I think I'm going to write a song. And no, before any of us give Sophia a chance to start, I'm not going on American Idol.

But seriously. I'm going to flex my muscle, write some lyrics, and if it's meant to be, someone will come along and put some good music to it.

I really think there should be a movie made from my life, if only so that my supporting-actor best friends get to be famous as the very curious and crazy characters they are.

Oh my. Quite a killer night I had.

First came the massive party at Aroon's. Then a great concert. Then the massive party at Aroon's. Quite a night.

In the early afternoon, I headed off to Aroon's to start setting up for the console party, which was set to be the biggest party our group has ever had. It didn't disappoint. By the early evening, roughly 25 people had arrived, carrying a handful of TVs (ultimately there were roughly 6 or 7 TVs in the front living room, in addition to the main one in the den.

It was then time to leave for the Michelle Branch show. I gladly forfeited my spot in the tournament to see this wonderful musician and beautiful woman. Erin, sadly, was stuck at her choir banquet and couldn't make it to the show on time, so I employed Max to come with. (When offered the ticket, his reply was: "She is SO hot.") Max and I scurried to Deep Ellum, making cruel jokes and reporting drunk drivers to the police all along the way. We arrived, parked, and headed to Tree's, where we were given these really cool necklaces that light up when the loose ends are connected. We headed to the front of the crowd, with just one row of people between ourselves and the stage. And I stupidly left my camera at the party. After an hour and a half of waiting, Michelle finally took to the stage. My first impression was that she weighed just a tad more than the videos betrayed. This is good; she's healthy. Her face, as always, was cute and beautiful and every other good adjective used to describe a woman's appearance. She seemed a little dumbfounded trying to associate with the audience, numerous times finding herself at a fault for anything to talk to the audience about. Her singing ability truly surprised me. Several times she would sing pitches that were just plain wrong, probably because something would be wrong with the monitors and couldn't hear herself. When she could hear, though, she was really able to belt, even in her really rangey new songs. I finally turned into a giddy little boy when she introduced "You Get Me" as a song dedicated to the guys. All night, she sang to specific people in the audience, waving and smiling, So on the line "just because I'm your girl" she sang to me. And just like the little spineless pansy I am, I melted by the combination of her eyes and her words. Easily the highlight of my night.

So the concert ended and Max and I ran off back to Arlington to rejoin the party. When we arrived, the 25 people had exploded into 60 plus. Cops had just tried to bust up the party - but since it was dry, they didn't care, slapped everyone on the collective wrist for being noisy, and left - and pizza was abound, as well as tons of drinks and old friends. The tournament was very much under way, so I made my way to the couch after some initial meetings and watched the action. Great, great, great bunch of games to watch. Loved it. The rest of the night blurred into gaming and drowsiness and general fun with friends.

Unexpected event of the evening: Chris Lane was there. (The boyfriend of Katy (or Katie, I dunno how she spelled it)) Chris was a very good friend of mine in elementary school days as we went to Oakridge together. If any of you wonderful readers know if he has an AIM name, please please be the wonderful person you are and hook a brother up. I was happy to see that he's turned out well. Obviously still a smart fella, looks almost exactly the same, and headed to Tulane. Well done, Chris.

As the night came to a close, and the sun returned with a vengeance, I felt my usual need to find my bed and sleep. At 7:00, as the better half of Fight Club came to a close, I finally up and left and crashed in the comfort of my own bed. I returned to Aroon's in the afternoon and the whole thing had dissolved. Not a single TV or game (besides my own). Nobody was there, lounged on the floor (except Nick, who showed up at the same time as me). Quite a big contrast from the massive party that had happened 12 hours ago.

And here I am, always hating life after such cool nights. And every time I feel more and more jaded. I'm scared. But I'll get by, since Michelle Branch sang to me.

So about a week ago I got the results from my Strong Interest Inventory exam. Apparently I'm a highly artistic person with a smidge of investigative qualities. Thinking about it more and more, they're right. So maybe I can't draw, but I've got a flair for public speaking (through this website - I'm speaking to the public), an appreciation of music, and I adore self-expression. I have an interest in foreign languages, so it suggested I be a translator. Also high on the list were computer programmer (which I dislike, ironically) and lawyer. It's making me hope that in Austin I'll get my hands on really performing, living part of the life of a musician who just hangs around and happens to sing. Maybe I'll end up as the hot young new singer. Maybe a songwriter. Or maybe I'll spend a semester abroad and head to Oxford or a northern law school.

Too damn many choices. Let's hope something cool falls into my lap, eh?

Tonight is an attempted all-nighter in preparation for the massive night that will be tomorrow. After helping start the biggest gaming party ever thrown at a fella's house, I'm off to Trees for the Michelle Branch concert, which will apparently own since it's a small venue and it doesn't appear that there's a big opening set for Michelle. Here's to hoping we'll get to Dallas way early, cause my cohort Erin has to get out of her silly banquet before we can get to Deep Ellum. After the show, and my passionate love-making with Michelle, we're headed back to Aroon's to spend the night playing games a plenty with absolutely everyone in town who's anyone.

Come to think of it, I could even care less about banging Michelle. I'd rather spend the hour in a coffee house just talking to her, figuring out what she's really like behind the prearranged clothes and makeup and songs. Oh well, at least Halo and Super Smash won't be that bad, much less all night in a room with 50 interesting people.

1. The Pizza Matrix is the best video made since Rejected. If you haven't seen this, please ask me about it, because I'd love to watch it with you.

2. I've decided I need a personal hug slave to be behind me whenever I'm on here writing. Preferably a cute one. That way, when I feel like I need a hug (like now), I can turn around and get a hug from a cute chick. Inquire within.

Wow.

Maybe Sarah's on to something, I thought. John Mayer's songs that I'd heard were pretty cool. Why not grab the album? He's popular, won't be hard to find, bing, bang, boom. So I hopped on my trusty fileshare network and grabbed Room for Squares. Queued it up in Winamp, and I've been absolutely amazed. I was surprised at his lyrical genius - the radio singles definitely understate his ability to turn poetry into a song. His words evoke definite images (the awkward situation in "My Stupid Mouth") and at the same time he can put words to feelings nobody's been able to express before (3x5). What's more, he's an enjoyable singer. He's constantly relaxed - you can tell he never pushes himself vocally; he's comfortable 100% of the time. I'm also impressed by his improvisational ability.

So here I sit, trying to learn all the songs on his album. Yeah, Sarah was right. I'd gladly give up my smarts to have his talent - it's not a sellout kind of talent that's going to leave him working the car wash in five years. No, Mr. Mayer is at the forefront of a new generation of singer/songwriters. And here the old people had given up on us entirely.

For once, I've successfully stayed up 24 hours consecutively. On Saturday, I woke up at 6:30AM, and managed to stay awake until the same time Sunday morning, at which point I crashed. More importantly, the day was one of the pivotal days (and nights) of my life.

When the sun greeted me early Saturday morning, it still felt like an average day. Relatives were in town who I hadn't seen in years, gathered to support my mom in case she completely broke down at graduation. To me, though, the occasion was no longer even surreal: it was just there. I was unable to feel anything for it. May as well get it over with, then.

We all dressed ourselves appropriately, headed to school, and as our class arranged ourselves in formation to march into the gym, we all walked down the lower school hallway - where I had spent first through fourth grades - and I saw the entire faculty of the school assembled in another single-file line, and each one of them applauded us as we passed. Every single one of them with a proud smile on his or her face. Nice gesture, I thought, but there's no possible way that in thirty minutes I'll be done with high school forever.

There was only one thing I understood at graduation in the morning: it was my last performance with the choir. It was my last opportunity to stand on the stage and be directed by Mr. Ice, a fella who helped me point my life in one of the best directions possible. The last song turned out to take the greatest emotional toll on me of any single event in the entire graduation process. But I survived, and graduation went along as planned. It still didn't even feel surreal when I took the stage, heard my accolades, and received a diploma and a dictionary, per custom. It felt like just another ceremony, just another event where I dressed funny and received some awards and things and the parents congratulated Syed and me countless times.

We went outside to the largest oak tree on campus and took a final class picture, and threw the caps. It still didn't sink in that I'm never going to see these people again. Even as I said goodbyes to students and teachers, I didn't feel like I was leaving but rather experiencing some kind of reunion. I wasn't seeing Edgemon and my lower school teachers for the last time ever - it was just a happy occasion where I got to run into them again. The only thing that made it anything like a goodbye was a letter hand-delivered to me from Coach Andersen who thanked me for being in his classes, sticking with him, and being a good student and a nice guy etc. etc. For a heartless Republican, he can be a really good genuinely heartfelt guy.

Oh, and Syed picked me up and slung me over his shoulder like a caveman carrying his bitch. I'm quite sure it was caught on film.

Celebratory lunch was unimportant. We had a party of four instead of the parties of ten and fourteen like the other Oakridge families at the same place.

The rest of the afternoon was spent in preparation for the greatest graduation celebration I could imagine: Lamar's prom. I successfully dressed and went to Erin's to pick her up. At this point it was 6PM, halfway through my big day. The learning, ironically, was only about to begin as I popped a Metabolife just to see if that would help my energy level.

8:00. Lone Star Park ballroom. Prom was a very good experience. I ran into virtually everyone I've known at Lamar who still goes there and it was my second happy reunion of the day. I happily met all of the numerous people Erin knows, and had the unique pleasure of dinner with a person who Erin hates and the always amusing Jordan Pratt and his girlfriend. On the dance floor, I finally ran into the amigos, and we spent the rest of the evening together dancing. Alex and Thomas looked awkwardly separate from their dates, as usual, and I felt relieved that I had found a different group to take me to prom. I had spent that much of the evening halfway scared to death of an encounter with Stephanie. When I found myself right next to her on the dance floor, my fear disappared. I just waved and said hi and life went on as if she just weren't there. Nothing about her appearance surprised me - she looked exactly like I would have thought. But when she looked at me, her eyes gave me a completely different impression from what they used to give me. When six months ago I saw all kinds of wonderful things in her eyes, last night they looked the most empty of any human soul I've ever seen. As we made eye contact and waved, it felt like she blankly stared straight through me. But at least I felt better about the whole chance encounter thing. Everyone, myself included, ended up having a wonderful time. It had probably been at least a year since I had been on a dance floor.

11:30. Prom is over. My energy level is still high as we make our way to Josh Rizzo's house to change clothes. After some lounging, and watching Josh play Postal 2, which is easily the most wacked-out game ever, we make the trip over to Lamar for 'Project Celebration,' their very swankily done after-prom party. I was surprised at the production value of the whole affair. The decoration was really pretty neat, there was a ton of stuff going on across 3 or 4 different rooms, and everyone still came. After mingling and a little bit of walking around with Sophia, I settled down at a blackjack table and turned $10,000 into $87,000. Maybe I should go to Vegas sometime soon.

4:00. Casino shuts down. Still, I feel completely awake and alert. God bless Metabolife. As the night came to a close with the prize raffle, I felt great. I sat with a group and was only one of about twelve people in the group that didn't come out a winner. Still, I thought the whole group was pretty damn cool. This was the first lesson of the night: this was why I shunned Oakridge in favor of Lamar. It's not that it's 'cooler.' It's not that the people are better. It's that I finally got the chance to assert my own identity and make myself. There, I felt like I was naturally myself and I was appreciated for it, and I didn't have to fake it anymore. What a graduation celebration this is.

6:00. Home bound. I always do my best thinking in the car. I looked back on my whole night and day as "Goodbye to You" appropriately played in the background. This was the night not of celebration but of goodbyes and coming of age. Last night, I said goodbye to my past life as I knew it and had to start completely over.

Oh, and it positively creeps me out when the sun starts to rise. Since I live by night, the lightening of the sky has always been the one sign I've been able to understand from nature: go to bed, idiot.

They often say that change is gradual, that it never happens overnight. My last big lesson of the night is that it does happen overnight. When the sun set on Saturday, I felt like the same person I had been for the last 18 years. When I saw the sun come up Sunday morning, I became someone new. I shed my entire past, the good and the bad, and this summer I have nothing to do but enjoy the moment and become stronger, quicker, more prepared for anything and everything. Granted, my friends aren't gone, but they are about to be. Oakridge is over and done, and so are the people associated with it, for all intents and purposes. Lamar's prom was probably the last time I'll see a good number of the wonderful people I know. As the sun continued to rise, I thought more and more about what it meant that graduation and celebration were over. I felt like I had arrived at my own future. I'm completely self-sufficient. I'm completely alone.

I learned last night that good friends are the universal key to happiness. I learned that self-reliance is the key to survival. I learned that you can never let go of a first love, but it can't destroy you. I already knew that music is one of the most powerful and versatile things in existence, but last night cemented it in my mind beyond any doubt. Lastly, I learned that true friends, the ones who survive from one chapter of someone's life to the next, are exactly what you'll think they are.

Oh, and Aroon/Nathalie: I did sing. In the gym with the prizes. John Mayer. You guys missed it. :)

I just can't wait for my ten-year reunion
I'm gonna bust down the double doors
And when I stand on these tables before you
You will see what all this time was for

The word 'self-healing' scares the hell out of me. If it doesn't scare you, it should. It's going to be the big thing this decade, so might as well get a little primer on it.

Self-healing technology is basically tech that fixes itself when it's broken. IBM is already marketing self-healing servers, and though I haven't seen exactly what technology those things use, their aggressive marketing scheme for the stuff makes you believe it's really easy to run, self-sustaining, and relatively inexpensive. DARPA is developing a self-healing minefield. It's a minefield that doesn't quite turn itself off after so many years of use, making the land safe for civilians after a war (what the name 'self-healing minefield' brought to my mind at least) - oh no, that's too nice. In a self-healing minefield, whenever one mine is activated, the nearby mines reposition themselves to fill in any holes in the field.

Between unbreakable computers and lethal weaponry, 'self-healing' technology will give rise to the sort of intelligence theorized in The Matrix. Are we scared yet?

If you ever get the chance to fly on American again, provided they've still got money to burn in the place of fuel, because the jet fuel union is on strike, ask for a bag of peanuts.

Look at the bag of peanuts. You'll see directions. No joke.

"Open bag. Eat peanuts."

We wonder how American got in such trouble in the first place...

You are Professor X!

You are a very effective teacher, and you are very
committed to those who learn from you. You put
your all into everything you do, to some extent
because you fear failure more than anything
else. You are always seeking self-improvement,
even in areas where there is nothing you can do
to improve.


Which X-Men character are you most like?
brought to you by Quizilla

More videogame talk. Because I'm a nerd, and I have two hours to kill before my haircut.

E3 is going to happen next week. E3? The Electronic Entertainment Expo, the annual trade show for videogaming. Every year it's a huge buzz to see all the newest games that are going to come out this year, or the year following. There's also basically an unwritten "competition" to see who "wins" E3 with the best showing. 9 times out of 10, it's one of the big console-making giants - Sony, Nintendo, Microsoft, Sega - who wins, unless a smaller developer makes enormous waves with a really highly-anticipated game. (Konami did that a couple years back with Metal Gear Solid 2).

So this year, everyone's writing all their previews and so on and so on. Instead of getting gritty with the videogame jargon, I'm going to help all you not-quite-so-nerdy-as-me videogame lovers and tell you what you're going to hear about in the next couple weeks, and when they're all coming out.

Nintendo: will win E3. They're finally getting their act together for the Gamecube, and nobody's going to introduce any new hardware, so they're in the green. Expect to see F-Zero GC, an 8-player Mario Kart with LAN support, new versions of Mario Tennis and Mario Golf, a sequel to Metroid Prime, Pikmin 2, a new Pilotwings game (finally!), and all that's just being developed by Nintendo. Outside, expect the usual versions of mediocre games that come out on every other console, but they've got one last ace up their sleeve: A 'director's cut' style remake of Metal Gear Solid (the first one) with graphics matching MGS2 (which sucked, but was visually revolutionary). MGS was one of my Top Five Games of All Time, so this should be worth everyone's time.

Sony: will take a close second, just by quality over quantity. Expect lots of sequels to those mediocre games that came out last year: stuff like Jak & Daxter, Ratchet & Clank, etc. However, there's lots of good stuff to make up for it. Final Fantasy X-2 will make its American debut, which will make fans happy. SSX3 should get a big following. The PS2, if any console, will be likely the exclusive (or at least first release) for Metal Gear Solid 3, which will be announced and excite the hell out of everyone there. Jaws will drop, however, when we all see Gran Turismo 4 in action.

Microsoft: will ride the one-trick pony once more and show off Halo 2. The only way they can not lose this E3 is to convince Rare (the studio that made Goldeneye and a bunch of Nintendo games way back when; Microsoft bought them from Nintendo to make Xbox games) to show off everything they've got. If Rare can show their prequel to Perfect Dark, Xboxes will be sold by the dozens. If these guys resort to saying they'll get Grand Theft Auto 3 and Vice City in 2004, even updated versions, that's waving the white MS flag.

Sega: has all but gone down the toilet. Expect this to be their last E3. You'll see the 2K4 series of sports games, which won't ever beat EA's games despite everyone's wishes, and about seventeen crappy ports of Sonic games to various consoles.

PC: won't quite steal the show, but will have a strong showing. Half-Life 2 will eat the place alive, but it won't drown out the buzz over GT4 or the new Nintendo collection. Expect a few fans to get happy over Thief 3 and Deus Ex 2, also (I'll be first in line for DX2).

I have seen the light. I have driven, and fast. I have cornered like a motherfucker. And it is good.

Today was racing lessons/competition at a shindig put on by Mazda, up at Texas Motor Speedway. I dragged my ass out of bed at 7:30 and arrived on time at Alex's house at the extremely early 8:00. Here's the short-hand account of what happened, since my A.D.D. is kicking in and I don't want to write seriously:

-Raced all the way to Texas Motor Speedway in two cars. Call it warmup. Driving with a set of two-way radios is fun as hell - and you've never experienced teamwork in driving (whoda thunk it) until you've driven in two cars with a set of those.
-Arrive. Check-in. Olivia manages to switch which hand her bracelet goes on (which suddenly enables her to drive the many cars around the place), and we take off test driving. First came a Mazda6i (four-cyl). It wasn't far off from what I expected, only that the steering and braking were both a lot stiffer and tighter than what I had expected.
-Racing lesson lectures. Surprisingly, all the things they "taught" to the drivers were things I already did intuitively.
-Slalom training. This is where I learned both the power of the 6s (V6) and the true turning ability of the thing. Sadly, the 6s is a lot slower in first gear than I had expected. For someone who does a lot of launches, getting the 6-cyl over the 4 doesn't help at all. It's still a very fun car - while its exterior style is *very* close to a smaller version of a current Camry, the interior is apples and oranges.
-Full course training. Did a 34-second lap on a 30-second course. But at least I started to get a feel for what the car could handle.
-Races begin. The three guys (myself, Aroon, Alex) each had two turns on the track and our times were staggered so there was always one guy ready to drive, one guy in the back of the line, and one guy in the stands with the girls (Nathalie and Olivia) cheering on whoever was driving. Aroon went first with a time of 37 seconds. Then I went: 38. Alex trash talked and said he could beat Aroon by one second and me by two. When the time came in, he proved himself right: just over 35 seconds. In the second round, Aroon killed a whole set of cones which jacked his time up into the 40s by penalties, since he turned too hard into the final hairpin and spun into a set of cones. I went again, this time deciding to experiment with the manual mode on the manumatic transmission, and the simpler use of gear switching (read: sticking in second gear) brought my time down to low 36s. As I climbed out, Alex congratulated me for surprisingly beating Aroon. Alex, meanwhile, brought his time down to a ridiculous 34 seconds, netting him a 'gold medal' (read: cute little pin about the size of a pinky nail), while Aroon and I both claimed Bronze.
-Checking out other cars. A foursome of us (one of the guys was off doing something) sat inside the new RX-8, which is an oddity of a car. I was in the backseat, which was obviously cramped, but so swankily designed that it distracted me from the cramp-ness. Naturally, they didn't let anyone drive one of those.
-Final test drives. My most fun drive of the day was my sampling of the new Miata on the test course. That car can handle curves unlike any other machine I've ever seen, much less driven. And I didn't even feel squished inside. After that, I hopped straight into a Protoge5, which was miserable in comparison. I felt confident enough to take it into manual mode, and on the 'sudden lane change' square curve I forgot to downshift and took out five cones. Whoops. Needless to say, the Miata was the better ride on that run out.

So what happened today? I learned a lot more about car handling and what a machine's limits are, I learned that 6s are as cool as I thought, and Miatas are surprisingly awesome. I've been forever turned on to great driving.