Axl Rose. A True Story.

It's that time again. Time for yet another installment of the chronicles of the exceedingly irrelevant and absolutely insignificant coincidences of my life.


A few years ago, I was over at a friend's house. He, being a classic rock lover, and I, being a classic fool, had a conversation that went something like this:




Friend: Blah, blah, blah, blah, guitars, blah blah blahhhhh, music, blah blah BLhaaHAhaHAHa, Axl Rose, blah blah bliggity blah blah blah.


Carsten: Who's Axl Rose, again?


Friend: WHAT? You don't know who AXL ROSE is? GUNS N' ROSES?.... I DATED YOU??? [Slew of expletives.]


Carsten: I'm... Sorry?



The next day, I was hangin' out with my Pops, watchin' TV and eatin' food and what not. OUR conversation went something like this:




Pops: Carst, I had the strangest dream last night!


Carsten: Oh  yeah, Pops? What about?


Pops: I dreamt that you didn't know who Axl Rose was.... weird!


Carsten: Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh......






My friend and my father do not communicate and I had not told anyone about the conversation from the previous night. To my knowledge, nobody had seen any documentaries on Guns N' Roses in the recent past, and my friend lives far enough away from my parents' house as to render eavesdropping from across the expanse physically impossible.


So.... basically, my dad can read minds. Just like my sister. It's the only feasible explanation.


All that to say, I now know exactly this many more things about Axl Rose than I did before: One. (He is from Guns N' Roses).

Verdict: Leprechauns are not real.

I know St. Patrick's Day was a minute ago, but I watched the Boondock Saints last week so, that got me thinking about all things Irish. One of those things being my elementary school art teacher, Ms. Morgan. Something especially Irishy about her remains burned in my brain. I was five, a wee kindergartner, with a malleable mind, waiting to be lied to. That year, Ms. Morgan, decided it would be an excellent idea to tell all us kiddos that leprechauns were real. Now, mind you, at that time in my life, my only references to leprechauns were

THIS:

and

THIS:

So when she told us that leprechauns were alive and among us, I pictured them as some combination of these two creatures. To help you get a taste, I helped makemebabies.com be the most useful it's ever been. 

BAM. 

Now that that's settled, I urge you to mentally insert that petrifying image into my retelling of a gross lie. LIES, rather. I shall now list the LIES that were told to SMALL CHILDREN about MYTHICAL CREATURES. (One of my biggest pet peeves.... Don't even get me started on Santa. I've blogged about him already.)

We were informed that:

1. Ms. Morgan was half leprechaun and possessed magical leprechaun powers.

2. Her brother was FULL leprechaun, and thus, miniature, and was running around the school, in need of being TRAPPED.

3. Leprechauns COULD be trapped by a device consisting ONLY of a toilet paper roll, some pipe cleaners, and a string! She had each of us make a trap and take it home to try it out on our own pesky leprechaun populations. (I can't, for the life of me, remember how this trap functioned, but I do remember that we used chocolate gold coins as bait.) You can be certain I set up my trap on the daily and did not once catch a single thing.

4. Anybody who had gold rings around their pupils had leprechaun blood. I, having such eyes, felt far superior to those of my classmates who lacked gold rings.

5. The "FOOTPRINTS" cut out of CONSTRUCTION PAPER that were found all over the school were from REAL LEPRECHAUNS.

Whatever. I'm bitter. I should get over it. I'm trying! This always helps:

Happy Belated St. Patrick's Day.

What lies were YOU told as a kid?

Acting as a Human

One dreary Sunday morning, I woke up to a text from a number with my same area code. I continued the conversation for much longer than I would have in normal circumstances once I got to work and was bored brainless. Enjoy.

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Mystery Texter: I realized I am a robot acting as a human but i keep on singing as a VOCALOID

Me: I'm sorry. Who are you?

Mystery Texter: Maria silly xD

Me: And who do you think I am?

"Maria": O isn't this skylar....?

Me: I wish.

"Maria": You wish...? So wait... who are you...? O.o

Me: I know nobody by the name skylar nor maria. I live in california and am not a robot.

"Maria": Ohh sorry... i texted the wrong number this is embarresing... eh....

Me: Its ok. Even robots make mistakes.

"Maria": Haha Im not a robot lets just clear that up now lol. I dont know why im still txtng u sheer bordem i suppose.

Me: What is a vocaloid?

"Maria": Its a robot. Its invented by the japanese they are robots that sing songs. There actually pretty popular. You can look them up on like youtube or whatever.

Me: Cool

"Maria": Ya i suppose so xD

Me: I hope you find skylar

"Maria": Lol thanksss.... Its just ur numbers only have 1 diff numb in it so ehh... ya sorry lol

Me: At least youre from chicago so that's cool

"Maria": Yepp. Its so cold here tho i really want to move after college lol. So cali? Thats nice.

Me: It is indeed. I moved here for college and am never moving back.

"Maria": Oh nice. What part do u live in? I have lots of fam in san diego.

Me: I live in a suburb of LA but go to san diego all the time. Lovely place.

"Maria": Oh thats cool.

[DAYS LATER]

"Maria": Ummm this is sebastian right?

Me: No, skylar

"Maria": Skylar? Thank god i been forgetting ur # and txting random creeps all week lolzz x.x. wassup love? XD


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And here I was, thinking Maria and I had become best of friends. All the while there she was, thinking I was a creep. Despite the fact that the conversation began with her thinking she is not human. Hmmmmmmmm.

Anyways. I did search "vocaloid" on YouTube. I still don't get it.

Disneyland and Other Poisons

Today I want to talk about my aversions to a few things that bring many people joy.

1. Disneyland
I like to consider myself an open minded person, but good luck getting me to understand the significant difference between Disneyland and the DMV. I dare you to try. I'll even throw out my main arguments right now, so that you can cleverly craft your rebuttals. By all means, take all the time you need.

2. Christmas (at least insofar as it is celebrated in America)
Overrated. It's cold. Like my heart. You get gifts you don't want. You give other people gifts they don't want. Time must be spent with family. Depending on your family, this can suck or rock. For most people, I reckon it sucks. For me it would rock, but I haven't gotten to be with my family on Christmas in three years. Maybe I'm bitter. Or maybe Christmas is just lame.

3. Hugging (at least insofar as it is expected as a salutation)
I hate that this awkward activity has been so culturally ingrained and accepted much less EXPECTED. I don't enjoy it. I do it because you come at me with your arms outstretched. Somebody needs to think of a better thing to do to express affection. Oh wait! There are tons of things.




That's enough negativity for one day.


[End rant.]

Games

My first ever stab at a "free-writing" exercise. Five minutes of typing on one subject without stopping. No edits. GO.

I have always thought that the main point of games was to get people involved with each other. To get them to have fun. To start conversations up, perhaps. Many people seem to think games exist purely for finding out who can win and who can lose. I don't think so. Sometimes, when I'm playing a game, it will spark an idea and I'll strike up a conversation with my teammates and/or opponents. Sometimes my teammates and/or opponents don't like that idea very much, and they get irritated because I have interrupted the game. But why don't they understand that the game is designed to spur conversation? I don't get what is so bad about that. I just wanted to have fun with you and the game was a good way to break the ice. Board games, sports, running games, hiding games, chasing games. My favorite board game growing up was always Monopoly. You have so much power. I love real estate also. Not sure why. I think it is because everyone needs shelter of some sort and it seems like a practical and respectable profession to get into; helping people find homes, that is. Perhaps homes will be my next topic but until next time, I should not find out whether that becomes true or not. I often miss Australia. I'm not sure why I brought that up. They play games in Australia. Perhaps that is why. I played Cranium while I was there with my Australian host family. They got angry when the game was interrupted just like Americans tend to do. Silly people. Silly world. Why can't we just have fun no matter what we are doing? Time is not wasted when the game is on hold. I also played Disney Trivial Pursuit with my host sister while I was in Australia. That was pretty fun, also. I do say, I have played a lot of games in my life. Online games are addictive but not as much fun because you usually cannot play them with others. Unless you can. In which case, great! I have always wanted to invent a game. I have tried many a time to invent a card game but I lack the patience that such a task probably requires. If I were to invent a game, I wonder if it would ever become played worldwide. In Australia even. Every country has games. Love games. Card games. Sports games. Name games. Games have been played for centuries all around the world, you see.


Ahh. Gotta love stream of consciousness. Babbling. What fun. Oh, the ramble that is life.