the lion's claws are sharpened for war

Oh, blog, I'm sorry to have ignored you. I try to write more to be able to, you know, write more, and I end up writing a bunch of shit for racket, but ignore you. Let's see what I have been up to:

Car was finally diagnosed as having a clogged catalytic convertor. I guess by catalysts were not being converted properly, causing high temperature exhaust gases to back up in the exhaust manifold, both cracking it and damaging the head gasket enough to allow hydro-carbons (water carbons?) to leak into the cooling system. As I know that the crack in the manifold was there two years ago when Honda "fixed" my car, I know that Honda in Victorville is going to be ass-reamed on the next business day.

- Thank you for calling ValleyHi Honda, how can I help you?

- Yes, you can start off by determining which service technician was the most substandard and ass-rape him with a splintered broom handle. Or give me $5000 that I have paid to fix this problem over the course of two years. Plus interest.

Rather than replace the parts, it was only slightly more costly to replace the entire engine to one that had 120,000 miles less on it. All over it and my car runs/sounds fantastic. Of course I didn't have nearly enough money to pay for it, so my grandpa paid for it, and I will be paying him back over the course of the next three months. Suck-tastic. To help do so, I have picked up some part time gigs with Guerilla Union flyering for/working Paid Dues on the 28th. Plus, Rock the Bells gets announced on April 7th, so I'll start flyering for that then. If anybody needs odd jobs done, lemme know.

I am still particularly over my day job, and have expanded my job search to Southern California from within 25 miles of San Dimas. If by the end of summer I am still dissatisfied, I expand it to the whole country, as I am not loyal to the West coast as much as I am to Southern California. If I betray her, I might as well go big. This was partially inspired by Josh Sullivan and his Fifty Two Friends project. Seeing someone my own age, and in a very similar position as I am in go balls to the wall on scoping out the country, I can suck it up and move away to something new. We'll see if I have the balls to do it.

I picked up Josh for week 9 of Fifty Two Friends, from Amanda of all people. I was definitely stressing out on the drive there trying to imagine how that would go down, as the last thing she said to me was that she was happier without me in her life and to not try to talk to her again. So, imagine my surprise when, upon meeting at the Mira Mesa In N Out, we all sat down and had a delicious meal with a side of pleasant and civil conversation! Patrick and I agreed, In N Out is hallowed ground, no arguements are to be had! She's doing well, which was nice to hear, and it was nice to talk to her, as even during heated arguements, we would get sidetracked telling of adventures, misadventures and inane details of mundane events. Though it did sting a bit when, after saying goodbye to Josh, she didn't even make eye contact with me or say goodbye. I expected less than what i got, so whatever. It made me feel a bit less like San Diego was her turf, so I may head down more often again.

I had an amazing time with Josh, as it's always nice to spend a week being absolutely ridiculous while getting drunk and walking to the bowling alley, bowling itself, Los Angeles for an interview with Amber Benson of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hollywood for Pink's and Amoeba and random mountain hikes.

I went and visited Shannon in Sacramento taking Josh to the tenth leg of his 52-part adventure, and it was solid. The light rail seemed legit and on time, smog free, and the "ghetto peeps" were not particularly ghetto. I could bring all types of Pomona street cred with me! Shannon's always a blast to hang out with and is one of the few veggies that doesn't give me shit for being an omnivore. Josh was kind enough to let me have the couch for two nights and The Watchmen was standard. I was pleased with it, even if I did have to pee most of the time.

I may very well take the CBEST and try to become a substitute teacher, solid way to make some extra cash, Wes has been doing it for a while now, and enjoys it. There's tons more going on, but the more I think about it, the more overwhelming it is. I will try to chip away at anything that's eating me while still attempting to simply practice writing on a more regular basis.