alright while i'm waiting for this episode of bleach to finish loading, i figure i should tell the xangulace (chase's word) that i'm really leaving, once and for all. i made my first post on facebook a little while back, and was satisfied with it. this site is such a difficult medium to find any sort of material in because nobody else from my circle of friends uses it! which tells me that i'm on the wrong site. so facebook it is from now on, and if you wanna find my posts (now in the form of facebook notes), just search for me there. bye xanga!

So today I got a HAIRCUT!!!
BEFORE


AFTER


NOBODY MAKE FUN OF MY HAIRCUT!!! I just threw a lot of water in my hair and got it semi-normal, cause after my barber ended up blow-drying it a bunch... it looked... well... metro. VERY metro. and that's all i'm gonna say about that.

Next up! Servers! I need all the advice and positive energy I can get because I'm going to be applying to restaurants in Irvine and in Fullerton. Bobby gave me some quick advice - so thanks! Chase gave me some quick advice (quick for him is a 15 minute phone call - I timed him) - so thanks again!

Now some quick politics, seeing as we are two days into the Obama recession now! So I'm getting my hair cut, and this barber (yes i went to a barbershop!) and I are talking about past administrations, all the way back to Eisenhower. And the big vibe that I'm getting from him is that baby boomer politics have persisted forever and that we need change. He never said anything about Obama, just that (among other things) a lot of partisan in-fighting and corporate-fueled lobbying has never gotten us anywhere, but it's always been par for the course regardless. Hopefully we'll see a change in the next few administrations, in OUR administrations. So let's stay politically informed, even when (Gasp.) it's not election time! I would love to hear everyone's opinions on the politics of our time, and what we can do to bring improvement. (oh, and also - I went here to read up on the presidents, and that's when I was hit with two things - one, that whitehouse.gov, a potentially puissant page for the political plebe, paints prePOSterously pretty pictures of past and present presidents. It's just ridiculous how this page jerks off on itself and obscures history. Two, that Obama is the 44th president. HE'S THE PRESIDENT. I just got that.)

Oh, and Fermata! I'm back in. After conversations with Bobby, Chase, Seth, Avi, Joe, Bill (i'm gonna call him Bill now, and I already did once in class on Wednesday just so you know) and Vanessa, and sitting in on two rehearsals, I decided to do it. It's good for me personally because I have a freaking nonexistent social circle in Irvine/Fullerton outside of like 15 Music and Linguistic majors and nothing to keep me feeling creative!! Speaking of keeping myself creative, Justin suggested in Fermata on Wednesday that I should consider selling my arrangements. Thanks for the vote of confidence, Justin! I've thought about it, but I have no follow-through. I'm going to get 5 arrangements together now, spruce them up and approach a couple companies with them. There was one company last year that, if they had hired me, would have paid me to arrange for the groups they were contracted to, and paid extra if I went and consulted with the groups personally. As I'm writing this I can't believe I got skittish and backed out. Even if my arrangements aren't up to par with Bradley's from Soundstage or Tyler's, I guess should at least try to put myself out there, and keep improving!! And the same goes to ALL the arrangers in Fermata this year: Joe, Avi, Ben, Michael, Justin and whoever else I forgot! Oh, Bill. You should keep arranging too; don't let all the young bucks have the fun! (Although I think he's already watching out for himself; in class Wednesday he said that he was going to be taking all the single ladies. LOOK OUT WORLD)

Oh, man. My stomach just grumbled something fierce. I am definitely back in Irvine. Expect me to drop 20 more pounds in the next few months, guys. Hopefully ICCA will then turn me into a muscular Greek god (for anyone who doesn't know my ethnicity, what do you think it is? I've gotten Greek before) and then my next before and after will look like THIS!

BEFORE!!


AFTER!!!

...I promise I'm not picking my nose. BYE!!

Wow, I just stayed up all night reading

and I didn't even realize it until I was done! I also read this Wikipedia article on absurdism recently (props to Josh Odom for inspiring that search), and the two sort of enhanced each other to bring me to yet another existentialist sigh. There is nothing to strive for outside of a paradigm that we humans create. You and I make all the rules. God is God because we make a God, regardless of whether or not there exists one. Thus, I still don't see any reason for there to be meaning or purpose in life, save what you make of it. And I still can't answer my own years-old question: what is my purpose in life? - because there is no intrinsic meaning in creating such a purpose for myself. I need something bigger than me to get by, but it's impossible to see anything like that.

Anyway! I would also like to admit - I have a problem. My name is Joseph Livesey, and I'm a fix-your-computer-aholic. I love coming to your house and uninstalling bloatware, adware and spyware. I love running registry cleaners and deleting useless, redundant shortcuts. I love downloading torrents of and installing your most useful software, illegally. I love putting you and your friends on the same network so you can play games together (hopefully not WoW). I love customizing your browser (which is Firefox; duh) with the neatest addons and icon tweaks so it has maximum user-friendliness, functionality and speed. I love organizing and consolidating your files, which are strewn about My Documents, Desktop, Downloads and probably in some random folder at the root of your C:\ drive. And I also love doing as much of this as I can before rebooting, so you can see in the span of one restart how much quicker your computer gets. Plus, you know what? If your system's a real goner, I love wiping your hard drive, reinstalling Windows and putting all of your documents back on your computer once I've brought it back to life. If you don't like dealing with computers and you get a problem on yours, call me up. If I can't help you, Josh sure can. Wow, I didn't see this post turning into a mini-Josh homage.

HAHA I just thought of a joke. Do you want to hear my joke?

What do you call a mage character on WoW that somebody always lets their friends with no accounts use?
A WoW HOMAGE!!!!

Dang.