Car Show

Last night, Brian, Brian's dad, and I went to the Cleveland Auto show. That was quite fun. Let's go over what I got to do:
Sit in a bunch of cars, including...
$130,000 Mercedes
Porche Somethingorother
2008 Nissan Altima (the car I want when I'm done with my tC)
A bunch of Hondas because Brian is obsessed, heh
Mazda RX-8 and Miata... both really fun, Miata felt incredibly small though (maybe it is...)
Chrysler 300 (most leg room in the back I've ever seen... period.)
Huge annoying pickup truck
Corvette...
Subaru Impreza
And much, much more!

Of course, being able to drive them would have been better, but I guess they can't allow that, for obvious reasons. They did get close, though... there's a Jeep test track type thing where they drive you over logs, up 35 degree hills, through water, up, down, and all around. It was really bouncy, but there's no question that Jeeps can handle off-road stuff after that. And we got to ride in a Dodge Charger, too. They went 0-30-0 pretty quickly. They were showing off the brakes, but the acceleration was pretty fun too.

So, if you're thinking of going, it's pretty nifty. (and not too expensive, either... $12) The only thing I wish they had more of was concept cars. There were only 4 or 5 of them... impressive though they were, it would have been fun to see what Scion and Honda and them were up to, not just a couple Ford and Chevy things.

More of the Same

Yikes, it's been a while since I remembered to update this.

School:
I STILL don't have much homework at all. Most people would be happy. I happen to agree with most people. I'm doing almost all core requirements this semester, so while I wouldn't mind learning a bit, I won't be incredibly stressed out if my courses don't really teach me much. Spring break is in a week... and we're already halfway done with the semester. Whoo!

Work:
Busy, busy, busy. I've been working on a bunch of website projects - stuff like adding an RSS feed, revising the book ordering system I made a few months ago, running around like crazy fixing web filters... We had our annual Staff Day on Monday (Presidents' Day), which was pretty fun. Our team made the tallest tinker toys tower, and I later got to do a few informative sessions about the Wiki format, especially on wikipedia.

Life:
A particular volunteer project that I said I'd do in early January continues to haunt me. Will I ever learn to say "no" to people when they ask me to do things? Sigh. I guess I could have worse problems. I don't know... not really a whole lot of new stuff to talk about here. My Macbook was having battery issues (the only problem I've had with it since I bought it) so Brian and I took it to the Apple Store at Legacy Village, and they gave me a new battery - for free. I love the Apple Store. I think I want to live there. Legacy village was a HUGE pain to get to, though. And it was equally difficult to park. But it looks like a nice place to hang out on some nice warm day, when we're not running around trying to save ourselves from frostbite.

And ahh, it's Lent again. How'd that happen? Gosh, is it February already? Shows how much time I have to pay attention to ... uh, time. I spent a bit of time trying to figure out what I'm going to "do" for Lent. Moving away from the whole "giving stuff up" theme that I've followed since I knew what Lent was all about, I think this year I'll try to do good things that I would normally not do... rather than not do bad things that I would normally do. (There's no way I'm giving up World of Warcraft, or sugar.) After Mass at Walsh on Ash Wednesday, I went to math class with ashes still on my forehead... the Chinese teacher said something to the effect of "how you get hurt on forehead?", and then I had to explain what it was all about... heh.

So, I turn 19 in 9 days or something, I guess. I don't know why, but 19 seems like a very boring year to celebrate. Maybe it's because for the last few years, I've had more significant milestones like driving or being a legal adult (whatever that means). I'm not really looking forward to turning 21 anyway, because I have absolutely no desire to consume alcohol... I'm fine with the 0.1 tablespoons of wine I have every day at Mass... so I guess as far as I'm concerned, I'm now just getting older, rather than closer to some important privilege.

Ugh.

Before I start with something, I guess I'll talk about what I did in the last 2 weeks... naturally, the majority of the first week was spent at school or at work. Work is still pretty busy, for reasons that most people reading this blog probably know about. I've become re-addicted to WoW. I've gained 10 levels in the last week and a half, which I guess I'm pretty happy about, in a hopeless no-life way. Getting more involved in the guild and stuff. But anyway... I was supposed to go to an open house at the career center that week too, but the building had issues and I couldn't go. I'll go later this week, though. Ben came back from RIT just to go to the open house, so him and Brian and myself went to a movie and ate dinner and stuff instead.

This last week I went to a Handel concert by Apollo's Fire with Sarah C. and Mom. That was the first time I had been to a concert since way back when I couldn't even appreciate the beauty of live classical music. Gosh. And I'll have to go to another one, too, for my music class. So I'm looking forward to that more now.

On Friday I helped at the "Library Lock-in". Basically, 20 kids between the ages of 11 and 16 spent the night at the library. Most of them didn't sleep, at least not until later in the morning. I didn't sleep at all... until I got home, of course. But yeah, it was crazy for the first 8 hours, then they calmed down and got tired and cranky. I was up for 29 straight hours, I think. That's a new personal record, by far.

Ok, now I'm going to complain. Facebook has many groups related to so-called "Manlaws." Said rules are supposed to dictate how "real" men should behave. So, let's have a look...
This particular group has 112 things listed. To avoid making this too long, I guess I'll divide them up into general categories, because most of them are fairly repetitive.
"Real men" must drink lots of beer: 25
"Real men" should use girls as, erm, sex devices: 20
"Real men" must think of nothing but sex: 11
"Real men" must pay close attention to their appearance: 16
"Real men" must be rude and/or selfish: 17
Random other things not relating to morality: 23

So, come again? In general, "real men" have to behave like morally lost animals? Why is this? Has modern, secular society so distorted everthing? Ugh. Oh well, in that case, I'm perfectly alright with not being a real man. And I think I'm probably a lot better off for it.