I am a registered Republican – I wish I wasn’t, but I am and I don’t feel like going through the bureaucratic bullshit to get it changed. As I’ve said before on this blog, I identify myself much more with the Libertarians, but Ron Paul was running as a Republican, so I went that route. I find myself increasingly annoyed at both Republicans and Democrats, with a few exceptions.

I hear both parties talking about how we need Bi-partisan efforts to get things done. How wonderful things are when two sides come together and work for the good of the common man. Bullshit.

I’d like to see either party taking a stand. The first bailout – the Bush one – was touted as a Bi-partisan effort. Yea! Go Republicans! You caved in on an issue you were supposed to stand strong against! Yea!

Compromise isn’t usually a good thing. It means taking your values and throwing them out the window instead of taking a stand. I would rather see our Congressmen spending days and weeks debating and filibustering than to just compromise their values to get stuff done. Bi-partisanship means throwing away what you believe. I wish Democrats and Republicans would just stand on their principles and fight for what they believe (if they believe anything) instead of kowtowing to the other side.

I’m thinking maybe they’re all in this together and they don’t give a shit about any of us.

…is awesome.

I have never been to a better blogging site. All the other ones seem so impersonal.  I have never encountered a blogging site which is able to maintain a professional feel while also being able to successfully link every blog to every other blog. Recs, commenting, etc., is all done so much better than the other blogs, at least IMO.

The problem with Xanga is that it came about at a bad time. 6-10 years ago, Xanga was the thing. It was the Myspace of the early 2000′s. Every 14 year old had one. So I think that serious blogging got a bad rep on Xanga. Especially since the ability to customize layouts in ways that you can’t(at least I don’t think you can) do on places like blogspot or Livejournal, tends to give people the Myspace impression.

Xanga really came along at a bad time for the internet. Every time I hear Xanga mentioned in the ‘real world,’ it’s in a lis of ‘Oh yea…I used to have a Xanga…then I moved to Myspace…now I’m on Facebook.’ It’s got that nostalgic feel to it of, ‘Oh yea, that was fun, but I’ve moved on now.’ It was Myspace, until Myspace became popular.

Which sucks. Because we really do have some brilliant people here. I’m just amazed that the brilliant people here have decided to stick with it, instead of going elswhere. But then I guess that there’s a difference between being popular here, and just abruptly leaving and going to a new site…most people really aren’t going to follow you over to the new site.

But even popular/semi-popular and respected bloggers like Dan (http://thetheologianscafe.xanga.com/) or  Dave(http://vanedave.xanga.com/)  or Krissy(http://krissy-cole.xanga.com/ – one of my faves) only get a hundred or so comments on a good day. Dan might get upwards of 200 or even 300 if he posts something especially controversial. Maybe 1000 or 1500 views. Of the top 5 ‘Top Blogs’ on the front page(of which three are about Dan and one is by Dan, LOL), only 2 have over a thousand views. The only reason being that both are fairly controversial.

I don’t really know what my point is here. But I do think it’s a shame that some of these very talented bloggers and posts are going relatively unnoticed. I just think Xanga came about at the wrong time in history. It should have come about when the Myspace thing wasn’t a fad…then I think it would have become more respected, instead of being considered Myspace-lite.

So I typically don’t like to wrote overly serious or overly personal blogs, but it’s 12:15AM as I’m writing this and I tend to get very introspective late at night when I’ve had a lot of caffeine.

I’m I’ve been out of High School for over a year now. I decided to take a year off and get my shit together before going to college. I worked, read more, wrote more, etc. I took a long time to finally decide where I wanted to go to college…where I felt I should go. I’m a big believer in ‘fate.’ I like the concept that some things are meant to happen, or supposed to happen and if they don’t, your life can take a very different path. But the crappy part of that belief is that if you choose the wrong way, your life might suck.

And that’s where I’m at now. I could meet my future wife/best friend/business partner/etc., at the college I’m attending. But what if I chose the wrong one? My mind has been in overdrive coming up with reasons why not to take the path I’m taking. But to be brutally honest with myself, I think I’m just scared of doing something different. My siblings have both gone to a different college…where my mother really pushed for me to go. A place I think/thought I shouldn’t go to, through prayer and consideration. That would have been the easy path. Instead, I chose to go to a place with a GREAT program with what I’m studying (philosophy), but even more so, it’s completely different than the paradigm that my life has revolved around for my entire life. It’s not comfortable. It’s not ‘safe.’ But I can’t freaking wait.

It feels empowering to know that I’m going somewhere and doing something and following a path that hasn’t already been laid out for me. I’m blazing my own trail – becoming my own man. And it’s not that I feel a need to rebel. I’ve never felt that need. My family was great, and rebelling against them and their values would be foolish and wrong. But I still need to at least try something different. I need a change.

So as I said, my mind keeps coming up with reasons why not. And honestly, yea, I’m really scared. My life for the next few years is going to be very different. It’s going to be new. But I think I’d be missing out on an opportunity if I took the easy way out. Easy isn’t always the best…and certainly for personal growth, easy is detrimental.

It’s gonna be hard. But I can’t wait. I’m ready.

In keeping with the ‘make a list to be popular’ theme…

Top 10 reasons for a Straight guy to watch High School Musical

10. You are under 13 and haven’t discovered how to play with your Johnson yet

9. You are MST3King that motherfucker

8. Your Parents/Dog/Sibling/Spouse/etc., just divorced/died/confessed their love for you/confessed their love for best friend and you need to prove to yourself that there are worse things that can happen – namely, High School Musical.

7. There’s free food/beer

6. You’re that dude who got his penis chopped off by his ex-Girlfriend

5. You recently had a sex-change operation and are having trouble knowing what to do with your new found junk.

4. You were lost at sea for several years and forgot what good cinema is like, so you walk into a video store and ask what’s popular. After being handed a copy of HSM 1,2, or 3, you proceed to watch it. Then, you jump out a window in a bathtub with a plugged in toaster in it, while stabbing your eyes with a fork.

3. To yell ‘fuck you!’ every time Zach Effron gets on screen

2. It was already playing when you and your hot girlfriend burst into the lounge area in your college dorm, and if you stop to turn it off, she’ll notice you have a tiny peener and laugh and tell everyone and then you’ll never get laid again

1. The hot girl that you have been trying to bed for months is into it, and the only way to get into her pants is to watch it and tell her you loved it and sing the songs and maybe dress up like Vanessa Hudgens.

Any viewings for reasons other than these 10 reasons will result in the following:

First violation: Mancards revoked

Second Violation: Get punched in the balls

Third Violation: Get punched in the balls AND get uninvited from Poker/Beer/Pool/Basketball/insertmanlyactivityhere night

Subsequent violations: Death

Wow, it has been quite a while since I’ve blogged. I apologize to my loyal fan base…wait, sorry. I don’t have one.

So I pulsed a while back that my next post would be ‘people that annoy me,’ but alas, I have put that one in the fridge, behind the week-old egg salad that I made last week. If it starts to smell I’ll dig it out and serve it to y’all. Nothing but the best for Xanga.

So yea, sorry for my absence. I will write some stuff soon…I have just been busy and kind of feeling like shit lately, and I don’t like to write when my mind is occupied on other stuff, cause I risk falling into the emo-bitch category of posters.

Anyway, I just thought of this totally original joke to share with you…I haven’t heard it anywhere and I totally made it up on my own and it’s clever and stuff.

So a black guy, a Jew, and a Mexican…wait, that’s not it…umm…3 blondes are driving in a minivan…nope…oh…um…so someone once said that when a black man becomes elected President, that would be the day that pigs fly…and look now there’s flu…no…bird flu…sars…oh, I remember now…Swine Flew!!!

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Laugh, dammit.

(BTW, I wrote this post before that Bastard Dave wrote his post about how lame it is! Damn you Dave! )