The more I write on this site, the more I fear the day will come when a possible future employer will see these online blogs and associate my real life identity with them. I wonder what they would think if they saw these? Truth be told, as I look back through a lot of my old blogs I am very embarrassed by a lot of the material I used to post, most especially during my high school tenure. Even some of my earlier college postings kind of make me shudder what with all the nonstop whining and complaining I do. Oh well, I have always treated these blogs as my online diary so why not continue that with another diary like entry?! For those of you who do not know me, I am Hurricane1123, veteran of the GWF/TV.com Roundtable, one of two General Managers of the Roundtable and the head editor for both the Raw and Smackdown boards. In real life however, I am just some 22 year old college engineering student trying to balance many different things in life just as I am sure many of you have multiple things to juggle each and every day of your lives.

Digital Sea

Recently I have done an absolutely mediocre job in maintaining the episode guides for the two main WWE shows. Time has just been a huge issue recently, but thankfully a user by the name of "goalkeeping-god" has been able to update the different webpages. I have since made him a Trusted Contributor for the Raw board which saves me a whole mess of trouble when I am not able to get the most recent episode for Raw up on time. Goalkeeping-god, if you are reading this, thank you very much man! Needless to say, my motivation to continue maintaining the site or even be on the forums has hit a low. After spending time away from the site, I find it a tad difficult to return to my duties to even as so much as post a promo in the roundtable thread. Maybe now that it's Summer and things have calmed down I will find myself visiting the site more frequently and being capable of maintaining my responsibilities and feuds (Sorry about the lackluster Extreme Rules feud Jake). We will see where things go but I hope to stick around, especially if it gives me the opportunity to post a cool 10th Anniversary blog sort of how like Spideynerd and Jandsman did an anniversary spectacular for their blogs! I cannot believe how fast time has flown by. I saw that you two gave me a shout-out so here is a shout-out to you both:

Jandsman, my General Manager counterpart. Back when you first started in the forums, I could not stand you because of the many spelling and grammar mistakes that had begun to become the norm within the forums from the influx of new people. Needless to say, time has passed and I have since grown to appreciate you as a brother on this site. In character we may be at each other's throats, but off-character I have grown to respect you and I appreciate everything you do for the RT and for the forums, especially when I am not around. Thanks for being there and I hope to have a feud with you sometime in the future, perhaps at a certain biggest event of the summer, wink, wink, nudge, nudge!

Spideynerd, ah yes the guy with the "Woo woo woos" and the "You know its". It's crazy how far we've come on this site! From total noobs who were criticized by the older members all those years ago to now respectable (I like to believe so anyway) posters who have a lot to offer. Your feuds and especially your character in the RT are quite possibly some of my favorite things on this site. Although your GWF days are pretty much limited, I look forward to continue seeing you around these parts, and if not, then Facebook it is! Thanks for keeping track of scores as well in the RT. It can be a thankless job but we all appreciate you for doing it, plus I know how time consuming it can be, so thanks again!

I will have more shout-outs ready for all of you when the time comes for an anniversary blog but as of right now I just want to give a big thanks to everybody for making the past six years on the forums a cool part of my life. We are like a community, a BREAKFAST CLUB, only without the breakfast, or the awesome 80's-ness of it all!

As far as wrestling goes, I have not had much interest in the product recently. Now I love Daniel Bryan, CM Punk, Randy Orton, and many of the other guys on the shows, but with the exception of John Cena, half the time it seems like everybody is just meandering around in nothing storylines. Even in the Cena storylines, Big Show vs. John Cena is not enticing in the least as we have probably seen that matchup many times in the past before! I don't know, maybe we will have another cool Summer storyline like the Nexus back in 2010 or the Summer of Punk back in 2011, but these past couple of Raw and Smackdown shows have kind of made me apathetic to the whole product. That is partially why I have not been on the site as well by the by, no interest. I guess I was kidding myself when I thought the WWE could sustain the momentum from Extreme Rules and carry it on throughout the usually dull days of May but eh, whatever.

Sinusoidal Sea

Life outside these digital walls has been up and down like a roller-coaster for the most part. My grades for this past semester came in not too long ago and needless to say I was not pleased. Even after preparing myself for the worst after knowing that I did not do so hot on my final exams, the low scores I received still managed to surprise me, especially with regards to two troubling classes. As much as I would like to say that this is all the fault of poor instruction, inadequate preparation for difficult material, etc., there is no one else to blame but myself. All semester long I have been having a difficult time focusing in class and on my assignments. My mental concentration and ability to hunker down and get something done has been completely lacking, which is why I am also having a somewhat difficult time typing up a blog such as this one when in the past I was able to undertake a blog writing task with ease. I do not know, maybe I am slowly becoming more ADD as time goes on, but I just cannot sit down for more than an hour to get something done. This inability to concentrate has hindered my learning and my grades have suffered because of it. Thankfully the university has a three chance program where someone has the ability to retake a class up to two more times until they acquire the score with which they are satisfied with. It's kind of bittersweet as retaking the two troublesome courses that caused my GPA to take a severe hit would fill up my schedule for next semester quite nicely and undo the previous grades, but having to redo the same difficult material is not exactly enticing. This Autumn will encompass the last couple of months of my undergraduate career so we shall see what happens.

On the contrary, the two most important exams of my life, one for graduate school and another one to become a certified engineer, went well. It's a bit ironic that the most important exams are the ones that I finally manage to score well on as opposed to all those other tests that are…you know…part of my course-work. Well at least I knew where to make it count. Thankfully those doozies are out of the way and now I have the glorious gift of never having to sit down for a straight nine hour test ever again…until my professional exam in four years, but four years is a long time so I will just leave that in the backburner!

Social Shark Sea

Grades may have been down, but one thing that has definitely not gone astray is my social life. This Spring started off on a really bad note due to personal reasons, but thankfully as everything progressed, it became probably the greatest couple of months of my life (but then again I probably say the same thing about every semester). When I first entered college back in August of 2008, I was really depressed about everything; my courses were abysmally boring while my social life was virtually null and void. Everything required some kind of complaint and it definitely affected my outlook on life. Four years later, and I can safely say that I have had my fair share of laughs and fun, now all I need to do is balance that better with my scholastic and research responsibilities and hopefully things will be golden!

I may not have learned too much regarding course material but I did learn a lot about myself. For one, I think I have realized that if I were to pursue graduate school, it would not be in the structural engineering field. To be a graduate student of any field, one has to be passionate about what they do and make sure it is what they love. Now I find structures interesting, but it is not exactly something I feel passionate about. This is really important because going to graduate school means specializing in a certain field and I do not think it is worth the extra time and pennies to narrow one's focus further into something that does not entice. Now whether I continue my education in another sub-discipline of civil engineering or just go out in to the working world is a matter in and of itself, but it gets to be really annoying when the whole "what are you going to do with your life?" question continuously pops up in the back of my mind. I like to believe that by just continuing to live life and work hard, things will work themselves out and fall into place, but I am having a lot of trouble to abide by that mentality. As a person who enjoys having a certain level of control, not knowing of what is to come can be quite agitating. I honestly wish I had an answer for how things will turn out; I suppose giving up control and just letting life take its course and allowing things to be set into motion is the correct answer. As much as it makes me sound like a 2011 version of Alberto Del Rio or a 2004 version of Randy Orton, I do believe in destiny, it's just the kind of destiny where at least there is some semblance of knowing of where one's going in life.

Sea of Goodbyes

People-wise, with the conclusion of another year, comes another set of farewells to another batch of graduating students; People whom I will see less frequently, and some of whom I will probably never see again (at least for another several years). When it was time for high school graduation, I was ready to leave behind that chapter of my life and was anxious to start a new one, with university graduations though, it's different. College isn't just some building where one goes to take classes; it becomes an integrated lifestyle that combines people, atmosphere, labs, and all the other stuff that colleges are known for. Saying goodbye to all those things takes more effort and it definitely takes a toll on me. I have never really been good with saying goodbyes so obviously I struggled this time around to say goodbye to those who were leaving. One of those people was a girl whom had created so many problems, yet so many memories for me throughout my college tenure, and her alias that I am using for these blogs is Jane. She had gone on another study abroad trip to another country and returned in January. I no longer had feelings for this girl but it was strange that when we met up to just hang out, it was as if she had never even left. With hindsight being 20-20, we talked about everything that had occurred between us throughout the past several years. I owned up about having so much anger for her at one point over what she had done and she apologized for all the things she put me through. It was amazingly simple, but after knowing each other for so many years I would imagine discussing such things no longer required effort.

Both of us confessed about many things, and it was good to finally get them out of the way. She is not the golden girl that I had built up in my head two years ago, or the two dollar whore I portrayed her as last year, she's just…human, a flawed human like every one of us. A lot happened between us this past Spring, some stuff I do not really want to go into detail about, but Jane has probably been the closest friend I have ever had, and the inner pessimist inside of me says that no other friendship/relationship will ever be able to replicate it. Who knows!? All I know is that I struggled mightily to say goodbye to her, though truth be told I know deep down that it's not the last time I will ever see her again. We ended on a really good note but I have a feeling that we will see each other again very very soon. I will admit that I probably do continue to have feelings for Jane and am too stubborn to admit it, but it's not something that I will obsess over. Just like with graduate school, I will just let life play out, try my best at whatever task is at hand, and see what happens.

Monday August 25th, 2008, I arrived thirty minutes late to a 3:00 PM lecture in a four story engineering lab building. Wednesday May 9th, 2012, I arrived several minutes early for a final exam in that very same building. As I walked towards the white brick edifice, I could not help but reminisce of all the memories I had gathered throughout my time in this university. A lot has transpired these past eight semesters, people have grown and changed, and I like to think that I myself have done some growth as well. Though I did my fair share of complaining, looking back at it all now, I regret nothing. Well I do regret some things, such as not better enjoying myself freshmen year, but for the most part everything that has occurred has been a learning experience, through which we all mature. Say what you will about trial and error, but it's a really good growth mechanism, and I would not take back anything that has happened which has caused this mechanism to continue to do it's work. Now as I look towards my final semester at Texas A&M University, still unsure about what is going to happen come graduation time in December, I look to go out with a bang and make my last couple of months as an undergrad, the best months of my tenure.

Thank you so much for reading everybody, if you have any comments about the things I have just shared or any stories you yourself have to tell, please feel free to leave a comment. I hope you all enjoyed this blog and may we meet again another day, whether it be in the forums, roundtable, someone else's blog, an anniversary, or another journal entry of my own. Peace out! I'm just sayin'!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 6 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

Editorship

So earlier this year, the guy who used to run the pages for Raw and Smackdown gave his two week's notice and quit the site. In turn, all editorship responsibilities were transferred over to me and I now run the forums and episode guides for both WWE shows. So what's the difference between an editor and just a regular TV.com user? Nothing really. Though I now see why Camatzoz was so eager to leave. These episode guides are a complete mess! Supposedly the higher ups are going to do a huge Spring clean of the entire site to sort out all the bugs but as of now I have yet to see any progress. All my attempts at rearranging the episode guide seem to be overlooked by CNET as my contributions either get ignored or posted way too late. Editors are typically supposed to have automatic editing powers where adding, fixing, or arranging episodes should be seamless and instantaneous. That has not been the case at all and what seems to be happening is that a lot of episodes are being either left blank or completely skipped over. It's very annoying to be completely honest, but I suppose that's always been the case with TV.com. The aesthetics may get nicer to look at, but the actual user-friendliness of the site always lags behind. Oh well, I do not plan on leaving anytime soon, especially because the forums at least hold some entertainment value, but the rest of the webpage needs some work.

Academia

As far as life outside the digital walls of CNET goes, it is up and down as usual. School-wise, its been alright. The last two weeks before Spring Break yielded a nonstop gauntlet of exams that just would not let up. I do not know if professors within the department intentionally schedule their exams to be so close to one another, but man I sure was feeling the stress throughout those days. Though it's nice to get a huge block of exams out of the way as quick as possible, it is not exactly enticing to have to study for so many in one go. I would have to constantly focus and refocus on different courses while neglecting details in one c_lass in order to get more studying done on another. It did not help matters that I also needed to take a GRE exam for graduate school which had the impeccable timing of being smack dab in the middle of so many other things that I could not even get my head straight as to what needed and did not need to be done. At least it's all over (for a week anyway) and now I await the results for the GRE.

Everything job-wise is well as well. For those of you who do not know, I am currently involved in civil engineering research working with a mentor within the engineering department at my university. It's a very nice job and one learns quite a bit of information that simply cannot be learned in a c_lassroom environment. The investigative position has encouraged me to continue my education and pursue a master's degree as I continue doing research (Well that and the fact that most companies are only looking for masters students when it comes to structural civil engineering). I do not know what is going to happen once I graduate and finally enter the adult working world, but I suppose prolonging the inevitable will give me more time to think things through properly. The rest of one's life is such a long time, might as well become as prepared as possible before entering it.

Revival

On a previous blog, I mentioned how I hated the feeling of growing apart and how several of the contacts on my phone have become nothing more than wastes of phone memory space. Well I decided to call up some of the people who were beginning to grow distant from my life in an attempt to salvage past friendships and overall it was a "grrreat success" as Borat would say. Many of my fellow peeps appreciated the revival in connectedness as many had been wondering the same thing I was of whether or not the friendships were doomed to wither away into nothingness. The series of events was a reassurance that though it may not seem like it, no one really desires to grow apart from one another; it just takes someone to get the ball rolling. Seeing as how no one was willing to initiate anything, it was all up to me as usual to get things started, so I am glad I did so. Hopefully we are all able to do something again in the future but I am just glad that I do not need to see many numbers on my phone go the way of the dodo.

Control

All in all, this semester has been pretty good to me, with the exception of one thing that has been lingering on my mind for quite a while now. A couple of months ago, there were six pre-packaged videos released to hype the return of Chris Jericho. A lot of the promos ended with a certain key phrase such as "It Begins", "Look Within", "Prophetless", etc. I think my favorite of the vague words used was "Control" as it sort of got me thinking on my own life. I do not know how I come off on the forums, but I have been told that I sometimes have a very controlling personality. It's common for all of us to want to have some control over the processes of our own everyday life, but when are we deemed too controlling? Where is the line drawn? I know I tend to joke a lot with the extremely over the top Huracan Del Oro character I do in the roundtable but there's a part of that character that holds some truth about my actual personality. We as people have this tendency to say and do the things we do because we believe they are right. There's nothing wrong with believing you are right, unless of course you are wrong, but that's a story for another time. It's always been within my nature to be a perfectionist.

When I was a kid I always believed that everything I did was one hundred percent flawless and anyone who was incongruent with my way of life was beyond repair. Obviously that kind of mentality does not make too many friends, but that was the boat I was sailing on. Though this has all changed over time, I still partially cling on to this somewhat selfish attitude. Last semester, I was working with a buddy to organize an Amazing Race game for a group of people. As the day of the event drew nearer and we labored to get all the intricacies of the game down to a pat, I began to grow very impatient with the slow progress we were making. It got to the point where I was shutting out my friend from everything that was being planned and I took full control of the operation. My buddy did not really take to that too well, but at that point in time my patience had simply been so overstretched that I was not seeing how much of a control freak I was becoming until someone had to point it out to me.

Several instances similar to this one continued to occur throughout the remainder of the year and I began to wonder just how prevalent had this character trait been present in my life? The difference between this and all other previous events was that someone actually decided to confront me about my actions this time around. There is a certain allure to wanting to get things done my way and I imagine many people feel the same way about themselves and their motives, but it's so easy to take this approach too far that is it even worth it to voice an opinion? Yes, it is, but there needs to be a balance between doing too little and doing too much. Hopefully over time I will learn to better this characteristic and maintain a fairer level of control over people and situations. Thankfully an attribute such as that one does not have a delicate line between good and evil like the force in Star Wars, but I want to be more consistent with maintaining the middle road rather than constantly juggling between one end of the spectrum to the other. Control: too little gets you nowhere and too much can be damaging.

Anyway that concludes the 25th Anniversary (50th Edition) of this fair blog. Thank you to all of you who have kept up with these blogs over the past six years. If you have any control stories or anything of the sort then feel free to share! To those of you participating in the Wrestlemania 28 roundtable, good luck to you in your matches, and for the rest of you, may the force be with you!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 4 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

So I picked up this new game that's supposed to be super awesome about a month and a half ago. You may have heard of it, it's called the Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, and I will admit that it is quite super awesome. Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword came out in stores November 20th and probably for the first time in my life, I stood in line for a midnight release of a video game. It was really fun, I stood in line alongside a friend as we were both second and third in line respectively with probably more than a hundred people behind us jaja! Regardless, I picked up the game and have been playing it on my free time ever since then. Now for those of you who have never played a Legend of Zelda game, it's essentially a sandbox game, which in layman's terms means an exploratory adventure game. In the past I have played many Zelda games with my favorite predictably being the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time which many people consider to be the greatest video game of all time EVER!! So when all of a sudden Skyward Sword is getting glowing reviews with several of the review sites calling it even greater than Ocarina of Time, you know I'm pumped. Those are actually pretty tall words to be calling a game better than Ocarina of Time, and though I don't know whether I agree or disagree with that statement, I do have to say that Skyward Sword is a very enjoyable game. It's definitely up there on the list of some of the greatest video games I have ever played.

This one takes place in the past, before all the Zelda games that have been released and is supposed to tell the story of the origins of everything. I guess they did this to commemorate the 25th Anniversary of the very first Zelda game, but it's a neat origin. Our hero Link has to get Zelda out of a pickle and he embarks on this wild quest that takes him through several different areas and dungeons as he begins to unravel the mysteries of the past. The game isn't exactly packing in the story department as to this day my favorite story comes from Majora's Mask on the Nintendo 64, but the cinematography is definitely the best I've seen out of any Zelda game. The gameplay however is excellent, and the use of the Wii Motion Plus definitely feels natural, though it sometimes isn't quite as precise as I'd like it to be. The soundtrack is also amazing as everything has been orchestrated for your hearing pleasure.

All in all, if you're a Legend of Zelda fan, there's no reason for you not to pick up this game. It's big, creative, and probably one of the most unique Zelda games in quite some time. At first I didn't know what was so great about the game but little by little as I began advancing through some of the dungeons, I began to turn around to it. It's definitely one of those games that get better and better the farther you get in to it. As of this blog, I am in the fifth area and have yet to enter the fifth dungeon, but I have enjoyed the game from what I have played thus far and from what I hear, the next couple of areas are even better. If you have a Wii, give yourself a break and check this game out, it's probably the best game I've played on the Nintendo system.

Hurricane's Score: 9.5/10

Seventh Semester Summary

Well that does it as far as my helping of video games goes, as for as everything else…it goes well. To be honest I'm having a really hard time scratching the surface on what I want to type, so instead I'm just going to type up a bunch of random thoughts for your reading pleasure! It'll be a tad more disorganized than usual, but I like to think the mind works that way as well; as a schizophrenic ball of schizophrenia!My seventh semester at Texas A&M University has come and gone and grade point-wise it was my best semester thus far. I mean, it better have been considering I toil for my studies! Toil like a little helpless tiny ant carrying a large piece of food back to his home as he sweats profusely in the never ending cycle that is known as a workday. The feeling of being overworked was a frequent feeling for me this past semester, but one thing I've learned is that complaining won't accomplish anything, so might as well just do the work without the unnecessary baggage. Probably one of the biggest truths I was ever told at the beginning of my college tenure was that college never really does get any easier, the only thing that happens is that one begins to grow accustomed to the work load. My civil engineering schedule is helluva demanding, but at least I know that this is more suited to what I want to do at least more-so than the electrical/computer engineering path I was taking two years ago. I find it to be more interesting, outdoorsy, and probably more applicable to improving society, but that's just my biased opinion on the matter. I also got a sweet research job for my civil undergrad career this past semester. I am not doing much at the moment but it certainly pays well. But from what I have worked on, I find it to be very interesting.

But enough about school and work! The cult of personality CM Punk would be ashamed if all I did was abide by the status quo and merely mention the academic aspects of the university. I mean those things are good and all, but where the most enjoyment in the college life lies is in the social aspect of it, namely friends and peeps. I always consider the Autumn season to be easier than the Spring when it comes to dealing with people and life in general. I don't know what it is about the vernal season, but it never fails me that every Spring, a poop storm of fecal matter always gets stirred up in my little pudding bowl of life. I have gone from mental torture of almost giving up on my future because of my career path to absolutely restraining myself from murdering some girl who I had feelings for. Jeje oh first world problems! But this past Fall had none of that thankfully as Fall is usually more of a laid back season and it tends to show in people's motivations and character traits. Everything went smoothly (well for the most part anyway) and I even got some quality time with my fellow peeps that is all the rage in these "true friendships". Not too shabby! To be honest though, the amount of closeness I have grown to certain people is both a gift and a curse. It's a gift because it is always cool to have your broskis and your siskis watch your back whenever life beckons, but it's also a curse because one day we are all going to have to part ways.

The Revolving Door

This next Spring will be the penultimate semester of my undergraduate career at this university and once I graduate in December it will be difficult to let go of the relationships I have built up for the past three and a half years. I don't know about you all, but I have a very hard time saying goodbye. Some people find it easy to just walk away from something and never turn back, not me. I know life has this tendency to work as a revolving door, people come and go and some you will probably never see ever again, but the thought of saying goodbye, it's something I have a hard time coping with. I try not to think too much about it because I still have a whole year left before I graduate but the notion cannot help but fester in my mind from time to time, like a tiny parasitic worm never resting and always coming back to help itself and feast on the deliciousness that is uneasiness. Another sensation that has also come up quite a bit alongside this one is the feeling of growing apart.

To those of you reading this blog, did you keep any of the friends you had in middle school when moving on up to the world of high school? How about keeping the same friends in college? I know I haven't. Slowly diverging away from friendships one used to have as one gets older is rather unfortunate, but at least it has a much smoother transition than just flat out being forced to say goodbye due to circumstance. It is a strange sentiment when one's old group of buddies ceases to be the main social circle he or she communes with. Whenever two old friends finally bump into each other after so many years of non-communication, it's not quite the same anymore. This past summer, I got to meet a lot of great people on a retreat I went to and it was quite possibly one of the greatest weekends of my life. In just one weekend, from Friday afternoon to Sunday around noon, the people I sat with at my table were some of the greatest people I had ever met in my entire life. When it came time to part ways, I had this feeling in my head that we would be able to set some sort of reunion in the future and we could all catch up on the warm and fuzzies known as the good times. Well, try as we might, a reunion never happened as everyone had conflicting schedules and eventually everybody just stopped trying as they all went back to the comfort of their own social circles that they had already established. Aside from one or two people, I have not seen any one of them since the retreat. Sure a text message is sent every now and then between us commemorating whatever holiday the day happens to be, but overall, those friendships have ceased and all the networking has turned into nothing more than casual memories of people of yesteryear. A lot of the names I have collected both in my human memory and on my phone's memory are merely empty contacts that will eventually meet their demise when it comes time to get a new phone and transfer only the important contacts. It's a sad sad fate, but I guess that's what growing up entails.

There's a theory called Dunbar's number that states that people are only capable of having on average around 150 friendships at one time. The number varies greatly from person to person, but typically we all have a limit. If we surpass that limit, our brain can no longer manage the overdose and one of the friendships begins to go out on to the periphery and become more of an acquaintance in one's mind. The more that time passes, the more and more I believe this hypothesis. I guess things can change and I can always attempt to revisit the old friendships I once had, but as always expectations need to be readjusted to confirm that things truly won't be the same again.

One of my favorite quotes which comes from the ending of the Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask game has the Happy Mask Salesman speaking to a Young Link right before he's about to depart. He tells Link

"Whenever there is a meeting, a parting is sure to follow. However, that parting need not last forever. Whether a parting be forever or merely for a short time, that is up to you"

And you thought I wasn't going anywhere with the Skyward Sword review I posted at the beginning, didn't you? It's such a simple quote, but it holds so much truth. The people that grow apart from us are generally the people that we allow to grow apart. In the end, I'm a firm believer that if a friendship does remain true and geographic circumstance allows it, the connectedness can remain for a lifetime. So as I look onward to starting my eight semester at this institution, I strive to make this the best semester of my life just as we should all be striving to make every day better than the last. In an old interview, John Cena was asked what was his personal favorite match or moment he's participated in, and John stated that he does not like answering those types of questions because he believes that his favorite moment has yet to happen. When you think about it, it makes sense. By acknowledging a moment as the best moment of your life, you are essentially saying that nothing in the future will ever top that moment and that it was all downhill from that memory in the past. Well, I'll follow Cena's mentality and continue to look on in to the future with high hopes. Though the people around me are bound to change, there will always be something to hang on to and get the euphoria high that we all love so much.

So do any of you have any stories about growing apart from past friends? Tell me your story and thanks for reading!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 6 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

I have had probably the most interesting Summer of my life. After doing all my traveling and what not I've mainly just settled down doing random chores around the house, chilling with some friends here and there and just kind of lying around the place. LQTM! I know, quite exciting. :S I kind of like the relaxation though especially because starting next week I start my seventh semester at Texas A&M University and will likely be busy trying to juggle school, extra-curricular activities and hopefully a job if I can find one. But I won't worry about that for the time being and will instead continue to just lay about the house for one more day before I prepare for anything.

Recently I purchased the Money in the Bank 2011 DVD because after I saw the pay-per-view and witnessed my friend, who is a huge John Cena fan, storm out of the room after the conclusion of the show, I knew I had to buy it on DVD! It's a really good pay-per-view that holds up well even when you know the result. I think the reason I liked the show so much was because the matches actually have significance to the storylines rather than just being matches thrown together at the last minute for a cheap pop. Of course my favorite match on the card is John Cena vs. CM Punk; that bout was probably one of the best I have ever seen as I don't think most of us expected Punk to walk out with the title at the time. So far that fight is my vote for match of the year. I know a lot of people say that Undertaker vs. Triple H should win that award, and although I do think that was a fantastic match, it got to be a tad too ridiculous by the final stretch. Last year at Wrestlemania 26, Shawn Michaels wrestled a much smarter match than Undertaker did yet Taker still managed to get the win. This year at Wrestlemania 27, Triple H pedigreed Undertaker THREE TIMES, completely dismantled him with a steel chair, TOMBSTONED the frickin' guy and Undertaker still managed to kick out and win. By that logic, Hunter could have shot him with a gun and burned his insides with hydrofluoric acid and Taker still would have won. I am not taking anything away from that match but I think CM Punk and John Cena had a more realistic encounter that had a better storyline and a great atmosphere to boot. Hehe those crazy Chicago fans always going against the grind.

Undertaker vs. Triple H ****1/2

CM Punk vs. John Cena ****3/4

Throughout my time around the house I've also been playing some video games. Now I don't know about you guys but video games hold a really special place in my heart, probably next to the aorta. When I was in Elementary school, I would always come home and the first thing I did was turn on the Sega Genesis and play Sonic the Hedgehog and of course my favorite Genesis game of all time, Sonic the Hedgehog 2. I didn't even know what a hedgehog was but I didn't care because the pretty flashing lights and the mach one speed hypnotized me and stole my time away like nothing else. Super Mario 64 was another game that I cherished and loved. I remember playing that bad boy at the age of eight throughout the summer of 98 and man was I hooked like no other. Everyday I would complete more and more levels and collect the in-game power stars little by little until one day I finally beat the game. I was so ecstatic, I yelled for my parents to come in to the room as Princess Peach kissed Mario on the nose and the end-game credits began to roll. I don't think my parents thought too much of it, but man did that accomplishment mean a lot to my younger, more naive self. Screw that Jack Thompson guy who says video games are the Pandora's Box of evil, those things create more awesome links to heartwarming childhood memories than he would like to believe.

As I grew older, my Genesis and N64 were slowly replaced by a Playstation 2 and Gamecube, which the Gamecube would then be replaced by a Wii. Recently I've fallen out of playing video games, mostly just because I don't have the time for them anymore, so cue my obnoxious friends all of a sudden getting in to wild Pokemon fever as the release for the highly anticipated Pokemon Black & White games was fast approaching. I grew up playing the first Pokemon games on the Gameboy Color and I loved it then but sooner or later I guess I outgrew Pokemon as trying to capture all the animals no longer held any intrigue for me. I did not particularly like the third generation Ruby & Sapphire games that much either, so this Summer as I had nothing better to do, I picked up Pokemon Black from my local game store and became instantly hooked just as I was to the series when I was nine years old. For those of you who haven't played a Pokemon game before, the series essentially revolves around some small town kid who travels the world catching Pokemon, training them to become stronger and then battling them with the in-game bosses known as gym leaders. After having created almost 500 of the critters, I can easily tell that the developers' creativity was running thin as the fifth generation games houses some of the ugliest Pokemon I have ever seen. Regardless, I played the game no-less and what grabbed my attention wasn't necessarily the animals that roam about the game, but rather the in-game story that was being told.

Pokemon Black has probably the most in-depth story out of all the Pokemon games I've ever played so it was a nice change of pace from the norm. Not to mention that I really like the soundtrack for the game and I would be lying if I said that the titular legendary Pokemon weren't awesome. Overall I really enjoyed playing the game but as many have pointed out, the short duration of the game kind of left me wanting more. I beat it in three weeks without knowing that I beat it because I thought there would be more after credits rolled. I've gone back through the game exploring the other side of the map that becomes unlocked after finishing the Pokemon League in search of some of the legendary Pokemon, but after capturing some my attention was pretty much gone. In any case, Pokemon Black is my favorite Pokemon game in ten years, so if you're a fan of the series than definitely check it out.

Hurricane's Score: 8.5/10

Another series which I am currently borrowing from a friend is Disney and Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts. Although I have a Playstation 2, I never really got in to the Square series like Final Fantasy, but I do remember watching the commercials for their Kingdom Hearts games as Utada Hikaru's "Simple & Clean" and "Sanctuary" were dubbed over the ads. To this day, those are some of my favorite songs of all time, and now you are all probably questioning my manhood haha! Needless to say I did watch someone play both Kingdom Hearts three years ago and now I finally have a chance to actually play them. The series reminds me of what Disney used to be, before they completely sold out to the likes of the Hannah Montanna/Jonas Brothers nonsense. You essentially play as a kid named Sora who once lived on an island but his world was taken over and destroyed by the darkness. Goofy and Donald Duck are roaming about the world trying to take back the worlds that have been taken over by said darkness and wouldn't you know it you just happen to have a weapon that could save all of humanity. So badda-bing badda-boom, you team up with Donald and Goofy and explore the universe saving every world you visit from the clutches of the evil Disney villains who have allowed the darkness to creep in to the world. While Sora does all this hero work, he is also in search of his friends Kairi and Riku whom got off the island before the world was destroyed.

As far as gamplay goes, the Kingdom Hearts games are pretty cool, but just like Pokemon Black, my favorite aspect about the games is the story that is being told. It's kind of a cute story and without spoiling anything I did sort of shed a tear at the bittersweet ending of the first game, but I suppose that's a testament to the well developed plot. Anyway, unlike Pokemon, once you beat the final boss in both Kingdom Hearts, the game ends and there is nothing after that, which to be honest I kind of prefer. Go out with a bang not with tedious side quests. The voicework is great as pretty much all the Disney characters are played by the people who spoke their dialogue in the cartoons and movies, and the soundtrack is incredible as well. As of now I am just about to finish the first game and am now moving on to playing Kingdom Hearts 2. I already know what happens but hopefully the gameplay in that game is better than the first game and holds up to the story as well. It's weird because I have never played a Final Fantasy game and have little to no interest in playing those games yet the Kingdom Hearts series (which includes some of the Final Fantasy characters as well) is probably one of my favorites of all time. If you're fan of a good story and/or like old-school Disney movies, definitely check out this game, and even if you are not, still consider playing it because it's better than what you might expect.

Hurricane's Score: 9/10

So there you have it folks, the first half of my Summer consisted of international shenanigans, the second half consisted of domestic shenanigans! I'm pretty sure all this video-gaming will come to a screeching halt come next week but alas I'll just enjoy the little while I have left before school starts back up again. I hope you all have had wonderful Summers and may you all keep cool under this hot, hot heat. Have a nice Autumn everybody! I'm just sayin'!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 6 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

NOTE: This was published on both Wordpress and TV.com, so if you've already read this blog on Wordpress than stop reading now because this is the exact same thing. Also, this is a really long blog so if you read the whole thing, I thank you!

"I've been to America before, the experience was truly astonishing to say the least. I saw people the size of monsters, one guy couldn't even walk through the airport metal detector! There was black pavement everywhere as far as the eye could see and tractor sized trailer vehicles that you've never seen before. My my! Also, it is custom that people don't usually eat at homes but rather go out to eat and have early dinners. I went to an American restaurant once and they started to refill my glass of Coca Cola, and I quickly put my hand over the glass telling him 'no, no! No more!' The waiter then told me 'sir, no need to worry, refills are free'. My my, I was completely astonished!" – Francisco of Spain

Ladies and gentlemen, the largest study abroad program available at Texas A&M, 42 civil and mechanical engineering students go international for six weeks to the land of bull fights, flamenco dancing, endless bread, and the world's best soccer teams. Allow me to introduce myself, my name… MY NAME IS HURACAAAN DEEELL OOOORRROOO!!!!! But you already know that! Peeps and paisanos, I have just recently returned from studying abroad in España, the land of the Castilian and the Catalunya! All in all I think the entire trip exceeded my expectations, which to be honest were non-existent to begin with. It's not that I expected to not have a good time in Spain or anything, it's just that I have never been to another country outside the United States or Mexico and did not know what to expect. Thankfully, aside from a few hiccups here and there, integrating within the Castilian culture was easier than I imagined and the program itself was quite enjoyable. When I first heard of the program back in October of 2010, I instantly knew that I wanted to take this trip. It all sounded incredible, the atmosphere, the experience, the culture, everything! The only drawback was figuring out a way to pay for the journey. Thankfully, I received a partial scholarship that helped pay for a third of the price of the curriculum and as for the other two-thirds, I sort of needed to take out a loan, which wasn't all too bad as it was a simple interest loan, but I am going to have to pay that back one day. :S Oh well, I will worry about that when the time comes, regardless, everything was set; my plane ticket was bought, scholarship money was deposited, my suitcase was packed, I was ready to depart! After months of anticipation, after going through several pitfalls during the application process, it was finally going to happen. For the first time in my life I was going to take a long flight across the pond to a side of the world I had never been to. It was all a tad surreal, but nothing scary or anxiety worthy.

Now before taking this journey I knew I was going to be missing out on several events while abroad including my little brother's high school graduation, some of my extended family's first visit ever to the United States, and being a groom's men to one of my best friend's wedding. I kind of felt bad, especially because I was doing this trip more for me than for anyone else, but when opportunity knocks, you don't say no, because you never know when and if it will ever knock again. I boarded my two leg flight to Madrid Saturday May 21st and prepared myself for a seven hour jump in to the future and a lengthy uncomfortable flight that would produce little to no sleep. One of the things I always liked about long treks is the people who you are on the flight/ride with. Everyone that was on both planes with me that day, I will likely never see in my life ever again, but for a short instance, for a small fraction of our lives, we all share a similar event. It doesn't matter where we came from or where we're eventually going, we are all on the same link, none of us existed in each other's lives before the plane ride and none of us will likely ever cross paths again afterward. Kind of reminds me of LOST. Needless to say, I had a really cool conversation with this girl from Kentucky sitting next to me who was doing a study abroad in Barcelona and a business man who was returning to Spain from a business venture in the States. During the flight, the businessman was telling me about the many things there was to do in the first world European nation. As the flight dragged on, my anticipation grew and the TV screen that showed the progress of the aircraft, as it was slowly but surely making its way across the Atlantic Ocean, seemed to get slower and slower as it looked like the plane was taking longer and longer to travel small millimeters worth of pixels on the virtual map. Finally after sixteen hours we touched down on the Madrid International Airport and for the first time in my life I took my first step on Spanish soil. It was really crazy, it seemed surreal, I tried to wrap my head around the fact that I was on a completely different side of the planet from what I'm used to and thousands of kilometers away from all of my family and friends. As I rode the bus from Terminal 4 to Terminal 1 of the airport, I started to take in the scenery and it all continued to seem strange. There was a sense of familiarity because the Spanish signs and rugged terrain made it seem as if I were just on a bus in Mexico, but it was the small differences in landmarks and road signs that confirmed that I wasn't in Mexico.

Soon after arrival I exchanged my dollars for Euros via a very unfavorable exchange rate and then made my way to Terminal 1 where I met up with all of the other A&M students who were also participating in the study abroad program. For most of us it was our first taste of ever being in Europe,so we all were living seven hours ahead of what our internal body clocks were used to. I was insanely jet lagged and decided to conform with some of my fellow peeps and fell asleep on one of the tables of an airport restaurant seeing as how I got little to no rest on what was the longest plane ride of my life. Later that day, Sunday May 22nd, 2011, 4 o'clock in the afternoon Spanish time, we all finally left the airport and departed to our first destination in Europe: Toledo, Spain. There we would be taking c_lasses for our first week of school and staying in some nice air-conditioned dorms inside a really cool antique castle looking building. By the way, being in Spain, one really gets a grasp as to how spoiled we are in America, air conditioning is not common in Spain, so several buildings (including the c_lassrooms) do not have air conditioning as a means to save energy. Anyway, Toledo as a whole was a pretty nice small town, it was my first taste of what Spain had to offer and I was very impressed with the scenery and how every piece of architecture that was built resembled a castle. Almost every structure had some sort of history or meaning behind it and had been built centuries ago. You just don't see those kinds of things back in America, granted the US is a new country relatively speaking, but it's awe-inspiring to walk in to a 13th century castle knowing that the floor that is being stepped on has been walked on for eight hundred years.

As the first week was nearing its end, we traveled on an excursion to the capital of the large Iberian country known as Madrid. The city had its sites, but overall I did not enjoy the metropolis as much as I would have liked as it seemed too urban at times. Just like almost any other big city, there was smog everywhere, cigarette butts on the floor, and the group I was walking with got caught in a heavy downpour. We had to take cover under a small alcove to try to keep dry and wait for the rain to let up, which it never fully did. Throughout the designated field trip weekends in Spain, we voyaged between multiple towns as the travel was beginning to wear on me. Not just that, but constantly seeing several ancient castles and buildings soon began to grow monotonous as well. Once you've seen an old building, you have pretty much seen them all. Regardless though, all the tours and excursions were interesting nonetheless, especially the more battle ridden sites where several wars had been fought. Speaking of weekend excursions, during one of my four-day weekends, we visited Portugal and what caught me off guard was how well all the European countries blended together. Not only do most of the European countries share the same currency, but they also share the same street signs, the same s_tyle of living and various other similarities that show how well the European nations go well together. If I didn't look at the language the signs were in, I probably would not have been able to tell that I was in a different country all together. The people living in Europe do not even need a Visa to travel between the countries as a passport there is valid for any nation in the European Union. It's a sharp contrast to how things are here on this side of the pond. When visiting Mexico, there are obviously major differences in pretty much everything than how things are in the United States, and obviously you need more than just a passport to travel internationally. Passed all the similarities with the people though, aesthetically speaking each place still managed to have its own sense of flair that would differentiate itself from another location. Lisboa, the capital of Portugal, reminded me a lot of San Francisco what with the trolleys that trek around the city that has been built on hills and even a bridge that looks like an exact replica, albeit a smaller size replica, of the Golden Gate Bridge. I enjoyed visiting the various locations, but my personal favorite city that I visited which is now my number one favorite place in the entire world was predictably Barcelona.

For Part 2 of this blog,click here!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 5 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

On the Eastern end of the Iberian Peninsula, the Catalonian people had built what was in my eyes the most beautiful city in the entire world. Unlike Madrid, which had that dirty metropolis like atmosphere, Barcelona was an incredible beach town filled with so many things to see and a night life livelier than anything I had ever seen anywhere else in the world. One of the top five tourist destinations in the entire world, Barcelona was probably the peak of my stay in Spain, conveniently placed on the last weekend before projects and final exams. If any of you peeps are going to visit only one city in Spain, make sure it's Barcelona. The program directors definitely knew that they were saving the best for last as I had been told several times before I even began my study abroad journey that Barcelona would be the epitome of everything. Indeed it was. Similar to every other town and city in Spain, everything in Barcelona was within walking distance. If I were to get up and walk from one side of the city and trek to the other end, it would take only around an hour. One thing I attempted to explain to the people of Spain which they did not seem to comprehend was that most cities back in the United States just aren't meant for walking. With the exception of maybe New York City and San Francisco, a car is a virtual necessity to get from one location to another. In Houston, if someone wants to walk from the suburbs to downtown, it would take around half a day on foot. The Bayou City is so unforgiving to walkers, they don't even provide sidewalks on many of the streets. The underground Metro system is also a wonderful invention that seems to be common place in almost every European city and is something I wish Houston would adopt.

Sixty percent of the time when I wasn't traveling for hours on the buses going to the beach or visiting all the various locales, I was in a small city called Ciudad Real. In this town of eighty thousand people (reminds me of College Station), I would go to c_lass while living with a host family whenever I wasn't in school. Unsurprisingly, Ciudad Real was probably my least favorite part of the study abroad program, not because I did not like my host family or anything, but mostly because it reminded me that the word STUDY did exist in the phrase "Study Abroad". I was taking a concrete course and a senior design c_lass which were my first taste of the mysterious 400 level c_lasses that I had heard so much about as a freshman. Both courses were pretty time-consuming and the tests were no joke, but then again because these were six-week Summer c_lasses, everything was so crammed together contrary to if I were to have taken the courses during the regular semester. On a school day I would usually wake up at 7:40 AM (sometimes earlier), eat breakfast, which had been graciously provided by my host family, and then head off to school for a heavy course load with usually an hour and a half break for lunch provided at 1:30 during the day. I would typically not come back home until around 8 PM, just in time for a 9 PM dinner. The Spanish usually eat a later dinner than what is the custom in the United Sates, but 9 PM dinners are pretty normal for me, unlike the majority of my roommates who think eating really early suppers at six is totally cool. LQTM! What a bunch of weirdos. At least when I ate dinner in Spain it was thankfully still daytime as the sun did not usually set until 10:30 PM (a contrast from the 9 PM Summer sunsets in Houston), because we were at a more northern point of the equator than what we were used to. Granted during the winter Spain has 5 PM sunsets, so it's a double-edged sword, but it was still kind of nice whenever I would be stuck in my room working on concrete homework or studying for a heavy-duty exam and then looking out the window at ten at night to see that there was still daylight outside. It felt nice, it's as if I was a plant and the sun gave me the photosynthetic energy I needed to continue to study, or keep my elbows on the desk as my host dad would say. Hooray for metaphors!

Speaking of my host family, they were all really cool people, who unfortunately abided with the rest of their country by not having air conditioning in any of the rooms aside from the living room. My host father's name was Juan, my host brother's name was Juan and my host mother's name was Maricarmen. I would have loved for her name to have been Juanita or something because that would have completed the picture for me seeing as how my name was Juancarlos, but I suppose 3 out of 4 is still passing. They were all huge supporters of the big time football/soccer club known as Real Madrid so whenever I got back from Barcelona wearing a Barcelona FC jersey (Real Madrid's bitter rival), they threatened to burn my jersey in a gasoline induced fire jaja. All joking aside, I had a really good time with my host family, they fed me well and took care of me when I was sick with a stomach virus and had a fever. I miss them a lot. Maybe I'll see them someday in the future, hopefully one day when I get the money to make another journey across the pond, but until then email communication and Skype will have to suffice.

So far we've covered that the atmosphere in Spain and Portugal has been great, the history has been interesting, and even the school portion has been alright, so what about the food? Let me tell you about the food, the food in Spain and Portugal is....adequate at best. Don't get me wrong, paella and French bread are pretty good, but there was nothing in Iberia that made me say "wow, that was incredible! I would sell my kidneys to eat this food again!" Nope! The greatest meal I had throughout my entire trip was a Double Whopper Value meal at Burger King which I ate the first time I visited Madrid. The meal was better than anything I had eaten during my first week in Spain and was well worth the 8 Euros I spent (12 American dollars). To tell you the truth I didn't even notice I was spending so much money at Burger King, all I saw was the little number 8 and I assumed eight dollars rather than eight Euros. The home cooked meals my family cooked for me were pretty good though (again nothing great, this isn't Mexican food), but it just felt like there was something missing in all the food I ate. The European nations do not have a clue as to what spicy is as spiciness is completely nonexistent in the continent and I was shocked to learn that tortillas and beans are a rarity. The tortilla that is common among the Spanish is this egg and potato omelette which although tastes pretty good, is a horribly HORRIBLY butchered idea of what a tortilla stands for. Also, everywhere I went, whether it was at home or at a restaurant, people had this strange obsession with ham, no not the refrigerated ham we are used to here on the western end of the Atlantic Ocean, but a non-refrigerated fresh ham that comes directly from the pig. It's good ham and all, and has next to no preservatives, but eating it consistently grows tiring after a while. Nobody in Europe knew that enough was enough as no matter what dish you ordered, either bits or entire loaves of ham were almost always guaranteed to come with your order. Even at the Hard Rock Cafñ, their hamburgers were 50% beef and 50% ham. Jeje well I can't blame them for trying. Contrary to popular belief though, the portion sizes that are offered in Europe aren't smaller than those back in America, as everything came in a filling three course meal, the main difference however were the drinks. One of the reasons why the obesity rate is so high in America and almost completely nonexistent everywhere else in the world is because we in America have the free refill system, something that is unheard of in Spain.

Throughout my time in Iberia, 99% of restaurants, hotels and bars did not come with free refills for drinks as all you would get was a small 200 ml bottle of whatever beverage you ordered to go with your meal and that was it. It took some getting used to, but it is manageable and makes one realize how much unnecessary liquid we consume in the United States, especially when you see how beautifully fit almost everyone across the pond is. Regardless of the fat content or appropriate beverage servings, I still missed my American food. However one thing I did not have any complaints about while over in Europe was how cheap the beer and wine was. A bottle of wine could run for 1.80 € ($2.56) and it would still be cheaper than an imported bottle of Fanta or Coca-Cola. Another one of the biggest customs in Spain is that of the tapas bar. Usually before the 2:30 PM lunch time, tapas bars are open to the public and one could order a glass of wine and tapas (or fancy snacks if you will) would come free with your beverage. It was nice and I wish we had something like that back in America, but the culture here is so work-minded that I don't see something like that being adopted anytime soon where people would take small breaks from work to go to a tapas bar right before a two and a half hour siesta/lunch break between 2:30 and 5. Unlike in the States, all the businesses in Europe are pretty laxed about their work schedule and it was very rare for me to see a store close any later than eight at night, even with the 150 minute siesta break. It was a bit humorous at times, specifically when I saw a sign at McDonald's making such a big deal about closing at 2 AM as if it were some sort of incredible accomplishment whereas Stateside McDonald's is open 24 hours. It was very inconvenient though, especially with how virtually everyone in the towns, including the A&M students, are night owls. Oh well! I suppose every continent has to have their different quirks. Speaking of the A&M students, probably the greatest thing about the entire study abroad experience wasn't the places I was visiting or the time zone I was living in, but rather the people I was enjoying everything with. In only six weeks time I made 41 new friends! I don't think I have made so many great connections with so many people in such a short amount of time since my days in a management leadership program for Rice University back during my senior year in high school. It was pretty cool to get to know so many different characters with different personalities and just enjoying the interactions. Now that the study abroad has ended I only hope that we all get to see each other either sometime later this Summer or during the Fall semester.

So now that I'm back in America and slowly readjusting my internal body clock to a new sleep schedule, I look back on the past six weeks with no regrets and pictures chock full of memories that I'll never forget. I am glad that I took this opportunity to do this and if ever an opportunity to travel internationally comes knocking on your door, either for study, business, or leisure, take it! There is so much more to the world outside of our walls of comfort and it's filled with unseen sights and unexperienced experiences, so I urge you all to go out into the world at least once in your lives and see it all. You won't regret it! Thanks for reading everybody and remember when time gets a tickin', then you got to keep on kickin'! I'm just sayin'!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 8 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

So where to begin? Well I'll start where I left off last time. Spring Break was definitely a nice change of pace and a much needed break away from the norm as I had tons of unnecessary stress and anger on my shoulders that needed to be relieved. I was mostly just hanging out with friends, including a night where me and some peeps decided to spend a night camping out on Galveston Beach. All in all, it was what I needed it to be, a recovery period; a recovery from the shock of being severely let down by someone who I had been pursuing for seventeen months. It really sucks to feel like you have wasted a lot of time on something that was never going to happen. I was really mad at Jane for what she had done to me, she had lied to me a year before and then stabbed me in the heart pretty badly by pursuing a relationship when she had said she wasn't going to and then proceeding to not tell me about it. I felt betrayed and hurt and no longer wanted anything to do with her as I felt like I would act out in frustration if I saw her once more. I was not logging back on to facebook largely to get over my obsession of her and was also not communicating with her unless she contacted me first. Needless to say, I eventually got a call from her, while I was watching Undertaker vs. Triple H during Wrestlemania 27 of all things, and I ignored her. I got a call from her once again but this time I decided to respond and follow through on her invitation to hang out with her.

The day was Monday April 18th; it was time to confront her. Having spent some much needed time away from her and her facebook account had calmed me down quite a bit and finally after several weeks, I no longer had any emotional attachment to her whatsoever (at least none that was positive). I still resented Jane for her actions and I could not let go of my anger, I was contemplating whether to tell her everything or not, how she had me on this rollercoaster ride since the last time I had told her how I felt about her back in May 2010 and how I was deeply hurt by a five minute YouTube video that confirmed her relationship with another guy. So I had lunch with her, and as I was talking with her I began to notice that there really was no point in revealing everything to this girl. Now that I no longer viewed the supposed "girl of my dreams" through rose colored glasses, I saw everything more clearly now, and what I saw was a girl whom past her ultra flirtatious friendliness, was lost in a fantasy world. I know when we are young, we are all told that someday we can grow up to be anything and do anything we want, however as we grow up we slowly begin to realize that some things in life are just unrealistic. Jane lives in a world where she does not want to work, she just wants to graduate and travel the world with no monetary consequences and no limitations whatsoever. She said she has seen people accomplish this task before and she wants to do the same. Jaja LQTM! Congratulations Hurricane, for seventeen months you had fallen in love with a future hobo. Come on! Really?! I mean I understand the whole living one's dreams part, but wishing to accomplish such big tasks without having a set foundation or principles to achieve such things is just…pure hallucination. Now I know it's rude to just dismiss another's dreams as fantasy, but that entire mindset to me was essentially the tell that it never would have ever worked out between me and Jane. I may have big dreams too, but I always make sure to back them up with realistic expectations while having my feet firmly planted on the ground.

As we continued to munch on some greasy, unnecessarily large portioned Texas style fried chicken, I subtly brought up the question of whether or not she had a boyfriend. Subtle as in "Hey I'm the coolest guy to ever cross Coolsville… I'm not on facebook for the time being… I was on your page one day leaving you a wall post… there was this guy posting an obscene amount of love messages… do you have a boyfriend?" Subtle! Her response goes something like this, "umm I don't know, long distance relationships rarely work out though, but I think so". Geez Hurricane, future hobo and indecisive, you really know how to pick them! That's all that was ever said on the subject and the lunch continued normally. As we talked, I felt a sort of peace, I now fully realized that what you guys and all my friends had been trying to tell me for some time was true; this girl was not for me. It's funny because no matter how much I confirmed more and more with everybody's sentiments, the entire event seemed to contradict them. Whether it was subconsciously or intentionally, Jane essentially did everything she could possibly do to try to convince me that there was something there between us. Maybe it was the hand holding, maybe it was the excessive flirtatiousness, maybe it was the fact that she said "we should both get lost in the woods and use them as a metaphor for our lives and how we are lost within them", but if I still had feelings for this girl, it's these kinds of things that would have killed me from the inside. Needless to say, the whole ordeal ended well and in the end I'm just glad I got to stay friends with Jane because honestly I don't think I could ever get mad at her. Maybe it's her child-like disposition or her incessant laughter that pops up every time I tell a joke, but I just could not bring myself to get mad at her. We eventually met once more before she left the country to visit her long distance boyfriend (I still have a little bit of trouble trying to understand her motives) but as we hugged each other goodbye, I finally told her for the first time three words that I had long since wanted to say; I told her I loved her. It kind of slipped out, but I meant it only in a friendship kind of way and she took it that way as well. Then we waved each other goodbye and that was it, story over, the end.

Jane got back from Mexico just recently and is now taking a month long vacation in South Africa with the South African guy I had told you guys about on my previous blog. The girl is really flirtatious, and I fell for it like a sap. I am still slightly bothered by it and I do not understand why some girls feel the need like they have to be extremely engaging when communicating with guys, because it's very distracting and confusing to say the least. Oh well, at least I learned quite a bit this past year and a half. I learned to have patience (lots of it), I learned to tolerate and handle situations more carefully, but most of all I've learned to become an expert sociologist when it comes to people's actions and mannerisms. I would study this girl's characteristics and behaviors to a tee and would manipulate a situation in order to produce the best possible outcome. Prime example, Jane seems to shy away from chocolate products and has an unnecessarily firm disposition on transmigration, MENTAL NOTE MADE!! Jane will be studying abroad again this next semester, only this time in South Korea, so I won't be seeing her for another extended period and to be honest it doesn't bother me in the slightest. I will always consider Jane a friend, but one day the fantasy bubble that she lives in will pop…and I won't be there. So now that the girl who I was obsessed with for months is out of my head, what do I do now? Move on, of course. I don't really want to worry about any future stuff for the time being and I do not think anyone really needs to because I still partially believe in their being some sort of predestination that drives us all. Not a destiny, but more or less a set path that will unravel itself as we continue to move on in time and how we have choices to make at pivotal points in our journey. Right now though, I'm just happy with my friends by my side (not by my right, curse you Rebecca Black) and the life I've got.

So, now that we've got that out of the way, what's been on my mind lately? Well the color black of course! NO! Not Rebecca Black people, geez get her off your mind! I of course am talking about Pokemon Black!

I haven't really played a Pokemon game since Ruby and Sapphire and have not really wanted to play one since. The second generation Gold/Silver games are still my favorite to this day and after those came out it just seemed to me like they went downhill from there. I mean, when you see Pokemon like this…

I just shake my head because it's obvious the creators are just scraping the bottom of the barrel for ideas. I didn't really enjoy Sapphire much when I played it so essentially I just stopped playing Pokemon altogether, then low and behold everyone around me starts getting Pokemon fever as the release date for the new generation approaches. This supposed fever eventually reaches me and now I want to get Pokemon Black. Yeah, I know, Black version isn't much different than previous Pokemon games as it's the same old song and dance all over again. Main protagonist leaves small town home, catches Pokemon, collects eight gym badges, defeats super evil team, defeats Pokemon League trainers to become world champion and then collects the game's specific super rare boss Pokemon. Been there, done that, however just like the old saying says "if it ain't broke, don't fix it", so I definitely look forward to picking up this game some day when I get the money. YEAH! Money!!

Anyway, back in the real world, after having suffered the endless wrath that is final exams I am finally on Summer break! Woo! Woo! Woo! You know it! Well at least only for a week anyway, because this Saturday May 21st, for the first time in my life, I shall be boarding a plane en route to Spain. I have been looking forward to this study abroad mission for quite some time and honestly I do not know what to expect, but I feel that's the best mentality one can have going into situations such as these. Don't build up unnecessary hype unless you want to be let down. I will be staying in Spain for six weeks, participating in random excursions, exploring the towns, taking long walks on beaches, oh and I guess going to class as well. But I mean, who goes to Spain for the classes, even the professors that are flying abroad admit that essentially this study abroad trip is more for the experience and atmosphere rather than the schoolwork. That all happens this Saturday and we will see what happens from there. Aside from that, I will probably be going to Mexico sometime after returning from Spain and then take a short weekend trip to College Station, Texas to go on a retreat with a friend in mid July. My Summer is pretty much packed, which I take solace in because honestly one only lives once so might as well live it up while I can.

Aside from all of that, all is well. On some lighter news, I'm seeking out to buy the Wrestlemania 27 DVD, because even though it probably wasn't as good as last year's event, I still think it's worth checking out, even if the WWE did decide to remove Metallica and Johnny Cash music from Triple H and Undertaker's entrances. Pfft, stupid rights fees. :S Anyway that about does it for this blog-olla, thanks for reading everybody and if you haven't already done so, follow me on twitter @ twitter.com/OnlyJuancarlos (Cheap Plug!) and always be a fan! Have a great Summer, I'm just sayin'!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 10 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

Jane was getting to me really badly, even more-so than how she was affecting my life last year. She was becoming a drug, where one would get really bad withdrawals, and the highs were beginning to become even less and less joyful. Facebook is a powerful tool, it allows one to essentially see almost everything that goes on within another person's life. Every morning as soon as I woke up and every night before I would go to bed, the person's profile who I would always check was Jane's. Of course it would always irritate me whenever other guys would post on her page, specifically two people, mister South African friend, and then another guy who she had met in Mexico who was constantly leaving her love messages on her profile. I would spiral into a fit of anger whenever I saw these two write on her wall; so in order to better control my temper, and for my own good, I decided to leave facebook for forty days, starting last Wednesday March 9, 2011. Now this is the first time in quite a while where I've gone without facebook for longer than a day so as one would imagine it's a bit hard to let go of something that has become a staple of one's daily routine, but at least now I don't have to worry or become angry about who's writing on Jane's wall. That was until just this past Sunday.

Google, an even greater invention than facebook. It is the greatest search engine in existence and quite possibly the greatest website ever created. Such a powerful tool that is easily accessible under one's fingertips, what possible harm could come from it? Just a couple of days ago, I decided to google search our dear friend Jane to see what would come up and I came across several things of hers, but one thing I noticed in particular was that she liked to use a certain username quite a bit. Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to google search that username to see what else I could find on her. With all the searching I was doing, I could see how I could be classified as a stalker, but then again if people are putting public information all over the internet then they're essentially acknowledging that everything they're posting is open to the general public. So I google searched the username and came across a youtube video. A five minute youtube video uploaded two months ago of her and the guy she met in Mexico (the guy who was constantly writing on her facebook) hanging out and doing things together. The video is a picture slide-show and at the very end of the slide-show is a picture of both Jane and the guy who we'll call Mike kissing. All of this I discovered just this Sunday March 13th. When I saw the video, my heart dropped. First I slammed my clenched fist on my computer desk and then I punched the wall of my bedroom pretty hard.

I should have known something was up, I should have known she was involved with another guy. How could she be so fickle!? She lies to me before leaving for her study abroad trip, deceives me by essentially entering a relationship with a guy she barely met and then continues maintaining this long distance relationship where she's in Texas and he's hundreds of kilometers south of the border all while keeping this behind my back! Now I know Jane has a right to her own private life, I know Jane can do whatever she wants, but I feel betrayed. I understand that she may not want to divulge information that she is in a relationship, even after the couple of times I had asked her how her study abroad trip was, but I feel used. Best friends? Yeah right! What happened to the whole "I only want a guy who matches my commonalities of traveling the world"? This guy doesn't care about any of that?! And I should know because let me tell you something my peeps, you can learn so much about a person and have their personalities down to a tee by simply looking at their profile page. I'll admit, I looked through Mike's page several times after he had been leaving Jane all those messages, and judging by all the dirty status updates he leaves on his own page and several pictures he has of him bumping and grinding with tons of other women, this guy seems like nothing short of a grade A certified douche-nozzle. Way to go Jane, you really found a winner there!

You know, I'm glad I discovered all of this during Spring Break because if I had seen this video throughout any other time during the semester I would most definitely not have been able to concentrate on my studies. Seventeen months of my life…wasted…gone! I had given up facebook specifically to no longer obsess over things like this, but just this one youtube video has already done more damage than any facebook wall post or message could ever do. So what do I do now? I have a full week's break to mull over my options, a full week to get my head straight and clear my mind. The next time I see her, do I finally tell her everything about the way I feel? Do I let her go forever and tell her that we cannot be friends anymore? Do I just continue doing the same old same old, maybe thinking about how she already broke up with the guy during Spring Break acknowledging the fact that long distance relationships never work? Or if she still continues to maintain a long distance relationship, do I continue seeing her trying to convince her that Mike is not for her and goes completely against what she stands for? I will probably see her again and when I do I at least want her to acknowledge the youtube video and her relationship with the guy. I'll admit this whole thing has made me question her intelligence and more or less question my own sanity as well. You guys probably think I'm crazy and if you were to tell me so then I'd probably believe you all. The thing is, this girl has done so much damage to me over the past year and a half, and one of the worst things about it, is that she doesn't even know it. As my father says, love can make a guy pretty stupid.

True Relationships

After I discovered the video, I had a heart to heart conversation with my father. This is so rare for me, because I rarely talk to my parents about my own personal life. Over time I've opened up a lot to some of my closest friends, and I felt that I had gone through too much pain so now was the time to let my father know of everything that had been occurring the past seventeen months. It was really nice, the last time I had talked to my father as deeply as I did that Sunday was probably three years ago. I had a pretty big conversation with my best friend (my true best friend), over the phone that night as well about all that had happened. It was really comforting because he too had gone through a similar situation as well where he was obsessing over a girl. He gave the same drug analogy that is pretty much spot on for these types of situations. The guy's now getting married and I feel really bad for skipping his wedding to go to Spain, but that's a story for another time. But you know its moments like these that make me realize that I essentially have everything I ever wanted. I have a really good relationship with my parents where I'm able to tell them anything and friends who won't judge me even though I kind of blew them off sometimes in order to spend time with Jane. They are the best friends I've ever had, better than any other friendships I shared at any other point in my life, and its times like these where I feel like I've got true relationships going, far from anything one-sided.

Well anyways guys, thanks for reading this super emo, super schizophrenic two part blog. I know these get longer and longer every time I write them so I really appreciate you guys reading these, especially if you read the whole thing. On a lighter note, I'm rewatching some of my Wrestlemania DVD's as it's my yearly Spring tradition before the big Wrestlemania pay-per-view. Hoping for a good show this year as I'll be ordering the PPV and watching it with my little bro as I wear my Nexus "N" shirt proudly LQTM! Have a great Spring Break everybody!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 15 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

To all of my peeps from coast to coast and around the world, it is I, HURACAAAAAAANNN DEEEEL OOOORRROOOO!!! Man I love that, I don't think I'll tire of the whole Ricardo Rodriguez personal narrator bit anytime soon. How've you all been, it's officially SPRING BREAK 2011!!!! YEAH BABY!! Time to party and rave because I'm WILD AND YOUNG…. or relax for a week hanging out with friends, that sounds cool too. All schools in Texas are officially out for a week which is pretty awesome, but I have to admit unlike years past I am not necessarily ecstatic about this nine day hiatus. Not that I don't appreciate a little relaxation time but this semester has actually not been that bad for me in order to warrant this crazy week which many college students use as an excuse to go to the beaches, get drunk, and maybe even commit mistakes which they'll come to regret nine months from now. Well, my sixth semester at Texas A&M University is halfway done and seeing as how I've got nothing else to do right now, might as well write up a blog on what my life has been like outside this crazy website for the past two and a half months. Unlike past blogs though, there isn't going to be a main theme or an overarching story to this blog so I hope I don't bore you, but anyway let's get cracking, I'm just sayin'!

Winter Time in Texas

So unless you live in the southern hemisphere, these past seventy-five days have essentially encapsulated a period of time which is better known as winter. Now I don't know about you guys, but aside from maybe the holidays in late December, winter is my least favorite season. The entire time period is usually dull and boring, not to mention that I absolutely cannot stand the cold temperatures so of course as fate would have it, College Station, Texas hit record lows in February with a couple of days getting as low as 19ñ Farenheit (-7.2ñC) with winds of 30 mph (48 kph) occasionally gusting to 40 mph (64 kph) bringing down the wind chill to a ridiculous 5ñ Farenheit (-15ñC). We were even colder than Alaska when the Arctic front came through last month. Those kinds of temperatures may be normal for a winter in the northern half of the country but as a Texan, we are definitely not used to that kind of cold. Oh well, at least it snowed one day, that was kind of interesting since snow is so rare down here. Speaking of winter, my lips and skin always get really dry during this time, and especially my lips which have been giving me such a hard time this year more than any other year, but I think that has more to do with something else, namely a certain medication I am taking.

Treatment

I'm currently on this super over-powered prescription that pretty much walks the fine line between being medicinal and being a drug. The capsules that I am taking are meant to combat facial and body acne; the treatment is called Accutane. This medication has been on the market for a couple of years now and is typically only used as a last resort if all other treatments fail. A well renowned dermatologist calls it the miracle drug of the 21st century and a modern day penicillin. For the past couple of years, I've had acne problems which for the longest time I thought I was immune to. Seriously, during my early teen years I would always laugh and make fun of all the kids who had acne. At one point I even made one of my best friends cry by essentially calling her a mutant. :S Yeah, I know, I would have punched me in the face too, but those were different times and I was a different person. Well anyway as the years went by, karma has a funny way of coming back to haunt you as around the Spring of 2007 at the ripe old age of 17, I was beginning to develop some pimples around my face. GAH! What was going on? My beautiful flawless peach, slightly tan skin was being taken over by these round red blobs. At first I thought it was just a phase and maybe some of Jessica Simpson's good old Proactiv acne solution would do the job. I mean after all, a TV commercial trying to sell a product would never lie to me, especially one that has a hot blonde model endorsing the product, right?! Of course the Proactiv medication was inherently useless and with time I started developing even more and more pimples on my face.

Acne really is a shame, because at various points during the condition your face goes through up and down cycles where you believe you might be getting better and then before you know it you break out even worse than before. Well around my freshman year of college my condition began to worsen, so I went to the dermatologist and was prescribed some pills that would apparently get rid of everything. Well low and behold, no matter what cream I put on my face or what capsule I would ingest, my acne continued to flare up. So it was time for a change as I finally decided to go on the Accutane challenge just this Christmas and ever since then I am finally beginning to see results. It's about time, because I don't know about you guys but four years of acne is just way too much facial punishment. I'm halfway through my third month and I eagerly anticipate the day when I can finally rub my hands on my skin and not feel a single pimple, the way it was all those years ago.

Castilian Goals

Well for those of you who don't know, last semester I was accepted and confirmed to take part in a Summer study abroad trip to Spain. The program runs from May 23rd to July 1st where I will be taking two civil engineering classes in a university in Toledo during the day while living with a host family at night. This is something I have wanted to do for quite some time as it is something that really expands one's horizons. Unfortunately for me I didn't really think of the costs involved in participating in a trip such as this one and always wore this rose colored visor where I believed that everything would all work out in the end and that my entire trip would be pay for in full by a whole mess of scholarships. LQTM! Oh how stupid was I?! I did receive a scholarship that essentially paid for a third of the cost of the program, but regrettably the other two-thirds I had no means to pay for. I talked to my financial aid advisor hoping something could be done to resolve this dilemma but alas the lady inherently told me that with my middle class upbringing, me being the only one of my siblings who is currently in college, and both my parents having financially steady careers, all I was capable of receiving was a meager $1000 loan.

What was I going to do? I could sell one of my kidneys for ten grand. It all seemed pointless, I had no way to afford paying for the trip so I decided to cancel my excursion to Toledo and wait another year. It wasn't all too bad, now at least I could attend my best friend's wedding and be one of the groom's men he had wanted me to be. But when all hope seemed lost, my financial aid advisor came through for me and informed me of an outside loan that would be able to pay for my study abroad mission. It wasn't free money and it wasn't a grant, but it was assistance nonetheless, a simple interest loan that I would not have to pay back until I started working a career in the real world. So now I had a choice, take out the loan and participate in a once in a lifetime program or attend my pal's wedding while waiting another year risking the chance that I might not be confirmed again. After mulling it over for several days I finally made up my mind. I told the man in charge of the study abroad program to get my paper work out of the garbage and reconfirm me because this was a chance that I was not going to pass up. I'm going to Spain baby!! To me it doesn't matter if I have to take out a loan to pay for such a program, this is a dream that I'd be living. Money's a trivial thing, I mean I will pay it back eventually but eh, at least I'll be building good credit while doing so.

Obsession

So now comes the same topic that I have been discussing for the past year and a half, the very same thing that has taken up seventy percent of my thought process throughout late 2009, the entirety of 2010, and the beginning of 2011. I of course am referring to the girl who for the sake of these blogs we'll call Jane. Now if you've grown tired of me speaking over the same subject matter then feel free to skip to the end of the blog, but I feel like I need to write about this because its what's on my heart. Our dear friend Jane went on a little study abroad trip to southern Mexico over the entirety of last semester. Me and her kept in contact with each other periodically but essentially she was not a part of my life for all of the Fall of 2010. Tuesday January 25, 2011 comes around and finally for the first time in eight months I got to see one of my great friends, a person who I've loved and admired for so long. Finally after so much wait and so much facebooking and non-personal communication, I see Jane in person. After having built up so much hype, so much anticipation for this very day, it should be no surprise that I was heavily disappointed in our little two hour so called "hang-out" with her. Something felt off, the very same girl who I had grown feelings for... had changed. The little two hour get together we had was not what I had pictured all those months, the girl who I knew and missed so dearly was different somehow.

I suppose that's what I get for building up such high expectations for a meeting such as this one. Being a realist, I was not expecting her to fall head over heels for me after not seeing me for eight months or anything of the sort, but I felt like she did not even see me as a friend anymore. What was going on? This is the very same Jane who I love, but something was not right. After that day, I tried clearing my mind, "okay this was our first meeting in quite a while, things were a bit rough, but don't worry Hurricane, things will change, you guys will eventually get used to seeing each other again, you two will hit it off as friends again and she might just start developing feelings for you just as how you feel about her". I did eventually see her again and I had a much better time with her then than from our first encounter, but the fairytale wouldn't last as time after time that I continued to see her these past couple of months, she would divulge information that would continue to tear me to pieces from the inside.

ñ "I am going to study abroad in South Korea next semester, AWAY from College Station"

ñ "Oh yeah, I am going to South Africa this Summer with a friend of mine. Me and HIM are totally going to go road-tripping throughout the beginning of the Summer."

ñ "I already bought my plane ticket, I can't wait to go with HIM around the country!"

ñ "No, I don't really have any hopes and dreams for my future, I am just going to do whatever I want and see what happens."

ñ "YOU and I are two TOTALLY DIFFERENT people Hurricane, you wouldn't understand."

Seventy percent of the time she spoke, it was general indifference towards not only me, but to life as a whole. What was wrong with this girl? Something had happened and I wanted to get to the bottom of it, so I asked her of course and she replied...

ñ "I have not changed at all, I've always been the same person, maybe you don't remember."

ñ "I don't feel like being open about my life."

I did not understand what was going on at all, she was being unnecessarily complicated, she felt as if I was trying to prioritize her life for her when that wasn't the case. Several times, especially throughout our phone conversations, I had to stop myself from letting my true feelings show up. I had already told her once how I felt about her and she essentially said that she has found no one who matches up to what she wants out of life which includes her goals of traveling the world, and she's fine with not having a boyfriend for a really, really long time. I did not want to tell her again because I knew the result would be the same. Regardless, throughout these past two and a half months, I've tried so hard convincing her without telling her, that I am that guy. That there is no other man on this planet that shares the same viewpoint as her and is actually willing to go to such an extent to travel the world, because that's been my dream ever since I was a kid, to explore the outdoors and survey the unknown. In my head I was thinking out loud "Jane! Wake up, I'm right here! I don't know what you're looking for, but I'm right here! Open your eyes!"

Part 2 Continued Here

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 3 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

I know I'm not the only one on here who probably has the social networking website bookmarked on their web browser as I think it has become a staple of mainstream society. Back in July 2007, I spent a week long seminar with 63 other people at a private university call Rice University here in Houston and because I made such a deep connection with these awesome people I wanted to keep in touch with them. I was told of a website called facebook where I would be able to keep in contact with all of my new friends. At first I was completely confused about the concept of the site as to me it just seemed like yet another MySpace rip-off because back then MySpace was the unstoppable number one website on the internet behind only Google. I had given up on MySpace about a year before so needless to say I was not amused, but my friends assured me that it was nothing like that as facebook was much less annoying. So I decided to give facebook a shot and created a profile page.

Now to tell you the truth, one of the main reasons I was creating a facebook page was because (and here we go again) one of the girls from the seminar who I had a crush on was also making a facebook page. Haha oh boy! After creating a profile page, by the end of my first day on the site on July 22nd, 2007, I had about seven new facebook friends including the girl who for this story's sake we'll call Maria. Needless to say every time I entered facebook, Maria was probably the first page I visited. As my final year in high school went along my friend count went from a measly single digit to the double digits and eventually in to the triple digits. I wasn't breaking any records or anything but then again I wasn't much of a social networking person either, plus I always prefer to know the people who I am facebook friends with before just adding them on the site. Anyway throughout my senior year I continued going to these once a month seminars and of course I would make sure that talking to Maria was the first and last thing that I did at every one of these meetings. The wonderful world of facebook had allowed me to not only keep in contact with her when I wasn't seeing her in person but also it allowed me the ability to look through her pictures. Oh come on, I know you all look through people's pictures too, its not stalking. If people didn't want me to see it, then why upload it to facebook?! LQTM man I have to admit it, that's creepily stalkerish but I don't care.

Anyway, one day when I saw her in the land of reality I sort of made mention to our friend Maria about a high school homecoming dance that was coming up shortly and how I had no one to go with. Now Maria was a great dancer and I just happen to really like her so of course I would have been ecstatic if she would have said something about going with me to the dance. As I talked about the homecoming event I could sort of see a smile starting to build at the edge of her lip as she wanted to say something but didn't. I could have formally asked her right then and there, but because we were in public where other students and some adult supervisors could see and hear us, I ultimately decided to use the sanctity of technology instead to resolve this dilemma. I had Maria's email address from a list of emails the seminar leaders had given all the students so I typed up an email essentially asking Maria out to the dance and sent it to her. Later that night, to my surprise, she said yes and that she would love to go. Oh boy, was I excited. Thank you internet, you truly are the greatest invention of this generation!

Unfortunately my joy was short lived as two days later she replied to another email I had sent out, saying that her parents would not let her go to the dance because they didn't know who I was and that it was unreasonable because we live about 45 minutes apart from each other, Houston's a big city after all. I didn't know whether to believe Maria or not because at 17 years of age I had long learned that people will make up whatever excuse need be in order to get out of a situation. But I guess if she never had any intention of ever wanting to go to a dance with me then why had she confirmed that she did want to go to the dance in the first place? So I am kind of inclined to believe her. Needless to say that wasn't going to stop me from going and I went to the homecoming dance anyway. I had a much better time at this dance than I did at my prom later on in the year as I had fun just goofing around with my friends. I also didn't mind acting as a dance pole for some of my more attractive female friends. Anyway, the night went on and I was glad I went. Shame Maria couldn't have gone with me and I still wonder to this day what would have happened if she did come, but it is best not to linger on what didn't happen; would of, could of, should of!

As the year came to a close my shallow crush on Maria began to lessen because I was starting to like another girl. I eventually asked out this second girl to another dance, this time the dance being the prom, and was rejected because she was already going with another guy. Once I graduated high school on June 1st, 2008 I had about 200 facebook friends, including some of you fine folk on this site, but my once personal favorite number one facbook friend Maria had apparently entered a relationship with probably one of the most cholo uneducated Mexicans I had ever seen in my entire life. I do not know what she saw in him as even my own mother admitted that the guy looked like absolute trailer trash but in the end I suppose looks aren't everything. When I first found out about the relationship my heart was kind of racing as the girl who I had a crush on for most of the year was now taken. The whole affair didn't really affect me as much as the prom girl situation though because I knew right then and there that the type of feelings I had for Maria had been solely based on lust. I mean she was a nice girl and all, but to be honest the number one reason why I even liked her was because she was attractive and that's about it.

As for prom girl which I've covered in another blog here, every time I thought of the incident where I had asked her out, these pent up feelings of anguish would surface. I refused to talk to her much after being rejected and I also did not want to facebook friend request her as I thought it would be too awkward. From May 2008 to August 2009 the whole recollection brought so much anger and sadness inside of me that every time I saw a high school dance being portrayed on television I could not handle it and just turned off the TV entirely. I was mentally and emotionally hurt, due to the fact that prom girl was probably the first girl I ever actually loved. That was the first time where my feelings were not based solely on "I like you because I think you're hot!" but on something much deeper entirely. Oh well, who cares, time heals all wounds as I eventually got over the whole situation and just recently facebook friend requested her a couple months ago. Now that I have the ability to look through her pictures I guess I am kind of glad that nothing ever came out from my love towards her. First of all, she now resides in San Francisco, how would a relationship like that have worked out in the first place? Secondly, she seems to have picked up smoking, drugs, raising middle fingers with horribly done fingernail polish in front of cameras and other unnecessary habits that let me know that she's lost a lot of respect for herself and in the process I have lost a lot of respect for her as well.

Anyway, where was I? Oh right…facebook! Once I entered college, the whole website actually started becoming more and more of my daily routine and nowadays I see myself logging on to the site like three times a day. I guess I sort of have Maria to thank for being the push I needed to actually make a profile page because otherwise, the only thing I would have under my name that's Google searchable would be that outdated myspace page which I haven't revisited since early 2006. So now that I got that whole spiel out of the way you can probably tell by now that I love facebook. It's the same concept as myspace only less glitchy and annoying, and the same concept as twitter only without the character limit and actually filled with content. Well as much as I like facebook, several of my so called facebook friends sometimes make it hard for me to enjoy the site. So right here on this blog I have a list of some of my biggest pet peeves I have with people's shenanigans on the website. Now if you guys partake in any of these activities please don't take offense to anything I am typing as I too have committed some of these offenses. But just like Chris Jerico, I am not going to pander my act so just know that I do find these things annoying.

Hurricane's Top 5 Biggest Facebook Pet Peeves!!

5. Boring Picture Albums

What is it about cameras that makes people abuse them in such inartistic ways? Now don't get me wrong, I like pictures as it gives people a photographic link to memories that they will never forget. Hey my friend John just got back from China and took a lot of pictures about his time in the country. I've never been to China; this sounds neat, let's see the pictures! Oh cool my friend Alexia took some pictures from a family reunion she just got back from! Wow that's a big family, they look like they're having fun! Daisy took 180 identical pictures with her little puppy dog, all of them with the same expression on her face staring at the camera. Oh and she tagged herself in to every…..single……one of them…….NO!!!! One of these is not like the other!! What is wrong with people?! I appreciate the peeps wanting to have a catalog of some of the more interesting journeys in their lives, but I DO NOT want to see boring photo albums about the most inane activities of their everyday routine as it just lets me know that they have no life and nothing interesting going on. Oh look the photo album is titled "that day me and my puppy did a photo shoot", that's cute you used lowercase lettering for a title and you delivered on your promise of having pictures all involving you and your dog. I suppose we can check off honesty on the list of traits you may possess!

Listen, I know people have a right to upload whatever they want to facebook but I think it's time we remove some people's rights with what they can post as obviously that is too big of a responsibility for them to have. Plus for most facebookers, there is a much larger sense of intrigue in looking through pictures of someone's trip to China than looking through pictures of absolute boredom. This goes double for unnecessarily large photo albums of people smiling and staring at the camera for no apparent reason while the flash is on level thirteen brightness! Hey we all know you can smile, unless you have some sort of face paralysis, smiling is a common trait among most humans, however it's not something we want to see a bajillion times on a photo album titled "that time we were at the house and stuff"….NO!!! Good thing facebook gives us the ability to X out any unnecessary pictures on our news feed so that next time these people decide to once again kill off any integrity the photo camera may have left, we won't be notified of it.

4. Comments on Wall Posts

I don't know why but a lot of times when I leave a wall post on someone's wall and they comment on the post rather than posting back on my own wall, I feel like I have been robbed; robbed of an opportunity to seem more popular than I actually am by having wall posts that aren't mine on my own wall. I guess this is more of a personal thing and not necessarily a bad thing seeing as how it is much easier to just leave a comment on the wall post rather than doing the old school wall to wall conversation. I'm not going to lie I am guilty of leaving comments on most wall posts people leave me as well but not necessarily because I'm too lazy to reply with a wall post on their own facebook wall but because I don't want the little feed that says "Hurricane posted on Randyspeeps wall" to appear on my own page. I guess simply clicking the X on the right side of the newsbite would get rid of the feed but regardless I much prefer having a wall to wall conversation rather than just having one long string conversation on a single post. Again this is mostly a personal thing so if someone does it, it is not the end of the world, but to me, it's my number four biggest pet peeve on facebook.

3. Song Lyrics/Quotes/Stolen Philosophies

Someone once mentioned to me that people are a lot smarter on facebook than they appear to be in real life. Why is that? What is it about the website that all of a sudden brings out someone's ability to muster up these beautiful philosophies and beliefs about the world? Could it be that these so called humanitarians just simply did a little "Ctrl-C" and "Ctrl-V" on some random vague quote from another website that could apply to virtually anybody and then posted it as their status? No, that would be lying, who lies on facebook? Hey computer whiz, you're not fooling anybody, anyone could just click on some random quote website and STEAL whatever fancies their interests. What are these people thinking, "Yeah, that sounds like something that I would say!" Hmm that's funny because I don't ever recall you ever having such an elaborate depth of intelligence in real life, plus those misspelled lowercase photo albums definitely seem to make me question your astuteness as well. To me, these people's pointless quotes do nothing but expose not only how fake their status is, but in turn how fake their own lives are. Shameful, just shameful! I'd rather read something you came up with on your own, even if it's stupid because at least it lets me know that you're unique. Something like "banging my head on the wall causes me to see stars". It's not exactly bright but at least it shows character and honesty so you definitely get originality points in that department. Also something else that's almost as bad as a false status is having song lyrics up as an update. Granted, it requires a little more work to search through the lyrics of a song to find something that matches your current mood and pose it as an update, but it is still not you! Wake up people, these words are not status worthy!

2. Farmville/Fishville/Etc

Michael Cole: Oh my! I just got to level 1700 on the most unbeatable VINTAGE game ever! That's almost as high as that dweeb Daniel Bryan's score!

Hurricane: Okay, I suppose that warrants a newsbite on facebook, though you probably spent more time on that game than you should have, you shut in!

Michael Cole: I think I'm going to play it again! Oh my! NOT THIS WAY!! I just lost on level 1. Well I'm going to post it on the facebook newsfeed anyway and see how many people I can annoy with my pointless accomplishment! VINTAGE COLE!!

Playing facebook games is okay. Posting your high score from time to time is okay as well. Posting RIDICULOUS AMOUNTS OF SPAM about wanting to share some cake through Farmville or wanting to raise a goldfish in Fishville EVERY HOUR of the 24 hours in a day is not okay!! What in the world do people think when they're constantly posting these mundane game updates that mean nothing? All I'm gathering from all this nonsense is that these people obviously have nothing better to do with their time. By consistently announcing their so called achievements, they obviously want the rest of us to know that they have nothing going on in the real world as well. "Contributing to society? Getting a job? Going out in to the sun? What's that! No I think I'd rather stay inside all day and play with my virtual fish bowl because Lord knows I can't take care of real fish, much less take care of real pets! Hurr durrr durr!!"

Randy Orton: Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

1. 25/8 Status Updates

Most people seem to be under the misconception that they are more important than they actually are. Okay I know that probably sounds harsh but come on, we all know its true. Why do these people always insist on giving round the clock coverage of their everyday lives when most of the jargon that's put in to their status updates is nothing more than a first graders testimony of their everyday chores? "Eating" "Eating some delicious dessert" "It was delicious" "Burping" "Washing dishes" "Need to use toilet" "Toilet flusher doesn't work" "Crying". Status updates are supposed to invoke a meaningful insight about your current thought process, not be an hourly update about your boring routine life that no one outside maybe a hitman who was hired to kill you and track your every move, wants to know about! The idea of an update has become butchered by these vultures, especially now thanks to facebook's new format where a status no longer stays visible at the top of one's profile page after an update. Of course now that status updates no longer stay visible within a profile page, people go the extra mile and work around that limitation by continuously updating so that we do stay informed of their every movement or lack thereof considering they're probably in front of a computer all day. See this is why Twitter exists, when you feel like updating something pointless, then you put it on twitter and bug your followers, otherwise unless you have something meaningful to say keep it to yourself buddy!

___________

Thankfully for all these nuisances facebook gives you the option to X out a section of news feed from a certain individual so that you will never hear or see from these problem people ever again on the site. Well folks, that concludes this long story/rant. If you had the patience to read through this entire blog then I thank you! I hope you've all had a wonderful holiday season and may the year 2011 be a better one than 2010 for all of you! Thanks again for reading!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 16 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

Ricardo Rodriguez: Damas y caballeros, levñntense y ayñdenme a introducirles al hombre que tiene mñs dinero que todos los pañses del mundo combinado. El ñnico hombre del mundo con una mansiñn de oro, un helicñptero de oro, y una colecciñn de Lamborghinis todos hechos de oro. El es el lñder de la Insurrecciñn, el es HURRRRRAACAAAAAAAAAN DEEEEEEEEELLLL ORRRRROOOOOOO!!

Hello paisanos and welcome to another installment of Hurricane's blogs, I am your host the coolest guy to ever cross Coolsville Hurricane1123. I've actually always wanted to have my own personal narrator for everything I do in my life, so who better than Alberto Del Rio's own announcer Ricardo Rodriguez! If you want, I will translate to you peeps what exactly was said in the paragraph above. Well seeing as how I just finished off my fifth semester at Texas A&M University and I usually write these blogs at the end of every semester, why not keep the tradition going and write up a new one? I have actually been looking through my earlier blogs these past couple of months and decided to transfer some of them to a website called wordpress. The main difference is that because my wordpress account is public with my real identity being available to all of my real life friends, I omitted some of the more personal journal entries and toned down a lot of the emo stuff on many of the blogs that I did publish. So kudos to you peeps for being people I've never met in person because you all sure know a lot more about me than even some of my closest friends, but enough about that, let's get this show on the road!

So where to begin? Well I can easily say that this Fall semester of 2010 from late August to December has probably been the best semester of not only my college tenure, but of my entire life. One key difference between this semester and the previous ones was that the love of my life, a girl named Jane, was in Mexico doing a study abroad program for the entire term. This meant that I was no longer bound by the limitations of having to consistently worry about a possible one sided relationship because for seven months she was not a part of my life. Yes, I still did and still do think about her every night, but not having her be in the same city as I was in was exactly what I needed to allow me to actually enjoy the other things I have going on for me in the town of College Station, Texas. I will see her in January though so when the time comes we'll see where that goes, but I think I've already touched way too much on this subject in the past so let's just leave it at that and move on shall we.

Anywho, for those of you not familiar with Texas, College Station is the hometown of injured Nexus member Skip Sheffield.

It is also the home of Texas A&M which is where I have gone to college for the past two and a half years (university for you Europeans). I've mentioned several times before that being in college hasn't exactly been all that great and I've probably scoffed at the whole "college is the best time of your life" ideal more than once or twice, but now the tables have turned and this institution, which at one point in early 2009 I absolutely loathed, has grown on me quite a bit. For one, I no longer live in a gloomy, slimy dorm all by myself but rather I live off campus in a small, dilapidated four walled duplex with seven of my friends which we jokingly call the "Lambda Omicron Lambda" frat house. I'll give you three seconds to get the acronym joke. Now I know what you're thinking, "woah Hurricane, eight people living in one house!? Isn't that overkill?" Actually a duplex consists of a house basically cut in half with each side having three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen hall, dining room, and living room. I have my own bedroom and only live with three other guys on my side of the house. I was afraid at first to actually start living under the same roof with some of my friends as I had heard many stories of people starting out the year as best friends and then hating each other by the end of their 12 month lease. Thankfully that hasn't been the case with me as sharing the same house has definitely brought me and my pals a lot closer as friends.

Our little fake frat, which consists of about twenty people, have been the best friends I have had in my entire life. In middle school I had very few friends because I was such a douchebag. In high school, I was sort of a popular kid, but it meant nothing to me because all the relationships that I had with people at the school were nothing more than mere shallow acquaintances. In college, I've always had this group of friends but now that I am a 21 year old junior student and am actually living with some of these guys it definitely feels different. It's been amazing how a simple change of scenery does so much, because I now feel like I'm truly having fun in college. Five out of every seven days of the week, it's essentially a party at Lambda Omicron Lambda. Fun times are almost always guaranteed. Now of course the general idea of being at a university is to get an extended education and everything else is kind of just supposed to be a lesser priority, but come on! Who in their right mind actually says the best part about college is the classes? I sure don't! I'm not a masochist LQTM.

Of course being the responsible human being that I am I never let the time for play get in the way of my school work as I usually am the one who has his nose in the books more than any of my house mates. Doesn't really change the fact that I'm still intensely struggling in school with my civil engineering degree plan but at least I don't vehemently despise it like I did my computer/electrical engineering degree plan. A change in the scholastic landscape has also been a breath of fresh air as no longer do I feel enclosed like I did with my previous major. I'm working outside on the field a lot of the time doing something that I feel I could actually do in real life and something that actually does interest me. Now to tell you the truth, I'm still not one hundred percent sure if what I am doing right now what with constructing and designing structures, bridges, and buildings is exactly what I want to do, so that is why I have actually taken an initiative to do something a little extravagant. I applied and ultimately got accepted to take part in a Summer 2011 study abroad program in Toledo, Spain.

I am very excited to take part in something like this; this is what I have been looking for my entire life, a cause! A cause to find out what I really want to do, what my purpose in life is, and what I'm meant for on this planet. Everybody has a cause or a reason for being here on Earth, I don't know what mine is so I've taken it upon myself to update my Visa, attempt to scrap some cash, and pray that a whole mess of scholarships will be able to pay for this excursion because for some reason, deep inside of me, I believe that this trip to Spain will answer all these questions (at least partially anyway). I already have most of the paperwork done, all I need to do now is participate in a couple of seminars next semester and I'll be golden. I'm hopeful that everything goes smoothly before then because things rarely if ever go the way I exactly want them to. I know I've said in the past that I'm a believer of both destiny and the right to make your own choices, well this is a pivotal point in my life, opportunity knocked and I took it, I made my decision. Destiny or not, I feel like I need to go to Spain, so there you have it folks, for the first time in my life I'll be flying to Europe. Maybe I'll catch a Real Madrid or Barcelona game or maybe bump in to Wounds, SSJordan, or DeadnightMajin while I'm over there, who knows?

In the past I've either regretted the decisions that I have made, reminisced too much of happier simpler times or dreaded my entire future altogether but never did I ever really put too much thought in to the present. This is the greatest time of my life, not yesterday, not tomorrow, but today! I have everything I've pretty much ever wanted, minus Jane, but I'm still hopeful that stuff will eventually come with time. One day this will all be gone though, so I'm taking initiative in enjoying everything I have to its fullest so that 10, 20, 30 years from now I won't have any regret about my time today but rather I would look back to my yesteryears with fond memories. It is also entirely possible that I could die tomorrow so I guess I am partially glad that I've been having a better outlook on the current times rather than how I was feeling about a year or two ago.

So there you have it folks, this has probably been the least complaining I've done in a blog, but what about you? What drives you? What do you yearn for in your present? Thanks for reading everybody and remember that if ever there's a party in my mansion made of gold, you're not invited. In this world, there are no shades of gray, you're either Insurrextion or you're against us!

Thanks again everybody!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 6 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome once again to the action packed spectacle known only as Hurricane1123's blogs! How've you all been? This blog is brought to you by the letter "I".

Remember folks, you're either Insurrextion, or you're against us! Well Summer is coming to an end and we are beginning to enter the downfall period known as Autumn, or as Texas calls it "Fall". Autumn is probably one of my least favorite seasons just due to the fact that every day that passes, the days slowly begin to grow shorter in daylight and colder in temperature. Oh well, its not like it's never hot in Texas anyway, but anyhow now that August is coming to an end I think it's time to look back on the strange phenomenon that has been affecting me the majority of this Summer…..dreams.

Do any of you recall what you dreamed about last night? Believe it or not every time one goes to sleep, dreams do happen. Most times however you don't really recall the dream until much later in the day or better yet you just do not remember the events of a dream at all. I go through weird cycles. I will go through several straight days where all I do is nonstop dreaming and then it all just ceases where I do not dream for next several days, maybe weeks. This season has been a strange one for me though when it comes to the visions I see in my head. My routine before going to bed is not even that bizarre, although admittedly I rarely am capable of falling fast asleep until minutes, sometimes even an hour after I lay in bed. Typically the last thing I remember before completely losing consciousness is that weird transitional state where you still realize you're awake but are only seconds away from becoming fully immersed in to deep sleep.

We can never really remember how a dream starts, one just kind of appears smack dab in the middle of somewhere without a proper beginning. Contrary to real life though, we do not really question the logic of our circumstances, we just merely accept it as a norm. I also find myself rarely if ever inquiring the leaps in continuity or transitions in scenes between dreams that never seem to make any sense whatsoever, they're just there I suppose. You are in the middle of one dream and then BAM, you're somewhere else in another dream without any cause or reason. In one of my dreams, one minute I am at a poolside hotel floating in mid-air apparently hanging on to some spinning flowers looking down at the people swimming in the pool beneath me. The next minute I'm stuck in a closed down mall that is going to detonate in a matter of minutes with thousands of people still stuck inside. I'm somehow the only one with any judgment to look behind a suspicious looking bookcase and fall through a gaping crevice on the other side of the bookcase that lands me right inside a small bath-tub filled waist deep with water. At no time does it ever cross my mind that the predicament I am in is completely illogical and has absolutely no coherence whatsoever to anything that has ever occurred to me in real life. To continue the dream, as I stand in the enclosed tub I look up to realize that the person standing across from me is none other than a masked shinobi terrorist also standing waist deep in water who holds the trigger to the detonator. This dream eventually ends with me somehow overcoming the odds and applying a grade "A" whooping on this fellow masked man. I save the day and all is well as the career of an evil shinobi mall bomb detonator comes to an end…..yeah? I could not make this stuff up people, but I promise you folks that I did not ingest any drugs or alcoholic beverages whatsoever before going to bed.

On the other end of the spectrum, when I was a child, I would constantly have dreams that were either premonitions of the future or strange messages that affected my grasp on reality the next day that I awoke. One of these mental pictures consisted of me simply standing in a desolate house, but the moment I mentioned the taboo word "Saturday", the ground that I was standing on took the shape of hundreds of angry vipers. I screamed for my life as they coiled their slithery skin around my legs and then buried their sharp little poisonous fangs in to my skin. I awoke screaming from the shock of being bitten in the middle of the night. As I tried to reaccustom to the world of reality again I decided to test out the dream I just had and began to repeatedly utter the word "Saturday". I said it about twelve times before I began to felt light-headed and the room around me started to spin wildly. I felt like vomiting soon afterward, and me being about 7 or 8 at the time, was frightened beyond belief. Luckily this feeling passed in a matter of minutes and I went back to bed trying to force myself to sleep.

Dreams where I'm on the verge of death, dreams where I have invisibility and teleportation powers, dreams where the sky is literally eating the ground and one has to continuously climb up to higher terrain or they fall in to the infinite blue abyss, dreams where I'm not even dreaming about myself but instead see through the eyes of a different protagonist. Recently I have been constantly waking up every couple of hours to these weird visions and I do not understand their meaning. Maybe I feel that by writing this blog someone out there will be able to relate to all this haphazard gibberish and actually make sense out of it. Maybe this is why I was so disappointed with the movie "Inception". Not only is the stuff that occurs in my head more fantastical than what I saw on the silver screen, but there really was no explanation about why we dream what we dream. I guess nobody really knows then.

As a kid, I told myself that when I grew up I wanted to invent three things: A television that never shows commercial breaks, an elevator that can take you anywhere around the world in mere seconds, and a device that will allow you to burn your dreams on to some sort of portable media so you can rewatch them at anytime. TiVo kind of beat me to the punch on the first one but mark my words I will find the technology to one day delve deep within the subconscious mind and extract the content of these dreams to learn what kind of possible message is buried within them. I will just pop open the DVD player, insert the disc containing my dream, grab a bowl of popcorn and watch them from the confines of a TV to maybe learn something from them. The world of fantasy has always intrigued me and I want to decode everything that has ever crossed my mind. I want to fully submerge myself in to these dreams to experience the wild flights of imagination, the heart-stopping action, and even the illogical frighteningly weird visions, but just like every dream though, you eventually have to wake up. To be honest, I doubt most of my dreams even have a message and are probably just there to entertain me throughout the night before I have to wake up in the morning. Who knows really?! :S

So have any of you ever had any weird dreams that you just couldn't explain? How about any dreams that you wish you could dream more than once or never again? Talk to me!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 11 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

All throughout this entire semester, I have had almost one thing, or person I should rather say on my mind, and it's a certain girl, the girl I talked to you guys about last time. We're going to call her Jane just for the sake of this story. I know this is probably a topic that's been done to death so many times in the past on so many other blogs, so if I bore you with this, I apologize ahead of time for the repetition. The reason I'm writing about this though is because the topic is definitely one of those things that has affected my life probably more than it should. I spent the entirety of the semester essentially looking forward to the days I could just hang out with Jane and no one else. Every time I met up with her, I would get a sort of high, the kind of high that most druggies get when they smoke weed or something. Needless to say, we were always best friends, but I wanted more out of this relationship, I legitimately saw us winding up together eventually down the line as it was my supposed destiny. I was never even supposed to meet her in the first place. A computer glitch in the university system had placed me in an honors class for the fall semester of 2009, my counselor informed me these kinds of glitches don't usually ever happen. This was just merely supposed to be another class with every student in their being solely students and nothing more. Then why did I fall in love with the girl who sat next to me? Why did I meet Jane when I least expected it with both of us having so much in common and not ever having bumped in to each other ever in our lives until that day? Was it serendipity?

I know, I probably sound like a monotonous broken record and I apologize for this, but it's the way I feel and I need to write about this while it is all still fresh in my mind. Continuing on with the story, I knew this was the semester where I had to tell her that I love her because she was going to study abroad for a whole year in a city in Mexico known as Monterrey. So what do I do, I follow her of course! Now to tell you guys the truth, I have a lot of family in this city so I've been contemplating studying abroad there even before I met Jane, but now that she was going I was more than willing to go. Of course my hasty decision entailed that I could only do this for the Spring of 2011 seeing as how I was already too late to sign up for the fall semester. But who cares, everything was set in my own fantasy world, I'm going to tell her everything by the end of the semester, she'll say yes and it will all work out. It will only be one semester where we are apart and then I'll meet back up with her in the Spring. Nothing can go wrong, it's destiny, right?! Haha, since when do things ever go my way, of course there always has to be a catch. During one of our hang outs, Jane revealed a bit of information that hit me pretty hard, she likes someone else. Oh God, what do I do now?!

Well, I have a heart to heart conversation with Jane essentially telling her that what she has for this other guy, who we'll call Batista, is merely a crush and will eventually result in nothing. I've had various crushes in my life, and that's all they are, just light brushes of "hey I like you because you're hot and for no other particular reason". She agreed it probably would only end in nothing and I was relieved to find out one month later that the old dog Batista already had a girlfriend. No clue, if she was a fat, or fourteen though. So as school began approaching it's end, I started to reach out to all my friends for advice on what I could possibly do to convince her that I am the one, that it's meant to happen, that it's, you guessed it, destiny! But before I could start asking for help, trouble began to brew. I don't know if you guys have been following the news lately but Mexico has gotten pretty bad. Essentially one percent of the population has the entire northern half of the country on its knees. These "parasites" are nothing more than dirty drug cartels who hurt, kidnap, and murder innocent people simply to satisfy their insatiable greed for money off of drug sales. So because of this, the university won't let our friend Jane anywhere near the drug territory which happens to include Monterrey and she is forced to renegotiate her fall semester of 2010 to a city in Mexico farther south from all the drug warfare. Agh, foiled again!

What do I do? I can't just change out of the blue and say I want to go to this new location because then it would definitely seem like I am only willing to do this just to follow her. Jane says this temporary relocation would only run for a semester but she would be more than willing to go back to Monterrey in the spring if the travel warning lightens up. Alright, the plan is still on! So it is now the last day of school, Wednesday May 12th, 2010, I am seeing my best friend for the last time in what could possibly be months. Everyone I talked to urged me to tell her how I feel about her now or else I will live with the painful "what if" feeling of never knowing what could have happened. During our final meeting, I sway the conversation to the point where I tell Jane that I'll miss her and that I like her. How does she react, well she smiles and laughs and tells me she doesn't know what to say. Well, that's definitely not what I was expecting, considering I thought she would of gotten mad. Too bad, the smiling doesn't last long as Jane tells me she has no intention of having any guy in her life for a long, long time. She also said that she's been asked out a total of three times this year, me included, and she had to say the same thing she told me on those two other occasions. Ouch, that hurt. :S

Well, I am not going to let that go that easily, so I tell her that I, Hurricane1123, am not like any of the other guys. Unlike all the other people I've liked throughout the years, Jane is not a crush to me, she is much much more. She responds saying she believes me but that won't change anything. Haha of course not, so I then give about a three minute speech saying that no matter what she tells me I know that I will continue on my path in life whether it includes her or not. Even if I die alone, I always know that God will always be there with me so that I am never alone! And I tell the same to her, she will never be alone, God will always be with her no matter what happens. Then something happened, I heard her almost begin to cry. Oh Hurricane, what have you done?

Jane: I'm sorry Hurricane, I love you, but as a friend. I don't like hurting you, I really don't but I just don't want anyone.

Hurricane: You know I'm sorry for all of this, I didn't choose this. To tell you the truth I am kind of hurt, but you know what, I have no regrets, I said what needed to be said. I'm sorry for making this awkward on you, but I feel like I needed to tell you this now because if I didn't I would have had this bottled up throughout the entire Summer. Plus I'm not going to get to see you for 7 months, so it was now or never.

Jane: Look, the way you feel about me, is the way I feel about Batista. But to tell you the truth, I'm not even thinking about him or have thought about him at all this semester. I have dreams, I want to travel the world and go to so many different places, no guy I know matches the life I want to live, so I'm fine with not really ever having a boyfriend for a really long time.

So we eventually end the conversation and go back to talking as good friends seeing as how this is one of those relationships where we will at least always be great friends. We both take a picture, she gives me a big old hug and thanks me for all the stuff we did together and tells me to keep in touch over the Summer. She says she hopes we get to see each other over the break and that was the last I saw of her, 3:24 PM on Wednesday May 12th. Even with everything that occurred within those 35 minutes I am still glad that I got to keep my best friend. I guess, she was too good to be true, and maybe these seven months that I knew Jane were all planned ahead of time, but I have absolutely no regrets for anything that occurred. I gave it my best shot but it was just not meant to be. She even said I did nothing wrong so that's always a plus.

Maybe we cling on to this idea of how we are all destined for something, whether it is a dream to go visit somewhere, or the person we might or might not end up with. So what do I believe? I think rather than their being one storybook of one's life, there are multiple storybooks with each one being indicative of choices that we have free will over. The book in the center is the ideal one that has been written for us ahead of time, it is the story that we will follow if we make all the correct decisions in our lives. Any time a pivotal point in our life approaches, we have a choice and if we screw up, we will simply be transferred from one script to another that takes in to account this wrong judgment. It's only been a couple of days, and I still love Jane and I am partly still clinging on to a false hope that during this time we are apart, she will start to have feelings for me. LQTM, maybe it's just me living in my fantasy world but it could happen, I'm not counting on it though. Oh well, I hope I see her again this Summer, it was a wild ride while it lasted and I know that I will never forget my sophomore year in college. Destiny or not, I will continue to walk forward in life, and I am still going to study abroad in Monterrey because although Jane may be a lost cause, this will be a completely new experience for me to actually live somewhere outside of Texas for an extended period of time. I look forward to the future, but at the same time I will never forget the memories of the past and present.

So do you all believe in destiny? Do you guys have any crazy stories about someone you might have loved or once loved? Thanks for reading everybody, especially you guys who wrote comments on my previous blog seeing as how I used a lot of your guys tips on helping me through this situation! Thanks again!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 9 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

Raise your hand if you made any new years resolutions at the beginning of 2009. Do you remember what they were? Now keep your hand raised if you managed to keep any of these resolutions? I think it's safe to assume that very few of us kept any of our proposed new year's promises we had originally made because let's face it when it comes to keeping promises, most humans are undependable. That's something I learned the hard way. My new year's resolutions were to not get angry, to stop complaining and to not waste my life. Well, I can easily say that the first two resolutions went out the window the first week of January, but my last resolution is one that I have gladly kept all throughout 2009. It's not that I have done anything extraordinary in this year or anything but I haven't done anything stupid either to break the pledge thus it is the only one I have managed to keep. However there was a time earlier this year in late January when I felt like my life had lost all meaning and that everything this day forward would only be a decrepit wasteland of a depressing future. It's as if I was already wasting my life by continuing to go about my day through the same mundane routine that it began to drive me insane and I became regretful of every moment that had led me to this point. This was no longer about maintaining a new year's resolution, this was about me trying to maintain what little hope for the future I had left in my head. For those of you who do not know what I'm talking about these depressing thoughts originated from the belief that once I got out of college I would be working a crap 9 to 5 job doing the same monotonous tasks day in and day out for the rest of my life.

I am currently a Computer Engineer which means I am working with both circuitry and computer programming, both of which I hate. It's funny, because I could be having the best day possible, but the moment I enter one of my engineering based c_lasses, all the happiness becomes sucked out of my system and replaced with this pessimistic mentality that it completely ruins anything good I had going that day. Just by entering one of these c_lassrooms I see through the dirty fañade that these institutions try to shove down my throat of grade A instruction and earning a high paying career. I'm sorry, but all I see is a one way ticket to a mental asylum from overworking one's self doing the same task day in and day out for the rest of one's life. I think in order to survive one of these degree plans, you literally have to give up all forms of free thinking and optimism you have and instead develop this cold, logical, and lifeless personality that seems to stir in the air of many of these c_lasses because Lord knows that developing this human-less persona is the only way to enjoy this career.

Now, I'm not saying that all people who are computer engineers are comatose androids with absolutely no sense of emotion, but from most of the people I see in c_lass and ask, the only valid reason students choose this career is for the money and nothing else. Everyone hates what they do, not as passionately as I do, but the general consensus is that this career sucks and monetary gain is the only reward. Well, I am not going to enclose myself in to this straight line logical path that only heads in one direction, I want to do a career that I enjoy and can actually work with my hands. I'm tired of going about things by just one way and getting yelled at for trying to do things by any different approach. I'm sick of routine and I'm sick of this creative-less institutionalism. I thought these thoughts of boring monotony would go away with time, but it seems they've only gotten worse and to me it just does not seem right to continue to do something I don't enjoy. So, I'm officially switching my major, no disrespect to computer people, but I just don't see this as a proper career choice for those who want to actually enjoy life. So goodbye Computer Engineering and thanks for opening my eyes to the world outside of college! I don't know what other career path I'm going to take, I've always loved working with construction and drawing up plans for buildings, so maybe I'll do that instead. I'm currently talking to a university counselor to see what possible career choice best fits me. Perhaps I'm going to explore other aspects of engineering or just get out completely, but the future is a blank page so whatever path life takes me, I'm confident it will be the right one for me.

Alrighty then, now that I got all that out my system I think it's time to switch the subject yet again. Hey, this is my blog, isn't it?! I am 6 foot 1, can run pretty fast, have some soccer skills, and am a decent artist. Aside from that, I have no exceptional talents so to speak of so needless to say it comes to no surprise that I have never had a girlfriend. It's not that I can't get a girlfriend, it's just that I don't really ever try, but I have had crushes on people before, most of which I assume were one-sided. In fact, every single year since Pre-Kindergarten, I have had a crush on someone at sometime throughout the year. Too bad, it usually turns out to be on girls that are already in a relationship of some sort. That always depresses me. So what were to happen if a girl I just happen to really like just happened to be one of my really good friends who I talk to on a consistent basis and just so happen to even eat lunch together with on a consistent basis? What do I do now? Well, you tell me, because that's the predicament I'm currently in.

It's really weird because it wasn't like this before, just out of the blue one day in October I decided to talk to this girl in my psychology c_lass who I had a crush on and I invited her to eat lunch with me. From then on, it's basically become tradition that me and her either eat lunch together after c_lass or go to some park or even to her apartment just to either study or talk. I really care about this girl and it's gotten to the point where she's become like a drug. I know CM Punk would be ashamed of me for making such an anti-straight edge comparison but every time I'm either driving her somewhere or just talking with her I feel really happy. Whenever I'm not with her though, I feel withdrawal and I want to see her and talk to her again in order to stop feeling this emptiness. I don't know if it's more infatuation than anything else, but right now that I'm on Christmas Break I can't stop dreaming about her. So by now you're thinking, well what's wrong with you Hurricane, just ask this girl out already if you're thinking about her this much and you two are that close! Well there are a couple of problems with that, which is funny because no matter how perfect you think a situation is, there is always a catch.

Problem number one, this girl wants nothing to do with dating another guy as she's said that her past boyfriend only ended up hurting her in the end. Next issue is the fact that she will be leaving the country for all of the 2010-2011 school year which means that she probably wants nothing to do with anybody in any sort of long distance relationship, especially not with another guy. Finally, maybe it's the constant text messages and phone calls she seems to get every hour but it seems this whole eating lunch at the park together type deal is nothing new or any type of special treatment but rather something she does with all of her friends, including other guys. Behind all this though there's a silver lining. By this I mean that she is still a really good friend of mine and she often tells me of things we could and should do during the spring semester, so I must be doing something right if she's already planning out things ahead of time. To tell you the truth I'm a bit hopeful that somehow this girl I really like might stumble upon this article on the internet and find the connection between this Hurricane1123 persona and my real identity and find out how I really feel about her. Oh well, we will see where this goes. Nothing is certain, so if it doesn't work out between me and her then that just means it wasn't meant to be. It may hurt at first, but that's life for you!

So now that 2009 is over and we are starting the second decade of the new millennium, I think I'll probably just keep the same "don't waste your life" resolution because honestly I don't see myself keeping any other promise. In terms of where I'll end up in the future in terms of a career, a girl, or money, whatever happens, happens for a reason. This year has opened my eyes to a couple things about life in general and I only hope that 2010 will be a better overall year in terms of discovering the secrets about myself, about other people, and about our abilities to maintain promises and relationships. Thanks for reading everybody and have a happy new year!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 7 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

Just last year, I was an eighteen year old kid graduating from a large suburban high school in Houston, Texas. I was working a part time job at Kroger and was ready to leave high school for college. Fast forward one year later, I'm 19 years old going to Texas A&M University which is just about 90 minutes northwest of Houston and living on campus. All in all I have to say college has been a rather mixed bag of good and bad. The funny thing about my life is that I never really receive too much of a good thing. Case in point, whenever I do have a good day, I can be sure that the next one or two will be miserable. For example, one day as I was about to drive back home to Houston for the Easter weekend, saw there on the car windshield not one, but two citations. Turns out both citations were for the same violation for parking in a non parking zone. Alright, I understand, I made a mistake, I'm sorry, but what really angers me is the fact that both tickets are two days apart from each other, the second cop could have easily called me on my phone from the Texas A&M parking garage records to let me know that I was parked in a wrong spot and I would have gladly moved my car out of the space seeing as how I don't drive during the week and had no clue about the misdemeanor. But no, instead of calling me, you just put the second citation on there regardless of the fact that I was completely clueless of any said violation. The funny thing about all this nonsense was that it all had occurred the day after I attended Wrestlemania when I drove back to College Station. From a high note to two low notes, thanks a lot police force, you really know how to piss someone off.

Well, back on topic. On the first day after arriving to college I remember walking to my dorm with my suitcase and basically twiddling my thumbs for the rest of the day in my dorm playing solitaire on the computer seeing as how I have yet to have an internet connection or a television. The next day I had a job interview at the university book store in hopes of earning a little money on the side. Now here's mistake #1 for those of you future college students, Do not get a job on your first semester of college. You don't know how many hours of study I sacrificed thanks to my unruly schedule. Often times, I didn't have enough time to study for a test because my work place kept me busy and thus caused me to not be prepared for an exam I had the next day. Although it was a mistake to hold a job, I won't really regret it, because I did earn enough money on the side to get me through my semester.

During my college tenure, I began to have a crush on someone, which seems to happen every year and nothing ever seems to come from these love interests. Oh well, I haven't seen the girl since December so eventually this crush eventually faded away just like they all do and I have yet to like anyone else ever since. What I find strange though is that even in to the end of my freshman year of college, I have yet to technically have a girlfriend. I have friends who just happen to be girls, I've had those fake elementary school buddy relationships, and even a stalker, but never really a girlfriend. Everyone that I talk to seems to think that is strangely unusual because most people would have already been in a relationship by college, well not me apparently. Meh, to be honest finding that special someone became tiresome, and trying to find a girl who may not even like you isn't worth my time.

So where does most of my time go in to as a college student? Well, you guessed it, c-lass. At A&M and most likely any other university, you are no longer obligated to try your hardest in school. The teachers have all been paid so they could care less whether you show up to c-lass or get a decent education. So when it comes to get a promised Grade A instruction from an accredited university I'm pretty much screwed and basically have to teach myself because the teachers definitely do not do a good job at that. I began to grow tired of this nonsense and began regretting my choice of major as I was not enjoying any of my c-lasses; in fact I started to hate them. My weekly schedule began to become progressively worse over the year climaxing to a point in late January after getting back from Christmas break where I went through two weeks of extreme depression. I've been depressed in the past, but never to this extent where I regretted my future and my whole life. For so long I've been stuck in the past thinking about all the mistakes I have committed over the years and then it hit me, while I've spent all this time regretting the past, I forgot to enjoy it, and the simple days of just sitting at home and eating my mother's home cooked meals were long gone. Thoughts began pouring in to my mind regretting of what was to come, majoring in something that I wasn't enjoying, most likely working a career that I despised. My life was over, no more fun, no more easy street, it was going to all be harsh loneliness from here on out. I hate showing emotions, but I'll admit, I cried. It didn't help that during this time I had an extremely crippling flu that weakened me severely, I was struggling to walk and in bed most of the time. I had insane chills and the only time where I felt somewhat decent was when I took a hot shower to combat my chills. This pandemic kept me knocked out for those two weeks, so that may have been the biggest cause of this depression, but just as how there must always be an end to every beginning, this partial mid-life crisis, or quarter life crisis to be precise, faded away.

But even with so many over glaring negatives, there is one huge plus about college and that's the environment. Unlike in high school, where there are cliques of fake shallow people, most college students are just like you, trying to adapt to a new environment that is unknown to them. These guys are some of the most wonderful charismatic individuals I have ever met. Sure, occasionally I'll bump in to the typical valley girl who acts like a jerk towards everyone, but unlike in high school, that type of behavior doesn't get you anywhere in college. The great thing about this place is that even when during my worst moments, I had friends there to pick me up from down in the dumps. At first I didn't know anyone going in to A&M, but soon quickly got in to a conversation with a group of people that were just sitting outside, and ever since that initial banter, I have since become best friends with these guys. If it weren't for them, I often wonder what I would be doing during my free time when I wasn't studying.

Being at a university is really your first taste of what's in store for you in adulthood. No one is really there to hold your hand, sure there are your pals, but most of the time you're on your own. Feeling hungry? Either go out and buy a meal or cook it yourself. Ran out of clean clothes? Wash them yourself. You have a test tomorrow, are you going to sacrifice much needed bed rest to pull an all-nighter, or do you feel comfortable with what you have studied? Although the typical college freshman has already adapted sufficiently to know what to expect in college, it's still a big jump. Instead of waking up in your cozy bed at home and getting some breakfast, often times you wake up in a slimy dilapidated dorm and pick something up from a vending machine ten minutes before c-lass starts. It's an end of an era and a start of a new one. I'm not trying to be negative about college, I'm just trying to tell you aspiring students what to expect when you get there. Life is what you make it out to be. So without further a due, I will end this lengthy blog with a couple of tips for you crazy kids out there.

1. Unless you're a genius or have an undemanding major, I would not plan on partying every single night. In fact, I've been to a rave maybe twice this whole year and that's it.

2. Quarters, quarters, and quarters. Yes, make sure you have change for the washers and driers, nothing in life is truly free, and that means proper hygiene of your clothing as well.

3. This one is for you guys out there, ONLY get a girlfriend when you have the time and the money to maintain her. As guys, it is our responsibility to pretty much support her or otherwise we look like incapable losers.

4. DO ALL YOUR HOMEWORK! Yes, I know these are probably common sense tips, but honestly even if the homework is optional, I'd do it, because you don't know how much working something out on your own truly helps out.

5. Take it easy on your first semester. Again, unless you are a genius, which I'm not, I would not recommend taking more than 15 hours your first semester. Even though, a college schedule has less hours than a high school schedule, you'd be surprised at how much stress you have to go through.

6. Eight hours of sleep is better than eight hours of study. Studying too much, especially when you're tired in the middle of the night is not only detrimental to your health, but you often times don't even retain information. You can try to keep your body awake with sugary energy drinks and coffee, but in the end these unhealthy habits are only hurting you.

7. Talk to people. It's Saturday night, you're alone in your dorm, you have no homework, no tests to study for, you are in your dorm. You could watch ROH on HDNet, but most of us don't get that channel and the episode probably won't be uploaded until the next morning. Instead of doing nothing, how about making friends with your next door neighbor. You'll see how much more fun and afternoon can be with other people instead of when you're by yourself.

8. Make sure to call your parents and/or guardians at least once a week. The more often you keep in contact the better. What were to happen if you were feeling ill for several days and your family didn't know about it, and then you just dropped dead the next day from this illness? That would be pretty awful now, wouldn't it?!

All in all, college is just like everything else in life, filled with awesome memories and painful suffering. It's an experience nonetheless that you owe it to yourself to go through and it's in your best interest if you wish to work a high paying career. I hope this blog helps those of you out who are going to college, and if you've already graduated or are currently attending college, what were you're experiences. Did they compare to anything I said? Was it worth it? Talk to me!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 8 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

Location: Houston, Texas

Anticipation Levels: High

On April 1, 2001, I attended an event called Wrestlemania X-Seven. At the time, I just assumed it was another PPV that just happened to be in Houston. My little brother was making a big deal to my parents about getting tickets to the show which would be hosted in front of 67, 925 people in an old dilapidated baseball stadium called the Reliant Astrodome. My parents, myself and my brother got some $45 tickets to sit behind the titantron of Wrestlemania and watch the show through some binoculars. I loved the event and was on the edge of my seat especially for the main event. I had no idea that the event I just went to would be considered one of the greatest PPV's, if not the greatest pay per view of all time. I remember buying $6 hot dogs, going to the restroom during the Gimmick Battle Royal, watching the TV screen during the hardcore match when Raven, Big Show, and Kane were beating each other in the back, and of course cheering my 11 year old marky self for the Rock at the main event. Sadly, I don't have many memories of Wrestlemania 17 because we didn't take many pictures and my fuzzy mind prevents me from recalling every single thing of an event that I thought was just another event. I'll eventually upload the few pictures that were taken at the event on here just so I can prove that I did attend the greatest PPV of all time. I'm not Mr. King after all.

I eventually got out of wrestling one year later largely in thanks to my favorite wrestler of all time Stone Cold Steve Austin no longer wrestling for the WWE. Fortunately, he apologized at the Hall of Fame a couple of days ago about his walking out incident, and I forgive him. Back to the story, I got back in to wrestling in October 2004 and ever since then I've been looking forward to the day Wrestlemania comes back to Houston. Every Wrestlemania that I have watched, I saw the promo videos for where next year's event will be hosted. Chicago, Darn! Detroit, Crap! (Hindsight, I was right about Detroit being crap.) Orlando, Aww man! And then one day, there it was, I saw the glorious message on a wrestling website. WRESTLEMANIA 25 COMES TO HOUSTON! I was stoked, and was looking forward to getting my tickets as soon as they went on sale. Fast forward one year later, and here I am, a 19 year old freshman college student going to an event I've wanted to go for a long time. So after all that spiel, let's get this story started.

I arrived at the stadium at about 3:15 PM and the gates opened at about 3:30. The place was packed, and I swear I have to question some of these people's sanity. One guy had two $300 replica belts on, A Rey Mysterio mask, a Hulk Hogan bandana, and a Wrestlemania 25 jersey, which I must admit looked pretty nice, not worth the $30 though. A lot of people also made note of the pro-Shawn Michaels signs I had with me including "The Deadman Dies Tonight!" and a "16-1" sign. I got lots of support and lots of hate, playful hate though. As I was making my way up the escalator of Reliant Stadium, which is a far nicer and newer stadium than the Astrodome, I noticed that the ticket stub I printed out mentioned I was in the VIP Riser section. Looking at the Reliant map, I had assumed I was on the second floor, so I immediately thought to myself, I was going to be on the inclined seats of the first floor. To my surprise, I was wrong. In fact, I'm glad I was wrong, because I was really close to the ring, basically on the floor on an extremely small incline, supposedly the Riser. How close was I, you ask? Really close!

I was only 6 rows away from the $755 seats. The problem with floor seats though is that when something interesting happens, people tend to stand up and block your view of the action, especially when they decide to hold up signs. Inside the stadium I met a lot of people, including Bill and Doug, who are actually pretty nice in real life, and the Sign Guy. So with all the people, might as well get to know the people I'm sitting next to. There were New Yorkers behind me who had gone to Wrestlemania 1 and Survivor Series 2002, a couple of Aussies in front of me, a little kid with a John Cena autographed shirt (Lucky Sun of a Gun), and the guy sitting to the right of me from Toronto. That's right Toronto, me and my 16-1 sign were not going to get along very well with him. But we did. He was crazy hardcore, he had supposedly gone to Wrestlemania 6, 18 (I asked him why he was so quiet for the main event), 23, 24, and 25. My God! How do people afford to go to all these events? So as the event gets started to our shock, MizMo vs. Colons went on first as a dark match. I immediately felt the paying PPV customer's pity as the match had been advertised on Pay Per View. Anywho, it was a good match and people seemed to enjoy the Colons winning. Now the event started.

We got a fine looking Pussycat doll to sing "America the Beautiful", afterwards we got a sweet intro video and then the show started. Money in the Bank was the first match, and I don't know how it came off on TV, but we the crowd were booing CM Punk and wildly cheering for Christian to win. I don't have to tell you all that the match delivered and was probably on about the same level as last year's match. Not as good as Wrestlemania 21's Money in the Bank but better than 22 and 23. Next on the card was Kid Rock. I immediately turned to the guy next to me why they are wasting PPV time on Kid Rock. The fact that he went on FOR TEN MINUTES STRAIGHT was completely ridiculous. It didn't help that a lot of people seemed to enjoy the singing except for me. Oh and Kid, get rid of those stupid glasses and end your career already, no one "wants to be a cowboy" and it's not Summer! Needless to say, the next match on the card was the Divas match. The match was dull but Santino, err I mean Santina winning got the crowd to pop for him/her. His post match antics were hilarious. However, I have to think of the day when this transvestite gimmick will eventually wear off and when he will be actually treated as a serious threat. He has the makings of possible future main eventer, now whether Vince sees that or not is another question, but Santino will need to become credible sooner rather than later.

Up next was the Legends match, and I'll admit, I had absolutely zero expectations for this match. Piper and Snuka were eliminated and then came the good stuff. My God! Steamboat wrestles so much better than some of the pieces of crap on the payroll *cough*Vladimir*cough* and the "You Still Got It!" chant was well deserved. Anyway lots of Jericho fans, including the Toronto guy sitting next to me, figures, and Chris winning was actually good for the business. Afterwards we were all waiting for the glass to break and for Stone Cold to come out and totally destroy Jericho. We were all severely let down, when all that happened was a confrontation between Rourke and Jericho. Oh well, Hardy vs. Hardy was next. The Toronto guy tried to start a "Let's Go Hardy" chant. Oh sneaky, sneaky! Matt won a good to great match with a sick Twist of Fate on a Steel Chair. It's simple but so effective and it looked nasty. Next was Rey Rey vs. JBL, short but harmless, next.

Now was the match most people were looking forward to. Most people that I had talked to said they were looking forward to two matches, "Randy Orton vs. Triple H" and "Shawn Michaels vs. Undertaker". From Shawn's opening chorus to the final Tombstone, the crowd was alive for what I thought was the greatest match I have ever seen, maybe it'll even best Chris Benoit vs. HHH vs. HBK for Match of the Decade. I don't know, but it's definitely up there.

Houston was torn 50/50. And that crazy Toronto guy was always trying to be louder than my HBK chants, what with his "You Screwed Bret" chants. I politely told him Bret screwed Bret. At the end of the match though he said that that was the greatest Wrestlemania match he had ever seen live since he's been to so many. Match was excellent. The New Yorkers sitting behind me said that the following two matches were going to have a tough time following that show. Sadly, that was the truth.

The Hall of Famers segment was great and Austin got a massive pop, him riding around in the humvee was a nice touch. I also got a great pic of Stone Cold drinking beer in the ring. The Triple Threat match was nice and the Army of one thousand Cena's was a great touch, since he always seems to get the best entrance, 50% of the crowd still booed him though. Crowd popped for the big spots was quietly mostly throughout the match.

Then came the main event. So with the excellent build up it got and the fact that Randy Orton and Triple H hated each other so much, they were going to pull out all the stops and have balls to the walls action, Right?! WRONG!! I love Randy Orton, but he was just not on the ball today. Me and several Orton fans, there were a lot tried to get the crowd up to start chanting "RKO", what happened, the crowd didn't stand up, and why, because these two were in a horrible excuse for a Mania main event. What a weak match! And the fact that Triple H won in the end just totally no sells Orton's Rumble win. Orton was not right, but Triple H easily wins Worst Wrestler of the Night. You have a chance to go all out, and you just put Orton in to a corner and start doing basic kicks and punches. What the hell?! The crowd wanted to start a wave, but it never caught on. Triple H winning did get a big pop though.

In the end, my Toronto friend summed it up best, most Wrestlemanias are one match shows. Unlike X8, some of the other matches delivered as well, not just the one big match. However he said, although this was better than 23, it was worse than 24, and I agree. So eight years later, I attended another Wrestlemania. The fact that they didn't bring up the fact that WWE had been to Houston before for historical significance was kind of a head scratcher. Even more of a head scratcher was the crappy order of the matches, and the fact that we got NO BACKSTAGE SEGMENTS! No Slick and Cryme Tyme, No King Booker and freaks, no Festus ring antics, no Edge awesome insults to the fans. Just pure matches. And although I am fine with it, it leaves a lot to be desired for the perfect Wrestlemania experience. One thing I will commend the WWE for is the fact that they actually used all four hours of PPV and did not pull that ending thirty minutes early crap that they pulled at Wrestlemania 23.

So was this better than Seventeen? No. Was this one of the top five Wrestlemanias of all time? No. Was this one of the top ten Wrestlemanias of all time? Yes, and I can probably make a case for it. All complaints aside, I mostly enjoyed Wrestlemania and if given the chance I'd do it again, because there's no substitute for the live experience. It was fun and it beats the crap out of doing college work on a Sunday Night. So what did you guys think of the show? Did you guys happen to see me?

I have lots of Wrestlemania 25 pictures available on my facebook account here…

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=104119&id=604434898

See you later guys!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 19 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

Well, anyway, instead of looking forward to another year, I think I'll look back on the year 2008.

Things I learned in 2008:

Everybody says that high school graduation is supposed to be one of the greatest moments of your life. Honestly, all I remember was eating Outback Steakhouse, my favorite restaurant, with my parents and grandparents, and throwing my hat in to the hair during the Alma Mater. To me it was just another day, and although the graduation was supposed to signify the end of era, it certainly didn't feel like it, and I still feel like I'm in the same era as I was during most of my high school tenure.

Prom is overrated! I don't understand how some students can afford to have a limo pick them up and drop them off at the location of prom and how some of them can afford to go to lake-houses right afterwards and party some more. Honestly, after I was rejected by a girl because she was already going out with someone else, I found out she was indeed telling the truth at the dance because I saw her with that other guy, I just felt pretty blah. The DJ played generic crappy songs like "Soulja Boy" and Mariah Carey songs. The event was alright as I did dance a little, but overall I enjoyed my homecoming dance a lot more. The Senior Night after Prom though was a bit better. Mostly because I won a laptop as a door-prize and saved my family $600. 8) Maybe if I would have had a girl, gone with a group in a limo, and went to a lake-house afterward, I might have enjoyed it. But overall, I was disappointed, especially because I spent $60 on a prom ticket, and $20 on the Senior Night After Prom.

The college experience is not all it's cracked up to be. Maybe it was because I was working a job, maybe it had something to do with the fact that I was taking ridiculously extreme calculus c_lasses on my first semester of college. Maybe it was the fact that my GPR is in the tubes right now. Overall, I just didn't really enjoy college as much as peope told me I was going to. There were former alumni that told me that college was pretty much wild party after wild party. Well now I see why these former alumni are fast food employees, because with my heavy-loaded schedule that is required of an engineer and my low-paying minimum wage job, I don't have time to party. Well all that studying was all for not as my GPR is a low 2.7 and if I dip any lower than that, I'm on academic probation.

The government doesn't care about the middle c_lass I'll be honest, I don't exactly have money, but we're not poor either. However, we as the middle c_lass are the people that contribute to society the most. The rich are either pampered celebrities that do nothing for society as a whole except entertain us really, and the poor do not contribute ANYTHING! I'm not calling anyone of these groups out, your economic level is your economic level, but the middle c_lass are the hardest workers. Yet when the government looks down upon us, charges us outrageous taxes and then claims that my family's expected contribution for college is $37,000, well that just pisses me off because my family can barely pay $2,000 for a semester's tuition. I don't know where the financial aid office is pulling that number from, but they forget to take in to account that because we generally have more money than the poor, we pay more money in bills and taxes to enhance the city's economy yet we get diddly-squat in return! There really is no money left over to pay for college, and with the economy being in a rut, it makes taking out a loan even worse to help pay for the over-mounting fees. In total, by the time I get out of college, we'll have an estimated $30 thousand debt to pay if the government continues to ignore the middle c_lass and not cut us a break. I certainly hope this changes with the new president, because the way things are going, we're all going to be poor.

Sorry for the rant. So what has the year 2008 taught you? Any exciting experiences? Anything that pissed you off? Talk to me!

Hurrapop: 2009 better be better than 2008! I'm just sayin'!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 12 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

Worst Airplane Flight Ever

The day was December 10, 2008. I remember it like it was last week, I had just gotten back from College Station the day before and was planning on going on an airplane trip with my father to Puebla, Mexico that day. I rarely get to see my father's side of the family because they live about 20 hours south of Houston and the last time I got to see them was in June 2006. I have six and a half weeks of Christmas vacation so being away from home during those six weeks is always a plus. The day was strange though, due to the fact that it was snowing. Now maybe to some of you snow in December is a common thing, but in good old H-Town snow is unheard of. It's only snowed maybe six times in the city's existence.

My father and I drove to the airport anyway regardless of the snowy day and continued onward with our plans. Everything was going according to plan, we boarded the plane at about 5:50 PM and we're ready for the plane to take off at the 6:30 PM timeslot. Unfortunately, the snow caused a bit of a problem since the take-off ramp was slippery and the wings of several planes had ice on them. The pilot told us that the plane was unready to take off because of the frozen wings and warned us that it would be another two hours before take-off. Alright, no problem, Houston is not really a snow city so I guess waiting in line with the other planes to de-ice the wings for a while was acceptable.

Unfortunately, there were only four de-icing vehicles, and they were working with hundreds of frozen airplanes. So there me and my dad were on the plane, waiting in line for the wings to be de-iced. 7 o'clock, 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock passes. Several passengers on the plane were beginning to become impatient and the pilot had to reassure us several times that the line was moving and that we were going to take off soon. Midnight passes, and low and behold, we were still on the take-off ramp, at about 12:15 the pilot told us that the Puebla airport tower had closed for further flights, and we were going to have to return to the airport. To put things in to perspective, our flight was cancelled! A lot of planes were trying to return to the airport though because similar situations were happening to them.

1:30 AM, Thursday morning we were back at the airport. So me and my father got in a long rescheduling line and by about 3 AM had booked a 10AM flight for Puebla. So I layed down on the uncomfortable floor of the airport and tried to get some sleep.

I woke up at about 5:30 AM and several people who also slept in the airport fled to the departure screens to see what flight they were getting on. 7AM passes, and I don't see the 10AM scheduled flight on the screen. I get in line at Customer Service to see what's up, and guess what...THE 10AM FLIGHT WAS CANCELLED!!! At this point, me and my dad were pretty pissed off and went to see the supervisor. She gave us a load of legal crap about how Continental Airlines is not responsible for flight cancellations due to inclement weather. I understand that the Houston Airport cannot predict Mother Nature, but why did they at least not let us know that the 10AM flight was cancelled instead of making us stay at the airport overnight! She wanted to book us a flight to Puebla on Friday the 12th at 6:30 PM.

My dad was infuriated, he wanted to go home right away and get his money back for making us go through hell! She eventually booked us a flight for 11:50 AM to Mexico City which was about two hours distance from Puebla. My dad just wanted to say no, but I told him that it's be wrong to let our family in Puebla stay there anxiously waiting our arrivals only for us to let them know we are not coming. He eventually booked the 11:50 flight and as a form of saying "We're Sorry", the supervivsor lady gave us first c-lass tickets.

11:50 came, and we boarded the plane AGAIN!! We arrived at Mexico City at about 2:30PM on Thursday December the 11th. Everything was alright, untill we went to baggage claim. Our bags were scheduled to go on the Puebla flight, not the Mexico City flight, and they would arrive at the Puebla airport. Oh my God! It was one nightmare after another! No biggie, we would just go to the Puebla airport at 8:30 PM that night to pick up our bags, right? WRONG!

The Puebla flight for that night was overbooked, which means, the storage bins on the flight were up to capacity and our bags were still in Houston. So what does that mean? No clothes, no toothbrush, no deodorant, no razor, no NOTHING! The Puebla airport officials told us over the phone to come back the next night since there was only one Houston to Puebla flight a day. So me and my dad bought a pair of clean socks and other unmentionable items for the next day and went to the airport the next night. Friday night, December 12th Puebla airport 9PM, NO BAGS!!!

The airport lady told us that again the storage bins were filled up to capacity with people's lost luggage. I was pissed!! The airplane lady then let us in on a little surprise. The Houston pilot that told us that the Puebla air tower was closed was a big fat liar. The Puebla airport doesn't close untill 3AM, and it was the Houston air tower that cancelled all flights, not Puebla.

She assured us that our bags would be there the next night. What does that mean? More shopping!! Finally on Saturday, December 13th at 9 PM, there they were...OUR BAGS!!! After four days of wearing the same pair of jeans it was sweet sweet relief to finally get some clean jeans! My dad called to see if we would get any form of compensation for the lost day, such as an extra day in Puebla. Nope! Big Brother said that there is no compensation for weather related cancellations and delays, and if we wanted to stay an extra day we would have to pay more. N-Frickin-O!!!

Moral of the story: Never fly Continental Airlines!!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 10 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

Just so you guys can get a grasp for who I am in real life, I like to think myself as mild mannered yet at the same time an extrovert, sometimes a bit arrogant. Ever since I started elementary school, my attitude and personality went on a bit of a downward spiral that would continue to get more and more drastic as the years went by. This would including screaming at people, threatening someone to put them on a non-existent hit-list, being very stupid and act out like someone who had severe ADHD or OCD, and explode on contact to anybody who dared insult me. Yeah, people hated me, and I don't blame them, I despise the person that I was between 1998 and 2005.

I just sometimes wish I could go back in time and fix all the mistakes I ever did in my past. For starters, I want to stop my sixth grade self from embarrassing myself in front of the whole student body by being a prick and deciding it would be a bright idea to let everyone know that anyone who insults me will be sorry. I also want to go back to the time in 1994 when I was just four years old when I hurt this little girl by destroying her property and anything that she might cherish. Go back in time, and stop myself from getting angry at those who simply just wanted to be my friend and refused them because I was called Juan instead of Juancarlos. Go back in time and retain myself from asking out a girl who already had a boyfriend. Stop myself from getting suspended in middle school for getting in a fight. Stop myself from being such an annoying prick towards people. Stop myself from making racist comments. Basically just fix all the errors that I have committed in the past.

However, the one thing that I am proud of is that I'm not that person anymore. I am glad that everyone sees me as a new and improved, and different individual than what I was during my freshman year in High School. I am glad that I stopped hurting people so much, but in the process hurt myself for thinking of everything I used to do wrong.

Because of my attitude, I had created so many enemies, that my family had to relocate to a new district in Houston just because of me in 2002. I've come in contact with a couple of individuals who I haven't seen in years ever since I moved, and am happy that we have all matured in to better individuals.

Several times during my life, I have had nightmares over the destruction I had caused to the little girl's heart 14 years ago. My actions did not bother me at all, until the far reaching consequences eventually got to me during my early teens. It's funny, because even though I may not have done anything wrong for quite a while, the consequences of my actions eventually got to me and to this day I still feel like I have killed several people, and it's not a good feeling.

Have any of you guys ever had problem that you wish never happened? Have you ever dwelled on the past? Speak out!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 13 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot

Anywho, here are ten juicy facts that you probably don't know about me. In all honesty, they're not the juiciest, because if I we're to have included those, I'm pretty sure most of you would despise me and wish me a painful death.

1. I was fired from my first job working at a Chuck E. Cheese type place called "iT'Z" because a fat woman began cussing me out swearing with several f-words over how expensive the place was thinking that it was all my fault, so I called her a "b*tch". Management didn't take it too well, and I was laid off.

2. I was the first person in my middle school to be suspended by the janitor for getting in a fight. It was October 2002, and I was 12 at the time, some kid tripped me and closed my locker seconds before the tardy bell was about to ring. This would be the third time I would have to reopen my locker and be tardy because of him, so we fought. Both he and I were suspended and I had to take Anger Management cl-a-sses for it.

3. I have mild Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, better known as OCD. I used to be a lot worse, where I had to touch people back, count every step that I walked, walk with the left foot equally as the right, and absolutely hated germs. I'm not so bad now, but still have a few things to work on.

4. Back in Pre-K in 1994, I was a bully towards several kids, largely because I was the tallest, and pushed everyone around because I wanted everything for myself. Ever since then, I've apologized to a lot of people for my actions and have made friends with some of them.

5. Late 2007, I almost ran into a cop because my brother saw an empty parking space and we floored it to win the spot when a cop crossed our path. I braked immediately and the police officer got out of the car. He immediately began to call me a "f*cking idiot" for almost crashing in to him. He ended with "Have a Nice Day!".

6. A couple of years ago I created a comic book series about a couple of kids that live in the city and their crazy antics. Little by little it began evolving in to a deeper dark and moody story about how the different charatcers hated each other and wanted to hurt each one another.

7. I once asked a girl out to a dance over the internet. I was prepared to take a "No", but shockingly she actually said she'd love to go! Two days later she replied with another e-mail claiming that her parents forbid her to go. I later talked to her face to face, and it turns out that she was telling the truth as her parents did not know me. It seems that she's picked up a boyfriend, who let's just say is an uneducated gangstuh who treats girls as material possessions and is not afraid to show that attitude.

8. I have never left North America and the farthest South I've ever gone is Cancun, while the farthest north was Austin, Texas.

9. Back in 2002-2003 when I was in seventh grade, I had a major obsession with Yu-gi-Oh and hosted a school-wide tournament. I gave everyone two paper starchips and a paper bracelet. Many people began calling me by the dreaded nickname "Pegasus" which they still do sometime to this day since in the series Pegasus was the name of the guy who hosted a similar tournament.

10. I have attended a couple of wrestling events, but the best one I've attended thus far was Wrestlemania X-Seven. At the time, I thought it was just going to be another PPV. Turned out to be the greatest PPV of all time. Funny how things work out like that. I'm going to Wrestlemania 25 next year so I can relive the experience.

Well, they may not be juicy, but I certainly hope you guys were entertained. By the way, please watch my new youtube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tM5gdZQ0yoc and please leave comments. I'm desperate!

Read and Post Comments (There are currently 6 other comments) | Get the full article at GameSpot