I think I might have made a slight error in judgement when I hastily shelled out the ridiculous amount of money that I did for this Sweeney Todd style straight razor. It's supposed to give you an unbelievably close shave. Instead what it gives me is a Jackson Pollack neck and face. Tonight I ran to get my camera when I was done shaving to try and capture the utter horror that was facing back at me in the mirror. This picture is after some of the redness had gone away and after I washed off the lather, inadvertently clearing the trickles of blood. It is so incredibly painful. My face will now sting for like two hours, or until I go to bed. And the best part is, I'm left with a thick stubble on my face for all my troubles. It's amazing how I can remove 8 to 10 layers of skin but leave the hair completely intact.

In my defense, I did not receive any formal training on how to shave and after doing some reading on the internet, I may be doing things incorrectly. The jerkoff that sold me the razor was just like, "Uh yeah, you put it against your face and the hair comes off." So I thought it would be that easy. But it's not. You really have to use a surprising amount of force to get the blade through the hair. And every fucking time I drag it across my skin, I feel afterwards and there is a full healthy beard left behind. So tonight I made the fateful decision to shave against the grain with my freshly honed (or stropped) blade. The hair is a little shorter, although I am no smoother, and my face is on fire.

I suppose that's why they call it the art of shaving. I don't suppose you can pick it up and get it right the first time. One website I read suggesting trimming only your sideburns for a few times and shaving normally on the rest of your skin. And then when you've got that down, venture a little further until you eventually shave your whole face. I might rethink my entire approach here and start over that way. One thing I don't intend to do is give up. It may be painful, dangerous, and draining, but I'm going to stick with it for a while longer. I paid way to much to just cut and run.

Get it?

Anyway, I'm off to sulk and watch TV. Only three more days until Febrehab starts and I can't wait. Czech you have-nots later if I haven't gotten tetanus by then.

I had something completely different planned for this blog but when I started my typical hours of research, I came across something infinitely better. This dude in San Marcos named Scott Wade makes what he calls "dirty car art." Using the dust that accumulates on the rear window of vehicles as his canvas, he creates impermanent masterpieces. I had so much fun clicking through the gallery on his website, that I just had to share it with all of you. I chose my favorite one for the sample. He said it was meant to be funny but turned out "a little creepy." Brilliant. If you click that picture, it will take you to his website, dirtycarart.com, and you can check out his entire gallery for yourself.

 In other news, I have finally caught up with the latest in 17th century technology. In a little impulse buy the other day I picked myself up a proper straight razor. Like just a razor sharp blade that I am learning to shave with. I thought I would pick it up and go to town, but it's a little bit intimidating. The best part about it, though, is that the protective cover is made out of buffalo horn! It's so pretty. I asked the guy if the buffalo died of natural causes and he said, "Sure, why not?" so you know that no animals were harmed in the making of it. The first night I got it, I oiled up, lathered up with my badger hair brush, and then shaved half my face. 45 minutes later I was tired of it so I shaved with a normal razor and I'm going to try again in a few days. I intend to stick with it until I'm good at it just because it's so cool looking. My favorite part of the experience -- by far -- was when I was checking out and they had some sandalwood essential oil at the counter. And I asked the guy what essential oils were and he said, "It's cologne. But it's just the essential oils, there's no alcohol." To which I immediately replied, "Now when you say 'no alcohol,' do you mean 1%?" And he took me completely seriously and said, "No. I mean NO ALCOHOL!" I could have died right then.

And finally today, in serious picture news, they found signs of life on Mars. Not life itself, just a statue that ancient Martians built in honor of the American Sasquatch. It's a pretty exciting find. I didn't believe it myself until I saw it on every news site on the internet. Some people are calling it bigfoot on Mars, some are saying it's just a humanoid form, and some are saying it's a replica of the Mermaid in Copenhagen. Which are all really good ideas. What no one has said is that it's just a clever shadow on a rock and nothing to get excited about. I prefer to believe it is a statue and there used to be intelligent life on Mars. That would just make my life. Oh, also, did you know that I'm obsessed with Mars? I want to live there. Unfortunately, I doubt that'll happen in my lifetime. But still, even if this picture is just a rock formation with convenient lighting, it's still bad ass, eh? I'm out.

I finally finished painting my bedroom. I have never been so proud of myself for anything in my life. I think it looks so good, almost like an adult, put together bedroom. My bed floats in the middle of the room now. I still need a new end table, new lamps, new bed frame, new table, and new curtains, but the biggest portion of the work is done. It was really hard for me to get one good picture that showed it off, so I took a few. The fourth one is to show you that I did, indeed, repaint my router to match.

I also cut all my hair off and I'm growing a beard. This is a life makeover. Now if I could just stop chain smoking and skipping the gym. I was doing so well for a while there. I'll get back on it soon. I fell off of my diet somewhat due to my trip to Houston for Memorial Day weekend. It was totally worth it though. I went to visit my brother and help out with his impregnito wife and baby daughter. Kaylyn is the cutest thing, and now that she can talk, she is funny too. It was really nice to get to know her, and have her know who I am. About every 5 minutes she would ask, "Where's Uncle David?" if I wasn't in her immediate view. She'll be 2 in July. I can't believe she's getting so big so fast.

I also got to see Kevin. We drank a lot and played darts. I ended up losing after coming from way behind to take the lead. That g*d damn bullseye. I could not hit it. The rest of the nights I hung out with my brother. We saw X3. I thoroughly enjoyed it, although it wasn't the best X-Men movie, I didn't think. Still worth seeing though. One night we went to this place called Whiskey River. It was a totally open up barn type building with this wasted, barefoot guy playing guitar on stage. When we walked in he was berrating some paying customers that had asked him to please stop yelling and cussing into the microphone. It sent him into a tirade about being in the service industry. This guy was so bad, I can hardly explain it. His guitar was so out of tune that my brother noticed it. That's pretty bad.

There are a few distinct stereotypical guitar players. There's the "plays Dave at college parties" guitar player. There's the "pseudo lesbian Ani-wanna-be" guitar player. There's the "stuck-in-the-80s all I wanna do is wail ARE YOU READY TO ROOOOCK YOW!" guitar player. There's the "classically trained and snooty as hell because of it" guitar player. I like to consider myself a "only knows 3 songs and plays them repeatedly" guitar player. If you can think of any more, please feel free to share. Anyway, after one second of looking at the entertainment for the night, I remarked to my brother, "This guy LOVES Pearl Jam, I guarantee it." So we started yelling for him to play some Pearl Jam. The only song we could think of was Jeremy. He told us that he would play Jeremy because it was a great song, but never fucking did. He did, however, play some Pearl Jam, and as you would expect, he did it in his best Eddie Vetter impression voice. So fucking lame. When we left, my brother held down the horn from the time we got in the car until we left the parking lot to interrupt his show. Too damn funny.

I think that's all the news to report. Leave me some comments on how I have the best fucking bedroom in the world. Thaaaaaaaanks.

I just got done wiring up my new programmable thermostat in my apartment. I know it's not like me to do shit ... but I did! I took the old ghetto Johnson Controls (blech) mechanical thing off the wall, like the one we all have. Then I unwired it, removed the baseplate, replaced it with my baseplate, rewired everything, found some batteries for the display, mounted it, programmed it ... we are in business my friends. No longer will I accidentally leave my apartment at a frosty 65 degrees while I'm away at work.

Speaking of Frosty, I got my pictures back from Cameron Frost a while ago. I didn't really make a hoopla about it or really show them to many people. It's not that I didn't like them, quite the opposite, in fact. I like them a great deal. I just don't care what anybody else's opinion on them is. But, I have gotten lots of requests recently, so to satiate the insane lust for all things Sidesho, I've decided to post you one picture here to look at. I know, it's sex. You don't have to tell me.

Dear Justin, Thank you for my belt. I have never felt like more of a rockstar than this weekend when I got to wear it out and hang out with you at the same time. Dear everyone else, this belt was revolutionary. It's blue LEDs that scroll messages across your crotch. Mine said "JUSTIN GAVE ME THIS!" "THIS IS SO TRASHY!!1!" "BUY ME A DRINK" "BLING! BLING!" and then had some scrolling hearts. But the best message was my phone number. I got a lot of laughs for it, but only two phone calls the whole night. All in all it was a major hit, and while I'm not gonna Sean-Wardle the thing, I think I won't retire it as diligently as I often do with kickass articles of clothing. We shall see.

Dear Allison, I'm sorry that I'm not coming to see you next month. I know we had joked about which one of us would flake out first, but I just wanted you to know that my delaying of the trip is entirely financial. I had really been looking forward to seeing you. In fact, I can proove it. I was so stoked about getting to hang out with you, that I devised a little gift-of-sorts. For the past 3 months I did not shave my upper lip. I kept my chin trimmed and the sides of my face shorn into something I dubbed the "three-tier beard," but the stache just grew and grew. You see, I thought it would be really funny if after having not seen me since January, I stepped off the airplane to greet you with the biggest, bushiest, best mustache I have ever grown in my life. It was heart wrenching to finally shave it off, but I just couldn't keep it going until February. So, dear Allison ... enjoy:

Holy crap. I had no idea this was going to take so long to prepare. I sure do hope you all find this as humorous as I did when I was making it. The beard is gone. It was a fun little experiment, but one that I don't expect to repeat any time soon. Of course, when you shave a beard off, you can't just shave it. You've gotta style it. Pictured below is a beautiful array of facial hair stylings. Go ahead, rate them on a scale of 1 to Pure Sex.

I got my hair cut tonight by my friend Chad. It is a lot shorter than it is in all of these pics. I would take a picture of it, but after sizing and photoshopping all of these silly pictures I just wasn't in the mood. Besides, that's more incentive for you all to come see me in person anyway. I also owe you some pictures of the apartment, but you might have to wait until I paint before I'm comfortable letting you all see where the magic happens.

This weekend is Halloween, and I'm not dressing up. I just don't have a costume. I might find something last minute. One of the best things you can do for a Halloween costume is take any ordinary noun and add the word 'slutty' in front of it. For instance, you can be a slutty fireman, a slutty cat, or be like Allison and go as a slutty Jolly Green Giant. Ho, ho, ho. Who would have thought we could use that tag line two years in a row? But if you want to know the truth, I'm just planning on going downtown, doing a little people watching and a whole lot of drinking. I was out last night when I got a late night call from my mother. Concerned that she would call me late at night, I snuck outside to a quiet nook to answer. No worries. She was just calling to let me know that my dad bought a banjo! What the fuck?! My parents must really be missing me.

And finally, because I know you all want it bad ... sexy 'stache pics! Woohoo! (My brother is probably the only one that can possibly confirm this, but don't you think I look like Uncle Al?)

I felt bad that yesterday's picture had the top of my head cut off, so I went ahead and took another one tonight. Whadya think? I just have one think to say about my new look: WINK!

I really just wanted desperately to make that joke. I didn't exactly plan anything else out. Today Trey came and got his pool table. It was surprisingly easy for him and his rednek friends to pick it up and put it in a trailer and haul it away. That should be my last trip to Plano for a while.

Mr. Kenderdine insisted that tonight I was going to join him at The Dugout to watch some silly baseball game and then he had the nerve to stand me up. No phone call. No answer. No reply to IMs. This is after he has the nerve to forbid me from seeing his apartment and then asserting that he will be coming over often to use my washing machine. I don't think so. To sum it all up, that guy has a lot of nerve. Which is why he still hasn't earned himself a first name.

I can't wait until I have a weekend free from plans that I've made months in advance. Soon enough, friends. Soon enough. And then I'll have you all over. No pictures yet because no progress was made on cleaning. Laaaaaaaaaaaate.

Big news, kids. I am officially an independently functioning member of society. This little bird has flexed his wings and gone out on his own. Granted, everything in my apartment was donated by my parents, but we'll ignore that fact from here on out. I will show you pictures of my apartment as soon as it is in a presentable condition. I moved in on Sunday instead of Saturday because it was raining too hard. Not to say it didn't rain all day Sunday, but we got it done. There's still a few things back in Plano that I need to go get, but there's no rush there.

In other news, I haven't had a haircut in many, many months, nor have I shaved in many, many weeks. Yes, I have a beard ... and this time, her name isn't Allison. Pa-zzzing! I'm not really sure how I feel about the look, but I'm going with it. I had originally dedicated myself to no haircuts before 2005, but that may have changed. Marc and I went over to his friend Chad's apartment last night. Chad and his friendgirl work at Toni and Guy and were watching videos about how to give fucking badass haircuts. I can maybe get a really badass free haircut. That's what I'm planning on doing. I mean like woah, badass haircut.

On the horizon is lots of tidying up around the apartment. I might have a housewarming get together sometime in late November. Nobody from College Station will attend, so none of you are invited. Unless you want to come, then you are. Something more anecdotal to follow. Peace out.

I certainly couldn't go a week without blogging. I haven't done that in ages. Time's a little tight right now because it's midnight and I'm gonna be a wreck at work tomorrow. Big news! I worked 8 hours today. Like actually produced real programming that will be used in a real project for 8 hours. And I'm gonna do it again tomorrow. Things are looking up. So the job, while I still go on the public records as hating it, is looking up. My hair gets longer every day, it's quite shaggy. And I've decided to stop shaving yet again. If I ever hit puberty and the facial hair fills in, I'll let you all see it. My workout routine is going well. I am starting to regain my flexibility, and it feels so good to work out after work. I just need to find some goggles so I can start swimming again.

Went to College Station this weekend. It was pretty fun. Ryan Hudler drove and we went and watched Daniel dunk his ring (120 seconds). We "stayed" at Todd's even though I neglected to sleep there either night. We went to Margarita Rocks with Allison, Lindsay, her underage sisters, AllieD, Jennifer, and another pretty girl whose name escapes me. Then we went to a little keg get-together out in the country and Tommy showed up. I shocked Fucking Frank with my lighter. Everyone finally realized why I think it's so funny. From there we hit Northgate. Ran into Roper Joe, that was a blast from the past. Saw Brian and Justin. Owen walked over from campus and Keith was a horrible influence on me. Owen and I got split from the group and decided to take CARPOOL home but it was taking too fucking long so I woke up Marshall and made him take Owen home and then slept in his bed. I'm trying to drop every name possible. If I forgot you, leave a sassy comment and I'll insert you into the list and pretend like you were always there. It will be hilarious.

The next day I was hungover like the entire day. It sucked, but was pretty expected. Lunch with AllieD, back to sleep on Todd's couch the rest of the day. I woke up at 1:30am and had Dustin come pick me up and drank over at his place with Raul. Spent the night on the ground accidentally. Came home the next day. I breezed over a lot of details, obviously, but I had a really great time. Thanks for driving, Ryan!

Whenever I meet someone new, or get someone's screen name for the first time, I always ammend it with a buddy comment. I'm not sure if anyone else uses these but they're a g*dsend to me. I put people's names, jobs, home towns, physical descriptions ... anything I might want to know, or pretend I've remembered later. You should all be using them. Anyway, sometimes the descriptions of someone I've met for the first time, and later become close friends with, are a tad outdated. They tend to be on the insulting side from time to time, so I don't want to hurt anyone's feelings by posting names, but one of them that I just edited the other day said, "that impudent little imp." If you want to know if you have a buddy comment, hit me up with an IM.

And in final news, HAPPY 20TH BIRTHDAY TO TOPHER (known affectionately by some as Yale Boy). I meant to call him at midnight, but then I realized that I don't understand time zones, so I'd better just call him when he gets out of class tomorrow. But this is my proof that I've been thinking about him and did not forget. (And no, I didn't use a buddy comment to remember.) I love you, kid, have a wonderful birthday, a kick@ss summer, and stay cool.

Fuckin' A did I have a good time last night. Ryan and Todd convinced me to go clubbing with them, which, if you know me, you know I hate to do. I'm more of a stay at home and chill kind of person, so you'd be hard pressed to get my ass in a club. But Todd laid one of his guilt trips so I said I'd go, but promised that I would embarass him. So me and Keith set out to coming up with a character for me to be.

I started by shaving my week's worth of stubble into a respectable mustache. I liked the look it gave me, but it was decidedly white-trash. So next I worked on the hair. I ended up with it all greased back with way too much gel in it. I left a curl down in front though for that special 'fuckin a' touch. We experimented with a bunch of different outfits but were having a hard time getting something to perfectly match the hair. Keith, being the kind soul he is, donated his Harley Davidson tshirt to the cause. I promptly cut the sleeves off. We finished out with black sketchers and a pair of jeans with my big shiny belt buckle. Oh yeah, and a white wristband on my right arm.

Now this alone was pretty funny, but it wasn't until Keith went out to his car and brought me back a pair of aviator sunglasses that I really slipped into character. It was a priceless look, dead on white trash. And I went to Tonix like that, and it was awesome. A few shots later I was on the dance floor and didn't go to bed until the wee hours of the morn. I leave you today with these short words of wisdom, "Talk shit, get hit. Whoooweee"