Every year I make a playlist and manage to forget to save it. This year, however, I made sure to because scouring through the amount of music I have for those few perfect Halloween songs is a real pain in the ass.

That being said, here’s what I’ll be listening to this year to get me jazzed up for the holiday.

Halloween Theme – John Carpenter

This is Halloween – Danny Elfman

Monster Mash – Boris Pickett

Bad Moon Rising – Creedence Clearwater Revival

Psycho Killer – Talking Heads

(Don’t Fear) The Reaper – Blue Oyster Cult

Halloween – Dead Kennedys

Superstition – Stevie Wonder

They’re Coming to Take Me Away! – Napoleon XIV

Friday the 13th Theme

Thriller – Michael Jackson

Now, if that don’t put you in the Halloween spirit, then I don’t know what to tell you.

Happy Halloween.

Time to get blasted.

I really hate disappointing people which is a shame because I’m so good at it. Asking me not to screw everything up and let people down is like asking LeBron to be good at basketball. It’s bound to happen.

Man, I really thought I had moved past that disappoint-everyone-you-know phase in my life. Looks like I haven’t.

Less than a year ago I converted from being a Playstation guy to being an XBox guy. How could do I such a thing? Didn’t I have plenty of fond memories with my Playstation(s) over the years?

Of course, but even the strongest relationships end sometimes. I guess I just kind of fell out of love with the PS3 and the next thing I knew I was playing Bioshock on the 360… and everything just felt right again. It was a kind of gaming exhilaration the likes of which I hadn’t felt in some time.

However, despite this sudden closeness, there was a certain passion lacking in my relationship with my XBox that I had never missed during my lengthy tenure as a Playstation owner.

And then… tonight happened.

It was something simple really. Something I had done more times than I can count with my Playstation. And now my XBox and I are on a whole other level.

I broke my first XBox 360 controller out of rage.

Thank you, Mass Effect on Insanity difficulty for showing me what this relationship was lacking.

Breaking your first controller of a system is essentially the hymen pop of gaming. And now, I can say that we’re finally connecting where we hadn’t before. All the best relationships get to where they are because the fights which don’t break them apart strengthen them.

It’s about time.

“Yes, I make mistakes that I don’t ever make excuses for. Like leaving girls who love me and constantly seducing hoes.” ~ Drake

Money to Blow – Birdman featuring Drake and Lil Wayne

It turns out Crooked I (from Slaughterhouse) has a couple of brothers. And they’re all really good at rapping.

They’ve been dropping weekly tracks and there isn’t one I dislike.

Here’s their “Run This Town” freestyle.

Yeah. Get on this shit.

NFL, you told me

that Greg Jennings was probable.

NFL, you lied to me.

Yahoo!Sports, you told me

the ‘Skins would destroy the Rams.

Yahoo!Sports, you lied to me.

Common Sense, you told me

Green Bay’s run defense would shut down Cedric Benson.

Why?

Why?

Why do I play fantasy football

when it makes me want to scream

and break shit?

Why?

Why?

This is not a fantasy,

rather a nightmare.

I should’ve started

Jerricho Cotchery

instead of Santana Moss.

Goddammit.

Shit. I’m an idiot.

This is the show I’ve wanted to see for close to ten years.

I remember begging my parents to let me go to the Pop Disaster Tour back in middle school and they said no. Since then, of course, Green Day has turned to shit, but Blink 182 remains classic and infallible in my eyes.

So, why am I an idiot?

I got too drunk and don’t remember most of this show, that’s why.

Shit, I’m still pretty drunk right now and I’m gonna fall asleep.

“You don’t have to wait to lose to improve, you can improve while you’re winning.” ~ Teddy Atlas

Friday Night Fights 7/18/2009

I still remember the first girl I ever asked out who said no. It was tough for me because I had never heard that word before. No other girl I had asked out had said that to me. In an undefeated season, the first loss is the hardest.

It was midway through my junior year of high school when I got my first no and I was absolutely stunned. I had failed to get girls on second dates before, but I usually didn’t care because I’d already gone out with them and there were plenty of other girls out there. So, when I approached this particular girl and asked her out only to be denied, I was shocked.

One can assume that this was for two reasons:

1) My ego

2) I wasn’t used to it.

Of course, since then I’ve become no stranger to being turned down by girls. It’s just one of those things that happens. Some girls say yes, some girls say no. After a while it wasn’t really a big deal anymore.

Until now.

I’ve decided to step up to the major leagues and attempt to court a celebrity. I’m not going to specify which celebrity but I will point out that she is one of the young ladies pictured below.

Being turned down is not an option. The only question: How am I gonna pull this off?

The obvious idea would be to send some hokey fanmail expressing my affectations in a hail mary attempt to touch the celebrity’s heart and win her over. Since I’m an English major and more than capable of piecing together an veritable orgasm with my words, this plan was weighed carefully before I realized that my task would take more than fancy words in a letter. Celebrities’ ability to appear superior to the average downtrodden human inevitably results with innumerable date offers and marriage proposals by barely innovative people every single day. Unfortunately, despite my talents as a wordsmith, this option was ruled out immediately.

Next I thought about using Twitter or Facebook to catch the celebrity’s eye and hoping for my persistence in messaging them to pay off. The only problem there is that I really don’t want to come off as a stalker or creep. The existing stigma against internet dating taken into consideration alongside the internet’s inability to distinguish between genuinely good people (i.e. myself) and disturbed loonies (i.e. To Catch A Predator) makes this option no more viable than the first.

I’ve no doubt that were I able to meet my celeb-crush in person I would be able to charm her senseless and sweep her off her feet. While most commonfolk would be too stunned in the presence of a celebrity to manage any sort of game-spitting, let alone any coherent speech, I would be able to flawlessly swoon the young lady thanks to my indifference towards her celebrity status.

People are normally shocked when they see Joe-Nobody dating Super-Hot-Celebrity-Model, but the truth is that just because someone is famous, it doesn’t make them any less of a person. Unfortunately, due to the fact that celebrities keep company with other celebrities more often than not, dating amongst Hollywood stars is commonplace since exposure to less famous folk is a rarity.

I used to ascribe to the idea that if something is meant to be then it will come to fruition. Then I realized this way of reasoning was more a crutch than anything else. It’s easy for people to excuse their failures by saying that it simply wasn’t meant to be. As a man who isn’t afraid to take action to get where he wants to be, that idiom is of no use to me.

It appears that the only reasonable way to achieve my goal of courting a celebrity is to dive headfirst into their lifestyle by first becoming one. While every kid grows up saying that they want to be famous and then settling for a lesser perceived occupation, I will not settle. If it takes celebrity status to catch the eye of a celebrity, then so be it.

My rise to fame starts now. There isn’t a minute to waste as I begin my ascent to winning the heart of one of America’s most adored stars.

Midway through July and I’m still unemployed. I’ve had the opportunity to drink on several occasions and have fallen far from intoxicated each time. Not until a few days ago did I finally realize I’ve been granted what some people only dream of: three months with no responsibility to anyone other than myself.

I’ve heard people talk about how they wish they could just take some time off to relax, get in shape, and not answer to anyone but themselves. Well, that’s exactly what I’ve been doing  and until earlier this week I was taking my gift for granted. I was so preoccupied with the fact that I was broke and unemployed that even in my downtime I was feeling stressed out and unproductive.

Thankfully, that stress has subsided and I’ve decided to take full advantage of what I’ve been given.

At the beginning of the summer I decided to start watching what I eat and getting in shape for Florida come fall. There have been other periods in the last few years where I’ve wanted to get back in shape but I just haven’t had the willpower too. This summer, with no other distractions, I’ve been able to do just that.

I haven’t been in this good of shape since playing football in high school. I’ve cut down my calorie intake to about 1200-1500 per day and I work out at least once a day six-seven days a week. The workouts consist of core, push-ups, and running.

Needless to say I’ve lost 25 lbs. since the beginning of summer with no signs of slowing down.

I’ve also been able to spend time working on my tan which was desperately needed. My skin is becoming darker but not yet bronzed, but hopefully by the time I move to Florida I’ll be set.

Of course, my voice still hasn’t returned because my immune system is shit and I’ve no money to my name, but other than that I’m starting to realize that this summer isn’t so bad afterall.

I’m looking forward to seeing how my last month in Maryland plays out.