Give Me The World

Where I'm At

2012-01-23T23:58:00.001-08:00

I took a leave of absence this semester. I am not in school.

Iggy's is a Sports Grill & Bar in Orem by the University Mall, a 20 minute walk from

Response Marketing. Tonight was my first day serving there on my own, no training.

I had one table which tipped me 5 dollars. It was slow so Kyle, my football coach expo manager,

phased me so I did my side work and went home. I was there a total of two hours. Adding my 2.15/hr

and my tips, I made about 4 bucks an hour. Nice. I'm confident it get's better than that.

At Response, I make 10/hr sitting in a chair monitoring a few phone calls on a computer. I've ordered stylish blue shoes off Jackthreads.com from this computer. I've watched full movies on hulu.com from this computer. My friend, Tyler Jensen, works right next to me. A flat screen plays MTV2 on the wall by us. A lot of Boy Meet's World lately. Once, when my boss/not-even-a-boss-cuz-he-doesn't-care-what-we-do left early, I had a tummy ache during the shift. I laid down on the floor and took a 30 minute nap. (Working in the Compliance Department at Response Marketing is a lot easier than serving at Iggy's)

I've been car-less since the beginning of November. I have not paid for gas or insurance since then. My car broke down on the way back from Vegas with friends, a trip that was one of many and just one-too-many. Engine was SHOT. I've done this to two cars now in my life. I bought a bus pass for $40 which is good for the year. The last 3 months I've become an expert with Utah Transit Authority. I've made it to doctors appointments. I've road the bus from Orem all the way to the Delta Center and vice versa. I listen to my shuffle. It's not that bad.

I live in a house with a guy named Kirt. He's 31. He's a very nice, mature, responsible, friendly, fun, active and an all around awesome landlord. He sent me an e-mail replying to this post I put on craigslist a while back when I lived at my old house this last semester in the fall. He saved me from this situation I was in. My previous roommates just partied too much. I have clear goals now and I can't live in that environment anymore. I've grown out of doing nothing all day, everyday.

I'm still running CharitySavingsGroup.com which actually had two orders this morning. It was a good idea back in May, but I've come to realize that door to door is never going to be...COOL. The truth is I'm embarrassed to talk about Charity Savings Group. I don't tell people about it. I could keep going and make it bigger, but at the end of the day, it's still door to door and will always carry that icky taste in your mouth. Like GI-JOE's and video games, door to door was just a phase in my life. There are areas set out for commercial use and there are areas set out for residential use. I no longer wish to abuse this precedent. ;)

Also, Restaurant.com is joke too. It's Scammy. They have these "gift cards" (the one product I middleman with CSG) which have this $25 on them making them look like you actually have $25 credit at the restaurant. There are restrictions though, the biggest and most common one being a minimum purchase of $35 at the restaurant for the certificate to work. Other's include only food, only dinner, etc. So that to me is just...meh. Flaky, false advertising, etc. Sleazy and cheap business principles I don't want to be a part of.

All in all, Charity Savings Group has raised over $1,600 for Action Against Hunger, which is notable, and once I've gotten rid of all my inventory, I will have raised a total of $3,100 for Action Against Hunger. Cool.

I've been filming a bunch lately too with a new camera, which I'll talk about in the next post.

Thanks for reading.

Sveta

2012-01-17T23:05:00.000-08:00

Have I told you about Sveta? My Russian girlfriend that randomly added me on Facebook almost a year ago now?We've been chatting, (Facebook translates her Russian into English and Vice-Verse) on average twice a month for about an hour since last January. It's exciting and different. I sent a video to her of me trying to speak Russian. She did the same, but in English. Here's my video:

She said it was interesting to see how hard it was for me to pronounce some of the words. Russian really is difficult.

About two months later, She made this for me:

Did you understand what she said? she said:

"Hi Andrew,forgive..it's so long didn't write,I hope it will be real soon we meet,I will be waiting, as you are to me. (I think)Bye Bye!"

Isn't that interesting? An attractive girl from the other side of the world wants to meet me. Someday, hopefully. Gotta be careful though, wouldn't want this to be like the movie Hostel or Hostel 2...Although we do now know it won't turn out like Catfish.

inspiration

2012-01-09T19:14:00.000-08:00

You shouldn't ever write something if you don't feel inspired to write. That's why I'm not going to write anything more for this post. I don't feel inspired today. :)

We will either find a way or make one

2011-08-23T19:34:00.001-07:00

Tyler and I drove down to provo to move some stuff into my house. He's sweet like that. I didn't have a bed yet and on the way we spotted a sleeper sofa on the sideo of the road. I bargained with the lady from $75 down to $40. We put it in his truck.

We get to my house and bring it in upstairs. The hallway is so narrow and the corner is too small to turn the couch into my room and at first we give up right there. I say, "let's just try anyway." It's really heavy and there is no A/C on in the house at the moment.

We try to flip it completely on it's side so it's almost touching the ceiling and try to somehow twist it into my room. It's going good for about 5 seconds and then the bed part that comes out fell out and hit the wall and jamms it up. I push it back into the couch. It's really hard and heavy to do this.

We try every angle possible playing real-life-not-fun-at-all Tetris. The stupid thing keeps falling out. We take off the door to my room. At one point the couch was vertically in the doorway and was so jammed we didn't know what to do. We seriously just looked at it for 10 minutes jammed in the doorway. Somehow, for some crazy reason, we moved it completely into the room across from my room. We now have a hard time moving it out of this room that my friend will eventually move into. We take off that door too. It's now been about an hour and a half since we brought this demon-seed of a couch up the stairs. The walls and sides of the doorway have been hanusly defiled.

We take a break for about 10 minutes getting a glass of water. We're standing there in silence, pondering whether we should give up. Maybe take a saw and cut it in half. Bringing it out of the house in two pieces sounded nice. I look at Tyler and tell him, "I love you."

We were going to try one more time. We found some plastic rope and tied the sleeper into the couch so it wouldn't keep falling out. Slowly and very tightly we shoved the 1970's throw-up design sleeper sofa past the barrier to my room. We smiled and soaked up the victory.

Introvert

2011-06-01T06:06:00.000-07:00

I'm able to do a lot of things alone. My dad and I have that in common. I prefer going to the gym alone with my ipod where I can just exert my energy at my own pace and be in my own world. I visit the library and sit there with a magazine alone. I've gone to the movie theater alone. I go to the skatepark alone. I go selling alone. Last night was one of those rare freak accidents where I fell asleep at a decent hour and so this morning I woke up at a decent hour. It was 7am and I decided to go get breakfast somewhere I hadn't before, alone. I went to Einstein's bagels in Bountiful. I got a ham and swiss panini sandwich with a small coffee. coffee alters my thought patterns. I'm in the heart of commercial Bountiful and I think about people I know and knew that live here. Lauren came to mind.
I think about all the hook-ups I've had that I don't really think about or care about now. I think about Lauren and how during the brief glimpse of time we had together gives me a reason to think things over, to pivot myself into making better choices and being cautious to not fall into any traps later on in life. She's married now to her missionary and I couldn't be happier for her. She always told me how pointless it was to just kiss for fun because we both knew it wasn't going anywhere and so it was meaningless. I didn't really care, I just liked her. She made it clear to me her heart belonged to Braden, her now Husband as of a month or so ago. Although it was mostly unrequited, I remember how content and at peace I was with everything in my life at that time. She was very spiritual, conservative, and traditional. Things that some would argue are polar opposites of me. She was so proud and sure of where she was heading you just had this secure feeling being around her, like you were home. I think about all the ambitions I've had over the last 2 years since then and how empty and shallow they've been. Low-road, worldly ambitions. She was all about family, her faith, learning, and working. Things that contribute to a healthy Peace of Mind, a state that most would agree as True Happiness. Some things I've been all about have been money, power, sex, and a "good time". Things that pretty much go against everything I was raised upon as a Mormon. I've always thought things like that were 'normal'. I wanted to be 'of the world'. I simply wanted to have fun. This slowly, ever so slowly, changed me over time in a way I'm not sure I'm happy with.

I don't think I'll ever be a fully active Mormon again. I'm 99.9 % percent sure it's a belief that helps people live organized lives and gives them comfort, and that's wonderful. I don't believe in the supernatural concepts and dogma behind it all. It's too far from reality and science for me to accept.

I want to find someone that I truly care about. Someone that inspires me to live a better life. A new worthy objective to strive towards. For a while I've had the strategy to 'diversify my portfolio' of current girls I like. Not putting all my eggs in one basket. From now on it's one girl at a time. just-me-and-you. Just me, and you. I have a number of friends that would laugh and make fun of me for writing all this but whatever. haha. I'm just being honest.

Updates Available! (my life)

2011-04-06T07:18:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone!
I feel great.

Right now I'm at the school sitting in the nice reclining chairs at the library typing on one of the computers. It's 8:20am, I usually don't choose to be conscious during this time of day, my body just woke up naturally this morning at this time for some odd reason.

I visited Las Vegas 7 times in the last year.
1st time - family, dad, danielle, and paul
2nd time - Costia, Trevor, and Billy.
3rd time - Joel, Emily, Kristin
4th time - Joel, Emily, Hayley
5th time - Joel, His sister, sisters friend, and Clayton
6th time - Brittnee, Danielle, Emily Kofford, Michael Wright, Ryan, Jeff Hansen, Danielle's boyfriend, and Cade. Met up with JC and his friends.
7th time - Clayton, Cameron, Aimee. met up with Mark and Steve.

I always did something different each time and had a blast every time.
I am sick of it now though.

started a little company,CharitySavingsGroup.com I'll soon have a little commercial demonstrating how easy the cards are to sell and then I'll post that on craigslist job postings all over the country and we'll see where it goes. Most of the profit will be made by my own personal sales. Opened an official business checking with Chase and formed an LLC with the state. Get money.

Got an Android Evo 4G and that's changing my life rapidly.

Been filming a bunch, bought a GoPro camera. They're 200 bucks, film in HD, and come with a fish-eye lense. Specifically designed for skateboarding/snowboarding/etc videos.
here are 3 we made in the last month:

My friend Justin Gotthardt back east started a skate company called Be Easy.
I helped out with a little photo shoot when I was back there for a split second in January for New Years. I just barely noticed I'm on the front page!
http://beeasyboards.com/
I'm wearing the green blunt shirt, you can click on me where it will bring you to the whole collection, and there's Justin, Trevor, Justin Again, me, and Billy.

This random person, a girl, added me on facebook about 2 months ago.
She's Russian, her name is Света Тимофеева, and she looks like this:

She can't speak English. Facebook has been translating all her russian into english for me on chat and vice versa. We've fallen in love and I'm moving to Russia at the end of the summer. jk, but we will skype soon so that will confirm she's a real person. Yes, I have seen the documentary CatFish, which was awesome.

hmmm what else...

I'm doing very bad academically. That's all I want to say about that.

Future plans:

- Live with Joel and sell, sell, sell for the first part of the summer, up until June 23rdish
- Live in Bountiful with my parents,sell,sell,sell, play tennis & golf with dad, see movies and plant flowers with mom. visit grandma more often. oh and free rent and food.
- Get a house with joel in the fall in Orem. Like a frat, we'll throw parties and begin to build a reputation.
"hey dude! what you doing this weekend?"
"o dude Joel and Andrew are throwin another party this weekend! last time it was epic! I love those guys!" form an empire.
- continue school, marketing.
- Go to Uganda in the Spring with Brooke. Live on rice and beans, no running water or electricity for 3 months, grow my beard and hair out, gain a little character. Brooke's the expert on traveling to other countries so it'll be nice to have her with me. hopefully this plan doesn't fall through.
- possibly move to L.A.
- fall in love.
- marry and have kids.
- die and either go into the ground, meet my creator, or rebirth as a cow or insect or something.

solid

2011-01-22T09:34:00.000-08:00

I've been sick for the last week. I had the flew. It was not fun. I feel much better now though.

Just finished cleaning check and Paul and Danielle want to get sushi at noon. fun!

Been thinking a lot about people and what it means to be "solid".

Consistent. Reliable. Solid.

very respected traits a person can possess.

I have a roommate that's pretty unpredictable. They'll get home and scream at everyone and slam their door. The next day they'll be all lovey dovey and will walk in and ask 'how is everything?'. They mooch, they borrow money, and they never clean up after themselves.

I think the older a person gets, the more reliable and solid they become.
The most solid person I can think of is my Dad. Just rock solid. Gets things done, on time, every time. Same basic emotion consistently every day. I can count on him.

Toyota and Honda have a reputation for manufacturing long-lasting reliable cars.

I know what a Big Mac will taste like before I buy it at any Mcdonald's Restaurant in the WORLD.

Solid companys.

Solid people.

habits. develop some good habits and become a slave to them.

an acquired behavior pattern regularly followed until it has become almost involuntary.

This is what we're looking for.

awkward, but also gangster

2011-01-06T08:02:00.000-08:00

I picked out an early class this spring semester called 'Myth, Magic and Religion'. It's under Anthropology and it was a big 3400 class so I thought it would be good to take and get one of those under my belt. It started at 8:30am, meaning I had to wake up at 7:45am to get to the school on time. No good for me. I guess when I was picking classes out I just thought, "oh, I'll just start waking up at that time from now on." The earliness wasn't that big of a deal-breaker though. I get there and everyone in my class is a freak. I could just tell. Maybe I'm cranky. These people were losers and I was cooler than them. The professor walks in and he's this old, chubby, conservative-looking man. He opens his mouth and it's hard to make out anything he says cuz he mumbles. He's a total introvert like me that doesn't use many facial mucles. He's absolutely boring. I'm now sure that I'm not doing this class. He also has 4 text-books he expects us to buy. After scanning through the topics on the calendar I knew this class would have too much magic potion than I would have liked. "Jan-27 - Ritual as the Reenactment of Myth" uughh. blaah. more religion.

Anyway, hate the class,
BUT! it's only 8:50 now and it doesn't get out till 9:45. Problem.

There is over 30 people sitting in this small high-school-sized classroom. I sat in the back in the very middle row. Standing up and walking out of here was not going to be pleasant. I started thinking about just sitting the whole class through, embracing the boringness. Then I thought about all the wonderful things I could be doing in the library with this time before my next class: browse the web, look through books, relax.BLOG..

I thought about the people I look up to. Assertive sharks that take what they want when they want without a care of what other people think of them. Gangsters.

Today, I was going to be a Gangster.

I stood up and made my way to the front of the class. The professor stops what he's going over on the syllabus and asks, "wrong class?"

I'm still walking as fast as I can to the door aka freedom.

"uh ya I'm just not interested in this class anymore"
I think I heard like one girl slightly chuckle and then the room was silent.
I'm out the door.

wow.
that was hard.

but sooooooo worth it.

my women, 2005-2010

2010-12-20T06:32:00.000-08:00

Hayley - It was the fireworks at Eaglewood just after freshman year. Everyone dared me. It had to be done. You turned around and I quickly closed the deal. You didn't have a choice. I'm sorry.

Sam - You were attractive, we made out during spin the bottle at a Halloween party, but I was still awkward and under-developed back then so we never really connected on a normal-friendship level.

Miranda - You were two years older than me and could drive. We talked a lot about Jim Morrison and the 60s and free spirited philosophies. I was so shy when you touched my leg, I didn't know what to do. You dropped me off at my house, I got out and walked around to your window, asked, "can I...uh..um..can I kiss you?" you nodded and we kissed and then I asked, "...um...am I...am I good kisser?" I'm sorry I was so awkward.

Sandra - you came in the cafeteria and started interviewing random people for a survey you were doing for a class. I told my click of friends that if you came over to our table and asked me do the survey, I would ask you on a date. We did Applebees, then watched Bridge to Terabithia. It was a lame movie. I was nervous and really liked you and we never reached a level of attraction because of that. You were "out of my league".

Karen - You helped me experience inebriation for the first time after Junior Prom. We made out at that party, although Cj was your date and Corynn was mine.

Kaitlyn - We had our first conversation at that same party after Junior Prom. I took you and Michael and Emily and Trevor to Oceans Thirteen the following month, June,2007, a time when weed was prominent in my life. I called you and apologized a year later for kissing you stoned. It was rude of me.

Lauren B. - I saw you at the WX christmas dance senior year, you and a friend snuck in, you don't go to WX; you go to Bounitful. I quickly put my phone in your hand and said, "I need your number", while still kind of dancing. We went to the next WX dance together. I was insecure and thought you were out of my league so I put on a "Bad/Tough" mentality cuz I thought it would increase my chances. It definitely did not.

Whitney - You came over with Seth and hung out with us that second semester at the V.O.P. Eventually you and Seth broke up. Two weeks later, Matt, Sarah, you and I watched Pineapple Express and you stayed the night. We made out. You and Seth got back together a week later.

Lauren - My biggest crush thus far. Probably because you were so "hard to get". For me at least. First year you abhorred me. Then slowly but surely as we hung out more you discovered an attraction that lead us to go "star-gazing" a couple dozen times that summer of 2009. You were small, blonde, and perfect.

Joy - You approached me in psychology. We went to a haunted house together. We kissed in your hot tub. We didn't really talk after that.

Emily - You approached me at a party and told me my glasses were "really, really sexy". I'm convinced if I didn't wear my glasses that night, you, your friend, and I wouldn't have hooked-up.

Lindsey - I came up to you after Geology and asked, "are you single?", you kind of chuckled and said "ya..", I said, "you want to go out on a date?", you said, "..um, ok." and we exchanged numbers. Met at starbucks, then went to Fantastic Mr. Fox at the dollar movies. It was a pleasant date. We went on a few more, kissed a few times, but nothing really happened.

Danielle - We've been friends since 2000. I hadn't really been attracted to you until about a year ago. We became close friends and got sushi a lot. I died my hair brown and then the light just switched on for you. We kissed a few times before your 20th birthday so that we could joke, "oh ya well we were young teenagers that didn't know better". I kept it a secret until I got back from Dallas and Mike told me you told everyone. So it's fine for me to tell everyone now.

Bambi - You were at the first rave I went to in Dallas. You were the expert on E and answered every paranoid question I had. About an hour after taking some you sat me down on the couch and asked If I had a girlfriend. I said no. You immediately took action, and that was hott.

fall

2010-11-27T16:33:00.000-08:00

new things

2010-11-03T10:53:00.000-07:00

Changed my major to English, creative writing.

Have a job now, real w-9 one, at a factory, in the NIGHT. graveyard. 10pm-6am.
It's actually quite awesome. I stay up all night listening to my ipod in my bed anyway, now I just do something productive.

School is going good, already have my classes picked out for next semester.
intro to american literature
intro to british literature
anthropology myths and religion
intro to american studies
drug behavior and society
professional considerations for the english major.

total: 16 credits.

I don't have anything past 3pm on any day too so I plan to get an evening job then. This factory job is temporary for the next couple months, unless they hire me on for real and offer me a higher wage. who knows what will happen.

girls.
can't say much about that, I don't want the one I like to see this and see their name, and boom "game" over. right. Gotta stay fly.

growing a beard. LOVE facial hair. for me, on me, not on girls c'man.

currently drive a '93 nissan altima, blueish gray, 166g miles, just got some new alloy rims and it looks PRETty sPANKIN. I plan to keep this car for a while. Not only because it's smart to just keep old, gas-efficient cars for a long time, but because I know it would make my dad proud to see me take care of it till it hits 250,0oo.

I got a new phone. It's a samsung a737. I've had this phone before, freshman year in college, from christmas to april, it was a great phone, I remember exactly how I broke it too. There's ACTUALLY a post, way back there in April 2009, titled "new phone"? I think.
That was the same day/night I kissed Whitney Merrifield, who won Miss Utah a month later.
proud of that..

Kelsey Andrus. saw her today in Public Speaking like always.
SHE IS SOOOOO CUTE. we've known each other since 5th grade.
If any of you girls reading this are wondering the correct way to flirt with a guy,
talk to her. the expert.

every single song of the white stripes is good. every single one. I need a tee-shirt that says that.

great post.

Punch

2010-10-20T13:49:00.000-07:00

I don't know if there's a god. I don't know what happens when we die. But I do know I love my family. and that's real.

isn't that sweet? ha

I'm doing well in school, I have a decent income, and I have some italian ice.

it taste good!

i like this song. no homo. it's just..I don't know, hits the right nerves. the chorus (careful might be loud)

it's important to be honest with your daily man.

beware of little expenses. they add up. - ben franklin

goooood advice babbyy...

Gangsters finish what they start. one of my favorite laws.

"follow through is everything in golf don't ya find? just like life, hahaha" - The Aviator

I'm trying to rummage through a novel a week. balance out my vocab muscles with my watch-tv muscles.

I changed my Major to English, creative writing. I mean Communication? how hard is it to talk to people? psh.

Do more, think less. boom.

peace.

while you're still young.

2010-10-14T02:24:00.001-07:00

Thursday night, last week, I did something a little spontaneous.

Kristin, Emily, Joel and I are in my car on our way to the Dolla flicks to see Salt, the one with Angelina Jolie in it.

Heading up University Parkway, I ask my passengers

"Do you guys really wanna see this movie? I'm kind of feeling Red Mango or something different.."

"naa...we don't really feel like yogurt right now." one of the girls say.

"I just don't feel like a movie right now. I dunno" I say.

"Well, you can drive us wherever you want Andrew. It's up to you" someone says.

"okay, let's go to Las Vegas" I chuckle.

"I'm down haha" says Joel sitting next to me in the passenger seat.

"ya let's go! ha" says one of the girls.

"whatever I'm being serious, I really would go tonight" I say.

"haha we're not joking either!" they tell me.

"you girls are stupid there's no way." Joel mutters back to them.

"TRY US!" they laugh.

"I'm calling your bluff. Okay, here I go, I'm gonna get on the freeway." I turn the car to the left lane, turn my blinker on, and prepare to make a U-turn.

the girls start screaming.

We went to Vegas.

got there at like 4am that night, got into a motel, slept till 4pm that friday, stayed up that night, drove home saturday at noon.

This is off some random exit at 3am on the way there. We got out and stared at the light-pollution-free sky of gazzillion stars there in the desert. Then took this picture.

This is at St. George on the way back.

Good Times.

ssnnaapp!

2010-09-26T01:20:00.000-07:00

wow, I'm a fag.

I'm everything a gay guy is, cept I like girls.

That's how I feel about myself sometimes. A lot.

I'll be too giddy or bubbly or excited or something.

Brooke, you're right, I'm not really sure we'll see each other again.

It's always nice when you're enjoying Important Things with Demetri Martin at 1am, and then you get a text message, that wonderful buzzing noise from your phone, and you know it's not gonna be studio cuz you got that one like 6 hours ago, and it's 1am k, so you know it's gonna be someone special, well, at least someone interesting, someone like you who stays up late. open it up-yes. yes. yes. It is a girl. a hot unfamiliar girl you are just getting to know. good times...

By the way, the "Brains" episode of Important Things with Demetri Martin is HILARIOUS.

My friend and I were talking about bitchy girls the other day.
We like them. they're better than good-looking-but-on-the-shy-side girls.

Then we ying-yanged it up and understood why girls love assholes.

you want what you can't have. never dies.

Danielle told me my beard looked disgusting today. She was seriously grossed out and made this evident.

But that kind of bitchyness wasn't attractive.
because I know Danielle very well, and she's just not that type of girl that can pull something off like that. She's above that.

all I know is THIS is interesting material. people.

Lauren, though, ha.

(omg I'm writing about you!)

miss 633. burned into MY brain, never will I NOT know it's HER that's calling ME.
Lauren is exactly like this girl that sold in our office,
Melissa, who's made over 80gs in a summer before.

Knocking with her, she just HAD HER WAY with people. She was somewhat "cut-throat".
funny thing about melissa is she would sell around 8 or 9 a day, but 5 or 6 of them would cancel,
which is still very good, still a big paycheck but ya, she was pushy and stubborn and pretty much made people sign the contract.

I will never get over you Lauren. ;)

It's late. it's 3.

This has been a good post.
well done Andrew.

don't hate me danielle kelsey matt michael jake.

2010-04-10T03:05:00.000-07:00

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2010-03-02T20:31:00.000-08:00

Bloggings dumb.

2010-03-01T22:08:00.000-08:00

I'm deleting this thing in a week. Or at least replacing it with some kind of permanent center ad or something useful. Might as well do something with the domain name.

politics

2010-02-25T18:29:00.000-08:00

thanks for taking a look at my blog like you always do!

Been dealin with a little bit of stress lately.

It's the like the more fun you have in your life the more stress.

Mo money mo problems.

Mo people mo drama.

It's just the price that comes with it I guess.

My old apt I was at nailed us for cleaning and repair fees. They are bastards.
With the economy now, it's like everyone's milking everyone as much as they can.

I really am a republican and a capitalist.
The income tax rate is bull. People that work harder have to give a higher percentage to the people that screw up their lives. c'man.

I hate lazy people. I just really do. I hate lazy people. Don't be lazy around me.
My kids are gonna have the best work ethic you've ever seen.
So is my wife. haha. ;0

I dunno. socialism, free market, they have there pros and cons. I don't know anything about it really...

basket case

2010-02-20T20:53:00.000-08:00

count you blessings, name them one by one.

It's important to just keep trying.
stay hungry, stay foolish.

let's talk about people.

people are really just out for themselves.

Let's do service, so WE can FEEL GOOD about it. ya know?
I'm not sure if there is such a thing as a self-less act.

Like I prefer to be nice to people because it makes ME feel better. Peace feels better. Caring, love, kindness feels better, feels right.

Greed/lust/jelousy. They're uncomfortable, but they're still emotions, which is more interesting than being numb. I guess.

would you rather feel pain or feel nothing at all. to be or not to be. bleh.

so OPPOSITION is something I'm grateful for. I'm grateful I can feel pain so I can understand pleasure. Or failure so I can understand success. Or losing so I can understand winning. Or Rejection, so I can understand LOVE. :'(

It makes that ONE sale of the day so amazing.
After knocking for hours, happy and excited and smiling on each door, to every dissapointed-because-it's-a-salesman face, and then catching this one person's attention, this ONE person's attention, who's, wait a minute, not mad, not annoyed, but actually HAPPY I stopped by, inviting me in their warm house, offers me some cake, thanking me as I leave for saving them around $240 over the next year on their tv bill.

all the others, I still forgive them, they no not what they do. ;)

It's cold outside. I go back to my car, and cry. I haven't cried in a while. crying feels good. Gangsters can cry when it's appropriate. This weeks been a little mentally and emotionally draining. The universe rewards those who simply persist.

Like magic, the universe will reward you if you put in enough effort. I don't know.

There are some people I talk to like once a year. I remain friends with them still. It's odd. some people I talk to like once every 6 months. some people...once a month. some people like once every other day on average. I don't think there is ONE person I can say I talk to every single day no matter what.

and ya know these stats change and swtich and very over time. I use to see my mom every single day growing up. that's changed. She still calls me like once a week just to check up on me. Wow. I just, uuhh, I'm like starting to cry as I type this. no joke. It's like when I think about my mom for too long, and just how she's the nicest person I know, and just about how wonderful my life is because of her, It really...moves me. It's actually really easy to type while you cry. wow. what is wrong with me? no joke..

whenever I get a little depressed, I think about my mom and how fortunate I am to have two loving parents. After recognizing that fact, nothings really that bad.

love you mum.

aimless words on video

2010-02-17T00:40:00.000-08:00

How much is it!

2010-02-16T00:48:00.000-08:00

I need to make more movies.

Movies are 2345634534% more interesting than blogs.

blogs are easier to make though.

suck it up.

I wanna make more videos here.
videos are just better.

Like dude, come check out this blog.

no. I don't think so.

More like, dude come check out this video.

word of mouth is what we're looking for.

James had a funny idea. a show called, "HOW MUCH IS IT!" where he'd walk up to anyone like on the street and just ask like,

"hey, how much for your left sock?"
"um...It's not for sale"
"20$?"
"no I'm not giving you my left sock"
"30$"
"no c'mon, (chuckles)".
"I'll give you 50$ dollars for your left sock"
"....ok."

and then we'd put like a big (ding ding ding) gold "50$$$" across the screen.

we wouldn't really buy it, so it wouldn't cost us anything to do it either. but id be funny.

someday we'll go out and do it.

someday.

Irish Mike

2010-02-10T21:54:00.000-08:00

Hey GUYS! hows it goin?

I'm doin very well thank you. Everyone on earth is constantly goes through good times and bad times; right now I'm going through good times.

I went to golds last night at around 12:3AM. Every time I go this late I'll see this dude there, an employee. He's like the only 'real' guy running the place with an actual gold's shirt. The rest are all janitors. He looks like he might have downs syndrome, but I'm not sure.

As I was walking out, I thought I'd go talk to him.

"hey man, I see you here late, do you work all through the night?"
"(smiles) yes, I work from 9 to 5 every night, I have another job in the daytime too"

He appears delighted to talk to me and truly treats me as a valued customer.

Though, he will not stare me straight in the eye for more than a milli-second. As he talks his eyes are fixed on this imaginary something about 3 inches to the right of my eyes. It's a little hard to listen to him talk to me without turning my head to see what his eyes are fixed on.

Other than that, his english is smooth and his tone resonates comfortably.
He has a european accent.

"Do you ever sleep?"
(laughs)
"Yes, I get about 4-5 hours...I don't need much sleep."

"I see you sometimes at UVU too, are you doin school on top of two jobs as well?"
"haha no, I have my bachelors from there and I'm trying to go to graduate school, but right now I help out with suicidal victims."
"oh wow! you like, try to talk them out it? like the students?"
"ya..."
and then he just went off how a lot of the victims were RM's that came home early or just people that felt guilty about something, and that most of them all related to the lds church and parents pressure, etc.

He's from Ireland, from a family of 26 kids! He said three of them died though at birth.
His whole family is in Ireland, and he came to Utah for BYU, after being converted by missionaries in Ireland, but then switched from BYU to UVU after a semester of discovering how, as he said it, "narrow-minded" everyone at BYU was.

Anyway, we talked for about 20 minutes more there at the front of Golds that night about religion, morality, my major, his major, etc.
I told him I grew up in the church, but I wasn't really active anymore.
He then said something like, "Ya, people to need understand that it's really just about how you treat others".
BOOM my friend. BOOM.
So ya, I have a new nocturnal friend I can go talk to if I feel like.

It was cool. If anyone wants to meet him, just go to the Golds Gym on University Parkway in Orem, UT, in the middle of the night, or just after 9 at least. He's awesome.

Peace

Healthiest Breakfast of my life

2010-02-08T08:50:00.001-08:00

2 pieces of normal grandma sycamores toast with butter and jam.
1 grapefruit
1 bowl of old-fashion quaker oats with honey and milk
2 glasses of water on the rocks

and I got 8 hours on top of that.

feelin pretty....legit.

let's tackle the day!

aimless words 5

2010-02-04T22:25:00.000-08:00

stay on schedule.
foggy head.

YOU are the DEVIL.

why can't this chair lean back?! uuuggghhhhh I'm selling this on craigslist.

gonna have to confront Anthony soon here.
"THEir offering a 150 a sale what would you do in this situation? I appreciate you training me and all but heck 75? c'mon man I'm sorry."

something like that.
work, school, school is for fools. Society. People. Society. Pressure. Lose all hope. yeah right. um ...........

"oh why this looks splendid! ho ho. You graduated from UVU with a bachlors in Communications! how IMPRESSIVE!

"oh and look here! says here you generated half a million for DishOne in 2010! this is quite the resume Andrew! When can you START!?"

blah. alskjflaksdjflaksjf.

I touch people.

like I'll touch their stomach, or the side of it, on the waste. I like tickling people. Helps me feel more CONNECTED. I dunno. something about me. Usually it's just girls I like to touch. touchy touch touch.

hahahha.

um. k. get up every morning aaaatttt 8:30. THAT's a good time to start imprinting into my internal sleep clock.

yAY-ya.

moving on.
I've been getting my greens pretty good. ;)

like salad, with red wine vinagrette.

too lazy to look up how to spell vinegarette. gosh. wrong again, red jagged line still under there.

Next big studio party, sure. let's go. I haven't been in a while.

Need to research 5-hour energy, see how bad THAT is for you compared to redbuulll.

There's no stoppin the cretin from hoppin..bahaljfalkdkladkjaldkjf alopweirupower w.

Gotta hot date friday. ;) that should be fun.

will get my first paycheck the 8th, that'll be nice to see in checkings.

This is one of those times Andrew. Danielle's helping me with my ego-control.
love ya danielle.

Need to see more people. Need to get out to Connecticut.

don't really need anything, BUT ya know...........

Billy Marks

2010-02-03T01:24:00.000-08:00

This guy defines Talent. He's awesome; he's my hero.

my goal in life now is to basically make enough money in the summer, with sales, so I can do stuff like this the other 9 months of the year. I love you Billy.

aimless words 4

2010-01-31T12:39:00.000-08:00

frea he heheaaakkk so Danielle's all, "um, ya so I've been waiting for new post from you for like days and then you post that animation one...uuugghhhh".

well excuuuuuuuuse me. ha

IIII thought it was entertaining, and deserved some credit.

I'm trying to figure out a way to feel just as energized the same way I do on Red Bull but without drinking Red Bull, cuz, ya, it's Red Bull I dunno.

I'm doin ok with my job.

I'm doin fine with school.

I'd give my social life a grade of A-

Gotta get up to Logan soon,

gotta see mike and matt more, lauren and brooke.

Um, meeting new people every week, that's kinda fun, but most of time is a little dumb.

This girl, and I've learned my listen with this, don't ask a girls number without talking to her first, ha. I just walked up to here, and I was intimidated, so all I said was are you single, and then ok, can I have your number, and I walked away.

don't do that. That's like, I dunno, maybe it was just her, I haven't done it like that to anyone else, but ya, she gave me someone elses number.

called it like 3 days after, ya is this manda?

"no? I think you have the wrong number, click".

I saw the same girl like a week later in the exact same spot after the same class, and I went up to her and was like, "hey, I think I got your number wrong" and she just smiles at me says, "no you didn't" with the most evil smirk I've ever seen in my life.

Rejection helps us filter out people like that. but again, she didn't even know me, and I did that whole incorrectly.

cheers :)

sooo much time was put into this:

2010-01-28T02:40:00.000-08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEjUAnPc2VA

I just wanted to show you guys this, cuz it's just pretty amazing how far we've come with animation.

epiphany

2010-01-24T03:00:00.000-08:00

JOhnny Cash you are such a role model. hmm.

I keep a close watch on this heart of mine.
I keep my eyes wide open all the time.

Sales. eehh. loveit.

I had this epiphany like two days ago.
Anthony and I are talking:

"I'm telling you, confidence is nothing but energy"
"wait, so you're saying like drinking cafFEINE is confIDENCE?"
"YES! It's the absence of thought. When you're not thinking, you're just doing, and you're just confident, and that's confidence!"

I knew it.

I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it I knew it!

I had this theory before and I just needed one more person to confirm. It's true.

"so like..ignorance...like IGnorance is confidence? like not thinking?"

"YES! Ignorance is confidence, ignorance is bliss. thinking and analyzing things is all bull****!"

I hit the wall with my hand and just yelled, "I AGREE!"

Next day, selling was cake.

great stuff.

GREAT STUFF.

Don't think, just do. Don'T THINK, just DO. DO. DO!

lahwf.

Tangent Rain

2010-01-22T01:12:00.000-08:00

A friend and I went to this underground concert. One of my roommates, James Belliston, was playing. He did good, he was last, but before him was this group called Tangent Rain. I was really surprised when I heard them. They're pretty new, and I guess I just wanted to claim that I found them before almost everyone else so that when they do get popular, I can just say ya, like ya ME. I asked my friend to take a picture of me and them after the show.

Here's the song that I really liked, listen to it:

http://www.myspace.com/tangentrain

After the concert that night, I had barely eatin anything that entire day, and I was already starving before the concert. We got to the car and we were sooo hungry and just soooo determined to get some reeeeaaaalll goood food. It was like around 10pm. We were soooo hungry. Well, IIIII was hungry. We decided on Chili's. I got this combo classic sirloin&monterey chicken&loaded mashed potatoes&veggies plate. I finished it, and then this piece of chicken off my friends plate. The server had this accent, and my friend and I were tryin to figure out which country she was from. I asked, she said Russia. This was prolly the hottest russian girl I've ever seen. She came after I was done and said, "wow, you finished the whole thing!". She was impressed, I was proud. We THEN got this MOULTON CHOCOLATE CAKE and it tasted like a fancier version of the mcdonalds brownie fudge melt, which STILL hasn't come to the Western United States. anyway this desert at chilli's was superb!

My friend was Danielle Ycmat, and for a tuesday night on 30+ hours of no sleep, I still had a great time. love ya danielle. ;

"Andrew's Bomb Youtube Favorites" List

2010-01-21T22:02:00.000-08:00

I just wanted store all my favorite youtube videos nicely in one place.
I'll keep adding to this list.
It'll get bigger and bigger.

this one's making fun of one of those anti-weed commercials. the embedding is disables so I have to put the url. the cats the funniest part.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_t8DvM2kX8

Poetry 4

2010-01-19T04:06:00.000-08:00

"Ruminations"
by Andrew Hales

It's not terrible
It's actually quite good
I wouldn't change anything
even if I could

I've made mistakes
life's greatest miracle?
man invented "failure"
somewhat hysterical

the past is done
isn't that neat?
no one can really grasp that
not even me

thank you universe
you've been good to me
not sure what I did
just know that I'm pleased

a true lol

2010-01-18T23:52:00.000-08:00

Saturday Nights

2010-01-17T06:51:00.000-08:00

Foggy. My head is foggy. I've been sleeping a lot. I had this song that I wrote all by myself called "I hate/love you", and it was good I remember in the dream. I was playin it on the acoustic guitar and everything, but now I woke up and I can't play one note.

Last night I was at Danielle/Kelsey apts, Raintree, and we heard some loud music playing outside. We went outside and from across the grass were these boys and their screen door wide open and their speakers blasting some Top 40 song. The girls were like, "oohhh those boys are hot let's go dance with them!" I didn't want to spoil their fun so I followed along. They peaked their heads in and we all walked in and started dancing. I wasn't really in the mood, but I forced a side-to-side/half-efforts kinda thing. There were about 4 of the stranger boys that we just walked ourselves into their apt, and us, like 7 people total. I walked over to the counter and spotted a Mountain Dew. I felt the Mountain Dew; It was cold. I placed it under my coat and told Danielle and Kelsey I wanted to leave. They were respectful of my wishes. Once we got back to our apt, I took out the Mountain Dew and started drinking it. Stolen Mountain Dew taste Better than regular mountain dew. We giggled and started discussing how it was wrong but it was funny and that it was just a mountain dew and blah blah when Misty, one of their roommates comes to the room ands like, "dude, Andrew, so-n-so is PISSED you took his Mountain Dew". "How does he know it was me?" "cuz he asked everyone else and he just knows it was you! He's Pissed! He's like screaming "where's my DEEWWW!" and sure enough we could hear this roaring outside, "Dude I want my DEW!!" at first I was scared, but then I thought, "Gangters don't get scared" and I walked outside drinking the dew in front of him and his possy. One guy said, "ooh dude that's F'd up". (These were Byu-approved Raintree folks so he really pronouced it "ephed-up"). I just stood there on the stairs. The Owner of the can I was holding walked out and was just like, "DUDE?!", and we met at the bottom of the stairs.
"hey man sorry I just really wanted some Mountain Dew...I didn't think it would be a big deal...I figured it was somewhat of a party and I was a guest..so I took it"
He is like..stunned. He looks back at his friends ands like, "Can you believe this guy? Doesn't even know me, or us, and just takes whatever he wants out of people's apts!" looking back at me, his friends, and Danielle and Kelsey behind me.
He asks me, "Where do you live?"
"oh I don't live here I'm in Orem"
"Are one of those girls your girlfriend?"
"well...both of them actually"
"ho ho okay then can I just come in that apt and take whatever I want?"

By this point I had already gotten out my wallet and offered him like a dollar. He just wouldn't have it. '

I said, "no man, that's not my apt, here just take a dollar, or the rest of the can, there's like half left. Or I'll tell you what, next time I come here to visit, I'll bring you some Mountain Dew."

There was a little more drama and we parted our ways. He was never really that mad (so he said). It made the night a little more interesting though, and I'm glad he got as excited as he did.

thanks for reading,
Andrew

fishing

2010-01-14T16:26:00.000-08:00

smooothhh.......
"Hey.. um..(slightly smile) are you single?"

So that's what I've been saying to at least one girl everytime I go to the school.
So far I've done it three times as I've had 3 days of school thus far.
It's been interesting. and rewarding! because even if they say like "ha no, I'm married" or something like that, I still feel like a million bucks cuz I'm so proud of myself for makin myself do it. I'll come home and add a tally on my white board. It's kind of dorky, but I don't care, It's ballzy, and I like the sense of accomplishment that comes from doing what you fear. I should have started doin this a long time ago. I would have a lot of tallys then and I'd have all this "proof" for myself to remind myself of my capabilites. Love it.

Love you,
Thanks for reading.

Happy Thoughts

2010-01-12T16:48:00.001-08:00

According to recognized aerotechnical tests, the bumblebee
cannot fly because of the shape and weight of his body in relation to
the total wing area.

But the bumblebee doesn't know this, so he goes ahead and flies anyway.

-anonymous

2010-01-11T15:46:00.000-08:00

I started watching Breakfast at Tiffanys, but then I got bored and did something else.

Tom Green

2010-01-09T01:17:00.000-08:00

I don't know.
A common thing we all say when we're lazy, apathetic, impatient towards things.
James and I are hitting it off way too perfectly too fast as roommates.
I've had this blog for about 10 months now.
Writers block.

Don't want to write about anything I like, that's cliche.
not about anything I don't like, that's cliche too.
not about religion, politics, or history, or art, those are all kind of boring.

There's this guy named Tom Green. He is crazy. Total disregard of other people's opinion of him. Fearless. He's lost it. I love it. Personally, I think his show (the Tom Green Show) was the most entertaining and funny show on Television in the history of all television. Next to Jackass. I don't see it on tv much anymore though. But thank goodness for youtube. He's dirty some of the time, but here's some clean clips:

In Ice Cream, I copied his "mommy I'm lost" thing but at Borders.

content

2010-01-07T16:41:00.001-08:00

I love it when something goes well. Today went very well. I'm excited for the weekend. I love only having tuesday and thursday classes. Fuuun stuff. Umma have a nice 4 day weekend now thank you very much. 13 credits too. Oh, and freaking last semester, I did awesome, surprisingly, I thought I had some hard classes, 15 credits worth. I didn't get anything lower than a B, though my goal was B+, but still, that's good because I prolly would have gotten like C's and D's if I didn't set some goals on paper. Shoot for the stars reach the moon kind of thing. Good stuff. My room mates are amazing. aaaaaaaaaand ya. Life is pretty good right now. Shape your world...............

aimless words 3

2010-01-06T23:29:00.000-08:00

wacko, you can't think clear. good job kid. um . ok.

School is TOday. THAT will be NICE> Iummm exCITED. gosh I love it.

freak. what?

Like I was all up in his grill, and just like, "ya, you wanna lower your phone bill?"
psh,, "ofcourse I wanna lower my phone bill".
and THAT's how i got 106 sales that day. They thought I was a prodigy.
-James.

ya man, the fresh prince thing. SLAP, and then around the shoulder like PSsshh.
ha.

you get over here and you teach me some math women!

whhhaaaattt?? let's be careful then.

ok. I got like aaaallll the blueprints now for James's billionaire takeover google plan. haha.
we taped it.

IT's dope.
I'm not releasing it till he's famous and has bought me a mansion.

let's build a home.
take take take.
CAtch Hell. Blues.

aaawwwwwwwwwwwssssseome.

So ya man, I've just been listening to nothing but rap music. CUZ DUDE, all gangters do is like.......drugs...and....kill people. THat's all they do. (after talking about the trials he's been through that year)
-(not tellin) ;)

soo funny.

on our way to minni. oh schnutts.
k, gonna fall asleep to jack now.

bye.
:)

go go go!

2010-01-05T16:34:00.000-08:00

Get in Get OUT! go go go. go-GO-Go. I swear like a million tthings are going on at once right now. It can be a little stressful. But I'm a laid back guy, it takes a lot for me to get uptight. No it doesn't nevermind I get wound up easily, that's why I like to stop what I'm doing and just write on this here internets. Had a lovely evening in provo last night thank you danielle and cotty and jonny and....oohhh I don't remember the last dude. Played this animal game. It was OK. I got my room all organized down there in provo, in my spankin apt with my spankin roommates. Sick bros. in more ways than one. no jk, the apts just a little dirty but I don't mind ha. Mario is throwin another party this weekend for Gabe, who is turning 24. I was thrilled when I got that text. I got it in the car and I verbally-"YES! UUUgggghhhh". I replied, "yes! I'm so there". Um. Ok, yes, Lauren is going to come groom my beard now. that should be nice. THen I wanna play chess, and then I wanna see her run really fast, cuz I've never seen her run really fast. You don't really know someone until you've seen them run really fast. at least like 50 yards. That goes for all of you who I haven't seen run really fast. I found this new guy, his name's Anthony Jeselnik, and he's has the dryest, darkest humor. I like him.

laughing with da kid

2010-01-03T15:14:00.000-08:00

It's good to stay in touch with people. I don't know, what do you think is better, to have a close nit of friends, like 5-8, or like a bunch, like 50-60, that you just kind of surf through and take turns with every weekend. I think the close nit is prolly better. I'm an intimate kind of guy. I like to really know my people. MY people. I like 'clicking' with people or 'connecting' with them. The best is when you and a complete stranger share a hard HAAARRRDDD chuckle. Now THAT is something to reminisce.
On the trip down to Vegas with my brother paul, and my danielle, and Dad, we stopped at In n Out in St. George, like everyone else who drives down to vegas from utah. got the burger, or no, got the cup, went to the fountain, and it's like packed ya know like everyone and their dog is there all the time, it's in n out, and these two little kids are in front of me, and they're brothers. One of them is like doing the 'suicide' thing mixing every soda in his cup. His brothers just standing next to him, notices me watching his brother do this, and giggles. His brother is doing it fast too like a million miles an hour. He gets to the lemonade and he's in this fast rhythum, and he just smashes this nob to the big lemonade thing all the way off and all this lemonade just starts gushing everywhere, and he's just "Oh Shoot!" ands tryin to just freakin put the nob back on and he's getting all this lemonade on his hand and sleave. So then me and this 10 year old kid(his brother) just start crackin up it was so funny. The manager came out and fixed it. It was so funny. oh man.

and this made me laugh:

Fun Things To Do With Friends

2010-01-03T11:18:00.000-08:00

I will keep adding to this list everytime I get new ideas. It will gradually grow over time into a very large list indeed.

1. approach an attractive member of the opposite sex.

2. people watch.

3. stay up late talking about the universe, time, etc.

4. drink energy drinks and run around bobbing heads to the song "stupid mf" by Mindless Self Indulgence.

5. get on the intercom at walmart, borders, smiths, etc. and sing or say stupid things like "I ate a baby".

6. make a jackass movie

7. go through any drive-thru and get some free water cups. Drive around and throw them at college brat douche bags. No children, or someone who looks like they don't have any friends and are pathetic as is.

8. play with gasoline and matches in a parking lot.

9. freestyle.

10. purposely get mad at each other.

11. drink shasta soda really fast, as fast as you can, down it, and then jump up and down until it all comes back up creating a fountain out of your head.

12. go to DI, salvation army, or the local Free ads and get a cheap/free couch. Bring it to a good view spot and just leave it there at the end of the night of hangouts. Or if it's in the winter, put snowboards without bindings under it and ride down a hill sitting on the couch.

13. Get something expensive like an ipod or a laptop, go to a public place and leave it somewhere. Wait until someone goes to pick it up and then pop out and be like, "YO YO YO THAT - ISN'T - YOURS bbuddy". Be dead serious.

14. Fishing pole + 20 dollar bill + Mall = Classic.

15. If your car is old and cheap and about to break down, you can run over certain 'jumps' on certain streets. You can also run into other people's empty trash cans on the street. It's better if they're empty because it does less damage to the car and there's no mess for the people to clean up.

16. Have a contest to see who can go the longest with out sleeping.

17. Get a door-to-door sales job (they're always hiring), drink a redbull, go powerselling for about 7 hours, and then go blow it all at Vegas for a weekend.

18. Deprive yourself of food all day and then order the classic sirloin/montery chicken combo plate with loaded mashed potatoes and veggies at Chilli's at about 11pm. Finish the whole plate and then order the chocolate moulton cake. Don't order soda, have water. (saves money and health and room for food in your stomach)

19. Anywhere that's open 24/7, (Walmart, Golds, Mcdonalds), and stay there for a ful 24 hours with your friends or until they kick you out for loitering.

20. Go to an all-you-can-eat place like the Golden Corral or Chuck-a-Rama for LUNCH, and then bring a deck of cards, and play until dinner time and/or eat again or get kicked out.

21. Go Powertumbling or to Jump On It, which are like these trampoline/gymnastics places that you can go for like 2 hours for 6 bucks in Orem and Provo, UT.

22. Buy the 5-day-pass coupons at Costco for $250 (50 bucks a pass), and sell them at the Park City Resort to the people in line for day passes for $70 each (saving them 16 bucks off the normal day pass you buy there) and make a profit of $100 (5 x 70 = 350. 350 - 250 = 100). Then use that money to buy a normal day pass and go snowboarding, while still having 14 extra dollars to spend on dinner on the way home. All for free because YOU know how to beat the system. (*be sneaky when selling the coupons because it's illegal and they might do something obnoxious if they catch you.)

23. Go ice blocking, which is buying a big block of Ice at the grocery store and then sitting on it while sliding down slanted concrete.

24. When at a red light, stare at the people next to you. Don't stop until they get out of their car.

lakwuec wkldfj

2010-01-03T00:57:00.000-08:00

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Losing All Hope Was Freedom

2010-01-01T21:53:00.000-08:00

I'd been havin some uncomfortable anxious thoughts lately the past few days. It was about not knowing what's going on here. Like being so confused it hurts. Not about anything here on earth or in my life. A spiritual, philosophical dilemma I'm went through here. I don't know why but just now, like lately, for some reason when I think about how much evolution makes sense and how much it makes sense for man to make religion, I start to feel very lonely and scared. A lost little boy. Like I'm to the point where I almost wish I could believe in God, but knowing what I know now, It's almost impossible now. It's like the people I know, the things I wanna do later, like none of this really matters if you're hurting on the inside. Like I'll picture myself having everything I've ever wanted, and then I'd remember how I don't know what's going on and everything would crumble and none of it would matter. Then I'll remember my site, my blog, my baby. It's like 'oooohhhh duuhhh!' hahaha. Don't even worry about it Andrew, what's the point? be here now, just breath. Be a good person. Love, laugh, live. . . losing all hope was freedom.

aimless words 2

2009-12-29T18:45:00.000-08:00

I didn't do anything today.'veg out'. I woke up at 10am. Came down, apple jacks. came back up, read a little, fell back asleep. Woke up at 3pm. Wow I suck today. Came down, Television. MTV3 is like latin themed or something. It was the 2009 mtv movie awards and right at the best video part, where Taylor Swift wins- Yes, I'll actually get to see this kanye stunt on tv instead of youtube. Kanye came on, and ya, wow, that was obnoxious kanye. I don't even like most of his stuff. I actually think I like more Taylor swift. I got a lot done yesterday. Got my glasses adjusted, as well as my new fake rolex. I wanna see that movie "up in the air". It's rated R though, and the # of people I know that will see it with me is limited. R-rated movies make you a bad person? naaahhh. Make it more difficult to follow the rules of the LDS religion? probably. perfectly understandable. More power to you, to each his own.

If you're content, then don't change. This whole lahwf thing. I don't know. It's a little radical. I don't know if I like it anymore.

Losing all hope was freedom. hmmmm.

I guess you can only milk something so much. Like I feel like we've covered it enough. Like NOW, all I wanna do is write/create FUNNY HUMOROUS posts/videos instead of babble on about this philosophy. The sites purpose will diminish a little, but it will be more entertaining and interesting now without it turning into a lesson. I mean I think I'm done preaching for now.

Like these aimless words posts, they're more fun to write.

Am I growing out of this? naaaahhh. It's wisdom that will always have meaning to me and my life.

I guess all I'm saying is I'm gonna just be the example now, writing whatever, with the lahwf state of mind and that way it will indirectly still be demonstrating itself through the words I type and the attitudes I project. This way the site's domain name and purpose will still be intact, and I'll have more freedom to write about whatever, without worrying about leaving some nugget of wisdom.

And I'm not trying to say "be like me and you'll be happy". I mean I'm always experimenting with new things, learning new things, paradigms, and I'm just sharing them with you, for the purpose of maybe expanding your mind and seeing new perspectives on things. You can take it or leave it, critize it, etc. To each his own. whatever works for you, works for you.

I'm not always in the lahwf state of mind. It takes practice. I try though. It means freedom. I guess that's the one biggie objective here, freedom. So. ya. I'm done here.

Andrew Hales

P.S. thanks

Guinea Pig Diaries

2009-12-27T15:07:00.000-08:00

I read this book. It's called The Guinea Pig Diaries by A.J. Jacobs. He's this journalist and he puts himself through these "life" experiments and then writes about his experience. He has other books where he reads the entire encyclopedia and lives biblically in every way. I don't think I'll read them because I wasn't too dazzled by this one. I dunno, I just don't like his humor. It's...cheesy.
Anyway in Guinea Pig, the first one he pretends to be this hot girl by managing his 'hot' nanny's dating account on an internet dating site. Another one he tries this thing called Radical Honesty, which is just never lying. For example when he's with his wife and she sees some old friends from college and they start mingling and they say, "let's have a playdate sometime!", he says, "well, actually, that's fine I don't need anymore friends right now, and I barely have enough time to see my current friends, so no thanks" His wife was obviously furious after that. So I mean He does all these "experiments" for like a month and then writes about them.
One that stood out to me was "unitasking", which was never multitasking. After reading it I thought that's lahwf-worthy. He wakes up and only does one thing at a time. Brushing his teeth with no news on the radio, eating dinner with his wife without talking to her, etc. only one thing to put all his attention on. He reads books on meditation and others on attention and distractions.
Then he talks about Extreme Focus, or what yoga fanatics call the flow state. This interests me. It's like this highented sense of focus that enables you to perform better on things. Like TURBO mode in a sega videogame. you're "in the zone" or "on a roll". He has this friend who's this Sofer, which is a jewish scribe who copies down scriptures by hand in his own style, artistically. It takes months and years to complete projects and making a small mistake means starting the whole section over. He asks his friend how he keeps from getting bored. The Sofer then excitedly talks about the different angles of letters and all this other stuff. He concludes that the secret to being in the state of flow is to be totally in love with your topic. I like that.
He also then asks, "how do you keep from making errors?". The Sofer then says, "You can't think about it. You're going to mess up. So what? You start over. If you want to avoid making a mistake. You just have to forget about it." Well said Sofer jew. A.J. then adds to it and says, "I know what he means. It's a strange tic of our brain. Sometimes, the more goal-oriented we are, the less likely we are to attain the goal. If you really, really want something, you have to forget about how much you want it. Or else you'll be too nervous to get it." very good.

and then at the end of the section he ends with this line,
"Sometimes, you have to focus on the trees, not the forest".
meaning ofcourse, one thing at a time, or be here now. ;)

New Vids on the Chan

2009-12-24T16:00:00.001-08:00

An interview with one of my Roommates and good friend, Jake.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGavinQNzLE

An account of the time Connor and I spent at the Gateway Mall yesterday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80XcOyjEyyk

thanks,
Andrew

oh and Meddy Christmas

Sing A Long 2

2009-12-22T11:25:00.000-08:00

This is truly an amazing song. My interpretation of it is that it's about this guy, and he's looking into the mirror and he's just realizing the person he's become, and he's dissapointed. He's lived this immature lifestyle and has a hard time committing to things. He's always falling "in love with an open door", meaning the 'easy' girl or anyone that comes to him and likes him first. He's confused and can't figure out what he wants in life.

So! Let's intertwine this with lahwf's theme. The confused, painful state he's in is coming from his dissapointment in his self. He's 'hoping' for something better and he's not content with what he is now. The "tangled thread" (inside his head) comes from focusing too much on his mistakes. He's sad he's lived this way. He has regret. Is regret productive? possibly for the first realization of "oh, I need to change". Let's not keep dwelling on it. Unless you like the pain. Some people acutally enjoy different types of pain. Crying releases endorphins for example, which makes you feel good. Studies have shown that emotions are the most addictive chemicals in the brain. Is it wrong to be depressed then, if you enjoy it? what an ironic question! who knows. Nonetheless, Be here now, this too shall pass, and lose all hope. ;)

With every sun that sets I am feeling more
Like a stranger on a foreign shore
With an eroding beach disappearing from under me

And when my mirror speaks it never minces words
That these eyes don't shine half as bright
As they used to do and they haven't for quite a while

'Cause I'm a man who hides from all that binds
In a mess of fading lines
And there's a tangled thread inside my head
With nothing on either end

I always fall in love with an open door
Or the horizon on an endless sea
As I look around the ones who are standing right in front of me

And then my mirror speaks with irreverence
Like a soldier I can't command
It sees the frightened child in the body of a full-grown man

And he's a man who hides from all that binds
In a mess of fading lines
And there's a tangled thread inside his head
With nothing on either end
There's nothing on either end

A new position for a different view
But nothing changes but the slightest hues
When I am standing face to face

With a man who hides from all that binds
And a mess of fading lines
And there's a tangled thread inside his head
With nothing on either end

I'm a man who hides from all that binds
And a mess of fading lines
And there's a tangled thread inside my head
With nothing on either end

(2X)

There's nothing on the ends
No there's nothing on the ends

Surrealism

2009-12-21T06:41:00.000-08:00

In Humanities 1010 this Semester at UVU, we covered all these art movements throughout history, namely Romanticism, Impressionism, Realism, ect. but the one that stood out to me the most and compelled me to share on lahwf, was...(drum roll).. !Surrealism! It's tight.

It started in the 1920's around WWI, mostly in Paris, and it sought to reunite the conscious and unconscious realms of experience so fully that the world of dream and fantasy would join the everyday rational world in "an absolute reality, or surreality", as quoted by it's leader and spokesman, Andre Baton.

Surrealist writers favored auotmatic writing, because it relied on the subconscious mind. It constitutes writing without consicous intention, often without awareness, as in telepathic or spiritualistic occurrences. The phenomenon can appear during alert or hypnotic states and results in unrelated words, fragments of poems, puns, obscenities, or, even, rational fantasies. I like that :)

Advocates saw Surrealism as a way to discover the basic realities of psychic life by automatic associations. Supposedly, a dream could be transferred directly from the unconscious mind of the painter to canvas without control or conscious interruption. I like that too :)

It's was about the unknown, or 'super' reality. The Surrealist were know for just being weird and absurd and thus interesting.

If you know anything about The Doors, then you know Jim Morrison and his lyrics were ALL about this. One of their most popular, "Break On Through (to the other side)", is all about discovering new paradigms and different ways of thinking and viewing the world, as well as breaking away from social norms and finding enlightenment. I love this stuff. I read big fat book on Jim Morrison in high school titled, Break On Through: the life and death of Jim Morrison. Read it. If you want.

Anyway, here are some Surrealist paintings, and I put Break On Through in the Corner.

-L'Ange Du Foyer Ou Le Triomphe du Surrealisme by Max Ernst, 1937

-Indefinite Divisibility by Yves Tanguy, 1942

-The Elephant Celebes by Max Ernst, 1921

-and my favorite surrealist: Salvador Dali [1904-1989] Legend has it that Dali will deprive himself of days of sleep, sit on a chair with a spoon in his hand, and after the clang of the spoon had waked him up, he'd start painting what he saw:

-Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bumblebee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening 1944

-Soft Construction with Boiled Beans 1936

-The Temptation of St. Anthony 1946 and
The Persistence of Memory 1931 (on bottom)

aimless words

2009-12-18T16:29:00.000-08:00

sitting here not thinking about a thing and I just can't felp but think about that movie "finding forrester", in the part where Sean Connrey's all "we write with our hearts, we revise with our heads" or something like that. bam bam babambam bam bam babambam, dut dudut duhdut dudut. MONEY dut dut dudutdut. Feeling Tired. Last night I went to bed at 1am. woke up at 434am, then went down to the basement of my parent's house and turned on the tv. I watched "Hostel". I had never seen the first one. I went to the second one with Karen and Corynn back in 2007 in the theatres. The Danbury Theatres. Trevor worked there once, but when I now lived here in Utah. I wonder how different my mind, personality, and goals in life would be if I didn't move to Connecticut. I'm glad I did. Really. What is it that makes the White Stripes or Jack White so good. This rawness is so good. raaaawww baby. bump babump BAbump bump. uhmph-uhmph. Trashy, grungy, hard, dirty, in-your-face, just-watch-me, old-fashion, classic goodness. Done with finals, yEs!). Why won't those girls I texted like an hour ago text back? oh well. texting's gay anyway. I mean lame. TALK TO ME ALREADY right? seconds. time. cliche philosophical terms that every teenager talks about and thinks they sound soo smart. My dog, my boston, she's like, tired. She'll move from spot to spot in the room, curl up in a ball, dig her face in her paws, trying to get comfortable. I love it. Dog's are simple. Most of the time they're happy. Probably because they don't think much. It's all in your head, consciousness anyway. I still need to find a hot date and finally go see that new twilight moon. wait a minute. hot date? I've actually come to love some girls that were average looking just because of their personality. Come to think of it, most hot girls are kind of boring individuals, only worrying about their looks, and not other important things. epiphany-don't limit your fishing diet to average sized fish. what? but I want a big fish. ya well the average fish might taste more delicious than the old big fish. High expectations or High Hopes that are killing us. who cares. let's just play basketball. pass it to me! k, watch this. ain't that great? emooootion. Last.fm I've heard this song don't fail me again, c'man. That bored state of mind is so good. AkA that Creative spontaneous mind everyone wished they had when they went to that party last night. It's not that hard. Nothing's really that hard. sometimes you really just need to put your head down through something and suck it up. this toooooooo shall pass. Even this. and that. and that. and that. nothing is really eternal. maybe love? meh. don't start with that shakespeare proper dullness. bores me to tears ooh get it out. ok. The office deserves the best show on tv award. I agree. uumm, please don't make fun of my beliefs. thank you. shawty's gotta melody in my head. :) na na na nanhaaaflasdjf.....................the end.

Poetry 3

2009-12-17T02:36:00.000-08:00

Some Haikus without names...

Time goes by too fast
I don't want to grow up now
Oh well guess I'll live

Pillow beneath me
I thank you for the support
My back feels better

I really like you
It's true I can't resist you
You are just too cute

Haikus are easy
Not too much thought is needed
They are kind of dumb

Jap's think it's cool though
Like this five seven five thing
haha whatever

Some Old Facebook Notes

2009-12-14T22:31:00.000-08:00

So I was just reading some old "notes" I had written on facebook a while back, like almost 2 years ago, and I thought they'd be appropriate to publish on lahwf. Here ya go,

-Thursday, March 27, 2008 at 1:18am

Anxiety? Panic? Nightmare? Reality? Pain?

so its about 1 am, tonight, here on thursday, march 27, and as usual, I can't really sleep, I didn't take any sleeping aid tonight cuz I slept a lot today and it would have just been a waist anyway, I knew I'd stay up pretty late tonight. as I lay in bed trying to fall asleep, I started to think of the weirdest things, things that were so obscure and abstract, plain WEIRD. so weird, words can't describe this stuff. I mean the best way I could explain one of the weird things I was thinking I guess could be summed up in 3 words, "bIg, LitTle, Parts" I mean ya that doesn't really make sense. again I just don't know how to explain these thoughts I get at night, they make me feel really scared and insecure, like I'm the only person in the universe, whatever this life, reality, existence, is. I start to feel closterphobic in my own bed, I start to feel really heavy, like I'm just glued to the bed, and then my mind just starts racing and I can't think straight, I'm panicking, and it hurts, it hurts a lot. what do I do? what do I do? whatever is, it's inside me, inside my head. You can't just put a band aid on it. The fact that this paranoid, confused, anxious feeling is internal just freaks me out that much more. It's times like these that make me want to believe in God, a higher power that can somehow save me...I don't wanna wake up my parents, wussy boys go cry to their parents, no, think andrew, think, think about that movie fight club, think about the benefits of hitting rock bottom....think!!! aaaahhhh. ok. stop. walk around, meditate, calm down....ok, its over, for tonight, its all over, time to sleep. no then it might come back! NO! don't wuss out, you are the captain of your soul, control it! control it! pain is good. pain is good. so be it. so be it. so be it. so be it......bring it on, self. bring it on nightmares, bring it on brain. gosh. I'm so dramatic haha

-Saturday, Feb 2, 2008 at 1:28pm

THE ONE AND ONLY THING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT LIFE

I know I'm stilll only 17, but I'm pretty sure on this,

I've loved self-help books since I was 12, the way they motivate me and inspire me to DO things. But they didn't make me DO anything. Nike's slogan, "just do it" is the most simple, most useful, most brilliantly constructed quote ever made. This piece of advice is more valuable than almost anything.
Forget everything else, and just do whatever NOW, because even you messup, then experience is on your side, IT'S A WIN/WIN SITUATION. If your stuck on a problem, don't worry, don't fret, stop what ever is stalling you, and JUST DO IT. This is all you need to need to know about life.

Thank you for your time,

Andrew Hales

What Else Is There?

2009-12-13T03:30:00.001-08:00

So I've been thinking...if we DO live past death, and we DON'T just decompose into the ground and stop existing, which to me really isn't that disheartning, I dunno, it just isn't because I mean as long as we're not feeling anything and we just don't exist anymore, there's really nothing to worry about there, does that make sense? Like we'll be unconscious, except we'll be dead, we'll just be nothing.

Anyway, say we do live. We're most likely going to keep on learning and have the same mind-set or attitude we had while we were on earth. Like I don't think we'll just automatically be "happier" or "sadder" after death. I think we'll be the same.

Time and whether or not it's eternal...progression...there just HAS to be an end. How can you keep on learning new things? You HAVE to run out of things to do. You HAVE to...

It's sooooo weird to think about if you think about it long and hard enough. Sometimes it gives me somewhat of an anxiety attack. That feeling where you TRULY feel alone. It's like you need to control your thoughts in so that you don't scare yourself so much and make yourself uncomfortable. Thinking can be scary. . . free thinking that is... It's almost like my imagination is my own worst enemy.
BOOM.
epiphany.
Our imaginations are double-edge swords. You can either imagine bad things that make you feel scared and weak, or good things that make you feel confident and strong. Might as well think good things.

You ever feel like you can do ANYthing. I mean like, you really feel like you have EVERYTHING figured out? As far as how to GET something? Neither have I. THANK GOD,

who supposedly DOES. To me, that would really just suck in my opinion. To have everything figured out. Freak, I don't even know what I'm talking about now.

In the MEAN time, let's just do what we can to get by comfortably; by laughing and loving often and much. ;) I love you.

This really freaked me out when I first saw it. Either way, I love the song.

A Way With Words

2009-12-11T17:21:00.000-08:00

As I was just browsing the blogs, clicking the "next blog" button, I came upon this blog called "I am the Walrus". It looked cool so I followed it. This one particular post carried with it our LAHWF theme, so I felt compelled to share it with you:

http://faitaccomplii.blogspot.com/2009/12/liberte.html

Thanks again, Mae. :)

Do This

2009-12-08T16:23:00.000-08:00

A few posts back, the one titled "how to attract women", I said something very profound.

I wanna touch more on it.

It's about how the Univerise ironically works with our mind. The things we're constantly striving for and wanting are SCARCE, while the things we're very grateful for are PLENTY.

At least that's how it is in MY LIFE. Can you notice that in YOUR LIFE?

All I can say is, from experience, when I stop worrying about something, (LOSING ALL HOPE), let's say Girls for example, more specifically (more dates, more interaction), and I just focus on something else in my life, such as THE PRESENT MOMENT: crazy magic happens.

Like what's actually happening is I'm releasing all this stress/worry/HOPE from my life, and I'm unconsciously putting the thought, "This part of my life is HANDLED" in my subconscious mind, ASSUMING the best but will gladly ACCEPT the worst, and then boom, abracadabra, like magic, I'll meet someone new, etc.

There's like all these famous quotes from famous people that support this concept too, I mean, I don't believe the secret as 100% true, but I mean there is SOME truth to it.

Let's look at ONE.

"You become what you think about all day long." -Emerson.

So it makes sense, If you're thinking like, "Oh, I'm in THIS state right now, how can I get in THAT state?". You're always gonna be in "THIS" state as long as your assuming your in "THIS" state and worrying about how you're gonna get in "THAT" state. Does that make sense?

So when you finally stop worrying about it, whatever it is, and just start assuming whatever, I think your body-language changes, your facial expressions change, your tone ALL change, and start corresponding to this now "THAT" self-concept that you are NOW assuming. and then boom your WORLD changes and corresponds to the new YOU. Does that make sense?

So now the question, "well if it's that easy, why isn't everyone good-looking, rich, etc".

I think it's easier to assume something negative. I think it just is. It's a habit, thinking. I think the majority of human beings spend their whole lives in the same paradigm, thinking the same way, mostly because everyone else thinks that way, and because it's familiar, it's comfortable, it's habit. I don't know, this is all theory, but I mean it makes sense to me.

They say your personality is the average of the 5 people you hang out with the most. People influence people, whether they believe it or like it or not. It's HARD to develop and HOLD ON TO a NEW THOUGHT and make it a HABIT when EVERYONE ELSE around YOU is THINKING SOMETHING DIFFERENTLY.

It's hard to be yourself, but it's worth it. It's harder to think positively, independently, but it's worth it.

thanks for reading,

Andrew

Ralph Waldo Emerson, American Philosopher (1803-1882)

state of mind.

2009-12-02T23:51:00.000-08:00

somewhat bored, in a good way that only motivates you to try different things, say different things, to different people, in a different way, that fullfill your 'bored' state of mind. You're subtley 'bored with life'. What happens if I do this? what are the reactions to this? HA! that's great! I love nonconforminism! This is my world, my reality, my playground. I love being here in the present and not assuming anything or worrying about anything that's already happened or just might! Liberation. I can handle anything, try me, see what happens. I love you. Me? What about YOU. Lose yourself in the happiness and intrigue of others. Most people are just thinking about themselves, all day long. Let's take a break from that, our ego, and from our own problems..

"You can get everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want." Thank you Zig Ziglar. That's pretty profound.

Youtube Channel

2009-12-01T03:58:00.000-08:00

Attention everyone! Lahwf now has an official Youtube channel.

It's www.youtube.com/lahwf

Right now there is one video on it. I'm not extremely proud of it, but it will do for now until I make a more interesting one.

here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypYuWBWTQow

"why don't you just embed it here in your blog andrew?"

because when we do it this way, with the link, it stacks up views, and the more views we have on it, the more likely youtubers will click on it, and then it grows popular exponentially that way, and then we're that much closer to ruling the world.

I have a number of youtbe channels I've made. One prominent one is youtube.com/andrewrightnow, and that has most of my whatever vids. then there's /theflowstate which is just trevor and me vids, I don't know where I was going with those.
aaaaaand ya now we have /lahwf! and all these videos will be promoting lahwf.com
sooo
thanks. I love you.

let go. take it easy.

2009-11-30T00:47:00.000-08:00

Freakin Edison

2009-11-26T00:30:00.000-08:00

"Show me a thoroughly satisfied man, and I'll show you a failure." - Thomas Edison

aaauuughh Toooom that contradicts everything I'm trying to say here with this site.

It's true though. It seems like India's a pretty poor country, and are Budhist's monks. I mean, what do they live on? some rice and they live up in the mountains doing nothing but meditate all day on the ATTITUDE of just being "content". They're not accomplishing much except inspiring others to the enlightened state they're in.

If ignorance is bliss. Then what's the problem?

Well, Thomas Edison accomplished quite a bit. He did a LOT. We owe him much respect.

It seems like the stressed out, the strict, the disciplined, the unhappy ACCOMPLISH more than the rest.
While the one's that are fun, that are funny, that are relaxed, and are happy have a harder time applying effort into things.

So It seems like we need to choose between ACCOMPLISHMENT or HAPPINESS/Edison's idea of failure. haha.

Ebenezer Scrooge or Fresh Prince....

Make's a lot of sense to me.....
There are people more motivated by accomplishment and then there are people more motivated by...fun.

I dunno. I'm done writing for tonight. I guess we just need to find a happy medium between the two.

Arrogance Versus Confidence

2009-11-23T18:20:00.000-08:00

These two are so similar. They really are. I mean, both of them get the same things done; they empower you with a sense of "I can".
Arrogance is really just a sleazy form of confidence. You still 'think' you can do something when you're arrogant.
It's high self-esteem. It's high ego.
I think the problem with it though is that it's short-lived and people grow tired of it very quickly. It's annoying.
But, it gets the job done.
Is it wrong to just 'think' you're the Bees Knees, as long as you keep it to yourself?
I don't see why not.
SO! everyone, to be confident, just be arrogant, but keep it to yourself.
haha.

comment your thoughts.

Sing A Long

2009-11-19T22:22:00.000-08:00

There's a lot of wisdom in this song. We can learn from it. I want you to read the lyrics while you listen to it, and just let it all soak in. Enlightenment...

I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind
There was something so pleasant about that place.
Even your emotions had an echo
In so much space

And when you're out there
Without care,
Yeah, I was out of touch
But it wasn't because I didn't know enough
I just knew too much

Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Does that make me crazy?
Possibly [radio version]
probably [album version]

And I hope that you are having the time of your life
But think twice, that's my only advice

Come on now, who do you, who do you, who do you, who do you think you are,
Ha ha ha bless your soul
You really think you're in control

Well, I think you're crazy
I think you're crazy
I think you're crazy
Just like me

My heroes had the heart to lose their lives out on a limb
And all I remember is thinking, I want to be like them
Ever since I was little, ever since I was little it looked like fun
And it's no coincidence I've come
And I can die when I'm done

Maybe I'm crazy
Maybe you're crazy
Maybe we're crazy
Probably

Uh, uh

The Irony of this Website.

2009-11-17T23:39:00.000-08:00

I hate the word 'blog'. I really do. Like it's too close to 'clog' or 'gog' or 'mog' or...'throw-up'. ya know? it's just not..Fresh.

This site is ironic because it discourages 'self-help' books while at the same time gives advice on how to improve your life or enlighten it. I also wanted to say I'm a hypocrite and I don't practice what I preach. This site and the things I wanna promote with it, are really more for me and my own self-improvement; my own dreams, as Andrew Hales.

Today I felt fine. I got enough sleep. I didn't approach any strangers today though. I was stuck in my comfort zone. I told myself, "Ok, lets just approach one hot girl today and whether it goes well or not, you'll congratulate yourself later for just trying and doing it." I didn't do that today. I hardly ever do that. maybe once every two weeks. Partly because I'm very picky, and it takes a real looker for me to go, "oh, she's hot!" to myself, and have it even be worth it. There weren't many lookers today.

Another is because I'm lazy, cowardly, and normal, like everyone else. Normal people don't just approach each other; they usually keep to themselves. It takes a great deal of focused, mental energy and courage to just go and talk to a stranger, especially a good-looking one of the opposite sex. Leaving your comfort zone is very uncomfortable.

It's a skill I wanna master though, that is, approaching strangers with eeeeaaasse and a care-free attitude.
Like skating, I love skating, and I'm so glad I've kept doing it all these years because now, when I go to the skatepark, it's that much more enjoyable because I can do more things and there's more possibilities.. or freedom.

There ARE some days where I'm feeling a little more focused, alert and just plain confident. Flowy. It's a GOOD state of mind. I'm in the zone. I'm happy, and it seems like I could handle just about anything that day. I'll say what I wanna say in class, I'll participate with enthusiasm, and everything's aaallll good.

Halloween night a couple weeks ago is an example. I had a '5-hour-energy' and that just flooded the dopamine. I was on fire at studio, talking, laughing boom boom boom. whatever goes-goes. "whatever man I don't even care hahahaa".. ya know?

You ever see: American Beauty, Office Space, or Meet Bill? The main characters all go through this CHANGE in the story and it's a GOOD change. They start 'not caring' about everything so much, and just start focusing more on what they truly wanted to do in life. They all stopped worrying, and started living. They seized the day.

That right there. THAT is the state of mind I want to focus on/progress to/promote here with this site/blog/throw-up. :)

thanks for reading.

"without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible" - Frank Zappa

2009-11-14T19:49:00.000-08:00

don't buy me anything.
I'm big now.
Let me experience suffering.
Let me understand it.
Let me build some character and have some 'umph' under my belt.
throw me off a cliff, and see what happens.
Let me struggle, let me die,
I'd rather be tough,
then have the tendency to cry,
I don't like myself,
I'm not content,
I could of worked a lot harder,
I could of handled that,
I can't do this by myself,
take my things,
leave my problems,
reject me, free me, and let me see how it really is,
stop spoiling me,
I love you, thank you,
but right now,
I need to learn something,
teach a man to fish,
and you feed him for life,
teach me to handle life,
with out your help,
I don't want your help,
I just want to learn everything myself,
through experience.
experience: to go through. To have firsthand knowledge of states, situations, emotions, or sensations.
the greatest gift of all. 'firsthand knowledge'
give me that,
and leave me be.
My money says god learned everthing through experience.
Let me be a hobo,
let me fail school,
Let me lose my mind to drugs,
let me go to jail,
let it be.
I take full responsibility.
I take full responsibility.

drama paaaaaants!

stop giving me things.
stop it.
I wanna earn it.

earn: To gain (success) through applied effort or work.

leave me strandless.
If anthing bad happens.
so be it.

Let me learn.

let me figure things out on my own.

my own.

Let the world kick the shit out of me. Carve me out of wood. Toughin me up.

I'm on my own.
let me earn independence.

I can't do it by myself.
Just do this one thing for me,
stop caring for me.

I don't wanna be spoiled AAAANNNYYYMOOORREEE.

I can't....

Morality and Religion

2009-11-12T00:58:00.000-08:00

alrighty! the fun and exciting topic of morality.

My mom calls me up last night and tells me, "Andrew, what's this 'no religion, therefore no sin' stuff. Is THAT why you don't want to be mormon? so you can just indulge?"

maaaaaaamm. c'man. Ofcourse that's ONE reason, but there's a lot of other reasons as well.

Why should I do anything I don't need to do, or not do anything that I like doing, if it doesn't hurt meee or anyone else? Isn't that all morality comes down to? treating yourself and others with respect, as YOU yourself would want to be treated? it's not rocket-science.
I don't like going to church, it's boring. Reading the scriptures is boring. Hometeaching, giving talks, saying the prayer. To me it's all unneccessary.

Hold up, I don't want to be Anti-mormon.

It's not that I'm against the Dallas Cowboys or the Whashington Redskins, I'm just not into football. ya get it?

The only difference between a mormon and me, is that I don't necessarily think I've found the one true way to happiness, and I'm not tryin to convert them, or convince them my belief is probably true, like they are me. Although it does get a little old, I don't blame them. They honestly believe with out a doubt they've found a better way, and want to share it with me. I get it!

There a lot of things that confuse me about religion and it would take a long time to write all of them in words, but just one example is the whole concept of God being 'all-knowing, all-powerful, eternal' and knows the past and future.
Like what does he get a kick out of anymore?!!???! If he know's what HE's gonna do next it's like... what? what does he do with his time? He doesn't learn anymore, like wouldn't he lose his mind to boredom if he really was 'all-knowing'. Does this make sense to anyone?

Anyway, I really don't want to offend anyone. I just want to be friends. I'm beginning to realize that religion is almost to par with 'money', in that it's rude to openly talk about it around people you don't really know. I don't know.

Like really, who cares? let's just skate and have fun...ya get it?
let's just hang out...
let's just enjoy one anothers company..ya get it?
Is THIS gonna conflict with our FRIENDSHIP??

c'man...

oh ya, and this made me chuckle. Only in Utah would an ad say this:

touching more on Burning Your Self Help Books.

2009-11-10T14:32:00.000-08:00

OK. Let's not be too extreme and ridiculous. Self Help books are perfectly fine, don't burn them, give them to your local D.I. or Salvation army. It's ok to keep the one's that you want to keep looking at every now and then, as a mental snack. But these are the timeless ones, such as "Richest Man in Babylon" by George Clason. This ONE book can cover your money problems. There's usually just one timeless book for each subject or problem in your life. So DON'T keep buying new ones. You already have all the information you need. The rest, like I said before, comes down to YOU.

I think a big problem with becoming addicted to self-help books is that it keeps you in this mind-set of 'hoping' and 'dreaming' and 'learning' when it's really nothing you don't already know, and now it just comes down to JUST DOING IT ALREADY. Does that make sense? It keeps you in the "not ready" state of mind. You're ready.

"Man was born to live, not to prepare to live." - Boris Pasternack (1890-1960)

Fight Club Quotes: Part III

2009-11-09T18:43:00.000-08:00

"How much can you know about yourself if you've never been in a fight?"

Good point. Bare fist fighting would be the last resort of an argument, and therefore it's good to know just how well you'd do. You get in a fight, you immediately learn a lot about your self because it's based purely on how ballsy you really are. It either reveals your inner wussy or your crouching tiger.

"No fear. No distractions. The ability to let that which does not matter truly slide."

This could possibly be my favorite. It defines the state of mind I pursue. That "flow" I sometimes get where I feel like I can do anything, approach anyone, say what needs to be said, without a sliver of caution or uncertainty. This was said by the narrator of the movie right after Tyler held a gun to a local cashier's head, asking him what he wanted to do with his life. quivering with fear, "Vet..VETERINARIAN! Veterinarian..", and then telling him he if he wasn't on his way to becoming a veterinarian in the next 8 weeks, he was going to die.(He had previously read his address to him out loud looking through his wallet). The cashier ran away, then Tyler says, "Tomorrow is going to be the best day of his life. His breakfast tomorrow is going to taste better than anything you and I have ever tasted". Love it. Do what you love. Do what you love. Do what you love.

"The things you own end up owning you."

Great proverb. Sometimes we care too much about our material goods, when we need to realize that they're just material goods and that family & friends is really all that matters.

That wraps up FCQs. For next time, we will explore something else. thanks for reading.

For more quotes that we didn't cover here, you can go here- http://www.quotegarden.com/bk-fc.html or just watch the movie or read the book.

Fight Club Quotes: Part II

2009-11-08T01:05:00.000-08:00

"Its only after you've lost everything that you are free to do anything."

Makes sense right? It's interesting to think about. You lose your job, then you're free to sleep in and not go to work, because there is no work. You lose someone you love, then you're free to date other people, cuz now you're single. You lose your religion, your belief, then you're free to "Sin" now because "Sin" doesn't exist as wrong anymore. and so on and so forth. You lose all hope, (god, heaven, happiness), you're free to live however you want without guilt or fear.

"I just don't want to die without a few scars."

Let us experience the world and make mistakes. Rejection/Pain is healthy. Bring it on. Bring on the noise, ruckus, and pain john seaberg. John Seaberg is my Tyler Durden. ha.

"Maybe self-improvement isn't the answer.... Maybe self-destruction is the answer."

I just love it when you read something and a little light goes off in your head like "ooooh a new way of looking at it". Free thinking is what's up. This sheds a new light on progression or liberation, where again, pain and rejection are good for the character of a person. Success is the worst teacher.

"...you're not how much money you've got in the bank. You're not your job. You're not your family, and you're not who you tell yourself.... You're not your name.... You're not your problems.... You're not your age.... You are not your hopes."

Looooove this. love it. Pretty much, all we are, then, are the experiences we hold under our belt. Or this could also mean we're just nothing and nothing matters, which leads me to another quote:

"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all part of the same compost pile."

Whaaaat?? but, but, I'm, I, I have purpose! hahaha. who knows. It IS an interesting theory though don't ya think? That is, if humans were just really sophisticated bacteria or something of that nature? hmmm. And if that WAS the case, would anything really matter than to just do what you want and screw the rest? What about order? What about other people? If everyone thought this, id prolly be pretty interesting. Chaotic, scary, and miserable, but interesting.

"I see the strongest and the smartest men who have ever lived... and these men are pumping gas and waiting tables."

I heard this song the other day and the singer said, "if you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough", and so that connects well with this quote. It also correlates with the slogan "work smarter, not harder". Stay in school, get an education, read books, become a lawyer/doctor. Is it calling doctors/lawyers wusses? In the sense that they don't understand what it's like to live poorly, sure. In the sense that they don't experience as much pain as others, maybe. But that's just because they're smarter and prefer to live that way, like most people, which is a perfectly fine and logical route. BUT do they have more character? who knows.....it's debateable.

well, that's enough for today. I'll have part III next and that will wrap up the FCQs.

Fight Club Quotes: Part I

2009-11-06T00:42:00.000-08:00

Let's analyze some important quotes from Fight Club: LAHWF's bible of a movie.

"This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time"

Very good. So this just means don't let life pass you by. Live in the present. Be here now. Cherish every second you're alive. BeCAUSE you COULD just go for a drive and bam, T-bone, you're dead. SO! carpe diem. Let's not waste our life away, because it is indeed ending one minute at a time.

"Fu** off with your sofa units and strine green stripe patterns, I say never be complete, I say stop being perfect, I say let... lets evolve, let the chips fall where they may."

Ok! so this is saying don't chase after material goods, because no matter how many fashionable clothes or Ikea products you buy, you won't find contentment. Instead, worry about what's important. Learning or 'evolvings' important. building character's important. Because these things are priceless and will remain with you forever no matter what. They're yours forever. experience is yours forever. rejection is yours forever. Pain is yours forever. let the chips fall where they may. let it be. this too shall pass.

Tyler Durden: Guys, what would you wish you'd done before you died?
Ricky: Paint a self-portrait.
The Mechanic: Build a house.

Nice, I love this. Do what you're passionate about in life. This is what's important. This is the point of living. This is all that matters. Live the life you want to live.

"Fu** damnation, man! Fu** redemption! We are God's unwanted children? So be it!"

A very nihilistic and liberal attitude indeed. I like this quote because it's so...crazy. It's draws out what's some people's biggest fear, and then says 'SO be it!" facing the fear, accepting it, and therefore freeing the individual from the torment of the feeling of fear. A reverse psychology kind of thing. Accepting the worse brings peace.

That wraps up FCQ's Part I. There's a lot more to look at, thanks for reading.

Oh my bad

2009-11-02T20:39:00.000-08:00

I woke up and had a little under 10 minutes to get to my car and start driving to the mall where the bus then takes me to UVU. I had time to grab 6 carrot wedges and a mountain dew (great combo). So by the time I got on the bus, I had an open can of mountain dew. I walked all the way to the back where I normally sit, and just as the bus started going, I lost control of my stance and from the bus's momentum I hit my body against one of the poles. My mountain dew can was about 75% full and it splashed a little on this blonde's right arm, as well as her purse. She had head phones in, and she immediately hated me, and made sure I knew that with her eyes. This look she gave me was so harsh and degrading I couldn't tell if she was like acting or something; it was so animated. I mouthed "Oh I'm soooo sorry!", lifting my eye brows and all. She didn't take her head phones out, she just looked out the window, now, hating the morning and her life even more. I felt bad, but not after how this girl handled it. I mean what could I do? It was an accident. I sat down right across from her. She kept looking back at her right arm and wiping whatever was on it. It looked dry to me. So did her purse. Then she would look up at at me every so often and just roll her eyes with disgust. It's funny, like beCAUSE this girl was so whiny and harsh about it, I didn't really feel that bad about it. She was already miserable about something. Anyway, the point of this story (besides entertainment), was to emphasize that if we make a mistake, we should do are best to fix it, be polite, etc. and then carry on without any negativity. We shouldn't let other people ever make us feel bad about anything, if we've done our duty to apologize and fix the situation as best we could. We don't need other people's approval. :)

This isn't her, I found this on google, and it's remarkable how well it portrays the actual girls face the entire time.

burn your self help books

2009-10-28T17:54:00.000-07:00

*ok, the topic of why I don't think it's necessary to hold mormonism as 100% legit is a rather elaborate subject and has a lot of thinking and research needed. I'll get back to you on that.

in the mean time, I wanted to talk about self help books.
they motivate you. they promise things like confidence, success, weight loss, etc.
These are things people want desperately, and seeing a book that says "how to make a million dollars" or "how to pick up any girl you want", will trigger a sense of hope in the potential buyer. They think they'll learn some new secret they don't already know, and will just automatically become rich or confident or whatever. These books can give some advice on things, BUT, TRUE CONFIDENCE/SKILL in ANYTHING comes from EXPERIENCE by spending EFFORT over a long period of TIME.

the U.S. self-improvement market is worth 9.6 billion. - Marketdata Enterprises market report

Self help books are good for looking at maybe once or twice, but it really all comes down to YOU.

You can read a million books on surfing, but once you go and finally try it, you WILL fall off.
that goes for dating, starting a business, selling, skateboarding, and everything else. You can't short-cut anything, you just can't. That's just the beautiful design of our universe.

My Religion.

2009-10-16T00:28:00.000-07:00

So all of you that texted me, "Andrew, did you delete your blog?", that really meant a lot to me. Thanks.
This ones for you.

A lot of people have been asking me, "so Andrew, if you don't want to be mormon, then what are you gonna be? what morals are you gonna live by?".

The best answer I can give you, as of now, is that I'm agnostic, with a tad of theist. So I don't think you can be certain about anything, BUT I'm pretty sure there's a supreme being up there.

As for Morals? I'd like to quote Abraham Lincoln, when he said something like, "When I do good, I feel good, when I do bad, I feel bad, that's my religion". So I mean, I'd like to just base my Morals or knowledge of what's good or evil on my own instincts. Some say that's nonsense, people would just do whatever they wanted if everyone was like that. I don't agree. I think the majority of people are good and look out for there own self-interests, meaning they look at the majority of what other people are doing, what works, and what clearly won't, and they conclude that being a nice person get's you much farther in life and makes you feel a lot happier. Hitler and Ted Bundee both were raised christians, so I mean if someone's wants to be evil, they're gonna be evil. It really just comes down to your will, and how greedy you are. I guess the best thing to live by, no matter what Religion you choose or don't do, is the GOLDEN RULE.

For my next blog, I'm gonna talk about why specifically MORMONISM doesn't feel right ot me.

thanks.
Andrew Hales

quote time!

2009-10-06T22:14:00.000-07:00

And so, as I was going away, I was thinking to myself that I was
wiser than this man, for starters. It's likely that neither of us knows
anything worthwhile, but whereas he thinks he knows something when he
doesn't know it, I, when I don't know something, don't think I know it
either. It's likely, then, that by this I am indeed wiser in some small way
than this man, in that I don't think myself to know what I don't know.
Next, I went to another one of the people thought to be wiser than him and
things seemed the same to me, and so I made an enemy of him as well as
of many others.
- socrates

I wanna

2009-10-05T17:04:00.000-07:00

I wanna buy a mac, and make movies with that there imovie on that...
I wanna talk to whoever, whenever I want, with-out any kind of fear...
I wanna have a lot of energy in the day, and no energy when it's time to sleep.
I wanna lots and lots and lots of money.
I wanna be liked by people. I want people to like me.
I wanna get lost in music, and never come out.
I wanna be able to play anything on the piano
I wanna do some stand-up, I wanna make a big crowd laugh
I wanna hard life
I wanna an easy life
I want character
I want experience
I want stories for my grand babies
I want experience
I want experience
I want a huge array of diverse abstract colors on my canvas
I wanna leave normal ville.
I wanna hang out at the spontaneous looney bin of high spirits
I wanna go back and live memories again, or least watch them over like a movie, it's a wonderful life
I don't ever wanna see what the future is like.
I wanna live here and now.
I wanna fall sedated and never wake up
I wanna a bunch of little blonde girls running around in my room ha
I wanna fill my room with baloons like patch adams
I wanna jump in a pool of peanut butter naked ha
I wanna do lsd, just so I can say I did that
I wanna do ecstasy, just so I can say I did that
I wanna get in a fight, and not get hurt too bad, and say I did that
I wanna go to jail, so I can say I saw how that was like
premature enlightenment
I wanna be one of those salesdogs. I wanna come back, chill for the other 9 months of the year.
I wanna a house in park city. parties.
I wanna have a lot of free time.
I wanna sleep in all day, play all night
I wanna live like a rockstar.
I wanna make the world a better place.
I wanna support myself abundantly
I wanna be free from all daddys money
I wanna delete this blog. maybe
I wanna be famous, but I don't want all the anxiety and stress that might come with that.
I wanna go to woodstock
I wanna dream and dream and dream and never do any of this
I wanna go back to high school knowing stuff I know now

I don't want any of this.
this is the way of budha.
The Buddha taught that humans suffer because we continually strive after things that do not give lasting happiness.
let us be content with what we do have now, yet still remaining a good work ethic towards things that we want, as a bonuses to our happiness...

I dunno.

prayer

2009-10-04T05:49:00.001-07:00

shrug..

god, I'm sorry, but if this mormon stuff is all true, then I guess I'm going to have to accept that after death, when I meet you. ya know? are you going to be mad at me for not having faith in you? Is it really going to bother you if I just live my life the best way I know, the way I really believe is correct, while being loving to everyone, and just being nice? Doesn't it all really just come down to being a nice person? I might get angry sometimes..I'll make mistakes, but I promise I'll do my best to be the most loving friend, father, husband I can be...are you gonna punish me for leaving this religion I was raised in? It's just...I'd really much rather accept my ignorance than just blindly holding anything as true.....is that such a crime? Did you not give me a mind that logically thinks and ponders? god, if you love me, why should I fear you? I'd honestly much rather be motivated by praise and love than by fear...that just makes more sense to me... I wanna be your friend, I'm all up for that, but I just don't wanna accept any certain church right now at this point in my existence...including 'the' church, the gospel....are you going to be sad for me for leaving this faith? I'm so caught up in this idea that all the spiritual feelings I get when I think of you, pray to you, read the scriptures, are possibly ALL me... I find it difficult to accept it as you...when I really don't know for sure if it's coming from yooouuu....or mee.......can you understand this dilemma I'm having god? ....... I'm grateful for my life, really... if you've had anything to do with it, THANK YOU.... I can't wait to meet you...

love,
andrew.

more satan quotes

2009-09-22T03:46:00.000-07:00

When I do good, I feel good; when I do bad, I feel bad. That's my religion. -abraham lincoln

I do not believe in the immortality of the individual, and I consider ethics to be an exclusively human concern without any superhuman authority behind it.

True religion is real living; living with all one's soul, with all one's goodness and righteousness - einstein

When we blindly adopt a religion, a political system, a literary dogma, we become automatons. We cease to grow. - anais nin

Among all my patients in the second half of life ... there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious outlook on life. - carl jung

I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure -- that is all that agnosticism means. - clarence darrow

I do not feel obligated to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reasons, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use - galileo

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.- the dalai lama

We can live without religion and meditation, but we cannot survive without human affection. - the dalai lama

Religious suffering is at one and the same time the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is therefore in embryo the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo - karl marx

Mankind has always been but one humanity. We still are. It may even be prophesied that we probably always will be. Our great problem is and has been for ages, how to live with each other, with our fellow human beings. Religion in its core is what Jesus and Buddha and Lao Tzu and all the other sages have declared it to be: loving one another.
- kenneth patton

Only greatly insolent people establish a religious law which is to be taken for granted by others, which should be accepted by everyone on faith, without any discussion or doubts. Why must people do this? - leo tolstoy

Man is the religious animal. He is the only religious animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion –- several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat, if his theology isn't straight. He has made a graveyard of the globe in trying his honest best to smooth his brother's path to happiness and heaven. - mark twain

Truth is my God. Nonviolence is my way of realizing Him - ghandi

The more I study religions the more I am convinced that man never worshipped anything but himself. - richard francis burton

One man's religion is another man's belly laugh - robert heinlein

Religion is comparable to a childhood neurosis. - sigmund freud

I always distrust people who know so much about what God wants them to do to their fellows. - susan b. anthony

Fear of things invisible is the natural seed of that which everyone in himself calleth religion. - thomas hobbes

Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong.

The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus by the Supreme Being in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. - thomas jefferson

If God did not exist it would be necessary for us to invent Him. - voltaire

Religious experiences which are as real as life to some may be incomprehensible to others. - william douglas

poetry 2

2009-09-16T18:54:00.000-07:00

"sleeping-in"
by Andrew Hales

time to wake up,
scam through the day,
my bed feels great,
there's just no way.

let's consider things;
can I miss class?,
'acting' definitely not;
participation to pass.

but could I miss todays though;
is it worth it to miss?
could I fall back asleep;
and go back to bliss?

no andrew we're getting up,
whining is dumb so stop it,
you really wanna stay home today?
be a lazy, inconsiderate hobbit?

I say we embrace life,
we keep our eyes on the prize,
we get up and be happy,
this is where our treasure lies.

love your enemy

2009-09-12T00:14:00.000-07:00

So I'm sitting on my bed in my room. everyones asleep. big wedding day tomorrow.
I was thinking about a certain person, who's been evoking negative feelings in me for the past few days, doing things that annoy me, pushing my buttons, etc. I'd been having 'hate' thoughts for this person for the past few days till now. It's odd. It's like the actual act of hating someone has an addictive quality to it, and you almost like the feeling. and our minds trick us into thinking that and so we keep pursuing the hatred. We all fall victim to this trap often and easily.
...till now
I just did my best to forget about everything I didn't like about this person and focused on how long we've been friends, all the times we've laughed and had fun, bonded, looked out for each other, and i just focused so hard on those memories, and on just loving them unconditionally. and then I did. I love them now. We're back.

It feels a lot better than hating. Loving is always the better route. always. love your enemy.
always love, hate will get you every time. I think there's a song that sings that.

Some film ideas floating around...

2009-09-09T23:03:00.000-07:00

1. "Hobos". Interview actual hobos, Be one for a week, really be one, see how much you can make an hour "begging", etc. The objective of this film would be to gain a better understanding of hoboism. :)

2. "The Flow State". My philosophy of it, demonstrations of the attitude, on and off, how to get into it, origins, examples from movies, music. To comprehend the 'Flow' in all of us.

3. "Out of Thin Air". This film would demonstrate how it's possible to create fun and joy out of thin air by using imagination and creativity to make up psychological games to play with each other or with the public, without spending money.

4. "Awkward Andrew". audio recorder hidden in my shirt, while I have a friend secretly film me approaching strangers, at school, in restauraunts, etc, and just making a complete nervous freak of myself and being as uncomfortable as possible with them.

5. "How to Pick-up chicks". Same thing, except I'd just demonstrate how to properly approach a girl and get her number, all while putting random tips on being attractive to girls in between scenes n stuff. haha. (This one would be more on the joking side)

6. "The Other Side". My definition of it, nihilism, insanity, drugs, looking at Jim Morrison and his message, movies, music, demonstrations of the attitude, liberation.

Like aren't those some DANG GOOD ideas???
I KNOW RIGHT????
NOW THAT'S WHAT I CALL ENTERTAINMENT.
I wanna make all of these someday.

insecure

2009-09-06T21:07:00.000-07:00

so right now, I'm lying my head down on the floor, why I blindly ype this .... whats this thing called...lets just call it a post. I can't see a thing I'm typ[ing. Depending on bad it is, I might make some corrections, otherwise, I'll leace it the organcic authentic origianal way it is. My head is lying down on the carpet, why my finger tips freely just type away on on my lap top. Hopefully its correct enoughh to read and comprehend. Its a good thing I lerarnd homerow. haha. I can alread tell I made some erros. oh well. school is going good. I like school. I will put school first. I miss brookie. I miss lauren. I miss sethg and ty. , I don't know konw what I wanna do with my life. I think I wanna just not be mormon. My re religion would be "I don't know" I woul dbelong to the belief of "I don't know'. Is that sucha crime? will I brun in helllll????????? I need to just finish the book of mormon. I can't really argue anything unitl I've read that whole book! uuuuggghhhhh. enought of this. I'm gonna just read it. finsih the damn thing.

Inglourious Basterds

2009-09-01T23:17:00.000-07:00

ya, I liked it. I'm a Quentin lover. He just...it's as if he makes movies just for HIMSELF. He'll just throw whatever he wants up there on the screen, whether you like it or not. Every Quentin Tarantino movie pretty much has two main ingredients: nutty, show-everything violence and witty, realistic diologue. We have people who absolutely adore his style and then we have people who walk out of his movies within the first 10 minutes, repulsed and disgusted. Jake and I are big fans, and we left that night satisfied. The beginning sets up the audience to have an initial hatred for the nazi, where a main detective, "the jew hunter", comes and visits a friend, with whom we soon find out is hiding jews, and the thing about this scene is it's just so riveting in the way it builds up tension, minute by minute, word by word. Like I was really creeped out by this nazi detective because he's just so charming and calm, yet at the end of the scene we have him finally just ask his friend, "where are they?". The rest of the movie show's the 'inglorious bastards', with Brad Pitt their leader, as this independent, gorilla type group that goes around taking over nazi troops. There's some pretty epic shoot-outs, and it's just awesome the way it's edited. Like bambambam. clipclipclip. Oh and then the ending. I always love how he shows the first ending credit: some final, cliche phrase said by a character, while a songs playing lightly in the backround, and then boom "Directed,Written, and Produced by Quentin Tarantino" on black, volume to song raised. It's always so profound. Love it.

some goals

2009-08-28T17:13:00.000-07:00

I will go to bed no later than 1am, and get up no later than 9pm.

I will put school first, with the intent of getting nothing less than a B+.

I will read the Book of Mormon, cover to cover, as many times as it takes to fully comprehend it, all while praying morning and night with real intent, and doing my best to not be bias towards either side. (true or not true)

I will make an effort to approach at least one stranger everyday and talk to them, building my network of friends. heheheheeeeee.

I will go to gold's at least 4 times a week.

I will get money and get paid. Ha HA

I will out-polite my fellow humans.

I will make an effort to stop and appreciate my life at least once a day.

I will take responsiblity.

catchy chorus

2009-08-23T22:02:00.001-07:00

plans

2009-08-19T00:49:00.000-07:00

lets see.
we have...this normal looking house, but big inside. There are lots of trees and fun exotic plants around the house, with a beautiful luscious garden with flowers and a strawberry patch and a blackberry patch. You walk inside, and the room should say "simple", the walls are white or very light blue. Every 5 feet or so the wall will have a picture of art or somethin pretty. The carpet is bright. I don't care what color it is, just bright. We walk in, and we have this very simple, very large living room. Nothing cluttered. Nothing complicated. There's a piano somewhere in the living room. There's a study, with a very comfortable couch n pillow, lots of light, and good books. We go downstairs and we find the ceilings of the basement are very high, and only half the basement is finished. The unfinished half has a mini-pipe, flat rail, flat box, and a 5 stair w/ a 4/ft handrail. There are couches, a frigde, and a mac that's hooked up to speakers. On the finished half of the basement, thats seperated by a sound-proof wall, we have: couches, a big patch of carpet for doing whatever, a projecter room, pillows, a bar, a churro machine, a fridge stalked with sobe, snapple, and bottled water. a room where the floor is all trampoline, but a softer material, and the walls are soft pillowy, and one of the walls don't exist but is just a big wide opening to another 20ft deeper level of the house, a big foam pit, and there's gigantic fans just blowing this room all the time, keeping it cool. There's obviously a built-in speaker system that plays glorious music. Everything is big.

You elevator back up to the basement, from the foam pit, and go outside in the back yard, where there's this beautiful view ofcourse, of your city, and you think, "aaaaaaaaahhhhh.......I'm whats up."

another pointless video

2009-08-17T01:29:00.001-07:00

This is trevor taylor, he's one of my best friends.
This is just a video of us playing off each other.
some of it might be a little crass? I dunno. I'd say it's PG.

Brownie Fudge Melt

2009-08-15T09:56:00.000-07:00

k, I'm at the mcdonalds in uh, lake george, and, I've been tellin everyone in utah about this,

brownie fudge melt, and I just wanna show 'em through video here, facebook..

"It's called the 'Brownie Fudge Melt'?

It's called the

'Brownie Fudge Melt', and I got one here, they have 'em in the east here the mcdonalds, this is

what it looks like, it's just like this, and its, it's really good. and uh, that's what it looks like,

so, now you know I'm not lying. When it comes to Utah finally, you can uh, look at me remember Andrew

told you so, and ya, I knew about em before you, hahaha. ya cut.

Person of the month

2009-08-13T00:54:00.000-07:00

Love is a beautiful thing.

I don't wanna sound all gay and wishy washy but ya know what, screw it. I'm a dramatic feeler and I can say gay stuff if I wanna.........

I love Danielle Ycmat. She's a very loving person. You're a very loving person Danielle. I can feel your excitement from here, sitting in my chair, in the past, about what I'll say next. You have such a loving smile and you're just so accepting of others. It's almost like you carry yourself around others in such a way, that it's like you just GET IT. Like you're just not clueless at all. Such a calm presence. I just wanted to let you know I adore you. Hey, remember person of the month? I forgot June and July, but hey, whatever let's give 'person of the month' to Danielle Ycmat! yay!

Adventures Dooring

2009-08-10T19:39:00.000-07:00

so let's recap some highlights from selling door-to-door shall we....

1. Lady opens the door, and right then as I'm starting my pitch the rotating sprinkler on the lawn starts to hit me, pushing me towards the lady as I try to dodge the stream of water that's already soaked half my back. "oh! ha heh, I, ugh,,". Then the lady looking at my situation bursts out laughing. I am clearly embarrassed now. She mutters the original, "I don't think I'm interested" and shuts the door. I'm run off to safe dry area. wow, nice start to wonderful day!

2. Today actually, after looking through the entire book, the dude says, "ya I don't think so :)" handing it back to me. I say, "ok, that's fine, thanks for ya time anyway :)", and then I walk away, no looking back. Then his little dog follows me out to the end of the porch, where he's like, "sasha! come! Come on!". And usually dogs obey their masters, but this little scotty thing just kept on following me, aaaallll the way to the house next door, while the dudes temper just keeps rising "SASHA COOME!", and it's funny, cuz like while the dogs by me the whole time, getting farther from the master, the dudes just standing on his porch, yelling louder and louder, and me and him have already established awkward rejection together, so then ha ha finally, he just yells, "AAAHH F-kin DOG!" and runs after her, picks her up, and stomps back to his house. Waiting for his neighbor to answer, I just stand there. wow.

3. Sometimes it's hard to tell whether or not someone answering the door is the mom/dad OR one of their kids. really. While selling with Matt one time, this female was washing her car outside on her driveway, There were little kids running around, and she looked old enough to be a mom. I just came up to her and did my thing, mentioning "ya and like there's all these places you could take the kids too", and then she laughed and said she didn't have any money and didn't know know when her parents would get home. I just acted surprised, smiled, said 'have a good one'. Matt laughed his head off.

4. And then I laughed my head off when Matt did his first door. He was so nervous and he just stuttered and totally went red and looked down the whole time. It was marvelous. The 'shy-cute-kid' technique is gold. She felt bad and bought one.

5. Sometimes you run into people you know, and then it's a little awkward. Girl opens the door, and we both brighten up, "do I know you?", and then we talk it out and figure out where we've seen each other, what friends we have in common. Where then I'm just like, "so anyway, your parents home?". haha. it was Jessica Briggs anyway if ya know her.

6. Sometimes I do the same door twice accidently. They'll open the door, both realize my miscalculation, force a chuckle, sorry bout that, and quickly walk away.

7. This one lady peaked her head out, took one look at the wad of books I was holding, and immediately tells me, "nooo nooo nooo not interested, noo" pulling the door back, where I quickly reply, "I haven't said one word", staring her straight in the eye. She stops pulling the door, opens it back up and says, "ok fine what is it". I sold her one!

8. Sometimes it takes someone a long time to come to the door, so when your standing there waiting on the porch, you can sometimes drift off and space out about whatever. This one dude finally opened the door but in a fast sudden way and it startled me, where I jumped back a little, knocking over this metal pot thing on top of this other metal thing that was on his porch. It made this loud clangy noise. I begin to put the structure back together while at the same time, "ha ha, sorry to bother you, I'm just.." and ya awkward. He didn't buy a book from me.

One liners

2009-08-06T12:01:00.000-07:00

To me, one of the most relaxing places to be is the SuperMarket.

2009-08-03T07:25:00.000-07:00

It's important to just do what you want. figure out what you want. Think it about it really hard. Don't do anything else into you've figured that out. Don't waste your time with people who don't love you. Just...ya. Figure out what you want in life, and go get it. That's all I have to say.

do what you want, and f the rest.

stay hungry. stay foolish.

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

goodbye.

Alpha Dog Review

2009-07-31T00:59:00.000-07:00

I'm trying
I'm not
I don't want to
maybe
why not
I don't know
Is a very easy thing to say
yes it is
people
life
thoughts
typing.
typing.
camera
filming
movies
intrigue me
Alpha Dog!

Alpha dog was a sick movie. Ever since I'd seen the trailer for it back in 2006? I'd wanted to see it, and last night, I FINALLY did. It was in the 5 buck cage at Valmart. It was late, I was bored, and there was at least one good quote praising it on the back, so I bought it. went home, watched it on my laptop, at like 6 in the morning. ya I need help. anyway, the movie was dang good. I LOVED IT. Why? umm, I don't know, it just held my attention the entire time, I was intrigued the whole time, just on the edge of my seat, anticipating what happens next. It was just awesome. It's rated R though for drug use, a lot of F word, violence, and a little sex. But that's besides the point. It's ABOUT these young drug dealers, (early 20s), in the rougher part of L.A. who get in a quarrel because one owes the other like 800 bucks, and they fight, and then one spontaneously kidnaps the other ones little brother, with the intention of holding him ransom until they get the money. At first it doesn't seem like a big deal, but then they start to realize what they get themselves into and later on figure out that kidnappings a life-sentence and so now they're freaking out and don't know what to do, and OH I JUST LOVED IT!!!! I thought it was a way cool movie. Justin Timberlake plays a big part in it too and did a pretty good job acting in my opinion. AAAAH I love this movie. haha. see it. OH YA, and it's all based on a true story. The 'jesse james hollywood' case in 2000. So ya. That made it all the more interesting.

poetry

2009-07-28T19:25:00.000-07:00

"free your mind"
by Andrew Hales

do whatever you want,
reactions are interesting,
being weird is better,
than doing the same old thing,

people like their comfort zone,
it's perfectly normal to feel,
that assuring, neutral peace,
that comes from not being a big deal,

do whatever you want,
I won't judge you,
I'll admire your independence,
and your courage too,

people might laugh,
people might glare,
but deep down inside they're just jealous
of your ability to dare.

definitions

2009-07-26T00:30:00.000-07:00

As boring and plain as it is, I could read the dictionary all day. It's just interesting to see how lexicographers(one who writes dictionaries) define certain words. I admire how un-bias and straightforward it is. It's just completely with out opinion. I love it.

these are all from dictionary.com, I just copied and pasted..

anger: a strong feeling of displeasure and belligerence aroused by a wrong; wrath; ire.

belligerence: a warlike or aggressively hostile nature, condition, or attitude.

jealous: feeling resentment against someone because of that person's rivalry, success, or advantages.

fear: a distressing emotion aroused by impending danger, evil, pain, etc., whether the threat is real or imagined; the feeling or condition of being afraid.

pain: mental or emotional suffering or torment.

distress: great pain, anxiety, or sorrow; acute physical or mental suffering; affliction; trouble.

suffer: to undergo or feel pain or distress.

greed: excessive or rapacious desire, esp. for wealth or possessions.

addiction: the state of being enslaved to a habit or practice or to something that is psychologically or physically habit-forming, as narcotics, to such an extent that its cessation causes severe trauma.

independent: not influenced or controlled by others in matters of opinion, conduct, etc.; thinking or acting for oneself: an independent thinker.

happiness: good fortune; pleasure; contentment; joy.

pleasure: worldly or frivolous enjoyment: the pursuit of pleasure.

contentment: the state of being contented; satisfaction; ease of mind.

joy: a state of happiness or felicity.

felicity: the state of being happy, esp. in a high degree; bliss: marital felicity.

bliss: supreme happiness; utter joy or contentment: wedded bliss.

arrogance: offensive display of superiority or self-importance; overbearing pride.

pride: a high or inordinate opinion of one's own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct, etc.

emotion: an affective state of consciousness in which joy, sorrow, fear, hate, or the like, is experienced, as distinguished from cognitive and volitional states of consciousness.

smile: to assume a facial expression indicating pleasure, favor, or amusement, but sometimes derision or scorn, characterized by an upturning of the corners of the mouth.

laugh: to express mirth, pleasure, derision, or nervousness with an audible, vocal expulsion of air from the lungs that can range from a loud burst of sound to a series of quiet chuckles and is usually accompanied by characteristic facial and bodily movements.

soul: the principle of life, feeling, thought, and action in humans, regarded as a distinct entity separate from the body, and commonly held to be separable in existence from the body; the spiritual part of humans as distinct from the physical part.

spirit: the principle of conscious life; the vital principle in humans, animating the body or mediating between body and soul.

character: the aggregate of features and traits that form the individual nature of some person or thing.

work: exertion or effort directed to produce or accomplish something; labor; toil.

lazy: averse or disinclined to work, activity, or exertion; indolent.

idle: not working or active; unemployed; doing nothing.

shy: easily frightened away; timid.

timid: lacking in self-assurance, courage, or bravery; easily alarmed; timorous; shy.

confident: sure of oneself; having no uncertainty about one's own abilities, correctness, successfulness, etc.; self-confident; bold.

bold: not hesitating or fearful in the face of actual or possible danger or rebuff; courageous and daring.

love: a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.

tempt: to entice or allure to do something often regarded as unwise, wrong, or immoral.

right: in accordance with what is good, proper, or just.

just: guided by truth, reason, justice, and fairness.

reason: a statement presented in justification or explanation of a belief or action.

art: the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.

beauty: the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest).

friend: a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.

best: of the highest quality, excellence, or standing.

good: morally excellent; virtuous; righteous; pious.

evil: morally wrong or bad; immoral; wicked.

determined: decided; settled; resolved.

hate/love

2009-07-24T16:11:00.000-07:00

I hate/love:

texting
school
sleeping
the sun
working
studio 600
girls :o
computers
mcdonalds
death cab
the doors
selling
skating
myself
drugs
filming
facebook
candy
soda
tv
money
dumb people
smart people
thinking.........................................................................

and this song.......ahhhhhhhhhh I LOOOOOOOOOOVE.

universe

2009-07-21T04:06:00.000-07:00

the universe works in mysterious ways. "we don't know a millionth of one percent about anything." - edison. interesting.

it's 5:23 am, here on tuesday now. I feel fine. I feel...relaxed. very relaxed. not tired, just...relaxed. music's playing lightly. moby.

ok reality. Reality is....everything that IS NOW. It's everything you perceive in the present moment. or....it's how things really are. REALLY are. It's what's true or in fact. hmm.

so when Jim Morrison replied to his infamous exposure incident at one of his concerts in trial, he says, “Let's just say I was testing the bounds of reality. I was curious to see what would happen. That's all it was: curiosity.”

I like that.

what I don't like is that there are some people I know in my life that don't like that. They say no andrew, that's dumb. live a normal life andrew. you'll be happiest. grrrrrrrrrrr.

"a normal life is boring" - eminem. from 'lose yourself'

I'm prolly not putting my thoughts down here well enough for you to understand. OH WELL.

This blog is dumb. I'm a freak.
you're not a freak andrew, you attention seeker.
oooooh sssssnap.
hahahaahahaahahaha.
I'm not laughing. but it is really easy to just type h then a then h then a then h then a then h really andrew?

so it's stuff like this, like up there, what you just read, that scares me the most. I know you're just looking at it like.."wow, andrew's a little psycho/on something/etc".

But IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII look at it like art. It's my feelings, my drama, my head, my mind, myself. and it's interesting. to me at least.

night. or morning. I'm going to go visit my subconscious now. (sleep).

7 minutes later.

“For me, insanity is super sanity. The normal is psychotic. Normal means lack of imagination, lack of creativity.” - jean dubuffet

beautiful. now it's not so scary. now I can sleep.

night

oh and this is presh.

yoga words of snack

2009-07-17T00:50:00.000-07:00

This article was not written by me. I read it somewhere on the web, copy and pasted it, and now I can't find the website it was on I don't remember. oh well.

I love this kind of stuff.....:

Our lives are inundated with practicality and productivity. We think that if there’s no purpose to something, there’s no point in doing it. In reality the best things in life have no purpose.

We sacrifice our time and our sanity doing what we don’t want to do, so at some future point we will create the freedom to do what we love.

We seek happiness in things. We seek happiness in the acceptance of others, in material possessions, in social status. We even search for happiness in some future-promised afterlife. We sabotage ourselves and our entire lives because we fail to understand a very simple but easily overlooked fact.
The Search for Happiness is the Single Greatest Cause of Misery

You can’t find something that’s already there. Happiness exists now. It’s not something you have to find. That’s like trying to find your breath.

It’s the grasping of the mind that causes unhappiness. If you’re not happy, it’s because your mind doesn’t allow you be happy. And the reason your mind doesn’t let you be happy, is because you’re stuck in the vicious cycle of productivity, judgment and purpose. That’s not to say productivity is bad, or that doing things that have a purpose is wrong. It’s basing the reason for your existence on them that causes so much anguish.

When we place our happiness solely in “getting” something, completing a certain number of tasks on our to-do list, or achieving a goal, we’re fooling ourselves. We’re like a rabbit with a carrot stick attached to our heads. We keep chasing the carrot, but we never get there. We never stop to think that it might be the chasing that’s causing the problem. We’re too distracted trying to find a better way to beat the game. As soon as we reach one level of success, we’re hurrying to upgrade our search and move on to the next level of the chase. We never stop to think that it’s not the failure to win the game that causes our grief, but the game itself.

We neglect to realize that sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to stop participating in the problem. Sometimes the best way to to solve a problem is to just stop caring (see: not giving a damn).

Sometimes…

* The best way to solve the problem of not having a lot of cool friends is to stop caring about having cool friends.
* The smartest way to be happy with the place you live is to stop caring about living in a two story house with a pool, a fireplace, central air and satellite TV.
* The simplest way to be content with yourself is not to achieve greatness and praise, but to accept yourself fully for who you are now.
* The quickest route to happiness is to stop caring about finding happiness and to start being happiness.

By not caring, we immediately release ourselves of the grasping of the mind. But it’s not easy to stay in this mindset (the mind loves to grasp); it’s something we have to constantly cultivate.

It’s especially difficult when our society tends to place more value on things, than on experiences. We value what we do more than how we feel.

This is completely ridiculous when you think about it. Because the way you feel should be more important than anything else. Isn’t the purpose of everything you do to feel good? Isn’t the purpose of that new car, that promotion, or college degree to give you a feeling of accomplishment? Isn’t that supposed to make you happy?

The problem with this is we’re basing our happiness on temporary things. We’re deriving our joy from an achievement, or an attainment. This isn’t true happiness; it’s an addiction. We get a short burst of endorphins to our bloodstream from our new TV/television, or new iPod, and then what happens? It disappears. It leaves us feeling empty and we begin looking for our next fix.

Our advertising and consumer culture doesn’t help this much. We are constantly bombarded with messages that we need this, or we need that. Incessantly, we hear: “Buy this and it will solve your problem!” If only we could solve that problem we may finally be happy. Wrong. It’s not the problems that are the problem. I mean, buying a more efficient vacuum or sowing on that button you’ve been meaning to for seven years is great. You may feel a sense of achievement for a few moments or days. But you’re still looking for happiness in a thing.

It’s the same with productivity. If only we could finish all of the things on our to-do list, could we be content. If only we could accomplish all of our goals, could we finally be gratified. This thinking is based on the illusion that you’ll reach a certain point where everything is done. You finally made it! There’s nothing left in your inbox, all your projects are complete and your lifelong goals are achieved! Now you can rest easy.

But this point never seems to come, does it? That’s because there will always be things to do. There will always be challenges, because everything in life is constantly changing. If you reached a point in your life where you had no more problems, no more struggles, no more worries, life would stop. The game would end and there would be no point left in playing.

So… what can we do about this?
We Need to Stop Caring

That doesn’t mean we stop trying to achieve our goals or striving for personal growth. It just means that we no longer base our happiness on fleeting, semi-permanent things.

There are obviously some situations where not caring may have serious negative consequences (see paying your rent). Excessive caring, however, is likely to make you miserable.

The reason caring too much can be detrimental to your health, is you’re so focused on the future. Your identity is too attached to outcomes. If something does, or doesn’t go your way, it will likely have an enduring effect on your mood for the rest of the day.

Instead, we should base our happiness on permanent things. Things that don’t change. Desires that don’t shift from moment to moment. We choose to find our happiness in living. In life itself. In fact, we don’t even need to “find” happiness. We can be happiness.

So stop searching. You can’t find something that’s already there.

Constants

2009-07-16T00:10:00.000-07:00

Seven Peaks today was a blast. Good to get some more vitamin D in my skin.

Summer is goood. Love summer. LOVE summer. LOVE SUMMER! LOVE SUMMER!!!

also love this. I think She's great.

She inspires me to be myself and practice the piano more. Poker face is such a hit. ugggghhhhhh.

Some things that remain constant in my life:

1. money. I've never really experienced true poverty, and it will always be like that, because my brain and thoughts don't know anything else, and my comfort zone is set at what it is, and so pretty much no matter what I do in life, I'll remain at this level of wealth, or higher. It's inevitable. My mind simply doesn't understand how else to live. You never see people who are poor who came from a rich family. never. But you DO see people who are rich who came from a poor family. interesting.

2. funny. I've always naturally understood humor and how to trigger it at the exact moment. A lot of being funny is just not caring, saying what you wanna say. I'm not really sure why some people are funny, and some aren't as much. I remember my older sister jaclyn telling me at a very early age that girls really like funny guys, even if they're butt ugly. Maybe that triggered a deep drive in me that motivated me more than others to be the 'funny guy'. hmm.

3. skateboarding. Since about 10 years old, skating has been my #1 hobby. I played soccer, basketball, band, and other stuff growing up but I've spent more hours skateboarding than all of the other activities combined, x 7 even. I've been through at least 100 skate decks by now. It's been the one physical activity that I'll work so long and hard at, sweat my brains out, and still keep doing cuz it's "fun". I think if it weren't for skateboarding, I'd be overweight because I have a poor diet and I don't excercise regularly.

4. digital media. I've always liked playing with the camcorder, filming stuff, editing stuff. Even before I could edit with imovie on the mac, I actually knew how to add music to video and edit manually by connecting a cd player to the vcr which was connected to the camcorder (really oldschool stuff). My brother and I have always been the 'tech-savvy' siblings who would help get the dvd player to work, computer to unfreeze, etc. I'm proud of it. Technology's important to me.

5. Music and Dancing. It sounds a tad homo, but I actually remember dancing to Michael Jackson's thriller, beat it, billy jean, and bad, which were all in that row on a tape, and I'd just blast that in the basement, and try to imitate the oh-so-awesome Michael Jackson. That was when I was 8 or 9. I remember going through that tape that at least 15 times before I got sick of it. I still dance. Listening to music on my walkman, portable cd-player, and now ipod long into the night has been a habit my entire life. It's probably contributed to my night-owl sleeping schedule.

6. Almost everyday now after graduating from high-school, I've stayed up late, and slept-in during the day. That's gotta change.

Well, I'm done blogging for now. Thanks for reading about me. It makes me feel special.

Why I'm intrigued with selling: the world's worst job

2009-07-12T23:15:00.000-07:00

A lot of people look at selling as a lower-class, sleazy, annoying second-rate occupation that's best suited for the uneducated. Society as a whole has a general bias against salespeople.

Let me tell you why you should RESPECT anyone that sells anything:

Sales are the oldest profession in the history of the world. It is one of the few professions that will never become obsolete. No matter what happens with technology, there will always be products and services to sell.
Salespeople are some of the most important people in our society. Without sales, our entire society would come to a grinding halt. The only real creators of wealth in our society are businesses. Businesses produce all products and services. Businesses create all profits and wealth. Businesses pay all salaries and benefits. The health of the business community in any city, state, or nation is the key determinant of the quality of life and standard of living of the people in that geo-graphical area.
Salespeople are the most vital people in any business. Without sales, the biggest and most sophisticated companies shut down. Sales are the spark plug in the engine of free enterprise. There is a direct relationship between the success of the sales community and the success of the entire country. The more vibrant the level of sales, the more successful and profitable is the industry or area.
Salespeople pay for all the schools, hospitals, private and public charities, libraries, parks, and all good things that are vital to our standard of living. Salespeople-through their sales and the profits and taxes created by successful companies-pay for government at all levels, for all welfare, unemployment insurance, social security, Medicare, and other benefits. Salespeople are essential to our way of life.
Almost everything Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Fortune, Business Week write about has something to do with sales. All of our financial markets, including the price of stocks, bonds, and commodities, as well as current interest rates, have to do with sales. Salespeople are the "Movers and Shakers" in our economy.
74% of self-made millionaires in America are entrepreneurs. Among entrepreneurs, the single most important skill for success is the ability to sell. Every other skill can be hired away from someone else. But the ability to sell is the key factor determining a company's success or failure.
Salespeople today are some of the highest-paid people in America, often earning more than doctors, lawyers, architects, and persons with extensive academic degrees.
Sales is a gainful profession. In sales, there is no ceiling on your income. Selling is the only field in our society where you can start with little skill or training, come from any background, and be making a great living in a matter of three to twelve months.

I could go get some normal 8-12/hour job. But why would I do that when I can easily just sell coupon books and make twice that, and on my own time, with out a boss or anyone telling me what to do.

Do you understand where I'm coming from now?
OK THEN.

Top ten most memorable quotes I picked up while working in Minneapolis:

1. "Do work son!" - Matt

2. "ya, it's definitely harder than most jobs, but that's why it pays so well." - Scott

3. "You just need to get your head out." - Jon

4. "What I like most about this job is at the end of the summer, as your driving home, you get exactly what you put into it." - Jon

5. "Get back to work man." - Jacob

6. "The days gonna suck anyway, might as well knock doors." - Jacob

7. "All I can think about while I'm sitting down, taking a break, is I could be getting a sale right now. I never take breaks." - Matt

8. "Our goal is to always progress and be persistent." - Adam

9. (after bageling) "ya, it just means I'm that much closer to the next sale." - Mike

10. "Well you see I got a wife and kids, bills to pay...I HAVE to sell. I just have really strong motives. Figure out what your motives are, and that'll help you do well." - Wyatt (#1 salesman in the office)

These were all said to me in personal, organic conversation. They are special to me.

how to be attractive to girls

2009-07-11T22:44:00.000-07:00

K, I think I've figured it out, how to essentially, BE attractive to girls. This might work for girls to guys but I'm not promising anything.

So while I'm hanging out, I try to remember 5 things:

THOUGHT # 1. This person is not the solution to all your problems, they're not perfect,
and you won't always love them. As time goes by, you'll discover
this person is just another human being, So don't put them on a pedistool, treat
them equally as just another person to have fun with. This helps you relax.

THOUGHT # 2. You couldn't care less about what this person thinks of you. You
really wouldn't mind if this person hated you or loved you. Indifference. Whatever goes, goes.
So just love them and have fun with them. This helps you feel confident.

THOUGHT # 3. Remember how sweet Ezra in "seven pounds" was. Obtain that kind of nice
attitude, and generally smile, a lot. Smiling is a lot more powerful than I thought. Relax and be funny. Say what YOU think is funny. As long as it's not offensive, and your making them laugh, you're GOLD.

THOUGHT # 4. Assume they love you anyway. Assume, Assume, Assume. Another word for assuming is believing, and belief is a lot more powerful than I thought too. I think this works so well because when you're assuming they like you, then you're treating them like they like you, and people naturally act and feel the way they're treated. Also, I think since our thoughts are REAL things that have frequency, when you're sending THAT kind of frequency, people REALLY pick up on it. This is also the number one rule in Sales if you've ever sold anything over the phone or door to door. ASSUME! ASSUME! ASSUME!

THOUGHT # 5. Think and live as if you already have a lot of girlfriends at the edge of your finger tips. Hold this belief strongly. Be grateful for what you already have. In this video (which I love) this dude says something in it like the things that we're grateful for and arn't striving for are abundant in our life while the things that we're always wanting seem to be scarce. I just love that part. take a look:

Now the most important thing I can't stress enough, above anything else, is to NOT lose your center! don't let the girl go to your freaking head! AHHHH! I PROMISE YOU! STAY INDIFFERENT!! keep her WONDERING and CONFUSED! this drives them nutts! and makes them want you bad.....

The difference is indifference. Repeat that to yourself until the letters of it stand like fire in the sky!
:) :) :) :) :) :) ;)
now GO HAVE SUM FUN!!!!

Scientific Research: Adderall

2009-07-05T01:55:00.000-07:00

Tonight was good, July 4th.
I was in my high energy social butter-fly mood, with all the stamina in the world.
I drank A LOT of mountain dew that day, maybe 7 cans?
I've noticed a connection between caffeine and confidence.
But it's not like the jittery caffeine feeling ya get right after drinking it but like the normal-not-tired-at-all feeling a few hours later that maybe triggers certain chemicals in my brain that just makes me relaxed and care-free in front of people. Like at least 3 hours AFTER drinking caffeine does this "flow state" occur. Maybe it's just a coicidence. But I dunno, I've just noticed it...

Like there's this other thing called Adderall, which is a medication for ADD and ADHD kids to take to help them focus.
I remember taking some the middle of my junior year in high school for fun, and it actually made me very, unbelievably confident.
I just remember I was sooooooooooooo thinking I could do anything. I could do ANYTHING.
I remember when it hit me in history class, my mind just started racing, and I was (now) the smartest person in the world.
I raised my hand in the middle of the lecture, interrupting it, and I said something like, "so.......wait what?" and the class just bursted out laughing. Nothing really mattered to me at the time because I was feeling so...powerful.
The teacher just looked at me strangely and said, "knock it off andrew" or something of that nature.
I remember then going to band after that and playing the drums really, really fast. my fellow percussionists thought it was funny how hyper I was.
I then also remember going to talk to my french teacher after school for no reason. It didn't matter, I could do anything. I could talk to my french teacher if I wanted. I remember I had a little crush on her too. She was in her twenties. Looking back it was strange because I was normally quiet, but still made dry comments from time to time in class, but I still never talked to her. So I know she was surprised at this sudden talkative, friendliness in me. I asked her all sorts of questions. We were 100x closer now after 5 minutes of chit-chat. I remember she told me I could come back and visit her for no reason anytime, and that made me feel GREAT. cuz she was hot...
haha, if she ever reads this.....
AND
once I got home, I recorded myself dancing in my room. I put the video on youtube. After about a year and a half, it was at 10,000 views, titled "gay white guy dancing". I was proud of it. But then youtube got strict on copyright laws and took it off, along with all my other videos on that account.
Here it is now. I buried my old mac for it, and found it. Let us observe my youthful self soooooo long ago:

back to square one.

2009-06-30T00:04:00.000-07:00

lets read some scriptures. I have some growing up to do.
uuuuuugggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Elvis.

dang it!
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII am dumb. haha. hahahaha. hahahahhahahahahahahahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA.

you scrolled aaaaaaaaaaaallll the way down here! how thoughtful!

life is fun. bring on the noise, ruckus, and pain john seaberg.