I admit I'm not the best driver. I speed, I sometimes cut people off by accident, and I sometimes don't look where I'm going. However, I like to think that I do such things due to lapses in judgment. Of course, there are also sometimes people who really are just crap drivers.

In the span of an hour's worth of driving, I came across ten drivers that caused trouble for either me or for other cars on the road, and each one was caused by impatience. On my way to school this morning I came across seven of those ten, and the remaining three were on my way home. In each of these moments, these drivers either caused gridlock, near-collisions, general annoyance, and in one instance even caused a fire truck and ambulance some problems.

Now, the callout:

• Driver #1 - What the damn hell?! You ran through two red lights in a row because you were too impatient to wait? The first didn't bother me too much, but the second time you nearly rear-ended the driver in front of you. Nice move.
• Driver #2 - Thanks for almost clipping the back of my car during that lane change. You don't need to change lanes faster than a speeding bullet, you know...
• Drivers #3, #4, and # 5 - Holy FUCKING shit! What part of "KEEP CLEAR" did not a single one of you asshats get?! Let's make a quick return to driving school: you should've been taught NOT to block intersections. It's not some stupid rule to prevent you from getting to your destination, it's because it's rude! Have some patience for fuck's sake! Do you know how annoying it is for someone else trying to get through and they can't because some morons are blocking the way? Yeah, trust me, you'd be thinking the same thing if it were the other way around. Quick blocking the intersections.
• Driver #6 - Same thing to you like #2. Be more patient with lane changes, and don't take them so fast. I'd rather not lose my front bumper.
• Driver #7 - Do NOT force your way into traffic! I know there are some dicks out there that won't let so much as a motorcyclist in front of them, but you don't do the other way around either. Inch forward if you need to but don't step on your accelerator and cut someone off. Besides, it wasn't as if I wasn't letting you in anyway, you were just being a bitch. Also, fuck you for not thanking me.
• Driver #8 - LOOK before you pull out into traffic! Not just left, not just right, but both ways, dammit! The last thing I need is to plow into you.
• Driver #9 - Talking on your cell phone while driving is illegal in this state. Personally, I don't care. The difference between you and I is that I can apparently control my car while talking. You couldn't. Either pull off to the side of the road when talking on your phone, or don't answer at all. Or get a bluetooth. Either way, your ability to multitask sucks.
• Driver #10 - You did not have the right of way on that green light. When turning left, you're supposed to yield to the cars opposite of you turning right. You didn't, and so you cut me and another driver off, and caused us to slam on our breaks. Ergo, you suck.

Yeah, I realize that I'm coming off frustrated. In my defense, I saw too many of these instances in just the span of an hour, and that's bad. Believe me, I know people make driving mistakes, but I can personally attest to the fact that each and every single one of these drivers' behavior was the same for as long as I saw them. Thus, I feel safe in saying they probably drive like that all the time.

Did anyone get hurt? Were any cars damaged? The answer's no. It doesn't matter, however. There's no excuse for driving like this, and for anyone to be so impatient and drive like maniacs or block people off do not deserve to be on the road.

As I mentioned yesterday, it's time to start my series of song reviews. As I also said, I'll be starting with Coheed and Cambria -- beginning with their first album and ending with their most recent release. I'll start with an overview of the album, and post each song in turn. With that...

*Drum rolls*


First on the list: 2002's The Second Stage Turbine Blade. For the record, yes, Coheed's albums do have some strange titles, but they're concept albums and they sound cool. The production on the album is a bit raw in comparison to later albums but that hardly diminishes the quality of the record. In fact, many Coheed fans would be quick to say that it's because the production is so raw that it makes the songs so great. I happen to agree with this statement.

Even on this first album, the band shows off great talent as musicians. The structure of songs varies quite often from the usual verse-chorus-verse-chorus-solo chorus routine. The guitars are multi-layered, the bass lines are groovy, and the drums showcase individuality from the other instruments while still keeping rhythm. Story-wise, the album acts as the second chapter to The Amory Wars, and themes such as love, death, the importance of family, and even destiny are found in the concept of the album.

The following are the tracks:

It's about time that I started what I intended this blog to be used for. There really are so many things I want to do for this blog; from posting artwork to writing reviews, and from discussing serious topics to just being random. It's an all-things blog, really.

I'm excited to say that I'm officially starting my first song review. Well, actually, it's the first of about eighty or so reviews, so I have a lot of work ahead of me. I'm by no means limiting myself to music I only like -- in fact, if this thing gets off its feet, I'd even take requests, regardless of whether I enjoy the song or not. Anyway, onto the good stuff.

Those people that know me know that I'm an avid fan of Coheed and Cambria, a progressive rock group hailing from the suburbs of New York State. I've been a fan since the release of their third album in 2005 and the following years have only seen my growth as a fan. I haven't been to as many shows as others have, and I'm by no means a collector of their comics (though I've been considering it lately). Yet, these guys have risen to become my favorite artist. Part of me believes they'll be up there for a long, very long time. From the first time I listened to the heavy, slow "Welcome Home" to the eerie ballad of "Pearl of the Stars," this has been a fantastic journey. Therefore, it seems quite appropriate for me to begin this series of music reviews with this band. I'm planning on reviewing every song off every album (not including demos, though I may tackle those later). For every album, I will post a short opinion on what I think of the record. Subsequent posts will be about each song until I get to the next album, and so on and so on.

For those who aren't familiar with the band, there are five records. Each record is a concept album, each telling a chapter of a story known as The Amory Wars, a science-fiction epic written by the band's front man, Claudio Sanchez. The first four records make up the second, third, and fourth (the third and fourth albums being two volumes of the last) chapters of the story. The fifth album, released in April 2010, acts as the prequel record, the first part of the story. I debated between writing the reviews in the story's chronological order (that is, starting with the prequel record), but the more I thought of it the more it made sense to instead start with the album they released first and progress in that fashion, as it leaves me free to review the band's progression in sound and musicianship. Still, I'll throw in little bits of the story here and there.

Make no mistake; I love this band. There is no single song of theirs I do not like. However, do not be confused. This doesn't mean there isn't a song I would always listen to and wouldn't skip over if I wasn't feeling it. But I advise on the outset that most of my opinions will be positive. They're not going to be all praise and no criticism, I promise that at least. I'm planning on writing a review of each song every day or so, so that I'm not bombarding my blog with posts all at once.

I hope anyone reading enjoys these reviews. I know I'm going to enjoy writing them.

P.S. - Yeah, I lied. This is not my first review. That will be tomorrow. Sorry.

Have you ever had to deal with a customer -- whether in food, retail, or any other business -- who likes to bargain? Do you hate that? I sure do. I dealt with that today at work.

I'll admit, I don't personally believe Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits has the best deals. But that's just it -- they're still deals. Regardless of my or anyone's opinion, it's still a deal, even if they're not as good as, say, KFC's $5 fill up boxes. Anyway, as of right now, the branch of Popeyes I work at has a deal going on for 10 pieces of mixed chicken for $9.99. After tax it's $10.97. Basically, about $11.00 for 10 pieces. And it's JUST 10 pieces of chicken. There's nothing else. I say again, there are much better deals out there. However, compared to what's on our menu at regular price this is actually a sweet ass deal. And note that the advertisement just says chicken only. Nothing else comes with it.

Every so often, however, a customer seems to think he or she can sway me into making any deal into a better one, and this pisses me off to no end for two reasons: 1.) It's already a deal! and 2.) I could get into serious trouble for doing that. That happened again today. Some guy -- about in his late 30s I would say -- came in at around 6:15 pm. I was at the register at the time and took his order. The first thing that came out of his mouth was this: "That deal out there on the window -- the 10 pieces for $9.99 -- how many sides and biscuits come with that?"

Let's look at this question really, really carefully. I'm not taking his question out of context, he specifically meant "what else comes with this deal?" It's the manner of how he worded his question. "How many sides and biscuits come with that?" The answer is none. There's no indication anywhere on the sign that this deal comes with anything other than chicken. "But, Kevin," you may be saying, "he just made a mistake! No big deal, right?" Ah, read on, my friend.

I politely informed him that nothing else comes with this deal. It's just chicken. This is where the second problem arose. He looked back at the sign and then at me, and gave me a look that clearly said, "Are you fucking crazy?!" He seemed to compose himself for a moment and then added, "Nothing? It's just chicken?"
"Yes, sir." I answered.
"10 pieces for $10? That's not much of a deal."
"I'm sorry, sir. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

He began negotiating a better deal for him. First, he asked if we had any sort of deal that was only sides and biscuits. I informed him we didn't. He looked over at another of our specials, which was a family meal special and asked why that particular one did have a side and biscuit deal. I explained that that was how the deal came to begin with. For whatever reason, this answer seemed to send him on a bit of a rant, accusing us of being cheap (irony at its finest) and calling me a poor example of customer service. Eventually, he left saying, "You need to serve the customer! We're always right!"

No, sir. No, you're not. Customers are NOT always right, and I hate this stupid saying with a passion. You are not in the right when you try to negotiate what's already a deal or bargain to better suit your needs. I'm sorry, but you don't. Not in fast food anyway. The deal already comes how it says; I can't change it just because you don't like it. I'm sorry we don't have something better for you, but you can't satisfy everyone. Instead of getting so angry about it, though, either find another place or get something else on the menu, but don't start getting angry at me -- a simple worker who just follows what he's been told, and try to pin blame on him. As the saying goes: "I just work here."

Seriously, this whole sense of entitlement crap people seem to have of themselves needs to go away.

I was given my first award last night by Simply Kate (seriously, check her out if you haven't done so already). 'Tis the "Blog With Substance" Award! Sweeeeeet! As much as I believe I haven't got much worthy of substance yet, I'm grateful and thank her for this.


From my understanding, in order to accept this award I must give five words that describe what my blog is like. Well, a majority of what I WANT this blog to be about it isn't up for show yet, but the following will, I believe, accurately describe what is to come:

Kate over at Simply Kate tagged me in a game that appears to be ongoing so far amongst bloggers. The rules are fairly simple: eight questions are passed along to another blogger (it appears to be roughly eight people every time). Each one must answer the questions that have been posed. Once done, they must come up with 8 different questions and pass them along to other bloggers.

Well, I only have one follower and I'm sure she's the only person who reads any of this as of right now. But, I'll go ahead and play this little game anyway, just for kicks. Let's get started, shall we?

This is day four since starting this blog. Not much has really taken shape yet, but there's always hope. As of this moment, I'm probably in one of the best moods I can remember being in a long time and a large part of it is the fact that I had the best night of sleep in weeks.

When I was first told that power would be shut off at my neighborhood at 11:30 pm last night, I was annoyed. Many people my age don't fall asleep until much later and I wondered just what I was going to do until I actually got sleepy -- and then I realized that I really should get to bed. It had been a long day and I had school the next day. So I rolled over, laying on my side and staring at nothing until I did fall asleep.

I didn't regret it. I woke up at 7:00 this morning. It wasn't quite the recommended 8 hours of sleep people are often told they should get, but that didn't matter. It was not the fact I got more sleep than usual that was the best part. Actually, what made it the best sleep was that I had absolutely nothing to deter me from soundless, dreamless sleep.

No dreams; no nightmares; no getting up in the middle of the night because I'm thirsty or hungry; and, best of all, no nagging, dispirited thoughts like what had haunted me almost all of yesterday. I know for a fact it helped that I spilled out my fears and feelings to someone who was there to listen, and who took every word I had to say with compassion and understanding. And for that, I thank her from the bottom of my heart. Thank you, Kate. I honestly can't say it enough. After all of this, this morning I felt fantastic, or at least as much as one can while yawning and trying to shield bright light from their eyes. For the first time in a while I was able to get out of bed without any trouble. I was dressed and ready to go in about 15 minutes.

After I got to school, I decided to get some breakfast. Though I had plenty of time to do so at home, the thought of how hungry I was didn't occur to me until that moment. As I walked around, passing by the Arbor Grill food court, I was wondering just what it was I wanted. I glanced toward Sierra Hall off in the distance, and it was like I had a vision. I made my way to the Sierra Center food court and walked directly and purposely toward the back counter.


I bought myself a breakfast burrito. This picture does absolutely no justice to show just how damn well this place makes breakfast burritos. Seriously, for a college campus they are big, filling, and well worth the price. Eggs, sausage, potatoes, sour cream, salsa, peppers and onions and all the Tapatio hot sauce you want all for $4.00 (well, at student price I should point out). Added with a biscuit covered in butter and some strawberry jelly, a banana, and some orange juice, my total was $7.89. Not bad in my opinion, especially since it was better quality than anything an under $4 breakfast some crap place like McDonald's will give you.

After this amazingly good breakfast I headed to the library. Tuesdays and Thursdays are like that for me. My class doesn't actually start until 11:00, but my brother and sister both have earlier classes so I'm obligated to get to school as early as them since we share a car. However, that works out well since I just spend the few hours waiting in the library or walking around.

I just watched the trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 -- again. Yep, that's right. I watched it last night, but I just had to see it again. This movie looks like it's going to be so epic and awesome. I'm a huge, HUGE Harry Potter fan and have been since I was eleven. If you haven't seen the trailer then go see it now here!

It really is a beautiful morning.

I love Chipotle Mexican Grill. Sure, it's not authentic Mexican cuisine, but it's still delicious. I absolutely love going there and hearing the sizzle of chicken and steak on the grill; gazing at the sight of freshly prepared, creamy guacamole; smelling the mouth-watering combination of rice, lime, and cilantro; and, finally, tasting all of this and more as I sink my teeth into one of their massive burritos.

The lucky thing is that just about every experience I've had with this restaurant has been positive, and lucky that I love their food so much. Because unlike a few people today, I didn't turn my back on that amazing burrito just because some lady ruined some of the food because she didn't follow a simple policy.

Which is actually what this post is about. Chipotle is only a block or so from my campus, so it was worth walking to even though the line was sure to be long at the time of the day. That never stops me. As soon as I walked through the doors, all the smells and sights of why I was so drawn to it in the first place came back to me -- I knew I made the right choice. I'm standing behind this lady, about my height, dark haired, wearing sunglasses even though it had been overcast all day. In her left hand, she's got her cell phone. In the right, she has a cup of coffee. Nothing interesting, right? Read on.

Finally, the line moves froward and it's her turn to order. I'm so close to getting my meal I can almost taste it. My view of the rice is blocked by this young woman as she starts telling the young man behind the counter what she'd like, so my eyes glance over toward the meat selection, watching as a female worker replaces the insert of old chicken with freshly sliced chicken, and seconds later does the same with the steak. "Yes!," I'm thinking to myself. After all, who doesn't prefer fresh food?

My eyes move back to the woman in front as I hear a bit of conversation between her and the male employee. It turns out she had reached over the glass with her right arm to point at something, and the employee had kindly asked that she not do that. It's a simple policy. It says on a sticker in the corner of the glass "LOOK, DON'T TOUCH! Keep your hands on the other side, please. Thank you." Really, really simple. Unfortunately, either the lady doesn't seem to register what the employee said or doesn't care. She moves down the line toward the meats, just when I move forward to place my order. I had just asked for rice when yet again the woman reaches over the glass with her right arm. This time, however, her coffee didn't stay in her hand.

She knocked the bottom of the cup against the glass, lost her grip on it, and it tumbled out of her hand, falling onto the counter and burst open, spilling what looked like two-thirds of a Starbucks Grande size cup of coffee all over. It spilled very quickly onto the chicken and steak, both of which had just been put there, freshly made, not more than about thirty seconds before. The employee who put them there quickly took them away and threw it all out. More chicken would be ready within five minutes, she had said. At this time, about four people behind me left, grumbling. Of course no one really wants to wait at a fast food joint, but honestly it was only a five minute wait. And I hadn't walked here just to turn around because someone made a mistake, albeit a very stupid one.

So, what's the point of this post? I'm not at all upset that I had to wait five short minutes for my lunch (I've waited twenty before, and I still wasn't too annoyed). Actually, what I'm annoyed about is the carelessness this lady showed with regards to policy. Sure, it was a mistake, but what customers sometimes forget with this sort of thing is that policies exist for certain reasons and I bet you more often than not they're good reasons. I've been working for the past two years at Popeyes Chicken and Biscuits and I can attest to this personally. Many places -- especially restaurants -- have regulations and policies like this because they realize shit happens, and it's best to avoid these issues as best as possible. That's common sense.

Some might think it was stupid for the employee in this story to have thrown away ALL of the meat. After all, the coffee only spilled onto the top layer. However, that's not how food regulations work. Generally, a policy for this sort of situation will require the food be completely thrown away in case of contamination. Even if you, the customer, don't see a problem, the employee does. He or she has been trained to follow the procedure carefully and to the letter. There's also the other way around, in which the employee might not see a problem but the customer might. Had this employee not thrown away the whole thing then there is still the likelihood that even one customer would be pissed off they were given a certain product knowing coffee -- or anything for that matter -- spilled all over it.

Even then, that's not the worst. No, the worst is knowing that money was wasted. Yes, I understand it might have just been a little bit of chicken compared to how much Chipotle may usually purchase, but it's still a waste. In the end, the ones who get the worse end of the deal are the employees and the employers, whether or not they were to blame for the incident in the first place. Policies do exist for certain reasons, and in my experience it's more often than not because it's to help save money (especially important in this current economy) and to try to satisfy both parties -- the workers and the clients.

The long story short: Don't reach over glass with a cup of coffee. Actually, don't do it at all if you're asked not to. Simple enough.

To anyone currently viewing this (which I strongly believe will be only one person as of right now), my blog has a slightly new look compared to how it was yesterday and the day before. This post is here to publicly thank Katie over at Simply Kate, which you can visit by clicking that link.

I have some pretty big plans for this blog, once it gets up and running and people are willing to read it. I'm planning on reviews, opinions, perhaps sharing some of my art, both new and old. But, I'd rather start most of that stuff once I get some more followers.

And at that, I'm getting lunch.

I spent most of my morning working on a header for this blog, since the templates that blogger.com had available weren't too great and I wanted something more original. So, what you currently see at the top is my new header. I'm pretty okay with how it's come out, and I feel it reflects me well enough. The long story short is that the image shows off just about everything I really, really like - from Star Wars to playing guitar to Harry Potter to drawing. It's a collage of most of everything I am and like.

And yet, it isn't. There's only so much you can put into an image to make it reflect you and your personality. I guess that's why this blog is here, for me to go ahead and share that bit of me to others who care to know.

I'm still trying to work out all the kinks of this thing and get it running the way I'd like. Until then, enjoy your day!

Alright...

I just recently started this thing. Lately, I've noticed a lot of people getting into this whole blogging thing, and because I was bored (and maybe also because I was interested) I decided "What the hell?" So, here I am.

I do have something to say though. There's one thing about filling out these little bits and pieces about me that I found weird -- when filling out my profile under the "Work" section, I noticed in the drop-down menu that there was no option for "Food" or "Restaurants" or something of the sort. Nice going, blogger, now I can't give away my job description unless I lie.

All that aside, this is all I really have to say for right now. I'm kinda hoping I'll stick with this for a while; it looks fun, and I do have a lot I feel I can talk about. Until next time!