Slick Maneuvers Edelston

I have a learner's permit. I got it in March, but I never get around to driving, and I don't have time for driver's ed, so I'm nowhere near getting my license. I've driven a total of six times or so, and can't get back on the road until I get a new permit (it went missing in Pittsburgh last month). I'm about as good a driver as you might think. Which is to say, an EXCELLENT driver.

Before continuing, I should briefly mention that I have clip-on sunglasses that I wear while driving. And I wear them every time. Just in case. You know. Priorities.

So the first few times I drove, I was exclusively confined to parking lots. Not lame small ones, but interesting school parking lots with turns and things. But then one day, I was given the fantastic offer by my dad to drive around my neighborhood. (I only ever drive with my dad, because my mom says she doesn't think her heart can handle being driven around by me.) I of course eagerly took him up on this offer.

So here's how my neighborhood looks:

Those are all roads. So basically, there are a lot of cul-de-sacs. It's a terrible place for having friends who live near me or for being able to walk to a store to get food in a short amount of time, but it's a fantastic place for being as smooth a driver as I am.

So I was driving on the middle cul-de-sac, when I encountered quite the terrifying foe: a rival car. It was unoccupied, but when you encounter a sleeping bear, do you just say, "Well, that's a nice bear, but I'm not afraid"? Hint: no you don't. You said "OH LORD THAT IS A BEAR. I'd better move carefully lest I get EATEN ALIVE." Except that the caps would wake the bear up, and you would get eaten alive, because you are very foolish and not good at avoiding bear attacks. Point proven? I think so.

So there I was, sitting behind the wheel, moving upwards of ten miles an hour faced with one of the most menacing beasts I've seen in my life. I knew I had to act fast, lest I run into it and awaken its fury. So here's what I did: I drew out my battle plan in my head. I didn't even tell my dad what I was going to do; in high-pressure situations, you don't have time for democracy. Sometimes you've gotta take control. I planned to go AROUND the car, staying on the road, and just keep on driving; then, when it was passed, go back onto the main road.

Sure enough, it worked. I was quite proud of myself. As I exited back onto the road, I triumphantly announced, "Aww yeah. Did you see that slick maneuver? That's why the call me Slick Maneuvers Edelston." My dad lovingly responded, "Greg, keep your eyes on the road."

Mission: Vocal Rest. Status: Failure.

As you may recall, today was supposed to be the day that I go on vocal rest. I woke up this morning and felt like my throat was a little better, but really not superbest. My back was no longer in extreme discomfort - it was about a 1/10, but pain was still present - and I could mostly speak. However, I decided that my voice would heal better if I went through with the vocal rest anyway.

I went downstairs and found a piece of paper, and wrote on it: I'M LOSING MY VOICE, SO I'M TRYING TO SPEAK AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE TODAY. PARDON MY RUDENESS. I stuffed that in my pocket, along with a notepad in case I needed to tell any longer sentences to anyone, and went on my way.

The first thing that I had this morning was a meeting of the Latin club, which went pretty well. I had to read one line of Latin about four times, but I decided that that was a worthwhile loss, and just refused to talk the entire rest of the time.

I then had physics. I spent the majority of physics not speaking at all, instead furiously scribbling on my notepad and running across the room to tell people things, but later decided that whispering is really just breathing while moving your mouth, and that I could therefore whisper. I began to whisper sentences where necessary, often pretty loudly.

At this point I had basically stopped writing on my notepad, so I'll take a brief interlude to describe a few of my favorites:

• But then it would be moving the wrong way, NERD.
• IT'S A GODDAMN WINDOW FUCK
• Except light can have higher amplitude w/ same period, you nerd
• SYSTEM RESTORE
• In AoM, it's code 028.
• [A tasteful depiction of Connor the Derailer, Connor being a kid in my physics class. CtD is wearing a gladiator helmet and a Math Team sweatshirt.]

A few hours later, I had a fantastic realization: I only strained my voice when speaking in  my standard register or any higher. If I spoke in a bass range, there was no problem. Thus, I began to speak in a low sexy Barry White register. (Well, I thought of it that way. It probably came off as more of just a low register.) The reasons that this was excellent were twofold: I got to be sexy, and I was able to talk!

Well uh, that worked for about two hours, and then I just completely forgot to speak in a low register, and instead starting yelling and screaming and singing just like usual. I sang quite a fair bit, which was pretty amusing, half due to the strain and half due to my inability to aim resulting from my illness. I also at one point need to girlishly shriek for comical effect, which simply did not produce any noise at all.

So, conclusion: I can't not speak.

brb dying

So basically, the universe is out to get me. And I'm quite sure of this. Allow me to explain.

So first of all, I've been coughing for weeks. In fact, I started coughing right around when I started visiting colleges, which is absolutely excellent in and of itself, especially during interviews. It really shows personality. Admissions officers particularly enjoy it when either you spend several seconds coughing because you can't quiiiiiite get that mucus out of your throat, or when you have trouble speaking at the beginning of your answer to every question. You look really confident and outgoing. It's just the best. Word to the wise.

My coughing has gotten even more vigorous in the last week, which is pretty obnoxious basically all the time. I have been told by both men and women alike that it is disgusting. I'm sorry. Since it's my fault, I'll try to fix it. I didn't mean to inconvenience anyone. But anyway. It's especially obnoxious because apparently, in the last two days, I have been coughing so frequently and so vigorously that as a result of my lurching forward and apparently slightly contorting myself, I managed to throw out my back. That's right. I threw out my back by coughing too hard.

I noticed a slight backache last night, and decided that it hurt enough that my best course of action was just to go to bed, and in the morning it should be better.
NOPE.
NOPE.
NOPE THAT'S NOW HOW THINGS WORK.
SORRY GREG IT'S NOT THAT EASY.
When I woke up this morning my back was in even more pain than it had been when I went to sleep. Whenever I slightly turned my back, random muscles - there seemed to be no rhyme nor reason as to which ones - would start to ache terribly.

On top of that, I could feel that I was losing my voice. I was starting to sense a bit of that the night before, but now it was pretty bad. There was nothing to warrant taking a sick day, though, so I muscled through (get it because my muscles were inconveniencing me anyway) and carried on with my day as best as I could.

Perhaps the worst part was that this morning on my way to physics, I GOT THE GODDAMN HICCUPS. And that's not it. I GOT THE GODDAMN HICCUPS DURING A GODDAMN COUGH ATTACK. Have you ever had the hiccups while doubled over (with a pained back, I remind you) in a coughing fit while walking? It sucks.

[There is currently a half-finished picture of me keeling over in the middle of the hallway saved on my computer. Someday it will be here instead of this placeholder.]

So now I'm also losing my voice quite terribly. I tried singing a bit, and that didn't work at all. And I have one more college visit on Friday. That means I have to save my voice so that I don't walk in completely mute. That means I have to go on vocal rest. Minimal talking if any at all. And I'm the worst person in the world for that to happen to, considering that I am constantly talking and that a fair amount of the time I prefer to yell. So wish me luck; I'll try to keep you posted on how it goes. Hint: probably pretty poorly.

Classical Music And Me, Part II - now with video!

So, I recently posted about how I don't listen to classical music like a normal person. (If you missed that one, it's over here.) Shortly after posting, I received the following comment:

"Dear Greg,

Why didn't you include a video? I don't want to read about you saying baddaddadd."

I received a similar complaint in real life this week, saying that one's imagination can only go so far. The answer was obvious: I needed a recording of myself jamming out.

There were a few qualifications to my video: it had to be relatively candid, for one. [BREAK - to be explained below] So I decided that I needed to have a recording of my listening to music while doing something else. The logical decision was to type up this very blog post during the recording process. This was actually extra-helpful, as it gives you a real impression of how little work I can do while listening - I type at 100WPM and don't really need to think too much in order to make this post, since I already know what to say, so I should be able to more than finish this entire post in the seven minutes that my selected song would take. Well, I wrote [BREAK] above where the song finished. That should give you a pretty good impression of how vastly inefficient I become.

So without further ado, I present to you my video. The piece is the overture to Giuseppe Verdi's La Forza Del Destino, which I played last year and have faithfully listened to since. I should reiterate two things: one, that I don't pretend to believe that I have a good voice (although in all fairness I wasn't thinking about my pitch), and two, that this is actually candid. Nothing in this video was done for the sake of making it funny or interesting to watch. This is just what I do.

Also you're definitely not obligated to watch the whole thing.



Chicks dig musicians, right?

Utility Pockets

So today I had a calc test. The lights in the room were broken. Rather, the lights in the entire building were broken, and the room happened to be in the aforementioned building. There are backup lights in each room, so it wasn't pitch black or anything, but it was considerably dimmer than we were accustomed to. It was like the just-a-little-darker-than-the-ideal-time-of-dusk-but-really-only-a-hair-darker kind of dim. So in the portion of the class leading up to the test, we were getting by just fine; but once the test began, there were a few complaints about the darkness.

Now, before going on, I should mention that I wear a jacket on roughly 95% of days. Even when it's not particularly cold, I find it useful to wear a jacket. (Summer is the exception.) The reason for this is that I need to store things, and I need to be able to access them. The answer? Pockets.

My favorite jacket is a blue one with two pockets in the regular pocket spot just above the hip, with sort of "secret pockets" on the inside. There's also a fifth pocket up on my left ribcage. It's a little like this:

I've been known to store things in my pockets. Like a lot of things. Like a LOT of things. Currently, among my goodies are my clip-on sunglasses, four Post-Its from a charity walk, three wooden pencils, one fountain pen, two Bic pens, one Pilot G2 07 pen, two mechanical pencils, one Zebra retractable pen, a headlamp, a bag of Cheerios, and a pair of 3D glasses from Megamind (excellent movie, by the way). And that's far less than I normally have, by the way. (The pen count is abnormally high and the random-sillies is abnormally low; I've been known to carry things like staples, empty plastic bags, the New Testament (I'm Jewish), various Gameboys, and more.) For this reason, I refer to these pockets as my Utility Pockets.

So back to calculus. The test began, and people began complaining about the darkness. I reached into my Utility Pockets, produced from nowhere the aforementioned headlamp, and put it on my head.

A dramatization.

I had the headlamp in my pocket from a camping trip I went on a month and a half ago - I never got around to taking it out. Better still is the fact that I wasn't even the only one to perform this feat - a friend of mine in fact pulled a headlamp out from his own backpack from a camping trip that he had been on not too long ago.

So basically, manliest calc test ever. nbd

Classical Music And Me

So I don't like listening to any of that punk metal whatever silliness that's loud and obnoxious and makes me sad. I much prefer classical music. I primarily enjoy music that I've played in the local youth orchestra, because I know it better; my favorites include the overture to La Forza del Destino, the overture to L'Italiana in Algeri, Mozart's Jupiter Symphony K551, and the finale of Beethoven's 5th symphony (NOT the first movement that you probably know).

Being a cellist, I of course sing along to the cello part. (For the high parts, I either take it down an octave or two, or destroy my voice and hope not to upset my family too heavily.) However, being a man, I also percuss. I've become something of an expert of finding interesting ways to find different noises when I need to express variety. I'll often drum with two fingers per hand on the table, occasionally using one hand to hit the keyboard, my lap, a book, a DVD, the mousepad, or whatever else I have at my disposal to get the desired sound. I will also often snap in an isolated rest at the end of a passage to call attention to the silence. (Paradoxical, perhaps, but it's not like I'm trying to impress anyone.)

As for syllables, I usually go "badada bum bum bum badada bum" etc.; these noises are the easiest, I find to pull out quickly. For slower passages, I like to use a "yadada" to express a crescendo at the beginning of a nice note. Perhaps most importantly, I find that quick runs are most efficiently done through "dadliddliddliddle"s.

And the kicker is that this is not simply a vocal and manual exercise. This is a fully body workout. I fistpump wildly for most accented notes. And not some sissy-ass fistpumping. Imagine throwing a baseball, but with a closed first, and your arm crosses over in a roughly circular path to your chest, and in a really triumphant manner. That's what I do. For repeated accents, I will either only bring my fist halfway down so that I can repeat, or use both hands and lurch forward in my chair as I go so that it's sort of like beating up someone a foot in front of me. Similarly, for great releases of tension, I will shove both fists behind me at a 135-degree angle (3pi/4rad, anyone?) and shove my chest forward, in sort of a triumphant-warrior-emerging-from-the-fray style.

So as you can imagine, I tend to emerge from this panting a little, because it is actually more physically taxing than you would think. (I can't recommend http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4jmVTbTo9k enough to any aspiring classical-pumpers (a term coined in the last several seconds); in particular, the ending is excellent.) This also makes everything take FOREVER, because I spend the majority of my time either thrashing about, drumming on things, or singing rather than thinking about what I'm typing. I spent a VERY long time on this article not because it was particularly difficult to write about, but because I listened to a whopping three pieces over the course of this writing (and not three short ones, mind you). I suppose that's the price you pay for quality music.

A Bathroom Adventure of Much Excitement, Great Insight, And An Altogether Rollicking Good Time

You guys. Today I peed for such a long time.

How To Have A Thanksgiving Dinner, by Greg Edelston, Age 7

So recently, my mom discovered what I believe to be a homework assignment from when I was in second grade, at age seven. I can only assume that the assignment was "Describe how to have a Thanksgiving dinner. Provide an accompanying picture." My handwriting is almost the same as it is today, and there are only two spelling errors. I was also apparently the most hilarious seven-year-old in the word, with a full understanding of comedic theory. So here's what I wrote:

Greg Edelston, 11/21/00

1. Get you'r [sic] gun.
2. Fill it up.
3. Go outside.
4. Find a turkey.
5. Get a good distance from it.
6. Shoot.
7. Shoot until you kill the turkey.
8. Bring the turkey home.
9. Give it a feather-cut. [I assume that I was referring to a turkey's equivalent of a haircut, but I'm not 100% sure.]
10. Put it in the oven.
11. Set the timer for 20 min.
12. After 20 minutes, take it out.
13. Set the table fancily.
14. Get chairs.
15. Let the turkey cool off.
16. Invite people to dinner.
17. Wait.
18. Notice that the turkey is cold.
19. Heat it up.
20. Listen to the doorbell ring.
21. Let you'r [sic] visitors in.
22. Get the turkey.
23. Eat the turkey.
24. Enjoy!
25. Save the leftovers.
26. Throw it away after a week.

The following picture is stapled to the front:

I yearn for the days when I was this funny.

The Hierarchy of Condiments

Today, I was at an event at which hamburgers were served. I, in fact, was the one who made the hamburgers. The side-dishes weren't too numerous, but were enough: Doritos, potato salad, ketchup, and onions. I and my adviser decided that of the ten burgers, eight should be made with cheese cooked onto them and two without. A friend of mine wound up taking one of the two bare burgers. He didn't take any Doritos or potato salad. He put ketchup on his burger. That was totally normal. But then, he put onions on his burger.

His cheeseless burger.

Bun, burger, ketchup, onion, bun.

What.

That's right. You're undoubtedly baffled reading this; just imagine how I felt watching this with my own two eyes. Onions but no cheese? Just go and take some sauerkraut but skip the mustard, why don'tcha?

I don't even know what I'm looking at.

I raised my objection thusly: "Uh, excuse me, but did you just put onion on your burger without any cheese?"

"...Yes?"

"Doesn't that strike you as a little odd?"

"...No?"

"You don't see any problem with going out of order?"

"I don't think there's any sort of 'condiment order.'"

"...Hm."

It thus occurred to me that this condiment order isn't the sort of thing that most people generally think about, nor even one that I had ever consciously thought of. But there just seems to be a general etiquette that goes with condiments, an unspoken code. There are certain condiments that are a little more "exotic" than others, and thus are more likely to be objectionable; and unless you have a specific reason to avoid one condiment (e.g., lactose intolerance), and provided all relevant condiments' availability, it would be a breach of etiquette to take a condiment farther down the chain than one higher up.

For fear that I will have excluded too many condiments, I'm afraid I can't offer a functional actual chain of command; however, I can give you a rough idea:

1. Burger.
2. Bun.
3. Ketchup.
4. Cheese.
5. Pickles/relish.
6. Mayonnaise.
7. Mustard.
8. Tomatoes.
9. Lettuce.
10. Onion.
11. Bacon.

And that, my friends, is why you never put onions with no cheese.

A Magic Portal in the Bathroom!

Okay. I really don't think anyone gets more excitement out of going to the bathroom than I do; but when I used the bathroom this afternoon, instead of excitement, all I felt was disappointment. Let me explain.

Okay, so. I stayed after school today. I used the bathroom. When I walked in, I at first thought that the janitors were in there or something, because the lighting was dim and I could hear someone inside; however, it turned out to just have the lights off and someone else was on his way out. No big deal. HOWEVER! All of the stalls were pretty far shut except the farthest one, which was turned roughly 30-45 degrees open. And there was this beautiful yellow light pouring out of it.

Literally, no other lights were on in the entire bathroom. There was just the light coming out of the far stall, inviting me forward. And it was only out the door, not the top. It was magical. It was clearly a portal to an alternate dimension.

I put my priorities straight and peed in a urinal first. I wouldn't want to pee in the magic portal. Over the course of my peeing, I thought: what if it really is a portal? Do they hide portals in toilets? Yeah, I saw this anime once where they did that. Oh, but I have a friend waiting for me to come back and play chess with him in the other room. Wouldn't it be rude to leave him hanging? Oh, but maybe time passes slower in this world than in the real world, like in Inception or The Phantom Tollbooth. Oh, but what if it works the other way around, like in the Lotus Casino from Percy Jackson? Or what if it's like in ChalkZone and I can't even get out unless I complete some requisite?

I jest not. All this passed through my head over the course of my urination.

Upon a good flushing, I made a beeline for the magic stall. I opened the door excitedly, only to find a regular handicapped toilet. (Handicapped meaning the one with the bar so that impaired folk can stand up or something.) I reached my hand down to flush, but stopped myself. And it's a good thing I did - I might have missed a very important step! I cleverly grabbed onto the handicap bar and pulled it down. Clearly, it was a secret switch, and the portal wouldn't work unless the lever was down. I gripped firmly onto the now-horizontal bar and flushed.

Nothing.

Needless to say, I was wrought with disappointment. I put up the secret switch/handicap bar, left the stall, and departed from the bathroom, fully dejected. My hopes of being teleported to a magical toilet world were dashed.

Efficiency and Stairs.

So, I'm a pretty efficiency-oriented guy. Many things I do are geared toward getting my everyday processes done as efficiently as possible.

My screen about half an hour before writing this post. Maximum efficiency.

One rather obnoxious everyday process that I've had to overcome is climbing the stairs. Now, climbing the stairs is a big deal. If I want to go from point A to point B, I want to just appear in the other location. However, since I can't Apparate, I instead just make my way over as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, stairs act as a limiting factor in the amount of time I have to spend ambulating. There are fourteen stairs in my house, and climbing them one at a time is simply too slow.

Shirley Temple didn't like
climbing the stairs either.

Now, the way down the stairs would seem to be a rather small deal, since I have gravity to assist me. I often clambered down two at a time, sometimes taking the last four at once. However, my maternal parental unit always freaks out when I do that, because apparently I fell down the stairs twice as an infant. Once she caught me by the heel, but apparently once I went the whole way. So my new plan of action is as follows: Climb down one at a time, but allow the knee to sort of "break," or fold, as soon as the foot makes contact with the stair, so that the next foot can reach the next stair as quickly as possible. That works pretty well, and it probably increases my time by at least half a second per trip.

The bigger deal, of course, is going upstairs. Previously, I would often either climb the stairs as 2-2-2-2-2-2-2 (which is to say, two at a time), or 1-2-3-2-1-2-3 (just because I liked the pattern). However, this got boring quickly, so I went out to Facebook and proposed the question: What's the best way to climb up my 14 stairs?

Various ideas were tossed about, and the pros and cons of each step being done as a jump, a step, or a leap were discussed. Finally, what we decided on was 3-3-2-2-4:

• The first 3 would be aided by my grabbing onto the banister's vertical supports with my left hand.
• The second 3 would be accomplished by means of the remaining momentum from the initial boost.
• The 2s would just be typical two-at-a-time steps.
• The 4 at the end would involve me placing my right hand on the top of the stairway and ending in a crouching position.

At the end, I would be ready to spring into action, directly in front of the door to my room but able to pivot to the right if I was running upstairs to go to the bathroom. I would also be feeling thoroughly invigorated as a result of the super-manly finish. The conundrum of the stairs had finally been solved.

So that's what I think about stairs.

A Pokewalker-Bathroom Story

So, two of the most common anecdotes I find myself having are Pokewalker stories and bathroom stories. Some of you may not be familiar with a Pokewalker. If that is the case, you're missing out. A Pokewalker is this pedometer shaped like a Pokeball that you can use to catch Pokemon, find items, level up, and attract chicks:

Chick magnet.

Meanwhile, a bathroom is this thing that people often use when they need to excrete bodily fluids and other undesirable content:

Somewhat less attractive
to chicks.

So I often have anecdotes either involving Pokewalkers or bathrooms. Occasions are few and far between when I will go to the bathroom and not return with an anecdote that I find to be thoroughly exciting. Similarly, I will often have embarrassing mishaps with my Pokewalker that will lend themselves to exciting stories.

So about a week or two ago, I was in the bathroom at school, minding my own business and peeing before class. It was a relatively populous bathroom - there were a good four or five people in there. (To give you a general idea, this bathroom has two urinals, three stalls, and four sinks.) I don't normally wear a belt, so my Pokewalker was somewhat loosely clipped onto the rim of my pants, which I suppose left it hanging limply upside-down to the right of my pelvis: the prime position for it to fall off.

So of course it fell off.

And of course, to my right was a stall.

And of course, there were people peeing in the stalls.

Obviously, my Pokewalker had fallen off my pants into the stall next to me, and the kid in the next stall over was undoubtedly like DOOHOOHOO LOOK AT THIS THAT'S LIKE A GODDAMN POKEYMAN-BALLS HOHOHO LEMME TAKE THIS THAT'S JUST TOO FUNNY. If I didn't know better, I'd say I heard giggling coming from in the stall. And I didn't know better.

So I had to keep my cool. I couldn't just pick up my Pokewalker with everyone watching. I finished peeing as slowly as possible, and slowly walked over to the sink and took my own sweet time washing my hands. I had first lunch. It was okay for me to take a while. These hooligans probably had a class to go to. I could wait them out. This was no big deal.

Unfortunately, every time someone walked out of the bathroom, someone else would walk in. I decided I would go out and get a drink, and by the time I got back, they should all be gone. A nice long drink. From a relatively faraway fountain. So I did that. However, when I got back, there were still two kids in the bathroom. One walked out as I walked in, but the other was still washing his hands. No one was peeing, though. I looked over at the urinal and saw that my Pokewalker had fallen right below it - it had never rolled into the stall anyway. Not that that changed anything. I couldn't have just picked it up from under the urinal. "What's that kid doing with his head right where he was just peeing?" etc.

I decided that I couldn't just stand around awkwardly and look like I was waiting for something in the middle of the bathroom. I had to strike. I put on my most confident face and walked toward the urinal. Yes, the other kid was still in there, but being judged by one punk freshman was nowhere near as bad as six. With a full sense of purpose, I knelt down, picked up my Pokewalker, put it back on my pants, and strode out of the bathroom. I was victorious.

A Note on the Title

It is worth mentioning, I feel, why this blog is so entitled. I seem to have a private lexicon of words that I use that no one else really uses. Some of these I pick up from other people by accident; others, I just decide are nice words, and I start using them ad nauseum. A few weeks ago a friend of mine tried to compile a dictionary of these words. Here's a sampling:

• Mildly, moderately, borderline, thoroughly, balls, mad - Intensifier adverbs.
• "That's moderately amusing," "This is balls cool," etc.
• Upsetting, exciting - My two main emotion adjectives.
• "Well, that's just upsetting."
• HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG - A frustrated interjection.
• "HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNG"
• Oh, excellent - My means of expressing discontent. But like, with a :\ face. Not as if to legitimately express joy with the situation at hand.
• "My cat has just been run over." " Oh, excellent."
• Obv, natch - Obviously, naturally. I pronounce the former "ob-vee." Often used facetiously.
• "I left your papers in your closet." "Oh, obv. ???"
• Trash receptacle - General term for wastebasket, trash can, etc.
• "Is there a trash receptacle nearby?"

There are, of course, countless other words I have trademarked, but those should ideally become apparent as more blog posts transpire. (There's one, actually. Transpire.)

It is also worth mentioning that I have a set of rather uncommon emotions. Most of these I acquire from other people, which always makes me afraid that they're going to get upset at me for using their emoticons. My primarily used emoticons are as follows:

c:  :c  C:  :C  c':  :'c  C':  :'C  >:C  >:c  >:O  O:<  >:o  o:<  D:<  D:  D8  :>  :<  :o :O  :|  :\  ._.  >.<  o.O

The apostrophe, of course, means that I'm crying either from joy or from sadness.

This.

So I've just created a blog. I'm a bit against the first post being all GUYS THIS IS A FIRST POST WHAT UUUUP C': so I'll try to be a bit more substantial than that by providing a rough explanation for this blog. Basically, I come up with forty ideas a minute for Facebook stati. However, many of these have to be rejected, for myriad reasons. Some are too long, and after trying to condense them into the 420-character limit, I either give up, or give a disgustingly abridged recount that cannot possibly say what I want it to say. Other stati cannot really be put into the third person that easily; I'm one of those sticklers who keeps his stati in the third person like the olden days of "Greg Edelston is ____," and if I want to start my post with a possessive, then I'll either have to post "Greg Edelston 's _____" or "Greg Edelston My ____," or abandon the status altogether. I often go with the latter. Other stati still have to be disregarded altogether because I just had one ten seconds ago and what if people think I'm on Facebook every time I'm home (which would be an accurate conclusion) or what if they don't get to see my previous status because it's not at the top of my profile and the old one was so much better than this and so how can I possibly disown that old one etc.; thus, I lose the new idea.

I combated this problem by creating a Twitter. Well, sort of. I created my Twitter because I didn't really know anything about it and figured it would probably become the big thing some day. My reasoning behind this was that I was initially resistant to Facebook, which I now see as one of the most useful things we have available to us. I then proceeded to use Twitter for getting amusing updates from amusing people who amuse me. It serves me well as a pretty good source of the chuckles. Nowadays, though, I also use it as an extra outlet for status ideas. The deciding factors of which one I use for which idea are as follows:

• If it absolutely requires more than 140 characters no matter what, it goes to Facebook by default.
• If it would be funnier if read as multiple consecutive posts (sort of telling a story), it goes to Twitter.
• If it's something not really relevant to me so much as is just an observation of the world, it USUALLY goes to Twitter (because if it were on Facebook, I would have to use something like "Greg Edelston wonders whether," "Greg Edelston notices that," etc.).
• If it just feels Facebookier or Twitterier, then I try to fit it into the one it feels more like.

Granted, my Twitter posts get sent to Facebook anyway, so everyone can still see and comment on it anyway. Besides that, I have a whopping 22 followers, so it's not like I get more people to see what I post on Twitter than on Facebook or anything. I can only think of two real differences. The first is that Twitter is in third person, whereas Facebook is in first; the second is that a post just feels different from a status. It just does.

But I digress. The point was that I often have too many status ideas, and still some have to be rejected from both Facebook and Twitter. Thus, I'm creating this blog, entitled Mildly Upsetting. This is sort of my "musings," if you will; however, I do not want this to be like all of the whiny tween blogs wherein people post about their feelings. If you read this blog, you should know when I'm happy (hint, it's upwards of 98% of the time), but you should not know when I'm upset. You just don't want to read that. You'll probably just hear my anecdotes about my day or my ideas that I had or my thoughts on a subject. I haven't been chuckling to myself while writing this post in particular, for the obvious reason that it's just straight-up not funny. The objective of this post is to explain, about which I feel bad, because anyone who is reading this will feel as though s/he has wasted his/her time. Thus, I provide you with a graph relevant to two of my activities today:

I shall be catching you...

on the flipside.