Sunday, September 3rd, 2006 The lay of the land When I first moved to Madison, I pretty much spent all my time inside my apt, only leaving for the occasional trip to Walmart. So, I guess that's part of the reason I didn't really warm up to it so much. In my defense, though, after experiencing most of Madison, there really isn't too much to explore. Still, I didn't want that to happen again with the Twin Cities; that's why I have taken whatever chances have come up to go exploring a good deal of what there is to do here in St.Paul/ Minneapolis. And while I'm no where NEAR done with the survey, I think it's miles ahead of where I was with Madison two years ago. So, I bet you're all dyingto know what the difference between Saint Paul and Minneapolis is. Well, I can tell you all right now because I have discovered said difference - at least in terms of downtowns. So, obviously Minneapolis' downtown is a bit bigger, but more importantly Minneapolis' downtown is where you go when you want to get down and dirty. It's basically the ghetto with nightclubs and bars liberally distributed on every corner. People yell stuff out to each other, there is loud music everywhere, and cops patrol the area on every block due to the high crime. The cool thing about the Minneapolis downtown though is that pretty much everything is connected through the skyway- even the zoo (which I haven't been to yet)- so you can pretty much go from place to place without touching the air outside. Ten miles away, but what would seem to be separated by a whole other world, lies the Saint Paul downtown. Everything I just said about Minneapolis: reverse it. It's a very classy downtown, very clean, a few tiny parks distrubted here and there where people chill. Loud music only comes from one of two places in downtown- and theyre mostly just local bars, not crazy nightclubs. Cops only go by occasionally in their squad cars. There is a stretch (7th street) that contains a few pubs and grills as you go west on it (but the further west you go, the farther away from downtown you get). Minneapolis has the Target Center, Saint Paul has the Xcel Energy Center where the Minnesota Wild and Swarm play. I'm not sure if it was intentional, but as I passed by late at night, all the signs reading "Xcel Energy Center" on the outside of the building had the word "Energy" blacked out on every side. Also adding to the unique flavor of Saint Paul is the fact that they have Capital and the Cathedral of Saint Paul -both HUGE structures that welcome you to the Twin Cities as you drive in through the highway- on either sides of the northern part of the downtown area. Fortunately, I've had the chance to take tours of both of these behemoths, and it has proved quite enlightening. I know more about Minnesota history than more 5 year olds who were born here now! In essence, I would love to live in downtown saint paul. it's quiet, clean, and you have some cool stuff that you can do at night without having to worry about your safety. Hell, even old ladies walk the streets at night alone. What more could you ask for? Unfortunately, though, not everything that's cool about Saint Paul is downtown, unlike Minneapolis. For instance, the free zoo that Saint Paul has? That's to the northwest, far from any skyway. On the plus side there are oodles of Museums and theatres to choose from... if you're into that kind of thing. But that's not to say that all of Saint Paul is that way. It does have its dark side. Pretty much everything east of 35E is a cesspool of crime that you should avoid. Even parts to the north of downtown are kind of shady. There are a few areas to the southwest of Saint Paul that are really nice neighborhoods, which continue forward as you cross the mississippi and come into Minneapolis where they have amazingly nice neighborhoods. But that's the odd thing about this place. There seems to be very little transition from good to bad parts. One minute you may be thinking youre in the ghetto and then suddenly, hey, I hit a lake and the houses are like five times as big. A few other tidbits... The western suburbs of Minneapolis are nice. The Northern suburbs of Saint paul are just all right. Oh yeah and the Minnesota State Fair is going on right now. And my friend Betsy made an interesting comment the other day. She's also adjusting to Minneapolis after moving from Madison and she said that people around here don't really know how to drive. I think I would agree with that. There are so many accidents all the time on the highway, which is ridiculous when you consider that only about 550,000 people live around these parts, but whatever. The funny thing though, is that the twin cities seems to be made up entirely of highways. I kid you not. THe fastest way to get from any one point to any other point involves taking a county road, a state road or an interstate highway. Streets will turn into highways for stretches even! Maybe I'm just traveling far distances. We'll see. So, in conclusion, more will have to be studied before I can safely judge all of that the cities have to offer. Take it easy. And I turned 24 on Thursday!

Thursday, September 8th, 2006 Class time is Crass Time It's late and I don't have much time to submit an entry but I figured that if I didn't now, I wouldn't until lord knows when. School has started and boy am I stressed. Or at least I was after having two of the dryest courses I have had in a long while. Stats and then Research Methods. Of the two, I think I dislike Research Methods a ton more. At least Stats is doable if you can follow along. That's a funny thing though, that the first day of class, I was so lost, but that was because it had been such a long time since I had taken a stats course and they were using really weird terminology. I raced home and opened up my stats book from undergrad to bone up on what a "box plot" or a "frequency distribution" was exactly. On top of that, the book I had ordered for class hadn't arrived yet so I couldnt follow along. So, after looking at the second Lab, and not understanding hide or hair of it (what's a greek letter doing in here?) I decided to not wait and buy the book so that I could at least have it for a few days until my copy arrived. Interestingly enough, they canceled my order, which i guess means I'll just keep this expensive copy to myself. But yeah it was cool because after reading through the book for a good hour, I went to class... AND UNDERSTOOD 95% of what the dude was talking about! The last five minutes though... ugh. Not so good. I'll just truncate the class period and cut it off at the bad part. I really hope I can get through this class. Pray. for. Nando. I was supposed to take a class on Conflict Resolution but in restructuring my phd schedule, Ive had to drop it and take a Psych course on learning and cognition instead. Ugh, I don't feel like talking about this crap anymore. talk to you later.

Saturday, September 16th, 2006 Indefinite Hiatus The other day, Chua IMed me about Garbage. You know- the band that had a really cool album followed by a really great album followed by two really bad albums. Anyway, well we got to talking about my former favorite band and it hit me just how little I actually think about or even listen to those old songs that are really good. Now, far be it from me to feel any form of resentment to a band that put out records, but I can't help but feel a bit cheated with the last Garbage albums which really stunk. I can forgive the 3rd one. But the fourth one? That was just lazy. So, it doesn't surprise me that a subpar album really encites hardly any reaction from me at all. I maybe listened to about 3 songs. Then I forgot all about it. I wandered over to garbage.com for the first time in years that night because I wanted to see what was going on with the band these days. Not surprisingly, they had decided to take some time off after touring for a few months. They are not sure how long it will be, but I don't think anything has been posted by any of the bandmembers this entire year. And that got me thinking a little bit about why. You know? Like why they would just stop. Though, not the first time, it still doesn't make it any better on the fans I would imagine. If they just broke up, then there would be closure, but this whole "we're not technically broken up but due to the horrid sales recently we may as well be" thing can't be that soothing for their followers. And then I thought, "do they even care?" I mean, it took me about 3 years to come back to the site and I'm sure Im not the only one who feels the way I do about their music, as I find it hard to believe that anyone who liked 1995 or 98 Garbage would like 2000's Garbage. So, in this loooong chain of thoughts, I started to internalize and wonder about my own site and that very question: does anyone still care? Part of me is tempted to shut down this thing and not really look back on it. Besides. I've been so busy and exhausted with school, plus somewhat of a romantic life ;-) recently that it's been tough to keep people informed of what's all going on, and that's really the whole point of this bloody thing isn't it? I mean, if I can't use the thing to let people know what's going on with me, then what's the use of keeping it running. How fitting that I should wonder about all of this exactly one month from the Five year anniversary of bossboyX.com . Well, I guess, it would be more fitting that I wonder about its existence on the actual anniversary, but hey, 59 months is just as good as 60, I suppose. But back to my original question: does anyone still care? I'm not really sure. Back in College, it seemed like everyone was into BBX. Particularly one John Wood. Now, it seems like everyone is too busy to build a community- granted it's a very nando-centric one, but it's still a community dammnit, and I'd like to think that I have a really awesome collection of friends whom anyone would be proud to associate with. BBX was awesome back then, but now people have lives, and it just seems like no one is in any hurry to give them up any time soon - which is fine, mind you. Afterall, you gotta do what you gotta do. Even I'm guilty of forsaking the BBX - particularly last year when I had other people take over for me. This isn't so much a "Why doesn't anyone take interest in my website" rant as much as it is a "I miss the old days" rant, I guess. And yeah, I never thought I would come to call them the old days so soon. So, what does all of this mean? On the surface, I guess it means that I still wonder if clinging to the worn out ways of the past that don't really matter anymore is necesarily the best approach at this point. Maybe I should just give myself the break and not think about the BBX for a while. And yet. Somehow, I don't think I could ever just leave it behind. At least not completely. At worst, I'll have to limit myself to one entry every ten days (though even that makes me wonder about whether it would even be worth it if it came down to it). It's like that Mya song- give me everything or nothing at all! Well, okay, so I really just felt like putting it in there whether it fit or not. Anyway, to hell with it. After such a long journey through thoughts and wonderments, I think the only solution is to keep going with this thing. Hmm, perhaps I should use a different solution since I don't really think of this as much of a problem per se. Regardless, this whole thing stretches back farther than anyone can remember. There have been numerous incarnations of this site- hell, I didn't even write down a journal until a good five months or so after this thing launched. Before, it wasn't even so that people could know what was up with me. It was just a random collection of crap that I put up here for everyone to see. Remember the Firebird pictures page? Or the Garbage pictures page? yeah, Neither do I, but it was up there, from what the old galleys show. And when the first BBXIQ launched, there were only three players (which grew to like 13 or something once the Zerbman joined in for the BBXIQ3). Somewhere down the line I got more concerned with quantity over quality (though I will never say that I stopped putting effort into this site. It has and always will be my baby; I just mean that when push came to shove, I wanted more and more people to comment on stuff written on here, when I should have just been content to have a place to put it all). This is my site, after all, and regardless of how many people read it, it's still mine and my responsibility to maintain it. I guess even the time frames of empty journal space can even be a representation of how chaotic my life was back in 2005 or 2006 or whatever. So, will there be oodles and oodles of new features on here? No. Will there be a journal entry each day? Probably not. What there will be, reader, is simply my assortment of craziness, because as much as I cringe to admit it (due to the fact that a part of me somehow still considers myself to be uninteresting), silliness does seem to follow me wherever I go. As much as I would love to update this thing more often, i just have to accept that it aint going to happen. But maybe I can still be happy with an occasional entry. I won't abandon my site or anything like that. It means something to me- time has a way of doing that. Here's to 59 more months of BBX and all the random weirdness that will likely ensue.

Saturday, September 23, 2006 The Wabash Connection It was so interesting while I was in Madison just how many people had actually heard of Wabash. It was kinda neat to go places and have people know about the quiet little liberal arts college. Usually this would be because they had gone to school somewhere in Indiana or knew somebody that lived in Crawfordsville. Whatever. Anyway, I wasn't counting on any Wabash stuff up here but still, you can never be too certain. Well, so one of the dudes in my cohort- knows of Wabash but only because he went to Hampden Sydney, which is one of the only 3 institutions left that's all male. So, you pretty much have to know about the other two. Anyway, what makes his tie to Wabash a bit stronger though is that he knew this wild, sex crazed chick who used to hang around his campus screwing undergrads ... who would later grow up to become Dean of housing or something later on at his college, after he graduated. And a few years afterwards, would become the wild sex crazed Dean of housing who would hang around campus screwing the catering management at WABASH right as I arrived. And the funny thing is that I wanted to ask him if he ever met her, but just didn't because I assumed that there would be no way he would have known her since he graduated like a decade ago. So there you have it. My cohort is actually pretty all right. I still think theyre more focused on working on stuff than hanging out, like in Madison, but they can carry conversations and joke around a lot better than that group in Madison. So, that's pretty neat. We're supposed to get together sometime on Saturday of next week for dinner and drinks, or in my case, dinner, which should be fun. I think it's official though: I am not dealing too well with my classes. I don't understand a word that's going on in two of my four classes, and I don't really care about the words I do understand in the other two. And my research assistantships. Ugh, don't even get me started on how much i dislike them- and they haven't even started yet! I am in such bad moods recently, and I can't seem to snap out of them no matter what I do. The direction I go is to just lose myself in video games after I am done reading or bruising my head because I don't understand something. I've almost beaten ALICE, which Chua gave me like four years ago and I never bothered to play until recently. I also got Scrabble, which is the most difficult thing I have ever played when you boost it up to level 2. Well, maybe CIV was comparable. I also got the NBA 2003 game, and I spent a whole night updating the rosters, but I think I accidentally wrote over them with my franchise mode, so now only my franchise mode has the current players. Oh well, it's no big deal. I guess. After making my character - Nando Se- I put him on the Wolves, since that's where I am now, and I am 100 percent convinced that if I was a foot taller, like my character, the Timberwolves would be unstoppable, as the simulations tell me. Well, I've been writing this thing for over two hours - all the coming and going adds up. So, Im gonna sign off for now. Later.