I am not a blogger

What ever happened to board games? I will just say it right from the top. I don’t understand why video games have become this mammoth thing, which I am not personally a huge fan of, and they have replaced one of the last few ways that humans actually socialize together. That’s not to say that people don’t have other ways of socializing but I mean come on. If you think that spending eight hours a day talking on your cell phone or typing on Instant messenger is social then I am going to have to ask you what a human actually looks like. This is just on of the many traditions I think that as Americans we have all lost and with them we have lost the communication and contact that comes along with it.

When I grew up we never had video games in our house. I always thought it was some guilty pleasure when I got to go over to my friends’ houses and play all of their cool new games. Beginning way back with the original nintendo and going right up until the first playstation. After that I realized how much time and energy I was wasting just sitting in front of a screen. The other part of it I didn’t like was the screen itself. I mean how does that not hurt everyone’s eyes to stare at those lights flickering in front of you all day long while the sun is shinning perfectly good light outside. I know my opinion is a bit radical because when I turn on the tube the only thing I am doing in watching the game or the news. I find what I want, I watch it, and I am done. Most of the time I only watch it after the sun has gone down anyway. Maybe I just grew up in a different sort of house with parents that actually had expectations of me but I mean come on people. GO OUTSIDE.

Now after I got that out of my systems I just want to make it clear that I don’t hate television or video games by any stretch. I have watched and played my fair share. I am also in a frat full of guys that gather every sunday and fill our livingroom until every game is finished and every hot wing has met its match. I am usually right in the middle of the crowd. Though I try to chat more than anything else, I still have to, out of lack of conversation topics, watch a good portion of the games on tv. I hope no one out there is reading this while playing their game and instant messaging any while cooking dinner in the microwave and researching for a paper due next week. If you are though then you may want to heed my message here.

So, as much as I would just love to keep living the dream forever, I had my first semi-sleepless night the other day, stressing about what I was going to after I graduated from college. I have some post-graduation plans in the pipeline, but I'd still like to take some time off academia first, just to go out and do something different - to go and sew my oats in the world of employment.

The problem is - what does a young buck like me do for a living. sure, I'm smart, I can work a room, and a computer. I have my part-time job now, but it's not real, you know? It's not a resume kind of job.

So, am thinking I need to sort my resume out, get it whooped into shape, ready to show off my skills. Except I'm nervous I don't have any, not concrete ones anyhow. Or maybe I do, and I just don't realise. Am sure, if I put pen to part I could quite easily paint a pretty picture for the work-force. Realistically, I think I could be placed in the cosy corner of some production company, running out for coffees, and generally being a dogsbody. Or do something like it.

I have been browsing the internet, getting to grips with recruitment, trying to find opportunities for a guy like me. I'm just looking for that something, to seesaw me from student to solicitor. I merely use that as turn of phrase - without a major, I'm walking lost and confused...woe is me.

It's pretty cool in a way - I can use my lack of experience to never get a job, and catch myself in the vicious, but oh do comfortable cycle of unemployment with an allowance.

I was driving to a friend's house the other day. I had the radio on, and it was that time of day when it's not too cold and it's not that hot and a little sunlight hits the windows of your car and it's all leafy and bright. Life was being sweet.

I stopped off to get gas and I was hungry too, so I got a bag of chips, a bottle of water, some gum and put my shades on. Seatbelt on, and I was off again. It was one of those days when I wasn't thinking anything or nothing in particular and I was just pleased to be on the road, on a nice day, listening to my sounds.

And that's when these things happen I guess. Halfway through my journey I drove by the big mess of crushed car on the side of the road. I slowed down a little because there was nothing ahead or behind me. Just me and this car, and I was wondering why the dump had just been left there. It didn't look recent and it didn't look like it was even an accident; it looked like it had been bulldozed and abandoned. There was no glass-shrapnel all over the road; no police bands cutting the area off. Just this rusty old dump of a car: it was like some piece of art.

Maybe I only noticed it because there was nothing else to see. Maybe the sun lit it up for me, and I saw it that way. But with all the light on it, just sitting there waiting to be pulled away, I was kind of fixed on this thing.

Of all the things to think about, I thought about car insurance. I realised I hadn't renewed my car insurance for the year, and this car of mine, if it ever got beaten up like that? I'd never be able to cover costs. I went to my friend's house and we sat outside, but I couldn't get the car out of my head.

So, when I got home, I went onto the internet and got straight on with searching car insurance (can't remember how I did it before, think I used my parent's policy). After some browsing I found Beat That Quote and I got my deal.

It's good that I get my own car insurance anyway for the long-term and I found a quote, did all my administrative duties and had it sorted out, thanks to an artistic car wreck on a sunny day.

I'm thinking about travelling. A lot of my friends have talked about heading out on some European journey this summer, and honestly think, that without a doubt, Italian chicks will love them. Ok. So I may be a little young. But I know enough. And I've seen a few of those European films (once saw La Dolce Vita on TV at like, three in the morning, and Italian chicks are not like American chicks ). This woman was from some other world. Even the senior college girls who do Theater classes are not like the woman in that film. And even with my adolescent arrogance, I know where my limits lie.

Anyways, so they're talking about heading out, with Italy as their Holy Grail. Why? Cos they know a few phrases in Italian and they think can impress a few of the local girls. I'm pretty sure that Italian guys are better equipped at doing that kind of thing.

When we went to Mexico, they drank so much Jager that they could not speak. In Italy they have that Limoncello drink - I've had it before. It's really sweet, the kind of sweet that sticks to your tongue and stays there. It gets you wasted. That's one of the neat things about the Europe thing - we can drink ourselves stupid, which will be hilarious. But we'll be losing any sophisticated social skills that could impress any girl, let alone a European one. I'm sorry, but it's true. They're like 'Dude, we've already been on the cheap flights website, just ask your mum for the money and we can get on it'. As if that's the complicated bit over. As if my mum's juts gonna hand out the money (actually she will, but...).

Ok, so even If I get my cheap flights around Europe, I've then got to organise my travel insurance. To be honest, that's not a huge problem. I used to do it last thing, with Go Travel, online, no stress and no dent to the wallet. But it's getting the funds for hotels and for general good times when I'm there, for my limoncello shots at the bar. And I like checking out the museums and stuff, you know? I don't mind living it a little bit rough around the edges, but if I got to share a bunk bed with some stranger I don't know? No. Can. Do.

I've travelled around Europe, and I've enjoyed the finer things in life. I'm no snob, but Europe's got a certain kind of class doesn't it. It has a crisp chino charm. Surely the whole point of basking in the Italian sun is to do it in a kind of upmarket way. I'll say it again. I am no snob. I don't even mind staying in some pretty unsavoury places, as long as I have my own bed.

Saying that, I just found a whole load of hostels that don't look too terrible at all and I guess what I save on accommodation I can spend on chinos.

More importantly though - do I want to go on journey with my fellow frat brothers in search of girls? Can I be suave, cool, sophisticated? I need to get me some Italian phrases...

Voglio vederti stasera.

I think this means: I want to see you tonight. Great: I can show off my exquisite dorm room...

'Golf,' said Mark Twain, 'is a terrible way to ruin a good walk,' and many still agree. Whether you enjoy getting into your tweeds and hobnobbing with the local Johns and Marys at the ball washing machine, or you just fly off the handle when your ball goes into the lake (again), there's nothing stopping you from sitting down and enjoying the action from your own home. Now that sports betting has gone cyber, golf is as prominent in the world of online betting as any of its more active rivals. Don't be fooled by the slow moving nature of this game, it's one of the most competitive and dynamic sports around, it just doesn't want to let everyone know. With an ever more youthful and varied rote of professionals, and a broader ranger of the populous taking up the club, the days of stuffy exclusivity are well and truly over. The degree gadgetry and club technology that has risen around golf in recent decades has rendered the links more like a subtle, green machine rather than a glorified piece of mowed lawn. However, with over thirty two thousand of such 'machines' worldwide, and a rapidly rising figure at that, golf has never been more popular. The famous PGA Tour features forty-nine events every year, offering some the world's best golfers a first prize of eight hundred thousand dollars. Only second in prestige comes its sister organisation, the PGA European tour, itself offering fifty annual tournaments. Other events of note are The (US) Masters and the US PGA championship, both in August; the US Open and British Open in June and July respectively, and of course the bicentennial Ryder Cup which will be held in September this year. With such a rich and varied calander, we simply can't afford to let this game ruin a good walk; after all, the best of us use a golf buggy…