baronvoncase

Mon, 09 May 2005 05:33:59 GMT

If it wasn't evident by the fact that I haven't updated in a month and one week, I'm officially announcing my resignation from livejournal. Why? Same reason I was very reluctant to start one to begin with: No one truly gives a fuck what I have to say, just as I don't genuinely give a fuck what anyone else has to say. I sift through entries skimming for my name, and the whole fad is at its core a self-serving ego boost. People throw pity parties, complaining about how they hate themselves so that others retort with "Oh, that's not true! We love you!" to reinforce their fragile self-esteems and soothe their paralyzing inferiority complexes. People shroud their arrogant banters about their esteemed popularity in the guise of relaying their weekend recreation. Deny it all you like, but that's the sad, fundamental state of the teenage psyche. What with Florida, Case Western, women, prom, and losing my best friend, there's too much to recount anyway. If I ever spoke my mind unmitigated and without censorship, I wouldn't have any friends and the authorities would likely be knocking at my door.

Thank you to all who have dropped in periodically, and one last big "FUCK YOU" to Anonymous. This isn't an attention plea like others who declare they've posted their last post and come back a half hour later to revoke their comments.

Farewell,
Case

Sunday Movie Binge!

Mon, 04 Apr 2005 02:10:52 GMT

I went to go see a matinee showing of Sin City with my brother and later joined him and his girlfriend Megan in seeing The Ring Two (which was nice to have her along, seeing as people don't suspect I'm his boyfriend or vice versa). Here is Case's official in-depth evaluation of the preceding films:

Sin City: 94.4%
The Ring Two: 67.1%

I advise you all to view Sin City as soon as humanly possible... that is, if you're not offended by gratuitous gore, prodigious obscenities, numerous instances of full frontal female nudity, and a fucking mindblowing trio of ingenious plots. Only see The Ring Two if you have a generous brother who is willing to buy a ticket for you, no alternate plans other than lying in bed staring at a hole in the ceiling, and a tolerance for having your intelligence insulted via a jagged storyline and exponential accounts of gaping plotholes.

Is it Something in the Water?

Sun, 03 Apr 2005 04:36:04 GMT

I have concluded that, in some phenomenon of nature or act of Christ, I am incapable of attracting Boardman girls. Funny that, seeing as I'm trapped here.

My Floridian excursion has taught me one thing:
I need me a Southern chick! :-D

"Full report" pending...

Flying South for the Spring

Thu, 24 Mar 2005 14:24:06 GMT

Off to Florida. West Palm Beach. I'll be back the Sunday before school. In a bit of a hurry, so everyone have a spectacular spring break, and don't throw too many keg parties without me. ;-)

Full report when I get back.

BYE!

Doggie Fizzle

Mon, 21 Mar 2005 02:58:48 GMT

I finally found out how to post pictures (with the help of Matt on the BHS community)!

So, here's Calvin:

I put one in my profile, too.

Have a good week, yo. ;-)

You Better Start Doin' it Right... ALL RIGHT

Sun, 20 Mar 2005 22:33:18 GMT

I lost my voice singing too loudly in the car with Evan on Friday night, and it still hurts. Where would I be without Salada hot tea?

As I told him, I think I'd have more fun staring at a piece of lint on the floor in his company for an hour than going to a massive rave with naked women and free fountain Diet Coke. We haven't done anything mildly exciting in a year, yet just shooting the proverbial shit with him is the most fun I could ask for. I haven't been as happy in a long time as I was Friday, and I think he'd agree. It's great to have someone who's just like you in so many ways but isn't pissed off by the same things. I don't think we've ever gotten into a serious argument, despite our outrageous temperments. I played him some songs I'd learned on the keyboard, we downloaded some Steve Miller to put on the iPod, and we drove around listening to Genesis, Tool, Dream Theater, etc. Big Ev is really beginning to take a liking to Genesis, I think. If he becomes obsessed with them like I am, I think I've found my soul mate. ;-)

Saturday was shit. I didn't do anything. I slept 'til 2:30 'cause I came in so damned late the night before. I drove through Mill Creek Park and got out a few times to look around. I ended up getting screwed over (or screwing myself over), because I told two groups of people I couldn't hang out Saturday 'cause I was going to be out with someone else (who never called anyway). Ah well. I spent several hours devoting some much needed time to praciticing my Yamaha PSR-280. I learned two new songs by ear, and my dexterity's improving.

I cut back on the spending BIG time this weekend. I managed to save $13 so that I could go see The Ring 2, but I never did. And to think of all the pop I could've drunk. That much longer 'til I get a brain tumor, I suppose.

Three days until FLORIDA! And then after I get back, it's a week and a half until Chicago. And then... Well. Not very much longer at all until I graduate, go on my graduation "trip" (which is substituting a party), and then off to Michigan. Lord, everything moves so quickly. Bye Boardman; nice knowing you.

Waaaahoooo!

Wed, 16 Mar 2005 21:50:22 GMT

I LOVE ANN.

Arbor, that is. University of Michigan was absolutely gorgeous. From the outside, the buildings on campus look very gothic and Medieval, like Oxford, but the interiors are new-age and sleek. The dorms were the best I've seen throughout my brother's (in 1998) and my college visitations, complete with a homelike front lobby and more than a fair share of recreational equipment (which is understandable, seeing as tuition is astronomically high). It's not Ivy League, but its undergraduate psychology program is ranked above Harvard, tied with Yale, and second only to Stanford's (where I would hate to go; Ivy League = snotty preps, California = criminally insane).

Also, I've recently discovered that my mom's foreman (foreperson, to be sexually indiscriminate!) is allowing her my first week of spring break OFF! What does this mean?

F-L-O-R-I-D-A!!!

I think shedding the flannel and getting some semblance of pigmentation in my skin will do me some good. I'm definitely a northerner, but occasional doses of tropical weather are more than acceptable.

Unless they decline me beforehand, we'll be stopping at Chapel Hill to visit the University of North Carolina along the way. It's a superb school, but not quite on par with University of Michigan, but if they accept me, it's going to be all but impossible to decline. I've heard that the campus is spectacular (but 6 hours away; eek), so I'm pretty likely to succumb to its attractiveness.

God, I hope they reject me.

Contrary to my last entry, LIFE IS GOOD.

Sun, 13 Mar 2005 05:58:47 GMT

Shoot me in the fucking face.

NOTICE

Tue, 08 Mar 2005 21:01:45 GMT

From this point forth, anyone posting anonymously, whether in negative criticism or compliment, who does not sign his/her name after the comment or reveal his/her identity therein will have the post deleted IMMEDIATELY AND WITHOUT QUESTION.

Thank you for your compliance. :-)

Mon, 28 Feb 2005 04:34:13 GMT

How did the orchestra trip go? Let's just say I came home and slept from 8:30 PM Saturday night until 11:50 AM Sunday afternoon and spent the whole day feeling literally as though I was going to die. My brain felt as though it was swimming in syrup, I was tremoring and shivering all day long, and any contact with my skin created a cold shock sensation that traveled the whole way through my nervous system. I ate one bite of a meatball and had the urge to vomit, so I slept a little, and I feel at least fifty times better.

Boardman Symphony Orchestra ate up my Thursday, had a shit on my birthday, wiped its ass with Saturday, and flushed down my Sunday, so fuck it, I'm staying home tomorrow.

I received the BEST birthday present of all time. At 2:05 on Friday, my cell phone rang, and my parents wished me a happy birthday. My mother then informed me that two letters came in the mail earlier that day that she did everything in her power to resist opening but couldn't. She first told me that Case Western Reserve University had accepted me along with an $18,000 a year initial scholarship. I was highly pleased with this, as Case is a fantastic school despite its horrendous location and ridiculously competitive company.

The next letter, however, caused me (embarassingly) to scream in delight as soon as I heard it. I've never considered myself at the top tier in terms of raw, unmitigated intelligence, but I have always taken tremendous pride in my ability to focus on a goal and get it accomplished or fail trying my best. I was worried that less-than-stratospheric test scores (1300 and 28... could be better) would completely hamper the As I've strived so hard to maintain in courses that all but gave me cardiac arrest. Well, just as I always said that I'd hire a hard worker over a smart person any day, it looks as though my college of choice does as well.

I have been officially accepted into the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor...

RRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!! :-D

University of Michigan is actually ranked ABOVE my dream school, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, as I just found out this morning! UNC is 29th in the nation while U. Mich. is ranked 22nd. This includes Ivy League like Havard, Yale, Princeton, and all of those other overrated, rich-kid populated places. In terms of the tens of thousands of public universities out there, U. Mich. is ranked number two.

If it seems like I'm bragging, so the fuck what? I've put myself through complete HELL over the past four years, so I think I'm entitled to it. Shiveley's final had me so I couldn't swallow food the night before, DeLo's tests came close to giving me heart attacks on a number of occassions, and stress levels have caused me to totally lose control and bawl like a damned baby once or twice.

So it looks like they've made my mind up for me. I highly doubt I will be attending UNC, CWRU, or OSU, so I'm sorry to those I've led to believe that I was.

Thanks to everyone who's contributed to making this ride a little less painful. This orchestra trip, particularly (even though it was a pain in the ass), has reminded me what a great pool of friends I have, and even the ones who occasionally irk me I will miss quite a lot as we move on to college.

GO WOLVERINES!!!

Suck it Up, Thanks

Thu, 24 Feb 2005 02:08:51 GMT

Today I witnessed what came close to being a fight at the speech counter. It went something like this:

Kid 1: “You’re a gay-ass.”
Kid 2: “At least I’ve kissed a girl. Grow a dick. You look like Pee-Wee Herman the Second.”
Kid 1: “Okay. No one likes you.”

Kid 2 walks away only to return 15 seconds later pushing Kid 1. He eventually leaves, but, a few minutes thereafter, he throws a Spree at Kid 1. Whereas the slogan is “It’s a Kick in the Mouth,” it didn’t seem to function too literally in the fight.

Oh, high school drama.

Pardon me if I’m having slightly more trouble as of late sympathizing with a high school girl bawling over her boyfriend moving away to college or someone’s Great Aunt Millie in Oregon dying at the age of 93. I say this as an admitted complainer, but I think it would do a lot of people some good to step back and consider what they have rather than what they don’t.

Step outside for 30 seconds and feel the cold. There are people in this very area who have no homes to sleep in tonight. Residents of South East Asia are still dying by the thousands on account of the tsunami. South African children are and have been dying of famine and starvation for years. Mothers (from both factions) are receiving word that their sons have been killed in a pointless war in Iraq (if you don’t agree with that last sentence, feel free to go to hell and never read another of my entries).

I used to have the attitude, “Well, I work hard to be where I am,” but I realize that others are working even harder without getting anywhere. I am grateful to have the opportunity to succeed in life, and I’ll be damned if I spit in the faces of those who would kill just to live in Ohio by not taking full advantage of it.

Yeah, we all have things in our lives that could be going better, but don’t take what (and more important, WHO) you have for granted.

Fri, 18 Feb 2005 20:27:08 GMT

Whipee! Senior pictures are finally over with! Now I can blow up to 190 and stop washing daily. Well, perhaps not, but I did promise myself I'd alter my look a bit after they were taken. We'll see where that goes.

I hung out with Evander yesterday and was glad to do so. I told him yesterday I love him as much as one heterosexual man can love another. He's been through some rough shit lately, and I feel compelled more than usual to be there for him. I think that's my top quality as a friend. It's easy to be around someone who's in a good mood and carefree, but a true friend is there for better or worse. That's why my one friend (not mentioning any names) and I don't get along so well anymore. The moment things would begin looking down for me, he'd break off communication until I was better. I bought Evan a "big ass pot of coffee" and cheered him up as only as I can, just as only he can when I'm down. Great guy.

So tonight I'm off to Columbus to stay the night. I have to so I can wake up at the ass crack of dawn to write essays for OSU Honors's scholarship deal. There's a lot on the line this trip, as it will be my first impression (at least in a long while) of the campus. I'd like to spend at least the first couple years of college relatively close to home, so I'm hoping Columbus looks up. If not, screw it- I'm going to North Carolina or Michigan or some far off exotic locale. Saturday, I'll visit my great aunt, whom I love quite a lot for someone I rarely see. She reminds me so much of my grandma.

By the way, I love Genesis more than I want to. It's getting scary. If Genesis were a woman, I would marry her and have 32 children. I want to die listening to The Musical Box or The Knife or something...

Keeping up Appearances

Wed, 16 Feb 2005 02:18:44 GMT

Uh, I wrote a four-paragraph entry yesterday which I accidentally posted while not logged in somehow, and it was deleted. So I'm pissed and am going to keep this short in case it happens again.

Eighteen consecutive Valentine's Days as a single guy. Wahoo! Guiness Book of World Records, baby. Haha... kill me.

I took my dad to the emergency room today, but thankfully it didn't turn out to be anything. Better to check, of course, although he insists he's wasted my time. Gladly would I sacrifice a few hours for him, especially when his health was in question. Good guy.

I spent today running errands, since it was the one day I didn't have an inordinate amount of homework. I took a book back to the library and gased up the Starfire, then went to Dill's to return his dress shirt. He only spoke briefly because his parents wouldn't let him out for some reason...

Next up was Wags. I asked his dad if I could return a book to him, and he said only if I was quick about it because Eric had "things to do." Yessir. We spoke for a bit, and I showed him some of a rather disturbing piece of footage on the internet. According to him, his mom dislikes me because of my hair. It's all good, since I don't like her 'cause she's a collossal BITCH (no offense!).

Then I went to Evan's, where little else happened than a lot of laughing. We were going to cruise a bit, seeing as it's an unprecedented 57 degrees out at night in February, but his girlfriend wasn't too keen on it. I suppose it IS a lot to ask to see one of my best friends for the second time in four months for fifteen minutes, seeing as she only gets to see him 23 hours a day. I used to try my best to make her feel included when we were hanging out and pay equal amounts of attention to her, but it's done shit to save her from disliking me. See if I give a damn, seeing as (excuse my chauvenism) she's "off the market" anyway.

Being quite nervous, albeit briefly, over my father's welfare and seeing how tyrannical and needlessly overbearing some of my friends' parents are, I'm appreciative for my mom and dad. They piss me off, but I love the hell out of them.

So much for keeping it short.

Dammit

Tue, 08 Feb 2005 01:06:45 GMT

Life is a fucking inescapable stalemate for me right now.

I can't withstand another eight years of this shit.

A Cool Weekend

Sun, 06 Feb 2005 07:34:22 GMT

What a fun couple of days!

Friday night, I came home after a ridiculously lengthy Latin Club officers meeting and took an equally ludicrously extensive nap. Then I got a call from the grandmaster of all percussion Mickey Campbell to come hang out with him, Marta, and Eric Wagner (whose absence was later explained when we went to his house and was told by Big Wags that his son was slumbering). We pissed around the mall for a bit doing nothing in particular (which is, as I theorize, the purpose for which the building was created) with a couple of the Campbells' Mormon muchachos (who I didn't know, but I got along with them, so whatever) and then went to The Park diner where I was stricken suddenly with a brief mild depression. I believe it was something of a combination of lonliness in terms of the female perspective and the irrepresible urge to get out of Ohio and move on with my life. It's hard to stay down with friends like the Campbells, so I bounced back, and we journeyed to the video shop where I insisted (and I can be considerable insistant) that we rent "The Slumber Party Massacre." We've all have the undeniable desire to see shitty B movies sometimes, just for laughs. Aside from a grotesque scene where a girl hallucinates that her friend develops an ungodly massive pimple which grows at abhorrent rates- beginning to pulsate and bubble, soon inhabiting the better part of her head- and then erupts, spurting repugnant quantities of pus and blood several feet across the room, the movie was not disturbing in the least. The main villain was a studded leather-clad, duck tail-sporting imbecile who wielded an electric guitar with a five-foot drill protruding from its neck, and whenever he murdered a girl, he'd deliver a cheesy rock allusion, like "long live rock" or "I can't get no satisfaction." It was somewhere near his first murder that Mickey interjected perhaps the most humorous line I've heard all week. As the Michael Jackson/Fonzie/Freddy Kreuger hybrid drilled through the torso of a young man in a brutal, bloody scene, Mickey said, "Well that's the way people killed each other in the eighties." If only Wags could have been there. I went in at 3:30 and talked to my brother, who, as usual, made me laugh my ass off and then went to bed at 5.

Saturday night was equally fun as I met up with Michael Dill on his moped in Mill Creek Park. I followed him home where his father and step mom generously offered me spicy macaroni (it was actually quite good- better than it sounds, assuredly) and Texas toast. Then we "went to the mall" where he was allowed to stay "until it closed," but actually picked up Katie Mistovich. Mike's girlfriend wasn't happy about this when we picked her up after Katie left, but I assured her that Mike was faithful and that he incessantly harps on how much he loves her. It was cool to get to know her, and it's good to finally have a friend whose girlfriend doesn't nightly fantasize over various methods of murdering me. We had quite a lot of fun polluting our systems with snacks from Sheetz and bothering people on his cell phone. I played Mike some Genesis, and he took well to it (or at least did a convincing job of acting like it). Because some children have curfews, I took them home and then returned Mickey's earlier call. We were supposed to jam in the afternoon, but I figured he'd forgotten. Marta, who sounded very under the weather (there must be some bug, since she, Eric Wagner, Amanda Walsh, myself, and several others have been sick this week), answered and said he wasn't there. When I got in touch with him, I persuaded him to hang out (although it was 11:30 and some who aren't godless heathens like myself have church in the morning) and we watched Dream Theater DVDs and shot the proverbial shit in some interesting discussion as we always have.

It was a fantastic weekend. I left out numerous details for the sake of keeping this entry short (didn't go so well for me anyway, huh?). As enthusiastic as I am to move out on my own and leave Boardman behind, I've been reminded that there are certain aspects of the town I will miss sorely. Yeah, the weather sucks, there's jack shit to do, and there are little to no opportunities anywhere in sight, but I'm convinced that Mickey, Marta, Eric, and Mike are among some of the best friends I could find.

Good night!

Muzak

Fri, 04 Feb 2005 00:59:36 GMT

Case's Top Five Albums that Aren't by Genesis:
1.)Apollo 18 [They Might Be Giants]
2.)Dance into the Light [Phil Collins]
3.)Flood [They Might Be Giants]
4.)L'amour Toujours [Gigi D'Agostino]
5.)But Seriously... [Phil Collins]

Honorable mention to bands like Dream Theater and Tool and to Martin Page and Paul Oakenfold, whose individual songs I enjoy, but whose albums I haven't listened to in full. Classical music and electronica are also appealing to me. Like anyone who's not either drugged out or born in an RV, I detest both rap and country in general (which is not to say a song might come along which falls under a pop-oriented genre that I enjoy... unadmittedly).

I returned a bag of groceries accidentally taken off the shelf before the expiration date...

Thu, 03 Feb 2005 01:32:45 GMT

The love of my life will appear in front of me unexpectedly!

Well... at least that's what my fortune cookie said. But now that I'm expecting it, it can't be unexpected. Stupid damn cookie.

I'm ready for it, though, I think. I've successfully polished off an at least somewhat fulfilling childhood, and I think I'll have plenty to to share with my offspring about Uncle Luke, their grandparents, and their great grandma. It has seemed for nearly two years now that this chapter of my life has been written as it had to be and now I'm sort of fumbling about, editing in new passages in order to meet my publisher's word criterion (to go along with this book metaphor). This house seems somehow empty from what it once was; I feel like a middle-aged keytarist struggling to recapture that glory he'd known in the '80s. There are certain things I'll miss about adolescence and childhood, but I'm more than prepared to move forward. College, financial independence (gulp), and then settling in with my own family. Unlike any other clinically sane, heterosexual male my age, I would like already to be married and have kids, but I'll take it one step at a time. I remember wishing away ages ten to fifteen, and now there are specific aspects of those years I'd love more than anything to regain.

I was never too fond of many of my brothers friends when I was a tyke, and to this day I find I'm rather incompatible with most teenagers. I've always been either too immature or too mature to think on their frequency. Or maybe I'm too oversensitive to handle their (stereotypical) attitude. Only another year and twenty-three days remaining of teenagerie.

For someone who hasn't sat down to watch a consecutive half-hour of television in a good four months, I'm highly anticipating tomorrow's Happy Days reunion! Did I just say that?

Flood is a tremendous album.

RIP Chaz Rendano

Wed, 02 Feb 2005 02:23:02 GMT

Having the day off school won't be the joyous occasion it may initially seem to be...

If anyone deserves to be in such an unfathomably disastrous situation, it certainly is not her. As genuinely kind-hearted as she is, she's endured too much in her life as it is.

As cliche as it might sound, it truly does seem like just yesterday that we invited the whole block over for the annual June swim party at my house. Sure, you lose touch a bit as time goes on- our individual motivations lead us down separate paths- but you always look back fondly on your childhood friends and the memories you'd forged with them. I remember his graduation party vividly, as well as those many times our families got together on the holidays. Seeing the photos there brought me right back to those moments.

As sad as it is to see relatives pass, there is a sense of satisfaction knowing they had lived a long, fulfilling life. It is best when you can turn a funeral almost to a celebration of that person's life. However, when the person died suddenly with no warning at the age of twenty-two, this is impossible to attain. Seeing his senior pictures with "'01" inscribed at the bottom made my stomach sink. This world can be an extremely empty and anguishing place at times. Innocence seems to become more tainted by the day, and the falsehoods of what is right with life often give way to a certain ugliness. We have all encountered our share of cheer and grief, but I hope with all I have that I never am forced into the hellacious trauma that his mother, father, and two sisters are experiencing right now. That home will never be the same again...

I'm far from religious, but I am eternally grateful for my parents and, considering the situation, especially my brother without whom I couldn't imagine living.

In much better news, I discovered today that, no matter how far I could hypothetically plummet academically, I'm guaranteed a spot on Four-Point-O Row! I know it makes no sense to end the school year here, but it's their policy (which could very well have screwed me over, and came close!) and no entity can question the almighty gods who tyrannize BHS. Thanks to all who helped me through what's been a slightly nerve-wracking past four years and for making things more unshitty.

A happy belated 20th to M-I-C-K-E-Y Campbell and a happy advance 18th to Miss London!