Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Random Thought of the Day...

This tie is starting to feel more like a noose.

Saturday, May 24, 2008

Friday, May 23, 2008

Breaking News!


Athens, Georgia - AP wire reports confirm that The Raleigh Bachelor is in the southern college town of Athens, Georgia to celebrate Memorial Weekend. An Associated Press photographer phoned in to the bureau last night to validate this report, after spotting The Raleigh Bachelor at the downtown Athens bar 8E's with a beautiful woman on his arm. When asked for a comment, The Raleigh Bachelor simply said "As you can see, I've got my mojo back!"

Stay tuned to The Raleigh Bachelor's blog for up to date reports on this breaking news story as it continues to unfold...

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Fork in the Road

We all, at various times in our lives, come to a metaphorical crossroads. Some of these are largely insignificant - what to eat for dinner, for example - while others are potential life-altering decisions that will no doubt bear consequences and outcomes that linger for days, weeks, months, and even years into the future. I'm sure you're wondering why I'm writing this, and you deserve an explanation, no matter how brief or incomplete. I, myself, have arrived at a crossroads. It is to me, as large and significant as can possibly be (without being a matter of life and death of course). Major life-altering decision(s) will be made in the very near future. I'm in the midst of a time that most would associate with the emotions of nervousness, tension, anxiety and fear, among other feelings. Yet here I stand on the precipice, looking out at the world in front of me, the weight of the world on my shoulders, in the face of great uncertainty, and I am unafraid. A tremendous leap of faith will be required soon. That excites me.

More soon, as necessary...

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Lollipop Remix!!!


Check out the link for Ye's remix of Lollipop. He straight killed it! I'm having some trouble with getting the link to post correctly, so just cut and paste into your browswer for now.

http://www.kanyeuniversecity.com/blog/?em3106=193783_-1__0_~0_-1_5_2008_0_0&em3161=&em3281

Monday, May 12, 2008

On Being Someone's Mistake...

We've all at various times had instances and occurrences in our lives that were incredibly painful. You probably instantaneously thought of one of your own as soon as you finished reading that first sentence. Whether you've been used by someone solely for their personal gain with a completely disregard for your feelings, had someone be unfaithful to you, or you've been lied to and, once you discovered the truth, its magnitude was so great that you couldn't feel its pain until you first recovered from its shock, you've been there. But I wonder, how many of you have been someone's mistake? I for one, have. It is an excruciatingly painful thing, especially when it occurs twice in oh, say, six months.

Being someone's mistake is more than just a simple insult or having unkind words directed at you. Being someone's mistake means that they view everything about their experience with you as having negative connotations. It is as if they are casting you aside for being less than adequate for their desires. All of this obviously has a negative impact on one's self-esteem, at least for some time. If this ever happens to you, what you must realize is the following:

You weren't someone's mistake, they were yours. And making mistakes - stumbling, falling, and experiencing the accompanying pain - is how we learn and improve going forward. If you learned just one thing, no matter how seemingly small and insignificant, then the whole experience was worth it.

Sunday, May 11, 2008

On Rainy Days...

It's Sunday morning and, as per my usual routine, I've been sitting here consuming a Starbucks venti white chocolate mocha, reading the newspaper, doing the crossword puzzle, and enjoying the simple peace and quiet that accompanies lazy Sunday mornings.

It's also Mother's Day, so don't forget to call your mother, if you're fortunate enough to have one.

The familiar warmth of fragmented sunlight peeking through the wooden slats of the window blinds is noticeably absent this morning. Rain drops pelt the glass at a moderate rate, adding some sort of irregular melody to my methodical completion of the New York Times crossword, one painstaking clue at a time.

Things have been hectic as of late, and to a greater extend, unpredictable. Myriad choices and obstacles have been placed in my path in the past few weeks, as if part of some greater test I must pass. Some have been the kind one can simply step over with a stride slightly greater in size than the average gait, while others have been the kind that require one to stop and consider the possibilities, the various outcomes and consequences, both positive and negative. And once one does reach a decision, it becomes necessary to run and jump as quickly as possible for fear of leaving one's self too large a window of time to change one's mind, when in reality one's first instinctive decision is almost always the best choice.

The events of the past few weeks played over and over in my mind this morning in between the careful consideration I gave to each puzzle clue. I don't feel it appropriate to share the details of any of them with you here, at least not at this juncture - maybe at a later date. As I sat at the kitchen table listening to the rain, it hit me. I used to despise rainy days, mostly for their hindrance of my partaking in outdoor activities. But now I love them, at least in moderation, and here's why. I've come to believe that rainy days are the big man upstairs' way of reminding us who's in control. Sure, he gives us the ability to make our own choices and think freely for ourselves, but then he throws in a rainy day here and there to say what I interpret to be something along the lines of "Slow down."

Life is short; this much is known. But we all seem to get so caught up in deadlines and tasks and the like, that we have the tendency to lose focus on enjoying life. Rainy days offer the chance to recharge and rethink one's approach. So on days when the sun doesn't shine, grey is a familiar color, and raindrops collide with every surface, don't allow yourself to be annoyed or dismayed. Slow down. Life can wait.

Thursday, May 8, 2008

The Raleigh Bachelor Theatre, Installment #1

"The Spice Street Slut and the Bartender Who Works Extra Hard for His Tips."

Coming Soon...

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

Maxims to live by...

So, I took a few days to gather my thoughts on this, my list of maxims to live by, and I thought I'd share them here with you. I'll keep it short and simple today.

1) Be myself, unabashedly so. If you don't like who I am, fine, that's your problem.

2) Take chances, take lots of them. No one ever did anything great while worrying about the consequences.

3) Be brutally honest. Don't sugarcoat anything. Call a spade a spade. Either people can take it or they can't, but they'll respect you more for your honesty.

4) Stop being TOO NICE. Sure, be nice, be a gentleman. But if someone does something that pisses you off, call them on it.

5) Don't be a doormat just because a woman has a vagina. This one should be self-explanatory.

6) Put myself before others. Be a bit selfish sometimes. I've worried about others and done everything I can for everyone I care about for too long, while asking for nothing in return. Being selfless has a price. Sometimes that price is pain, and the sacrifice of my own happiness.

7) Don't feel sorry for myself. No excuses.

8) If I want something, go get it. Want my novel - and the ones that will follow to be bestsellers? Put in the extra effort. Want to date a ten? Ask and ye shall receive. No one ever got anything they wanted simply by wishing for it, it took action.

9) Don't overthink a situation to the point of making it more difficult than it is. Keep it simple.

10) To build off of #9, don't think at all sometimes. Have fun without worrying about the outcome.

I think all of these are very valuable ideas and methods to live by. I think that following them as closely as possible should improve my life overall. What do you think?

I LOVE Arizona State Cheerleaders...


Self-explanatory...

Dopest Use of Legos EVER!

Monday, May 5, 2008

A Moral Dilemma...

Okay, prepare to hate me. I know I promised you all a follow-up post to my last one, outlining my rules to live by. Don't worry, that's still coming, and soon. But today I have something I need to talk about and get off my conscious. I'm stuck in the middle of a moral dilemma, if you will, and I have a decision to make. And the decision is basically this: to tell or not to tell. I'm going to need advice and opinions on this.

UPDATE: Well, as it turns out, all of this played out before I had the chance to write about it here, in this space. Let me explain.

Last night I was at a friend's house for dinner. She had another one of her friends over too, and it was my first time meeting this particular person. As it turns out, she was a friend of an ex-girlfriend's current boyfriend (What a small world it is.). This girl told me that in the past couple of weeks that the guy had propositioned her once or twice for something more to occur than what a guy and a girl who are just friends do together. I'm not sure exactly what that entailed, but it was obviously something romantic/sexual in nature.

I asked how recently it had occured, and she said that it had been in the past couple of weeks. This is in the time frame that my ex has been dating the guy, so that bothered me. My first thought was concern for her getting hurt if this was true and something did occur, or could occur in the future that would jeopardize said ex-girlfriend's relationship with this guy.

Let me make one thing clear: THIS IS NOT ABOUT ME. It's about me caring about someone who is still my friend and not wanting them to get hurt. I didn't go looking for this information, seeking it out. It fell right into my lap in the middle of a dinner conversation. From that point, it was up to me to figure out what to do with it.

It weighed on my conscious all night and half the day today. I still wasn't sure whether or not I should tell her what I had heard, and was going back and forth with myself when she called me a short while ago. She asked me if it had anything to do with her, and I told her the whole story. What was I supposed to do, lie? I can't do that to a friend. I was only looking out for her, trying to make sure she was not going to be hurt. For her sake I hope everything turns out great with the guy, and I hope he wouldn't cheat on her. But I couldn't hold that inside me and carry it around, knowing what might have happened, and how bad it would be if it happened in the future if things got more serious. I would feel horrible.

I felt so much better telling her, although I know it was painful for her to hear. The part of me that didn't want to tell her was worried that she might not believe me, and think that I was making it all up to sabotage her relationship and, unfortunately, that's what happened. She doesn't believe me. She sent me a text message after we got off the phone saying she didn't want to hear from me again. Ouch. That's pretty painful. All of our lives growing up we are taught to do the right thing. To tell the truth. To look out for the people we care for. I did all of that, and then some. And what happened? I may have lost a friend. I hope not, but it seems to be a distinct possibility.

I'm the nice guy. Every one of you knows that. You know that Heather. I did what I thought was the right thing to do, and I will continue to do so going forward. I'm not asking to be rewarded, only to be treated fairly. I'm just asking for a friendship. If the roles were reversed, and I had been in your shoes, I can only hope that you would care enough about me to have told me the truth.

Lesson of the day: Doing the right thing isn't always the easy thing to do.

Thursday, May 1, 2008

Cliched, but I'm "grabbing life by the horns"

I've been in a slump, no doubt about it. And I'm not just talking about in one area of my life, but several. I woke up this morning and decided to give myself the following ultimatum: It's now or never.

With that said, I've decided to retake control of my life. To do so, I'm laying down ground rules I must follow, day in and day out. I've set maxims to live by, theories to test, and established an overall code of living just for me. All of this is to be self-enforced, but at the same time, by making this public and putting it out there to you, I'm giving you the opportunity to reinforce things for me from time to time, if I happen to slip and fall.

More later today...

God I miss college!


What do you do when you're the concensus National Player of the Year, and it's the last day of classes for the semester? You jump off the roof of a fraternity into a makeshift swimming pool, that's what! Ole Roy couldn't be too happy when he saw this one. For his sake I hope he was sitting down, or the vertigo that's been plaguing him might have kicked in.

God I miss college!