September 2006 – skylerbartels

HM – PRESIDENT CLIN-TON!

Day 617: PRESIDENT CLIN-TON!

http://audio.xanga.com/mp3embedplayer.swf?i=29845&m=35e04

So I got an email saying that these $100 tickets to see Bill Clinton at a charity dinner thing were only $30. So, naturally, I got one. Its on Oct. 14th at 7:30PM. I’m seriously excited.

Friday I have plans.
Saturday I have plans.
Sunday I have plans.
-and only about 1/5 of these plans involve family. I’m doing well.

‘cept I’m not. My throat has been dry and sore and scratchy all day and now it’s keeping me up. Which sucks. A lot. I hope I don’t have something nasty, because I don’t want to catch my death.

We had our banned book night, tonight. A bunch of students and some prof’s got together to celebrate banned book week and read selections from our favorite banned books. It was all part of the Drake Lit Society (aka FUCK)’s grand plan to get our name out there. So far? I think it still needs work, but the turnout was OK so I’m thrilled.

…I’m only lonely when I go to sleep.
A silent room is nothing new to me, I did have my own room at home, growing up (or, I guess… before college). But that was in a house full of people and love. This is just a cold building full of people I don’t know.
I don’t know… It’s really the only time its bad. Which is nice, sure, but I wish there was a way to make it not so lonely when I go to bed…
-sweet dreams…

Added July 8, 2016
So those images didn’t pull over but its getting easier to pull them from Xanga. Its an extra step but worth it.
I’ve never done well sleeping by myself. Even if Aubrey leaves for a night I have just the hardest time. I stay up way too late and get awful sleep.
I read from “Little Black Sambo” which is an awful but hilarious book. Referenced the tigers turning to butter in Fables which was hilarious and unexpected.
Also, thanks, Zak.

HM – The World’s Greatest Stapler

Day 616: The World’s Greatest Stapler

http://audio.xanga.com/mp3embedplayer.swf?i=27158&m=b52d9

So… Another day another dollar. And then some.

For the first time in a long time, I feel… complacent? Yeah, I think so. I feel like I’m right where I need to be. Here, at Drake, that is. Usually I’m just… I don’t know, “goin’-it”, or what have you. As if I just float from day to day, doing what needs to be done, but never really accomplishing much of anything.

So far this year (well, excluding the week and a half after my brother left), I’ve felt totally different. Instead of coasting, now, I feel more complete than ever. I do attribute this to living in a single and being single. I am collecting myself and combining the parts I get into a whole me. For the first time in a long time. And I’m finding neat things out, too.

For starters, I’m attracted to girls. Yes, yes… I know I’ve always been attracted to girls, but the difference now is that I’m really aware of it. Before I would note to myself “Why golly gee, Skyler, the Captain of Cool! That lass there is a looker if I ever did see one!” and I would smile and nod my head and return with a “Why am I calling myself the ‘Captain of Cool’?”.
Well, no I’m more like “Not only is that female good looking, but everything I know about her is also appealing, and I only know what I know because I actually did the talking instead of just assuming!”
This might sound dumb, but rest assured, it’s not. I usually don’t get interested in girls I think I have a shot with (for reference, check out vol. 1 of “Girls Skyler has Asked and/or Gone Out With”, on sale now!) and only really date girls that have an interest in me, first (not an attack, but the truth). So for me to actually go ahead and make a bunch of lite conversation for no reason other than to get to know a girl I think is attractive is… well, a breakthrough. And I like that.

Second thing I’ve learned… I think I’m going into education. I’m working on maybe adding an education minor or, depending on what my advisor and I decide, double majoring. Why? I don’t know, but for some reason the thought of teaching (at a college level, none of this high school bullcrap) is interesting to me. So I’m looking into it.

Third off, I really don’t know who my friends are. Not to say, I don’t know who the people are that ARE my friends, but more like… I don’t know enough about them and who they are as people. Or, not as much as I’d like. In getting to know myself, I have had lots of fun, but I think I could have more if I did what I’m doing with other people.
But don’t worry, friends, I’m not going to lock you up in a room with me. That right is reserved for my older brother and ONLY my older brother.

The fourth thing is… And I mean no disrespect, but… I really think I’m pretty lame, I mean, to have as a friend.
I make poor choices regarding people that I really value as friends, I only ever talk about stupid stuff in an attempt to be funny, I don’t give enough time to anyone outside of my family and they’re really the only people I call and keep up with on a constant basis, I’m opinionated about things I have no solid reason to have an opinion on and will insult anything different, I don’t try to hang out (even when invited), and I don’t really feel any need to do the “hanging out” thing. It’s just not my scene.
Yet a lot of you still seem to value me as a friend and, quite frankly, I’m interested in finding out why. Hence the “third thing”, above.

I had a talk with my mother on the telephone last night about my Education minor and my living conditions and we kind of agree that I don’t do much outside my own bubble. I never really blossomed into much of a social bug in any of my previous schooling… I didn’t really want to hang out with anyone or join any groups… And I know I’m not anti-social, I like hanging out with crowds of good, friendly people that I’m comfortable with… I just tend to like my own company better than the company of others.

So… I guess I don’t know where I’m going with any of this. It just is what it is, I guess. I’m happy with me -more so than I’ve really ever been- and I’m going to keep on truckin’.

Also, I’m ready to date. Nothing serious, just fun times. And I think I might, for once. Which is new since, everytime I bring it up, I usually admit right then and there that I probably won’t even try. This time…? Something new.

So, bye?
-and wouldn’t you know it, we’re all out of time…

Added July 8, 2016
Sometimes I’m amazed. Simply amazed.
If I had to write up an idea of what Young Skyler was like at this point in our shared existence, this is almost 100% what it would have been. That he nailed it so easily is beyond me and I’m proud of him. Didn’t know I was always this good at introspection.
This is also around the time that I started actively going on dates just to date and, while fun, many mistakes were made.

HM – Magus, Walking

Day 615:

http://audio.xanga.com/mp3embedplayer.swf?i=20898&m=45fa4

So.

LOST isn’t really new tonight, but it is the first time for me since last season, so that’s awesome.

I only have like two comic books today. That’s awesome.

I hope that package with Veronica Mars comes today. That’d be nice.

Monday – HEROES
Tuesday – VERONICA MARS
Wednesday – LOST!!!!

TV is as TV is as TV is as TV is as…
-tv does…

Added July 8, 2016
Those shows go in ascending order of quality. Especially at that point in time.
Trying to dig for those audio files. Forgot all about this, but I used to run an “audio blog” for six seconds and I’d like to get that shit back for no reason aside from archival purposes.
I hope to find them.

HM – Who Knows, This Might be Right

http://audio.xanga.com/mp3embedplayer.swf?i=20896&m=35e53

Added July 8, 2016
Somewhere, the audio files still exist. I don’t know where, but they must be around.
As for the image, I don’t know what it used to be. It is from chax.net which doesn’t exist and while digging I found that Gloomy Bear thing, the pink bear that kills its owner. It was called “GLCOMBO” and this is a combo with the GLoomy Bear. So, there you go.
Moving on.

HM – The Plot, Here, it Gets Kinda Weird

Added July 8, 2016
Song is still on my iPod after all these years and I still get a kick out of it, every now and again.
Have NEVER heard another song by this guy, either. Never will.

HM – Scientific and Spiritual Paradox

http://audio.xanga.com/mp3embedplayer.swf?i=20890&m=f652c

“One can only pray that her womb is as barren as her talent, because if Paris Hilton ever managed to reproduce, she would immediately, at once, prove both natural selection and divine creation impossible, creating a scientific and spiritual paradox so powerful and immense that there aren’t enough AA batteries in the world for Stephen Hawking to explain it.”

…finally found the source of the quote: here

Added July 8, 2016
That is a hilarious quote!

Page 21 – How the Times have Changed

The internet is a stupid place to meet women.

Added April 7, 2016
I attempted online dating. It wasn’t for me. But the statistics show such a change in the last ten years on this subject. We all couldn’t have been any more wrong.

HM – Back from the Dead

http://audio.xanga.com/mp3embedplayer.swf?i=19190&m=82ea2

So, we’ve come at last to another post. The first real one I’ve made in a long time.

*sigh*

I don’t know… what it is or what it isn’t about Xanga that I find so… distressing… but nothing seems to work anymore. At all.

But, apparently, I couldn’t keep away. Now, if this was by choice or by the fact that it has become a part of me that I can’t cut off, I do not know. But, I am back. 100%….ish.

I’ve made some dumb choices, over the Internet, in recent history. I’m not going to apologize, explain what happened, why it happened, or even go over what exactly did happen.

So don’t ask.

This isn’t going to be an overly happy Xanga. If anything, this is going to go right back to square one: Being stuff I randomly spout out with no intent of having it make any sense.

Don’t get delusions like I care about Xanga, my site, your site, or the site of your friend with this “really funny gif! omg lol!!!!!!11”.

…(but if its THAT funny link me up)

Seriously? I’m just tired of not being here.

So, that’s that.

Now, everyone… come rushing in to tell me:
a) how dumb I was for leaving
b) how no one cares that I’m back
c) how their world has changed since we’ve last spoken
d) how I need better fashion sense
e) something Zak will say
f) etc.

Expression is nine-tenths of the law.
Don’t abuse the right.

-Skyler Bartels

Added July 8, 2016
I have no clue what that audio link at the top was. Sorry.
Two truths in this post that fascinate me and inform my decision to press on with the archive process:
-“I couldn’t keep away. Now, if this was by choice or by the fact that it has become a part of me that I can’t cut off, I do not know”
and
-“If anything, this is going to go right back to square one: Being stuff I randomly spout out with no intent of having it make any sense.”
These two statements are the central pillars of my entire blogging history, my decisions to post what I post, and my continued dedication to the “art”.
Just wish I hadn’t been so dour about the whole thing.

Facebook – Joke

Q: You know what I like about the Internet?

A: Nothing

Added April 4, 2016
This is a play on a joke of Pete’s. I think it was about med school? Zak left a comment that was spot on and the final punchline.

HM – Live in AB

Here, in all its glory, is the complete live concert done by Hooverphonic in Ancienne Belgique (Brussles), back in 2005.
Don’t care? Then don’t look.

These are all in order

And because I can’t believe they aren’t doing this live on the current tour, my favorite Hooverphonic song (and the best version):

http://audio.xanga.com/mp3embedplayer.swf?i=13318&m=9a30d

Added July 8, 2016
If they’d released an official version of this on CD, it would have been the greatest album they ever put together.
Don’t click any of those links, though. They don’t work. Just google “Hooverphonic Live in AB” and you’ll get there.