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In Which I Have Excellent Timing

Unknown Tuesday, January 28, 2014 , , , ,


January is almost over, so naturally I think I'll write about stuff that happened almost a month ago! Guys, writing is difficult, I swear. Well, it's not so much the actual act of writing so much as it is coming up with things to write about, and then finding the motivation to do so. Thus my nigh yearly post of "Bla bla bla I suck at self motivation bla bla bla I'll write more" AND THEN I DON'T. Fool you once internet, shame on you, fool you twice internet, shame on me (yesIknowthat'swrongshutup). Fool you three times and I'm devoured by the Nidhogg (which is a neat game by the way), or something like that. I'm bad at this, sue me (please don't I have no money oh god).

Anyway! My holidays went well, and save for a (in hindsight) rather silly, drunken walk through the back roads of Westford at 3AM it was relatively uneventful. As in really uneventful. After about the first or second week of January I was bored stiff, as most of my friends were either already back at school or back at work. As (I think?) I mentioned previously, I'm back at UML, and classes for this semester only started a week ago. I did jack shit between those two points, and hated it. But! I have something a bit more interesting to write about today, and that was the Secret Santa I did with strangers over the internet.
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It's Been A While, Internet

Unknown Sunday, December 1, 2013 , , , ,
Picture not really related? Maybe?


So. Here I am again, writing on this here blog, something I've historically been excellent at. Looking at my front page, four out of the five displayed posts are in some way related to why I haven't been posting, and promising to post more. The fifth is a post I made almost exactly a year ago, saying I was going to start posting again.....almost a year after the post before it.

Consistency!

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On Dungeons and Dragons, Part I

Unknown Wednesday, November 28, 2012 , , , , , , , ,
And now, to ramble about something completely different

I've been a nerd for practically the entirety of my life. One of the earliest Christmas gifts I can remember getting, besides some sort of mechanized construction yard playset type thing, was my first Game Boy. I still own it in fact, though it doesn't work anymore, sadly. Since then my interest in gaming has only grown. Despite this, I have always tried not to become some sort of "super nerd," or basically what everyone thought a nerd or geek actually looked or behaved like, at least during the 90s and early 2000s. Super socially awkward, not that good looking, didn't use deodorant, and so on. Mind you, I didn't particularly care about cultivating some sort of social image; I just really didn't want to be one of those kinds of geeks. And more often than not, partaking in table top role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons put you squarely into the center of such a group. Even daring to whisper the cursed letters "DnD" together at the lunch tables for ever doomed one to be ostracized from any socially progressive groups for the rest of your life! Or at least that's how younger me felt. Younger me was also not the brightest, though I personally feel there was at least some semblance of actual truth to that thought, at least for a person at that age.

Basically middle school and high school are bitches.


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Time to Get Serious

Of course I still took time to beat Portal 2 beforehand


Hello once again folks, it's me, your humble and ever subservient writer person thing. It's been a little bit since I last wrote and a fair amount has happened since then! Well, not really. I went to PAX for a day and had fun and got some new music and games, but that's basically your typical week for me, save for the whole PAX thing. But no! No! I'm here to talk about none of that! I'm here to talk about....me being a good student for maybe the first time since sixth grade!

That's right, I'm actually going to try harder than I have in a long time at school. I've made this promise at the beginning of every year since high school, but now I need to be a good student more than ever. I wouldn't say I'm in trouble with any of my classes, but the focus definitely needs to be there, now more than ever. And as such, I shall be giving up gaming until the end of the semester.

I know right?

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What's Currently Distracting Me

Unknown Tuesday, March 22, 2011 , , , , , , , ,

Where? Oh, never mind, it's just Rebecca Black again


Two posts in as many days? Blasphemy! But yes, it is true. I have decided to write yet another post, and in a short period of time no less. Clearly the world is ending. But in making this bold decision I have come to the realization (again) that I'm just not good at coming up with topics to write about. Every time I write, I want it to be some sweeping digression and or introspection, but can never come up with something interesting enough for me to write about. So today, I'm just going to write about a whole bunch of things! Specifically, the things that I've been doing lately in my free time.

And of course by that I mean primarily what video games I'm playing.


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It's So Pretty

Unknown Monday, March 21, 2011 , , , ,
Fucking flowers, who asked you anyway?

Yay! Except that flower's a goddamn liar. This isn't the same old bullshit! This is brand spanking new bullshit! And it's shiny bullshit to boot!

So in case you're blind or something and don't regularly check my blog (and who honestly doesn't have this site bookmarked by now?), then you may have noticed something somewhat different as you desperately smashed F5 hoping for a new update. The whole site got updated! I was previously using a pretty cool template I got off of this site, but decided with a change in my own attitude in order to post more often that a change in the site itself was in order. I found a pretty neat new template, and after about 2 hours now of fiddling with the coding to make things the way I want them to be, I can proudly say that this site hopefully doesn't look like shit! Not that it necessarily looked like shit before, mind you. And here is a brief list of some of these new features that hopefully don't suck!

  • Shiny new web page design, including a new background and other stuff!
  • All the header links should actually work now!
  • Did away with the comments RSS feed (because no one comments here anyway)!
  • Fun new sidebar tabs!
  • A comment counter to the side of each post (to further emotionally kick myself in the groin about no one reading my shit)!
  • A renewed interest in writing (yeah right)!
  • Probably tons of bugs I'll find about and cry over later because I don't know how to fix them!
So go forth, my four or five readers! Go forth, and enjoy, for you have been blessed with a gift, a particularly rare one indeed.

That gift, is the gift of a new, shinier, internet me.

You're welcome.
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I'm Good at This Whole Blogging Thing

Unknown Friday, March 4, 2011 , , , ,

So yeah, self explanatory post. It's well over a year since I've last written here. Kinda seems like a waste of space when I put it like that, doesn't it?

Basically I want to start trying to actively write on this site again. Same rules apply as when I first set up this blog; I write about what I want, when I want. It can be sheer and utter nonsense, or some sort of deeply thought out philosophical discussion. All depends on what mood I'm in! I would write something now but it's getting close to 3 in the morning and I have work from 9 AM until God knows when tomorrow. And by that I mean 5 PM. But still!

We'll see how long this goes before I fail again. For those college friends that I decide to link this to for some reason, you should probably go back a page or two to learn about why this thing's even titled what it is, if you don't already know. Not to blow my own horn or anything (or blow anything at all, for that matter; I don't usually roll that way), but I kinda enjoy reading some of my older posts. I mean seriously, I relate playing a video game to Valhalla or some shit in one of them. Classy stuff.

Before I go, I leave you with one fun little side story. During my writing hiatus, Blogger added some cool features to its site, including the ability to track information regarding your page views. Though my blog has a pathetically and not at all unexpected low view count, reaching a grand total of 39 views over its lifetime, it's the location of 10 of these views that's most interesting. Apparently 10 people in Russia found my discussion about speaking like Shatner and my digression on ramen appealing.

(P.S. Normally I would totally put in links to everything I talk about in this page but I'm lazy and tired)

(P.P.S. Only caught two glaring grammar mistakes in this post, even at quarter to three in the morning! Go me!)
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In His House, He Waits Dreaming

Unknown Monday, January 25, 2010 , ,

To me, dreams are interesting things. I took a course in psychology once in high school and dreams were briefly touched upon in one unit, but we never really got to explore what exactly makes up these mystifying and fantastic movies in our unconscious brains. I gained a basic grasp of a few things from that class, however, such as part of why one can remember dreams more easily at some times rather than others.
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The Intrinsic Properties of Ramen: A Digression

Unknown Monday, November 2, 2009

Ramen is delicious and not exactly nutritious, and I love it. It's the stereotypical poor apartment dweller and or college student staple meal. It's simple and quick to make, tastes great, and costs like a dollar for twenty of the things. You can get them in styrofoam cups or packages of the noodles and flavoring. You can get them in all kinds of flavors, each unique (sort of) and wonderfully tasty for some incredible reason. My two personal favorite brands are Maruchan and Cup Noodle, with the former making primarily the packaged noodles and well, if you can't guess what Cup Noodle does I might as well just stop writing this now. But since I'm writing this in real time and not actually talking to anyone I'm going to assume you're not an idiot and continue anyways!

In all reality ramen is great pretty much any time of the year, though for me it is particularly great in winter. It's for the same reason one doesn't really have hot chocolate all that often in the summertime, or hot soup for that matter, which is a much more valid comparison I guess seeing as how they're practically the same thing BUT WHATEVER. I was cold, so I turned on the heat in the room (which I'm still not entirely sure if it actually works or not) and heated up a cup of noodles and am as of this writing enjoying it. I might make more after, I might not. You never know with these kind of things.
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It's 3 AM. And. I want to go to bed.


Some call it evoking William Shatner, I call it having a damn good time. For whatever inane reason I find it particularly amusing to quote music in speech rather than in any lyrical fashion. Most would agree with me when I say it is almost never acceptable to burst into song when that song is anything by Linkin Park, though to be honest unless you happen to be living in a musical most people find it completely unacceptable to burst into any song anywhere. However, more than once have I been able to get away with simply uttering the words "I tried so hard and got so far, but in the end, it doesn't even matter" in some sort of social situation. Most often people look at me and either groan or grin, as these are my peers and they know exactly what I'm saying, for better or for worse. The real fun is when there are also those of the second party, the ones that have no clue what the hell I'm saying, are also present.

In a way it's almost meant to mock whatever we're saying; a way to laugh at the things we grew up with and how silly and inane all of it really is. People saying how good they want to get at something, and retorting with the phrase that you, quite simply, "want to be the very best, like no one ever was." (guitar riffs following said phrase are optional) At the same time it's a way to embrace that which was our youth; how many children of the current generation can honestly say that they've seen shows like Doug, or have ever seen Fred back when he actually thought neckerchiefs were cool? These are dying breeds, though to be fair not all of them actually deserve to live. I wish I had something to link to that sentence, but even though this post will be going up sometime this afternoon I really am writing this at 3 in the morning.

Regardless, it's something I've been doing for a while now, and you should too, even if you don't believe the bullshit I came up with to justify doing it. Or you should at least try it once, decide if you like it or not. Take it out on a nice date, maybe see a movie or something. From there you can decide if you truly want to pursue a relationship with this joke, or if perhaps you simply want to be friends, even though your true intent is to slowly drop out of this joke's life for good, realizing that that you weren't meant to be, you're not each other's type, or simply that you were obviously really really drunk when asked it out and it was one of those mistakes you hope to never make again only realize when you're 50 and alone that your whole life was spent repeating that process until you were simply a shell of yourself who never truly made a connection with a joke either because none could ever match up in your mind to that one joke that got away or because you were too afraid of opening yourself up to the possibility of sharing your life with a joke and instead simply used them once for your own personal pleasure and then threw it away, just like those crappy toys that come with the kids meals at fast food restaurants.

What the hell is wrong with me.
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Where I've Been


So once again I've failed to keep myself writing and updating the blog, which is upsetting because I love to write about whatever. Lately I've been suffering from the potent combination of writer's block, lack of time, and a general proclivity towards laziness. Believe it or not, the writer's block is the biggest killer out of the three for me.  I talk with friends all the time, saying "Give me a topic! I need to write! Anything! Please!", begging for any sort of topic they can throw at me, only to receive relatively shitty ones anyways because when you tell a friend to tell you to write about quite literally anything some of the worst ideas often come to mind.

Despite all this, I've actually got quite a few good ideas that I want to write about, such as that short story I mentioned on my Facebook status a while back, things I really want to write about. This is where the three plagues to my writing start to intertwine into a devious concoction of creative-thought-process sedative. I may have a good idea, but often I can't come up with a good way to word my thoughts, or I may not have taken any notes down when the topic was fresh in my mind and I have since forgotten what I wanted to say. Half the time I lack the time to actually pursue these ideas and really get to work on them, and the other half I'm simply too lazy for said pursuits.

Basically I'm shitty at being consistent, even with myself.

(Be warned, ye who enter here, for thar be a horrible beast known to some as a "wall 'o text" lurking behind this here jump, possessed by the wretched musings and whining of the one known as "The Grand Warlock of the Intertubes" "the author,")

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(The Awakening of) Fort Champion

Unknown Wednesday, October 7, 2009 , , , ,

Anyone that knows me and has stayed up to any particularly late hour of the night knows I go through a few phases as the morning creeps ever so slowly closer towards the unconscious world. I have a cynical phase, a barely awake phase, and then right between the hours of three and five past midnight I become really really goofy. It was during such a time that a grand idea emerged, a plan for a visionary new developmental project that would shock the whole world to it's very core, only with no negative repercussions on the actual earth's core so we don't have to go and make another shitty movie like The Core. No....no, this, this would be better than all that. This would be a modern marvel of engineering and architecture and would most likely get it's own episode on the History Channel show Modern Marvels.

We would build a fort.
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A Kingdom for Kieflings

Unknown , ,

I've been playing a lot of Magic lately, and have only recently gotten back into the swing of things in WoW, so naturally my gaming schedule was starting to get pretty limited what with the whole being in college business. Then I have a little conversation with a friend of mine about getting a game called A Kingdom for Keflings, some sort of Xbox Live Arcade game or something. He told me that the game was absolutely astounding, equivalent to reaching the highest echelons of Valhalla and drinking the finest ambrosia mead out of the skulls of your fallen enemies. Well, not really, but he did say it was so good I probably wouldn't even have time to play Magic anymore because I was too busy playing this game. I have never had any form of mead and I figure something that is supposedly the drink of the gods would be enough to convince anyone.

I decided to make the purchase and quickly hopped onto Xbox Live to do so. After much confusion and many attempts to figure out exactly how to get things set up (why oh why do I always forget to bring my Xbox headset from home!), I had the game downloaded and ready to play. At least, if I knew what the hell I was doing.

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Why I Can't Update the Blog Regularly, or I Can Summarize My Thoughts in a Single Facebook Update


So. I really like writing for my blog, I really do. It's sort of like a journal that I never kept, only I'm older and can speak (type?) a bit more eloquently and I would have more to write about than my favorite Pokemon card (probably either my holographic Charizard or that Japanese Arcanine my older brother gave me) or all the different spells of Harry Potter, not that I wouldn't write about those either here, mind you.

The only real problem here is that, while I have a ton of ideas for things to write about, most of it I can sum up by updating my Facebook status. It might just be because I've grown accustomed to using status updates more and more like what Twitter is used for, though I still refuse to get a Twitter. No matter the cause, though, I've found myself attempting to write a post for about a half hour only to realize I could more appropriately convey my thoughts and opinions on said topic in about a sentence or two on Facebook.


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I Love Taking All of the Naps

Unknown Tuesday, September 8, 2009 , , ,

There's nothing quite like a nice long nap that makes you feel soo good (and in the case of anyone with medium to long hair, mess it up soo bad). Being a college student now, I'm beginning to attempt to master the art of napping at available times. Today I had my first class at 8 A.M, which all things considered really shouldn't be too bad. Many working adults have to wake up earlier, and I had to wake up waaaay earlier to get to high school on time. And yet, there's something about waking up at 8 that's truly devastating. The fact that I regularly stay up until 12 or 1 and that my other day in my two day rotation of classes doesn't start until noon probably doesn't help either.

I barely managed to stay awake in class, but that's completely alright because I know most of the stuff we were discussing today anyways. I came back to my room, opened the window to let some air in, dropped my stuff and jumped on the bed and never looked back. Here I am a bit more than two hours later, feeling awesome, and having another hour before I have to head to class.

Glorious.

(Also, I promise I'm not trying to have a naming scheme or anything, these things just keep popping into my head like that)
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All of the Origins

Unknown Monday, September 7, 2009 , , , , , ,

For my first post I think I'll do a little bit of explaining, namely the title of the blog. If any of you are still following me at this point, you may be wondering "What exactly does 'All of the Blog' mean? 'Cos I'm pretty sure you can't have only 'some' of a blog. That'd just be silly." Now I know none of you are actually thinking that, but if you were, that'd be freaking awesome! That would either make me a mind reader, or a person that can instill thoughts into your brain ala Broseph Stalin or something. Either way! I am now here to explain this mystery to you!


As best I can remember the first instance of the "all of the" happenings was this year around March, during the Massachusetts High School Drama Guild Festival. Our school, Westford Acadamy (which is a PUBLIC school, by the way), was hosting this particular round, meaning it could have been prelims or semis, I really don't know. I was being a goofball in general and was having people write on my arm in sharpie, which is usually not a good idea, but I thought it was fantastic anyways. I told one of my friends to draw and or write something awesome, but she was distraught and didn't know what to do, so naturally I had to come up with something. In the end I told her to draw one of our other friends, one such dubious character known only as "Craig," taking ALL of the naps.

And so she did.

From there on in it was and shall forever remain a rolling joke, the "all of the jokes" joke. Whenever you have to go do something, or go drink something, or go win something, bear in mind that forever you won't simply be doing SOME of the stuff or drinking SOME of the drink or even winning SOME of the game, but instead ALL of it.

Now go forth readers, and make ALL of the jokes!

ED: After consulting with THE Craig from the sacred "all of the jokes" origin story, I was actually completely wrong! Go figure. The actual "all of the jokes" joke started about a month prior to the story I told, in New York City, on a bus. A parent commented on how she had way more trash bags than could be imagined, to which Craig replied "I dunno, I can imagine a LOT of trash bags." Being the person that I am, I naturally had to butt in with the comment "ALL the trashbags," after which I assume many "all of the jokes" jokes were made. So in truth the origin story I originally wrote was in fact simply one of the first spreadings of the "all of the jokes" joke. Carry on!
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Here We Make All of the Posts



Hello everyone, and welcome to All of the Blog! Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Joe Alden, and I'm a freshman at Keene State College and I plan to major in Tech Theatre. I managed to net a scholarship for it (and now that I mention it I totally forgot to bring my portfolio back from home to show the tech director) so I guess I'm pretty good at it! I'm you're pretty average geek and or nerd or what have you; I enjoy video games, play some Magic when I get the chance, make stupid internet meme jokes, and so on. I enjoy all sorts of music, love the outdoors, and I like to play frisbee a lot. Most people (and usually animals too) seem to like me instinctively, but I absolutely hate people. Not like people I know or chances are anyone that would actually read this, but people. You know who I'm talking about. But that's more about me that you never cared to hear, so let's move on!

All of the Blog is the successor to my previous blog, The Edge of Insanity. I was absolutely lousy at updating that blog since I never really found time to make any posts, and I never had an interesting enough life to post about. But then I thought "Wait a second, I'm a college kid now!" and foolishly went along and made this travesty. Here's to hoping this one sucks a bit less!

Like my last blog, All of the Blog is about pretty much anything I want to post about. It is purely for my entertainment, and if anyone else should find some amusement in reading this, well props to them. Because it is for me and me exclusively (but open to the gaping maw that is the internet) it won't be updated at all periodically, but instead, *gasp* sporadically! I'll post anything I damn well please, but you're welcome to comment on it all and tell me how much I suck and that I should stop writing. It won't work of course but I'll be glad to hear from you regardless!

And so here we go, onward to great, or maybe even terrible, horrible, things! Welcome to both you and I to All of the Blog, and don't let the door hit you on the way out!
 
Copyright 2010 All of the Blog