Lazuli

When you think of the word "kiss," you think of a real passionate act between you and someone you love.

But when you think of the word "kisses," you think of harmless kisses that girls playingly give to each other.

Crazy how that word changes just by making it plural, lol

And Then You Make It To Coachella

It's hard to imagine just how shitty it must feel to be an artist.

You just spent months trying to create a great album based on all your life experiences up until the point you released your album. This album is based off material that is near and dear to you. You have no idea if people are even going to like this album. What if they don't like this music, the musical representation of your life experiences? That's gotta be a terrifying thought.

And then you release your project. You're excited for people to hear it. You can't wait to hear it's initial reception. You know you have your favorites on the project, but will other people like it as much as you? What if it's not as good as you think it is? What if this, the project that you've poured your heart into for so long, flops?

And a bit to your surprise, it's received exceptionally well. People from across the world are listening to and appreciating your art. Now you get scared because you've essentially shared your life with the world. I've got to assume that that's another frightening thought. But you try to look past that and focus on the music. You just tell yourself that you just want to keep working and focus on your next project. But now you're faced with problems that you've never faced before.

Before your album release, you were a nobody. no one knew you; this afforded you the opportunity to take your time on your project, making sure every line was right, that every beat was tight.

But now that you've dropped your mix tape, it's gotten a lot of buzz on the internet. People all over the world are eagerly awaiting the sequel to your highly lauded rookie album. Now there's pressure to put out more and more music quicker than you'd like to. No longer are you afforded the opportunities you had when you were unknown. People recognize you on the street, at the mall, at your favorite burger joint. They pressure you ask you when you're "dropping your new shit." And you hate it. You don't enjoy being pressured to make music; you know from looking at some of your favorite artists that being forced into making music results in forced, ineffective music. You enjoy being recognized and being a bit of a celebrity, but you don't like the fact that you can't enjoy a meal at your favorite burger joint or taking a piss in a public bathroom without being pestered for a picture or an autograph.

You don't want to disappoint your fans, so you try your hardest to make music, but what do you write about? Your first album was based on year's worth of love lost, love gained, partying with friends, and your dreams. But now that you've gained celebrity, you're only afforded so much time before you become irrelevant. And what new material do you have to write about? It's only been a few months since you released your debut album. Do you write about how your life has changed since you've become famous? No one wants to hear about that. Do you write about your love life? Too bad, you haven't had much time to have a real personal life, with all the fame and concerts and work to be done. There's no time to breathe because the buzz behind your first project has fans demanding performances all over the country.

And then you make it to Coachella. This is the biggest stage of music; hands down the biggest show you've done in your short-lived career. This performance has the potential to expand your fan base exponentially. It can also construe you as a fraud who is only a studio artist. Coachella is truly a make or break event for you.

Each step of this process is terrifying to me. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't be able to handle all of it and I'd end up going through some kind of mental breakdown before it was all over

I Will Not Let You Be

In 10 years, I picture myself with a decent job that doesn't pay particularly well, but enough for me to splurge every once in a while. I'll have a wife whom I've been with for a few years. We're just about ready to have kids. We have enough money to go on vacations around the world whenever we can spare the time. I'll still be driving my 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer but we'll be thinking about what car to get now that we're about to have a kid. I'll have bought EXPENSIVE ass drums that I actually know how to rock out on.

Oh You

These were the FUNNIEST FUCKING VIDEOS. I had no idea it went up to chapter 12. Fucking craaaaaazy

Let It All Work Out

In video games you're constrained to and limited to shoryukens and hadoukens. These moves are effective, but there are also moves built into the game with the purpose of reacting to these moves. You can abuse shoryukens and hadoukens all you want until your opponent figures out how to stop it. This metagame extends into other moves. If your opponent is blocking, you go in for a grab. If they are relying on aerials, you hit them with an anti-aerial attack.

But eventually you run into a wall. You've exhausted all of the moves available to you in the game engine. At this point, there are literally no moves for you to counteract your opponent's move; you've got to get creative. You now have to rely on mindgames, predicting to and reacting to your opponent's actions.

It's absolutely beautiful when you can see this kind of metagame play out. Two players, constantly predicting and responding to each other's moves is an incredible phenomenon. You can also see this phenomenon in debates, arguments, basketball, movies, and music.

You Could've Been That Lonely Star

A real motivator is able to identify when to use positive reinforcement versus negative reinforcement and vice versa.

A good coach can manage his team's personalities. He can identify the individuals who respond better to positive reinforcement than negative reinforcement and use that to his advantage. While he might yell and scream at one individual, he'll be more caring and supportive of another.

He also knows when to push his players. He should be able to recognize when chewing out a player who responds better to positive reinforcement might be the better course of action

Can Anybody Out There Hear Me

This inspired by the TED talk that deals with one of the most interesting and relevant ideas I've heard in a while. More at http://burstingthefilterbubble.wordpress.com/blog/

I aint yo guy

Back in the day when I lived, breathed, and died for Super Smash Bros. Melee, one of the main things that drew me into the game was the depth of the metagame.

At the most basic level, you would play Melee with some of your friends. Inevitably each of you progress more and more, getting better and better with time. Each of you toy around with different strategies in order to gain an advantage over each other. You find different combos, different approaches, and different recoveries that work to further the depth of your game. Eventually, your friendly home games develop a culture and you get accustomed to each others' playstyle. You know that your friend abuses Falco's lasers, so you adjust and develop an aerial game. Realizing this, your friend works aerials into his game as well. This metagame continues until each of you can't possibly figure out a way to counter your friend's strategy. Eventually your games look more and more similar, as you can't identify any more counters to each others' strategies.

So you guys decide to go to a city-wide tournament. And at the tournament level, you have an amalgamation of gamers, each coming from their own home games, complete with different cultures, strategies, and playstyles. Now each of you have to adjust to completely different playstyles that you're not accustomed to. You see and play against other people whose strategies are completely foreign to you. You and your buddies from your home games see different strategies that you incorporate into your game. You take those strategies back with you and work them into your home games against your buddies, and slowly you guys get better and better. Even though you thought you had reached the peak of your ability, you've found another way to further your game.

I see the same phenomenon when I look back at my college experience. My entire life before I came to college had mostly the same people, all from the same city, all with similar experiences resulting from being in more or less the same culture.

Then I look at how so many different people from different areas around California all come together at my college. All these people come from different cultures and backgrounds. This results in the craziest blend of fashion, humor, taste in music, etc.

My fellow college students take what they've absorbed from the college experience, come back to their hometowns and spread what they've learned. Then their hometown friends react and respond to this new experience, and the cycle continues

Give Me One Reason

It takes a real specific type of mood to...nvm, lol