Cody

Man I had the worst dream last night… I guess you could call it a nightmare.  It wasn’t exactly “scary” per say or anything like that… but most definitely frightening.  You know the cool little thing people do where you’re laying on your back and you hop to your feet using the momentum from your legs and arching your back to power through with your stomach?  Yeah well I can do that with no troubles, learned it on the Bales trampoline, and perfected it over 5 years of wrestling.  Well most people do it wrong, they use their arms to push off the ground instead of using stomach/back muscles because frankly the average American is majorly lacking in stomach/back strength… So all I really remember about the dream is that I was in a large group of people and we were all sitting on the floor, one of the people was someone who knew me pretty good… I think it was Tiana but not exactly sure because I never saw them.  Everyone was wearing white shirts, and white pants, the only thing that would differentiate you from the others is how you acted because for some reason you couldn’t see peoples faces either.  In the group of people to my right was a girl I liked, and to my left was Tiana… well I wasn’t getting anywhere impressing the girl I liked… it seemed she liked me back but I wasn’t winning so to say.  Tiana and I figured that it was because we were all basically sheep, and you all know I love to stand out in a crowd doing something different than everyone else.  When everyone started to get up to leave Tiana says “do that thing you do standing up from your back.”  You know me, any chance to show off I take, especially when there is someone I like around.  As the people are leaving around me I lay back and try… but it’s like my legs are weightless.  When you’re kicking up you’ve got to use the weight of your legs to put all your body weight on your shoulders and thrust back with your stomach/back muscles to push yourself straight up (this is where most people cheat and use their arms).  So with weightless legs I wasn’t going anywhere… after a couple of attempts I finally broke down and tried to push up with my arms like most people do… but I wasn’t strong enough.  I ustacould do push ups in a handstand (against the wall of course) and I can’t get myself lifted in the air with a little momentum?  Something was wrong, so I tried again… still nothing… by this time everyone had cleared out of the room, but I was left lying on the ground powerless to get up.

We really are weak aren’t we?  I mean we get cocky and arrogant doing all this stuff by ourselves and think that we can do so much… but in reality nothing is possible on our own.  I have a lot of troubles with thinking I can do everything on my own.  That’s one of my biggest failures… If I get the time tomorrow to record I’ll finish my voice blog which has a few things in there that would make this a little more understandable what I would like to get into… but since I don’t have it up right now I won’t.  But this does bring me to another point… I’m so faithless and lazy… why does God still give me chances?  Why does he still support me in my endeavors?  It really doesn’t make sense to me at all.

So for those of you who missed out on the excitement of waiting outside in the freezing cold for your chance at a Playstation 3 you’re in luck! Thanks to Capcom’s new game available only for the Xbox 360 (it’d be kind of pointless if it were available for the PS3) you can relive the experience and fight off hordes of vegetative state college students who as a zombie horde follow the upcoming release of all gaming systems!

If you missed out on that excitement, and STILL don’t have an Xbox 360 (what kind of heathen are you? You don’t have the latest and greatest gaming system? It’s been out for a year now, go back to the stone ages where you belong!). Then I guess you could just read this blog entry for a brief overview of the excitement of staying nights in the cold, windy state of Kansas outside of a Target awaiting our opportunity to purchase a PS3.

Unlike most of my entries this one is going to be mostly images as I had nothing better to do while freezing my haunches off than to take tons of pictures with my new Canon PowerShot A540, which by the way takes freaking awesome pictures! I’ve got to scale most of them back a little bit to increase loading times, and save myself on some bandwidth… so they won’t be as pretty as they could be, but it’s still a good camera I promise.

The day started out like any other… With Jordan holding $700 cash outside of the Western Union store…. ok… well… maybe not like ANY other day but close enough. The story actually starts a little before this, which I should briefly cover. Around 4pm on Wednesday November 15, 2006 I get a call from my cousin Jordan because I was playing Counter-Strike and he wasn’t sure if I would respond to his messages on Xfire. The first thing he say’s to me is “Cody get ready we’re going to go make some money, dress warm.” Oh great… the last time I heard this sentence it was “Cody get ready we’re going to make some money, drink a lot of water for the next couple of days” Next thing I know I’m being hooked up to a machine that sucks my blood out, separates the plasma and puts the blood back into my body. Going twice a week to the Plasma clinic for a month to make a few bucks a trip. I close out of my game so that I can give this demented man my full attention. “Alright Jordan what’s the scoop?” “Playstation 3 launch is soon (duh) and the presales are selling for a minimum of $1200 on eBay.” So what exactly does this have to do with me? Next thing I know I’m being explained to how we’re going to hit up Best Buy and camp out for the next 2 days awaiting the release of PS3 so we can get one and hock it on eBay. Cool I’m game! It’s not that cold out anyways, why wouldn’t I care to camp out for a couple days to make a little money. As it turns out Jordan only had this idea because his older brother who lives in Kaliphornia was doing the same thing… well neither of us had any money either… so Joel sends us $700 via Western Union (hence the picture).

So now our journey can begin! At this point in time it’s already 7pm, I mean we’re running late, which is partially due to the fact that Jordan doesn’t have a hurrying bone in his body… partially due to the fact that Jordan has an insane girlfriend who’s getting all pissy texting, and calling him every 5 seconds because he cares more about camping out for a game than he does for her… which is the same stupid thing I hear EVERY LAN party we attend… every freaking time Jordan is late because his woman wanted to spend time with him and he’s off playing games with me… It’s once a month that I get to hang out with my favoritist cousin in a room of 100 people several who’ve become good friends just relaxing and playing games all night… chill out woman!!! jeez…

So the journey begins! Between us trying to go to the store to get some snack food (mostly a couple boxes of donuts since they sell them for $2 after noon) and energy drinks. I got the usual Bawls, gamers choice and Jordan constantly being called from his brother, and his woman we didn’t make it to our first Best Buy until 8:30pm. It was basically packed! This image is actually from the second Best Buy we went to but you get the idea. Every BB is supposed to have 26 PS3’s and there were 31 at the first one we made it to. After much driving around and several stores visited we finally got a good list of all the stores that should have PS3’s. Of which Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy, and Circuit City were the only ones that didn’t take presales and you had to camp out… so the journey goes from scavenging BB’s to checking any and all of these stores.

Turned down by Circuit City

Driving around…

Even more driving around….

After much adieu about nothing Hope is finally kindled on the side of a Target! After some questioning, poking, and proding we found that this Target was supposed to get 20 PS3’s… of course Sony released only half of what they promised so we weren’t expecting any miracles… BUT at the time we arrived we were 10 and 11! Which was fine because we only had enough money for one anyways… Now to make sure it wasn’t all just hear say we talked to the people at customer service who very openly disclosed that they were not allowed to say exactly how many they would be getting… er… ok well lets put it this way (as Jordan said) there are 9 people outside, would it be worth it for us to camp out? To this she very clearly gave us the green light!

After a quick chat with some of the other blokes waiting for the almighty PS3 we decided to nab ourselves a tent! I’m actually rather glad that we stayed at a Target and not a BB or somethin where we wouldn’t have this option.

Anyways, we both posed beside our new purchase as Jordan bought the tent and I got us a couple air matresses so we didn’t have to sleep on the cold concrete.

Oh yeah look at that muscle man, one handed! Thank you, thank you, please no flash photography.

I never concluded this story… but that’s partially because it still hasn’t ended… never the less. What story is ever done? Basically we sat in line forever, froze our butts off in the cold, and no, I did not get a PS3. The store was saying they would have 20, which we knew wasn’t going to happen, but being 10 and 11 in line we should still be fine correct? Especially with the assured answer of the clerk… uh… yeah… they got 7 so we went home after 2 days of freezing, starving, joyous camping with nothing more than a tent, and a couple of air mattresses. Jordan still went on to purchasing other toys and selling them on eBay using my account (as it couldn’t affect me right?) haha… yeah… that has turned out to be interesting… and lets just say it could affect me.

One of my mom’s patients gave her a movie to watch a while ago… unfortunately our dvd player is rather retarded and couldn’t read the codec (actually somewhat common with our DVD player being that we rent movies all the time and can’t use them).  Well recently I moved the DVD player out of my room down here to the basement.  Several movies that weren’t working before now work… so I figured that I would take a chance with the movie and see where it lead.

At first I must say that I was somewhat disappointed.  Being the title as it was Cody over here was expecting a war time movie.  It only made sense!  With the movie being a burned DVD well there was no clue from the cover of the disk or anything like that.  Here I am expecting Death, Destruction, and Mayhem I wind up watching a movie about 18 tourists who are crammed onto a bus visiting 9 countries in 2 1/2 weeks.  Although the movie was funny, that was not the central focus of it all.  The main theme being the relationship between the Tour Guide, Charlie (played by Ian McShane) and the young and beautiful tourist on this particular trip, Samantha (played by Suzanne Pleshette).  The tale is intriguing, yet it shows distinctly the open and “free spirited” nature of the 60’s.  Much goes on between the many characters of the trip but the main plot line is of Charlie falling in love with Samantha whom by the end of the trip he is proposing to.  For the first few days Samantha is more of a hindrance to Charlie spoiling several attempts to live it up with some of his lady friends scattered across Europe.  Later he falls in love with Samantha and as she is getting ready to board her plane he asks her one last time to stay and marry him.  I don’t know if it was the free spirited nature of the movie, or that I didn’t really get much chemistry from the two, but the answer would of been rather easy for me.  Charlie earlier on reveals a grand plan of his to one day open a newspaper company that prints papers only for tourists giving them information on sights to see, places to go, bargains to find, and the like.  When Samantha asks why he would never do it he says that it’s because he’s not ready to take on responsibility… at which point I would expect her to say SOMETHING about his reply, but she seems fine with it… I don’t know why but it bugs me that she didn’t question such a dodgy attempted at lack of commitment.

Now normally I don’t go in depth about story lines and everything, but if any of you were truly planning on seeing this movie I don’t believe that I have spoiled much of anything.  The story line is rather predictable anyways.  Not to mention you would be hard pressed to find a copy of this 1969 movie.  Even though there was a seeming lack of chemistry, somewhat predictable, and a complete lack for all things moral I still found the movie worth watching.  Being the time period the movie came from they were weary about letting any of the scenes get past kissing, which is better than it would of been nowadays… so it was fairly good, tolerable at worst.

Is anyone else out there that reads this an audiophile like myself?  haha, I guess a better question would be is there anyone else out there that reads this? Anyways, I’ve always loved quality sound for music, movies, games, or whatever I’m doing.  Forever I would listen to the 5.1 surround sound system I had setup in my room for most any of my music needs.  I got pretty used to the crisp, clear sound of the system.  Well for some reason or another I took it all down and temporarily used it in the living room for watching movies, later I brought it back into my room but never hooked it back up out of laziness.  Besides I wasn’t spending a whole lot of time within my room anyways.  Most the time now when I was listening to music or doing anything it was on the computer where I had a pair of Yamaha speakers that sounded fairly good, later one of them died and I went to headphones because it was cheap and easy, plus better for gaming.  The first pair of headphones I used was a cheap $10 pair that in all honesty sounded like crap, but I got used to them.  Over the summer I got an X-Fi sound card for my computer, it was amazing, even these cheap piece of crap headphones sounded good, and they went from stereo to a good surround sound because of the X-Fi’s magical ability to use CMSS-3D which is something that Creative came up with for gamers so you can have true directional sound (say someone is sneaking up behind you in a game you can not only hear their footsteps, but they actually sound like they are behind you).  This was a rather nice change for me!  I decided to take full advantage of the power of this sound card and got myself a set of Turtle Beach headphones, you know, the true 5.1 surround sound headphones all the gamers drool over at LAN Parties.  These headphones have such great sound quality I never even had to venture anywhere for good quality music, movies, or games!  Well not long ago my dad takes me to Nebraska Furniture Mart… well we were walking around the new Legends shopping center because he hadn’t been there yet.  He wanted to take me into Nebraska Furniture Mart to listen to some of the sound systems… well we listened to them for a while and then he says “These all sound pretty good, but if you want the best we’ve got to go listen to some of the Klipsche” at that point I’m just like “well what are we waiting for?” sometimes I’m a little skeptical about my dads opinion on things, but I’m always willing to check it out.  So we head over to the room of uber expensive sound equipment put some Klipsche speakers and receiver on…. uh… as it turns out I’m not as technically minded as I thought because we couldn’t get it to work.  After a while we finally got someone to help, the guy put a jazz CD in and let me say… those speakers had the most amazing range I’ve ever seen, well heard, in my life!

Ok, so what Cody?  Where exactly is this story going?  My question is how high is your sound quality?  Are you running a German made 7.1 speaker system that blows the minds of the most cunning audiophiles around?  or are you still listening to that mono speaker on your television?  I’m not talking about in real life.  Naw, I’m talking about your relationship with God.  How much time are you spending in his word?  How much time are you spending in silence with Him?  Have you gotten used to what your current sound quality level is at?  Do you even realize that there is a better alternative out there?  Have you, like myself, become numb to the crap around you.  Have you learned to block out that area of your life that doesn’t hold up to the amount of sound coming through.  Has the cracking and popping of your life become normal?  When do you plan on upgrading?  And what excuses are keeping you from doing so?

God I’m scared. I want to do as I have been instructed, but that requires a blind fall of faith, only to hope & pray that the safety net is in place for me. God why did you let me walk away so late in the game? Did I throw away all hope? Where does the road lead, and how far is it before I see the next stage?

God I’m scared. I know the path you have set before me, but I also know the path that the world bids me to follow. The worlds way seems more sure, the worlds way is so easy, and the worlds way is where most those I know have traveled so I would travel not alone. What would you have me do? Deny myself, deny those who pester me constantly, deny what I have learned through the years? My Lord, when you picked your disciples you chose those that the world deemed not good enough, you chose those who didn’t pass the worlds tests. I have never been the one to take the broad path, and yet every day I feel myself slipping towards it.

What would you have me do? Would you have me leave those around me and find one to fight along side me? Would you have me stand in the crowd directing those around me to you? Your word says that the stars proclaim your name, that the heavens break every barrier of speech bringing the reality of your existence to the tribes of all people. You do not need me to put those on the path you have chosen for them, those you have called out to, those you have hand selected. Yet you have deemed me worthy to follow your lead… would I be so bold as to revoke such an honor bestowed upon myself? Oh I surely hope not.

Lord, show me the strength you have placed inside of me for I would not get very far without it.

“It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo.  The ones that really mattered.  Full of darkness and danger they were.  And sometimes you didn’t want to know the ending.  Because how could the end be happy.  How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened.  Those were the stories that stayed with you.  That meant something.  Even if you were too small to understand why.  But I think, Mr. Frodo, I do understand.  I know now.  You see folk in those stories had lots of chances to turn back, only they didn’t.  Because they were holding onto something.”  “What are we holding onto Sam?” “That there is some good in this world, Mr. Frodo.  And it’s worth fighting for.”