's see what has gone down in the last week
- 24 came back on TV, very nice very good, even though the filler plot lines are kinda dumb and the logic button is still switched to off. Still good to see that Jack is back and will never die. Speaking of TV characters never dying, I am starting to really dislike Heroes which used to be my 2nd favorite drama, I don't know why I'm still watching it but hopefully it ends before getting too bad.
-UPDATE- I found an organization to do my 20 hours of required volunteer service (for a class). I will be working for The American Cancer Society, the training begins this week
-Thanks to Hulu, I'm getting into the show Reaper, it was recommended by the good folks on geekshowpodcast.com
-My diet plan is still working by the looks of things yay
- Saw 2012, it's OK (not good or bad)

So as you can see, not a very eventful week

-Well the most significant event of the past week was ending my friendship with my ex-girlfriend who shall be nameless for the purposes of this blog. It's a long story that could be summed with she screwed up bad last summer and then decided to try to make peace with my girlfriend Anna who doesn't want anything to do with her and she thought that ending our friendship will make me happy and will prevent a fight with Anna. Well honestly I was sad to say goodbye but I was never the type to chase her around and what she did to piss off Anna is a big enough offense that I shoudn't really deal with her ever again. So good riddance, I had some fun and everything but she was nothing but trouble at the same time.

Holy Cow, 12 days since a post now that's ridiculous

- School started up again, after two weeks of classes I can say that I think this semester will go pretty smoothly cause I've been doing this for years. For those wondering, I have Gender Roles, Life Span Development, Positive Psychology, and an Intro to Social Work class. My one big worry for the first two weeks of this semester is trying to find a human service agency to do some volunteer work for. This is such an obstacle to me cause it's like trying to find a job and with that situation I go for the easiest application process as possible. I've contacted one place in Provo but haven't heard back at all. So if I hear nothing by Tuesday I guess I'll have to actually go outside to find something or maybe even have to -sigh- call somebody which I don't really like doing.
- Became a fan of The Cinema Snob who reviews some new movies and the really terrible old movies that are infamous for being VERY BAD film making wise. He's now a featured reviewer on thatguywiththeglasses.com which I love to go to every week.
-Rented a couple movies this week. District 9 which I thought was very cool and The Hurt Locker which is gonna be nominated for several awards in the next few months. I loved the movie even though some of it felt unnecessary. I'm excited for its success. To answer the question if you're wondering, No I haven't seen Avatar yet.
-This week marked the One Year Anniversary of going out with my girlfriend Annalaura. I never doubted for a minute that we would make it this far. I'm excited to be with her and for the many good times to come. Being with her today made me realize just how lucky I am to be with someone so patient, understanding, and most of all so loving. 
- Been walking quite a lot recently and it feels great. As long as the dumb snow doesn't come back with a vengence I will continue to go out walking. It's a good accompaniment to my recent eating habits/rules which I'd be lying if I said that I didn't break from time to time. The readings from my scale at home look nice but I still want to go the scale I trust.
-Excited 24 is back on TV! Speaking of TV I am so thankful that The Cleveland Show is around, I love him and the show for daring to be really crude and random sometimes but still hilarious.
-I have a sort of piggy bank and it makes me so tempted to use the money to buy DVDS of the show Dexter instead of a external hard drive.

Thank ya for reading
peace out and hopefully there won't be so much time between posts

The New Year and The Last Day of Winter Break

Hey everybody

I celebrated the new year in my fashion once again which is pots and pans banging, making noise in the street, Martinelli's, awesome music to groove and dance to, lights shining, and other silly traditions.

I recently saw the movie Sherlock Holmes and enjoyed like I thought I would. I admire Guy Ritchie the director and several of the lead actors in the movie and they didn't disappoint at all.

Today for my last day of winter break (before returning to school for one last semester) I finally went and saw Up In The Air and I really enjoyed the movie. To continue the Clooney, I watched Michael Clayton which I bought recently for a "previously enjoyed" price. Then I drove kinda far to a Walkers to get a drink and a treat which is totally forbidden to my current eating habits (which has helped me lose several pounds so far) but it was a special day. The drive was worth it, I won a free drink for later. From there just did average 2010 stuff like watching PTI on ESPN, played Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook, went for a walk, watched a bowl game, and ate frozen, leftover, or slightly old food (our way of saving money).

I'm kinda both excited and nervous for the Spring 2010 semester
shouldn't be too bad