StandardsDT's Blogg

I'm thinking about closing down this blog and opening up a new one over at wordpress. As much as the customization is nice over here it really does lack in that department. I've searched all over for a theme that I liked. There were a few but then I realized how bright some were, how certain things I added didn't look nice on the designs.

So my next post will inform everyone if I'm switching to wordpress or not. Till then I'm going to temporarily set something up over there to see how it works.

The spring semester begins tomorrow and thank God it is too. This break was nice but at the same time just extremely boring and of course the drama. Plus I'm going to like that switch up in my schedule. Tuesdays and Thursdays I have to be in at work by 8am which is fine cause I'm only working till 12:00. After that I've got class in the around 1:20 and then another class at 5:30 I believe it is. Plans for Wildwood are still up in the air. I still need ask people who want to go.

This past Saturday night at a dunkin donuts I witnessed a customer treat an employee like crap. It was the first time since Walgreens I've seen something like that happen. I felt bad for the guy behind the counter and I wanted to say something to the customer so bad.

The customer was talking behind the guys back while he was going to get more bagels from the back. And the customer starts giving him an attitude and then says to a friend "I'm gonna make him suck my dick yo" and he said something following that. My friends and I looked at each other in disgust. But carried on our own business grabbing a table. The employee finally emerges and to be honest he was tired and didn't smile or anything. The only thing he wanted to do is take the customers order. Next thing I know the customer says the following "Yo thats disrespectful your suppose to smile when talking to us. Do you not know how to be polite. Come on man do you know english? Do you know what respect means?" Meanwhile the employee is just standing there getting cut off by this jerk. He then went on and said something about the guys country he was from.

At the point I was ready to say something but I held off to wait and see if he would say anything else. My one friend saw me getting anxious and he was like "Come on let's get out of here" after a few seconds we got up and left.

That was the best description of the story I could give you really. But that was basically what happened. I'm sorry but you don't talk behind some ones back and say "I'm gonna make him suck my dick". On top of that this guy was like 20 sum years old and thought that he was gangster in his Domino's Pizza color looking outfit and hat. I'm guessing he never got out of highschool if he's making comments like that.

Sure when the employee walked up he didn't smile or anything. But can you blame him?! It was 2:00am! He doesn't want to be there! He just wants to take the order and get you on your merry way. I wish people would step back and try to be in that persons shoes behind the counter. But this is America and that will never happen.

What's wrong with people these days?

So what is one to do in what feels the like the darkest times? Do they sit there and complain? Do they sit there and do nothing about it? Do they turn to God with it? What do you do?

I'm having a hard time putting this into words right now. I'm not quite exactly sure how to say this. But I'm going to try. So bare with me if you don't understand what I'm saying.

Currently two friends that I know are in one of the craziest relationships I know. One of them I've been friends with since Freshman year. Almost every time we hang out they argue or I get into a fight with her Boyfriend. Sounds fun right? Well it gets better. Ever since they started dating at the end of my Senior of 06 it went downhill. He was kicked out of his house and had to live on his own. The worst part of this is that once they started he has been the laziest person I know. He can't hold a job, can't pay his rent, doesn't drive, and can't afford school. Hows that for a 21 year old? Yes I did say 21 year old. Guess who's the one who pays his rent, buys his food, clothes, etc. You guessed it...his girlfriend. And he has this whole thinking that they are going to get married.

So what does a good friend such as myself in a situation like this do? Do I say something to her? Do I stay quiet and let her learn on her own? Any advice is greatly appreciated.

On another note I'm trying my best to get involved in Liquid Church more. I went to the service yesterday and it was fantastic. Though I did kind of cringe when they destroyed the iBook in the video. That was painful to watch. Haha. I'm planning on joining a Small Group soon or as Liquid like to call it a "Life Group". I'm trying I really am and this time I mean it. I just can't do this alone. Ya Know? I'll post more about this later today. For now I'll leave you with a screenshot of the new Liquid Church website. And if you want to visit it the address is htt:p//liquidchurch.com.



Liquid is definitely going places. And I cant wait to be apart of this journey.

The whole world is about to change......

I'm already making my plans for Wildwood this Summer. This is something that needs to be planned out well in advanced so I know I have the money and what not.

I've decided to make it a priority that every summer myself and some friends go down there for a 3 day weekend. It would most likely be Friday - Sunday and we would leave early Friday morning. So far it's Steph, Billy, our friend Sara and Myself going down there. Were all going to contribute to the hotel we stay at including money for gas, parking, food, the boardwalk and any other miscellaneous things we might need.

This summer I want it to be one of my best memories of the year and therefore I want as many people to come if possible. I just can't stay away from the Jersey Shore. Sometimes when I look at pictures and talk about it I seriously consider moving down there eventually. I don't care if it's dead down there during the winter I just love the atmosphere it's so peaceful and everything.

Also that bring me to another point of why I'm writing this. On flickr there aren't many fantastic photo's of the Night Life or anything in Wildwood. Due to this I want to take as many professional photo's as possible. Even if it means that I don't have Digital SLR I'll still use my 8 Megapixel Sony Camera. In fact if I do get one I'll bring both. One for the stuff I want to submit professionally to flickr and the other for friends.

So sit tight on more announcements for this trip. I'll hopefully have have everything researched and sorted out with in the next month or two.


P.S.

My car is fine. It turns out that the sensors measure the tire rotations and it's thinking it's over inflated or something like that. So when I get the chance I need to release some air to get it to drop by a pound or two so it wont set it off. At least it's all figured out and I wont have to bring my car to the dealership.

I'm not quite sure what is up with this weather but I am loving it. This isn't normal for New Jersey to be Warm and Sunny in January especially around my area. When I first woke up and looked out the windows I saw this beautiful sunrise. The kind where it's a nice orange/yellow in the sky coming through. I automatically thought it would be a nice day. I eventually fell back asleep and ended up waking up and heading out to work around 8:40.

I stepped outside and it was gloomy. It was raining and I automatically thought "Awww Crap!". As much as I do like the rain. There are times where I don't and wish it was nice out. A few hrs later and hear that it's nice out. I looked through the blinds here at my desk and sure enough it's sunny again!

So it appears what would have possibly been a bad day turned out good.

I did some browsing through mixx today and submitted some articles. Sadly two of them have gotten no votes except for my own. The one I made an error in and forgot to check the title. It ended up grabbing a ton of extra content from the page so it was mess. The other I'm guessing no one finds interesting. Thats ok though! Either way I love mixx whether something mine reaches the homepage, gets voted up, etc. It's less competitive then digg and the community is great!

Also I have to schedule my car to get it into the dealership. My air pressure warning is going off none stop. Ever so often after I reset it the light goes on. So hopefully the sensor wasn't damaged when the tire was replaced and hopefully it didn't get damaged when the donut was on it. But other than that everything else is fine with it. There are some things I want to do like redo the paint since there are some scratches from the previous owner and I want to get the one side skirt replace thats damaged and the back bumper has some small dents and is carved into a bit.

I'm just glad none of this damage was from me and it was from the original owner. That's it for now. I'll update some more later tonight after I get out of work and after I get done with scheduling the appointment and going to the college to get some things sorted out.

Life has a way no matter if you like it or not. It could be bad, it could be good. Sometimes it's not fair and sometimes it is. But most of all I don't understand it at all. I don't think anyone does.

Life is just sometimes bleh. At the moment one of my friends is currently in the process of moving to West Virginia. But I personally feel that she's doing it for all of the wrong reasons. I understand that life can be tough and doesn't go the way we planned but is running from it really going to solve anything? I also think she's just moving they're for a guy that she met 3 months ago. I haven't said a word to my friend yet and maybe should. It can just be pain staking sometimes because you see some one you once considered close now just up and leaving.

What happened to the whole "The only thing keeping me in Jersey is you, your cousin, Chris, and Sherri"? I guess thats since changed considering a few months down the line she started saying "The only thing keeping me in Jersey is You and Sherri"? It appears that things have changed and maybe they just don't care anymore.

I wish I knew the answer to life. All of the answers in fact but alas I don't. The only one that does is God. But even sometimes I have trouble believing that. I mean how could He rip away the most important people in your life from you? He took away the closest person I knew from me and sent them to Swedesboro, NJ, he took away my friends at ABC, and now He's taking away one of my closest friends by allowing them to run away from they're problems. I know that, that she doesn't believe in God or anything but still it's my own view, thoughts, whatever you'd like to call it. And I hate sounding selfish in the above about the whole thing about Swedesboro but still it's just one of those things where I'm like "WTF?!".

Well I'm going to get back to work and enjoy this lovely 44 degree weather considering it feels warm right now. I can't wait for it to hit 60 degree later this week.

I'm not quite sure what it is about winter but they're are just some days when it's beautiful out but at the same time freezing. It's currently 27 Degrees Fahrenheit but feels like it's 17 Degrees according to the Weather reports. For once it would be nice if it's nice out during the winter then it should be warmer out. But this is New Jersey and the likes of that happening a extremely rare.

So as I sit here at work after walking in about an hr late or so because I had to get my cousin off to school, figure out why my uncles computer wasn't powering up (turns out the circuit breaker had been tripped), and then get ready. I'm thinking about how much I can't wait for classes to start. I'm enjoying the time off from college and working more hours but at the same time I miss the whole going to class and meeting new people.

Sure people at college can be jerks and not want to make friends. But you don't know how some one will respond to you unless you try. You'd be surprised how many people will open up to you especially now since were in college. I'm not saying it's easy because it definitely takes you out of your comfort zone. Hell I'm not even used to it! But the more you do it, the less awkward it becomes.

I've been having some trouble today with my blog. I lost my previous entries when trying to update to a custom look. So starting today is a fresh new blog that will be updated periodically with my thoughts, tech news, etc. I'll update more in a bit as soon as I get some things fine tuned.

::Update::

Everything should be set now. I'm going to be adding new things to the blog such as a flickr feed, youtube stream, RSS Support and who else knows what until I can afford a domain name and typepad.

This New Year has been off to a shaky start. My car had a flat for a total of 8 Days and I had just gotten the tire fixed yesterday. I wanted to get it fixed sooner but for whatever reason parents like to hold off till last minute. I'm guilty of this too I guess it's in the gene's or something. Oh well. On top of that I've found that I'm not getting along so much with my mom anymore. I don't know if it's because I feel that it might be time to move out or what. Grant it I can't do that at the moment as I have car payments to make. But still it would be nice if I could. So how's that for a start into 2008? I mean things can only get better right?

Anyways I want to take some time to look at the music industry. I'm an avid facebook user that signs on almost every day. I'm part of a group called "BUY YOUR MUSIC AND STOP KILLING THE RECORD INDUSTRY". Yes it is in all caps I guess the person who created it felt that typing in caps lock was necessary. There's been many discussions going on in that group about how the industry needs the money and what not. However I've come to notice that only a select few understand that the Artists are being ripped off and not being paid what they deserve.

I 100% completely agree on paying for music since it is copyrighted music and everyone deserves to get paid. But what it comes down to is that many people don't want to pay because the industry is taking advantage of the consumers by charging high prices on CD's and by taking advantage of the artists. I have no problem paying for music now but I refuse to pay for a CD that costs $20. If it costs $5 to $10 then fine so be it I don't care. But when the industry starts taking advantage of the market of course people are going to revolt. This brings me to the whole thing about Digital Rights Management (DRM). I refuse to pay for music that will only work on one device and that does not allow me to do what I want with it.

Yes the industry is trying to prevent Pirating of music but they're are better ways to do so. I'm glad that stores such as Amazon, iTunes, Zune Marketplace, etc are offer DRM Free MP3's for 99 cents and hopefully this will mean the end of DRM. At least some record companies are starting to understand that people MP3 music that they can listen to anywhere on any device. I hope more will follow in they're footsteps. I personally think it's going to take the industry dieing and the artists taking control of they're music again for things to make a turn around.

So in the end who's to blame here? Is it the artists, the industry, the consumers? I know I don't know much on the industry but these are just my personal views.