After a rather enlightening conversation with a friend, I figured the topic would make a pretty decent blog entry considering the day. Yes, today is Valentine’s Day. For those with significant others, it’s a rather bittersweet holiday. Most use this day as an excuse to show a little more love than usual, and it’s generally accepted that it will be reciprocated in kind. That’s the sweet part. The bitter part is the draining of the wallet, as most people feel a great desire to use this day, above all others, to express feelings of love and happiness… and it has been commercialized thusly. Hence, roses are no longer $12 for a dozen. Add a zero, kids.

The striking thing about Valentine’s Day is that these feelings or expressions of love aren’t done spontaneously every day. If you really dig someone, why wait until February 14th to hire a sky writer, buy a life-size teddy bear, send a dozen roses to their workplace, or surprise them with a dinner at that nice, fancy restaurant across town? Why hide all that stuff throughout the year? For something to be truly amazing, it must have amazing qualities. Waiting until the day of expected surprises (and thus not really a surprise, right?) is ordinary, and far from amazing. Relationships are what you put into them. It’s par for the course. The standard. Expected. Additionally, if everyone did these things randomly… on a whim… throughout the year… would not the world be a much happier place? Wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that everyone’s quality of life would be much higher if all the stress and everyday monotony of that life were interrupted with random acts of love and kindness? Perhaps I’m simply too much of an idealist about love and relationships. A hopeless romantic, if I may be so bold as to suggest.

That, in itself, is rather interesting considering the number of times I’ve been burned, stabbed, gouged, stomped or crushed… in the heart. Given my ordinarily realistic view about all other facets of life, I’d say that’s downright miraculous. Idealist? Only about love, it seems.

After discussing this at length with my friend (who brought a unique view from the the other gender’s side of the table), it seems that it’s much easier to remain optimistic and upbeat about love and relationships if a “burn victim” learns what started and how to prevent the fire in the first place. In short, as long as you learn a realistic and objective lesson from a break-up, and apply it to your next relationship, it’s fair to assume that relationships and love will get progressively better with each one. So single people… don’t lose heart. Instead, look forward to the next opportunity. Apply what you know and the next relationship will be your best yet.

Alright… </sappyBullshitRant>

I guess, in closing, Happy Valentine’s Day to all of you… even if it is disgustingly commercialized.

Yes, yes, I know… the site’s a mess right now. Half the pages are missing, information has gone rogue and disappeared, some of my pictures have either grown smaller in size or simply pulled out a digital middle finger and gave up the ghost. In short, this site is a huge bag of fail at the moment. But that’s okay, while I toil away in fixing it we can all have a good laugh at my expense.

Anyone who works in any modern office building will tell you that electronic locks are a pretty sweet deal for the most part. No need to deal with keys or waiting for a receptionist to show up to get in the door. No, no. We’re privy to having swipe cards, swipe keys, or nothing at all. And that last category is the one I fall into: I generally don’t need shit to get in or out of the office. Instead, the lock is on a timer. At 6 or so every morning, the doors unlock automagically. At 6 or so every evening, the doors lock automagically. Pretty simple, right?

Not so much. I’m not sure why, but whoever runs the lock system likes to mix things up a bit. Take last Friday for example. Five o’clock rolled around, and we all know how it goes: haul ass for the door. In the process of hauling said ass for said door, I never stopped to consider that the door might actually be locked. The resulting collision was like watching a three-year-old child running as fast as possible, their little legs a blur of motion, and then suddenly not being able to put on the brakes. I didn’t even slow down. I went head first into this door at flat-out speeds, and as I lay on the ground I realized, “Everyone on the planet saw that.” It was a guarantee. Because that’s my luck.

I’m sure up above in the atrium, the guy that runs the lock system was on the ground himself… laughing.

How can anyone go through life being happy with what they’re initially given?! Don’t get me wrong: appreciate it, but don’t settle on what you’ve been given. Work with it. Gain from it, but never settle. Here’s what I don’t get…

The world is a big place, with sights, sounds, tastes and touches that I can’t even begin to describe because I’ve never experienced them. How can anyone go through life without having even left their city? State? Region? Country? I don’t fucking get it. How can people live out their entire lives without going on an adventure?! I know this sounds stupid to some, and I’m no Indiana-Fucking-Jones myself, but the principal still applies: why do some people feel content without having a journey in their life!? Taking a trip is seldom about the destination. Flying half way around the world isn’t something that most people do every day. It’s out of the ordinary. It’s a quest of sorts. And when you come back, even if it was simply to see the Eiffel Tower, experience real French cuisine, and spend a metric fuck-ton of money on bullshit tourist items… it was an adventure. It was memories. At the end we can all lay on our death beds, look at the next generation sitting beside us and say, “Yeah, I did that.” We get one shot at this fucked up life and it seems like all anyone wants to do is stay at home and watch the fucking paint peel off the walls.

For fuck’s sake, people, get out of your poor excuse for a life and go fucking do something with it. Build memories. Visit sights. Try new cuisines. Experience new cultures. Meet new people. Find love. Lose love. Spend money on stupid fucking things. It’s not like you can take that paper with you.

“But Rob, I have no money or means to accomplish this.”

Look, here’s the thing… if you want something bad enough, you have to just fucking do it. Hate your life? Fix it. It’s pretty simple. Ed McMahon is not going to show up on your doorstep tomorrow with a check for ten million dollars. It’s simply not going to happen, so stop waiting for something amazing to happen to you and make something amazing happen to you. Don’t like your job? Go get a new one that makes you glad to wake up in the morning. Don’t like the clothes you wear or the car you drive? Do something about it. Throw away your old ones without a second thought and you’ll suddenly find that you need to go get new ones. Bored? Learn a new language, get a hobby, pick up something constructive. Stop wasting away in front of the television. Watching Discovery Channel does not make you world-educated.

Admittedly, I like television. It’s entertaining. But I also enjoy lots of other things. Traveling is a huge thing for me now. I love it. I can’t wait to get a little money together, a week of vacation and just fly somewhere I’ve never been. Monaco, Japan, Germany, England, Australia… I will have visited all of them before too long. Why? Because life is meant to be interesting. Because Americans aren’t the only people on this planet. Because Illinois is a wasteland lacking culture. Because I want an adventure.

Never settle.

I apologize for the lack of obscenely awesome imagery for this entry, but I’m in the midst of an interesting little side project. Since starting this site, I’ve been unable to create my own “theme,” and instead relied on the awesome WordPress community of developers to provide me something of the eye-candy persuasion. Now, however, I find myself drawn towards breaking out some of the old design skills and going to town on something simple, yet easy to navigate and understand. Hopefully, it’ll be exactly what I want, but knowing myself… probably not. I’m sure I’ll do twenty more versions, ending each one just before completion. How nauseating…

Also, after re-reading some of my earlier work sans MySpace, I’ve found out a couple of interesting facts. The first one is rather sad. It appears I’ve gotten dull lately. Easy enough to fix, really, but it just shows my lack of time to devote to “blogging”. The other one is related, but on a better note. I’ve decided that I’m going to bring over all of my favorite blogs from MySpace and even continue a few entries that I started but never finished. I spent about two hours looking over all of my entries last night and found that I love to hear myself talk, essentially. I also found that most people actually like this kind of behavior as it makes for some rather interesting entries, and thus, not full of epic failure.

See you on the other side.

The picture above is an eyewitness sketch of what I did last night.

“But Rob, I thought you were a software developer…”

By day, yes, I’m a software developer, but by night… I’m a cold-blooded killer. A fearless, heartless mercenary for hire to the highest bidder. I appear out of nothing in the crisp, cold night, ready to take advantage of you when you least expect it. Do I take your wallet and kill you, or leave you cowering in fear at what might have happened, of what I’m capable of doing? So who, or what, am I? No, as close as this was, it wasn’t a description of anyone’s wife or a prostitute. Geez, kids, get your minds out of the gutter. That’s almost as bad as Bruce Wayne trying to tell his latest fling that he’s Batman while suffering a horrible case of Tourette’s and palsy. I’m a ninja! I should probably explain.

About two weeks ago, the BMW decided that it no longer needed the fourteen-year-old fuel pump that resided peacefully in its ass. I know this because the fuel pump spontaneously shat all over itself, resulting in the car not starting. The fuel filter was replaced, the pump relay fired when the key was turned over, and there is no inertia “switch” to trigger under impact. There is an impact relay that kills the fuel pump in an accident, but the car has not had a hard enough impact in the right area to trigger this. It can only be the fuel pump. I know this, the car knows this. We have an understanding. Yet that doesn’t actually help me fix the issue. Aside from which… the real issue is that I no longer live at the house where my beloved Bimmer is parked, and I HATE paying for towing just to have it dragged a mere mile from its origin.

So last night, me and an accomplice daringly risked vehicular impoundment as we used the cover of fog to snatch up the hapless BMW and towed it bravely back to my house; its new home…. where it rightfully belongs.

Oh, and I also robbed a pastry store of delicious treats and punched a small child in the face because he thought my ninja mask was funny. Just kidding. Except about the BMW, and the pastry store, and the small child. I meant those.

Okay, okay, so I just towed my BMW home.