Yestersday my friend and I went shopping, and she let me pick out my Christmas gift.  She ended up getting me Assassin's Creed Origin for the PS4, and this really cute BOTW Link nendoroid. Needless to say I'm going to be pretty hyped when I open that gift!  We're supposed to exchange gifts the day after Christmas.

After that we headed to the local used book store, and I ended up picking up a couple of really interesting books. The most interesting book was this one about abandoned places in Japan.  I love how each page had a description of the people who lived in this places, and exactly what went on there, and possibly why they left.  I'm a huge history nerd so I've always been fascinated with old buildings.  The photos so are gorgeous.  Here are a few pics of some of them with my phone.  ( abandonded japan pics )




Afterwards we went to a local seafood place had lunch, and talked mostly.  She's been having a hard time adjusting to her new job, and she's also been dealing with some serious family issues.  That's the main reason I haven't seen her since May.  She's been working tons of overtime, and she's been under a lot of stress.  I told her it was understandable, and that I was glad to be there when she needed me.  She talked for a while, and it made me realize how everyone just wants someone to vent to every now and then.  That we all need that.  I told her about everything that was going on with me, and we decided to call it a day.  

We then headed back to my house, and played a bit of Mario Kart on the Switch, and I showed her a few games I was playing currently.  After that I dropped her off back home, and told her I had a great time.  It was really nice to catch up with her, and hang out together since it had been a while since we last saw each other.  

Last but not least here's a band I discovered this morning thanks to Revolver Magazine's twitter posting about them.  I'm digging their sound overall.  They call themselves Cholo goth which sort of made me lol, but whatever works for them I guess XD!  

This week has sort of been up and down.  My parents found out Sunday night that my grandfather isn't expected to live that long.  His kidney's are failing him, and he has a whole other slew of problems.  He's come out of really bad illnesses before so I'm hoping he recovers, and I'm trying to stay positive.  In the back of my mind though I've also been preparing for the worst.  

My friend called me that night I found out after I told her over text.  She told me the reason she hasn't been able to stay in contact is because she's had some deaths in the family, and her dog died.  She thought that I hated her, but I reassured her that I didn't hate her.  I figured that she had something serious going on in her family.  I'm glad we were able to reconnect, because I didn't know if she would contact me again.

All that aside I've been doing okay.  I've been mostly trying to take my mind off of everything by gaming, and reading.  I bought Sonic Mania recently, and I've been enjoying playing that.  It also made me want to play Sonic Colors so I plugged up the Wii, and played that along with Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, and Fallout 4 yesterday.  

Did anyone see the eclipse yesterday here in the US?  I manged to put together one of those shoebox pinhole viewers and got to see it.  It was pretty cool.  I'd never done something like that before so it was really enjoyable.  

Oh yeah, my car insurance company sent me a check yesterday.  I guess they won the case where they sued the company of the lady that hit me in that bad accident.  I wasn't expecting anything so I'm glad it all worked out in the end. :)

I hope everyone has a great week.

 I hope everyone enjoyed their Valentine's Day weekend for those who celebrate it.  I'm sort of one of those people who gets sort of pessimistic about Valentine's Day since I'm single, but I actually had a really good Valentine's Day weekend this year.  I ended up receiving lots of candy, and gifts from my coworkers, a huge stuffed lion from my mom, some cookies from my Dad, and a card and stuffed teddy bear from my sister.  I'm not really so cynical about it anymore since I realized that you can just celebrate the people who love you like family, and friends.  

I was supposed to go book store shopping with my friend today, but we had to change it to tomorrow because she forgot that her grandfather's birthday was today.  I'm off work tomorrow anyway so it's fine.  She tends to cancel things a lot so at this point I don't really hold my breath for her follow through with things.  When she does it's great, but when she doesn't I just try to shrug it off.  I would be lying if I said I didn't feel disappointed sometimes though. 

I watched the Grammy Awards last night, and they were very uneventful.  I was initially watching for the Bowie tribute, but my favorite performance ended up being Kendrick Lamar's performance.  I think he really stole the show, and his performance was amazing!  Adele's performance was good, but I'm not a huge fan of her music.  As for Lady Gaga's Bowie tribute I will say her version of "Space Oddity", and "Ziggy Stardust" was good, but other than that I wasn't too impressed.  It just seemed like they were trying to sell the brand intel more-so than do a tribute to Bowie, but that's just my opinion.  I mean they barely talked about him at all during the ceremony.  The whole show mostly seemed like it was trying to sell products, but that's how the mainstream music industry goes I guess.  

That Gwen Stefani video was sort of cool, and the song is okay.  The truth is I'm tired of hearing about her and Blake Shelton's relationship 24/7 at this point.  As you can tell I'm not a huge fan of mainstream music, but I never have been to be honest.  As a musician it's hard for me to get into a lot of today's mainstream pop music that's being shoved down people's throat.  Now that doesn't mean I don't listen to any mainstream music as I love music in all it's forms.  It's just means I'm critical of what they're trying to sell me instead of just selling me music.  They've made it more about business than about music.  I do like some mainstream artists, but I acknowledge that most of it is music for mass consumption.  Also I'm not knocking anyone who likes it, but just giving my opinion on how I feel about it.  That about sums up how I felt about the Grammy Awards.  It's just a popularity contest, and doesn't really mean anything anymore.  #endofrant 

Hello everyone!  I hope everyone enjoyed the Christmas holiday.  My Christmas went well.  

     I ended up getting some really good gifts.  My sister bought everyone presents when she went on her short vacation from New York.  She bought me an awesome hoodie, and purse that's very me.  I ended up giving her a gift card since I really didn't know what to get her.  Also she's very picky when it comes to name brands so I figured she could buy what she wanted with the gift card.  The main thing I usually dread about holidays is cleaning up after everyone leaves, but my cousin helped me so it wasn't too bad at all.  

     My friend was supposed to show up on Christmas Eve so we could exchange gifts, but she sent me a text saying she couldn't make it.  Apparently she was doing testing for a new job she applied for, and she had to pick up her cousin.  I'm trying not to get upset about it, but honestly she always does this.  It's so frustrating trying to be in a friendship with someone when you feel like it's one-sided.  I feel like I do a lot of the work in the friendship, and if I didn't we would just drift apart.  I've talked with my therapist about it, but I don't have a solution.  Sometimes I think it would be better if we just went our separate ways, but I do think she's trying (I hope anyway.)  I'm not too sure, but I guess I would be lying if I said it didn't bother me.  I really miss my best friend that moved away a couple of years ago.  Things haven't been the same since she left.  Honestly I don't think I've met anyone else that I could call a best friend besides my friend that moved away.  I just don't connect with people at all, and it's so damn frustrating.  Along with dealing with my grief that's one of the main reasons I'm going to therapy.  Having social anxiety fucking sucks. :(

    I had to work the day after Christmas which sucks, but I got through it.  Either way more money is always good I suppose.  Well that's about all for this post.  

     Last week was really fun.  My friend Elizabeth, and I went to the movies Friday night and settled for seeing "Avengers: Age of Ultron."  We'd initially planned on seeing "Insurgent", but since it had conflicting times at one theater we decided to see Age of Ultron at another theater. 

 Okay so I've decided to just use bullet points, and update on what's been happening with me lately since I can't seem to organize a decent entry any other way right now.

• I have fully recovered from that awful cold I had last week.  I'm still coughing, and sneezing a little, but it's a huge improvement from last week.  At one point I felt so awful last week I didn't want to get up to make myself lunch.  At work today everyone was glad I was doing better. :)

• My sister moved in with my grandmother recently.  She's trying to save money to get herself a house, and she was really tired of living downtown.  I also think it had to do with her breaking it off with her boyfriend at the time.  My sister and my grandmother get along very well so I could see them living together.

•  My brother has been being a douche lately.   He upset my grandmother by leaving his 2 year old at her house despite her telling him she had to go to the doctor that day.  Let me point out that he does not pay her to keep him, and also he tends to leave him over her house all day.  My brother has always been a selfish prick, but lately he's been extremely inconsiderate to my grandmother, and it pisses me off.  She doesn't need to have another stroke.  Ugh...

• My friend is also sick, and I realized her cold was probably worse than mine while I was talking to her over the phone.  At one point I asked, "Are you sure it's not the flu?"  because she complained about body aches.  I know we haven't been on the best of terms these days, but I hope she gets well soon.

• I've been thinking about my 30th b-day coming up this year, and I'm not looking forward to it.  I've been dreading it since last year I think.  I wish I could stay 29 for another year at least.  I think I've been having a lot on my mind anyway, and turning the big 3-0 in a few months ensues a lot of jokes from family members about how I don't have any kids, and I'm not married yet.  That's all anyone cares about here, seriously.  I chalk it up to the fact that Texas is pretty conservative, and backwards.  

• Last but certainly not least I need this LP in my vinyl collection.  It will be mine oh yes.  This record has been out of print for a while.  I'm so glad they re-issued it, and it's my favorite Christian Death album.  I will be ordering a copy tomorrow.  :D

      So I figured I would write this post now while I'm semi-awake :P  

     


Last night I went to see Lacuna Coil again with a new friend named Nicole.  I had a pretty good time!  I wish I could say the same for her, but I'll elaborate on that later.  So we got to the venue around 6:40pm (after I finally found it after making a few wrong turns, I have a bad sense of direction jfc.)  The venue looked a lot smaller from the outside than it actually was on the inside.  The place is called Trees, and I was astonished to find when I walked in that they actually had Trees inside the venue...lol.  I kid you not, and I was pretty amused at that.  
( about the rest of the show...and a small rant )

This week went by quicker than I expected. I was restless this past Friday night and couldn't go to sleep for some reason. I thought it was the TV keeping me awake so I turned the volume down, but that didn't work. I turned off all the lights, and that didn't work. I ended up finally falling asleep eventually, but I don't remember when that was...lol. I was having some type of insomnia moment going on or something.