Hiatus

I won't be updating this blog for a while - too much happening out there in the real world!

View | POSTED BY Robert Otlowski ON June 18, 2009 @ 7:43 pm MST

An Old Leaf

On the surface not a lot has changed since the last time I posted here. I'm still working at the same company, still saving for a house, still having lots of fun. But deep down I think I've learned a couple of very important things and changed quite a bit, for the better. For a while there I kind of lost my confidence, there were some good reasons for that which anyone who knows me could guess, but regardless it escaped me. Over the past few months a few events in my life made it worse, to a breaking point actually, but ever since that culmination I've felt a lot better. Almost as if all the bullshit in my life got put in perspective and just melted away. For a while there I didn't even enjoy playing video games, at least not by myself, and frankly given that I've been playing Nintendo non-stop since 1st grade that was a scary place for me. It's funny, because when I wasn't feeling like myself a lot of the newer people in my life thought I was insecure and / or really laid back. I wonder what they'll think now?

Spring is almost here, I'm establishing credit for my first home loan, still losing weight, back at the gym, back to the chiropractor, getting my grandparent's truck (an old blue 1975 pickup - hell yeah!), making new friends and finding old ones, and having more fun that I have in far too long :). See you on the flip side...

View | POSTED BY Robert Otlowski ON April 9, 2009 @ 3:04 am MST

100 Things That Make You Happy

In completely random order:

1) Girls with sparkly eyes.
2) Giving people presents.
3) Playing video games with someone who enjoys it.
4) Warm hugs.
5) Going out to eat with friends.
6) Really good lasagna.
7) Really bad puns.
8) Being prepared.
9) Defending french fries from would be thieves.
10) Sneak attacks.
11) Arm wrestling.
12) Standing in the ocean while under assault by enormous waves.
13) Cold Polish vodka.
14) Happy endings.
15) The sound of a sad person playing the piano or the saxophone.
16) Old cartoons.
17) New anime.
18) Soft yummy cookies, but not too soft.
19) Being completely honest.
20) Big words.
21) Little details.
22) Movie trivia.
23) Cuddling with a girl who's warm or cold (if this list were in order this might be #1).
24) People who never give up.
25) Playing in the snow.
26) Walking slow.
27) Thinking quick.
28) Being old fashioned or old school in any way.
29) Eating cool watermelon at a picnic during the summer.
30) Learning to do something with someone.
31) Being inspired to write.
32) Witty remarks.
33) An ice cold RC from a can or Coke from a glass bottle when I'm hot or thirsty.
34) Making people's dreams come true.
35) Really hot showers.
36) Ketchup (I will be the ketchup of your doom).
37) Wandering along a wooded road in autumn at night.
38) Planting something and watching it grow.
39) Being called crazy.
40) Not being able to put down a book.
41) Using my imagination.
42) Pondering the meaning of life.
43) Memorizing interesting movie dialogue.
43) Breaking all the rules.
44) Stepping on things that snap, crackle, crunch, or pop.
45) Lifting or throwing heavy objects.
46) Blowing bubbles.
47) Ridiculous conversations.
48) Absurd situations.
49) Getting lost.
50) Record players and album covers.
51) Movie posters.
52) Surprises.
53) Exceptions.
54) The smell of something yummy being baked.
55) Random music.
56) Completely or almost completely predictable characters.
57) Winning Truth or Dare.
58) Shadow dancers.
59) Having a tasty snack after swimming in a pool.
60) Playing Setback, 500 Rummy, or Magic: the Gathering with my brother and a couple of good friends or family members.
61) Being remembered.
62) Searching for something that might not exist.
63) Road trips.
64) Laying down to watch the clouds, the snow, or look at the stars.
65) Sitting under the shade of a good tree with a cool breeze when it's hot.
66) Determining the political affiliation of cows along a highway.
67) Trying to convince people that they haven't seen llama(s) when, in fact, they have.
68) Helping someone overcome their shyness or fear.
69) Making lists.
70) Antiques.
71) Interesting rocks.
72) Making decisions, but not constantly, for someone who appreciates it.
73) Comfy black clothes, conspicuous t-shirts, white or striped socks, and blue jeans.
74) Most small numbers, multiples of two, plus 42 and 327.
75) Coming to the rescue.
76) Playing against the odds.
77) Museums of Natural History.
78) Brute force solutions when they actually work the best.
79) Elegance.
80) Cats... meow!
81) Ninjas, pirates, bounty hunters, I think you get the picture.
82) Swords that get used often and guns that don't.
83) Standing up for someone with a quick tongue or a strong arm.
84) People who listen carefully and love to talk.
85) Losing track of time.
86) Cheering up a friend when they're not feeling well.
87) Extremely expensive gadgets.
88) Extremely cheap food.
89) Girls who tell you exactly what they want and when.
90) Giving the girls in #89 what they want.
91) Putting an end to bad things and starting good ones.
92) "Red" flavors (cherry, watermelon, raspberry, et cetera).
93) Massaging or otherwise touching someone for the purpose of making them feel good and relaxed.
94) Cherry pie and blueberry muffins.
95) Fresh-picked raspberries with the morning dew still on them.
96) Smashed Potatoes (that's smashed, not mashed).
97) People who dominate my time but are always up for inviting others along for the ride.
98) Watching someone play frisbee with their dog.
99) Wisdom.
100) The young and the young at heart.

View | POSTED BY Robert Otlowski ON December 21, 2008 @ 3:14 am MST

Chin-up

Even without a workout partner one thing is going great: the gym. Who knew that excessive amounts of free time would be good for one's health. For the first time in my life I have successfully done a chin-up! That might have something to do with the 50 pounds that I've lost since college, hah. I'm down from 320 to 269 and still going :). I don't really have a target weight, I'm just gonna keep doing what I'm doing 'til the flab is gone. I guess my secondary goal is simply to get healthier (my primary goal being to get stronger, which is also going well).

Other than that and work there's not much going on. Wednesday night was a bust except for the gym, I had some ham at home and stopped by the Locker Room on Thanksgiving but it was just me and Dex (the bartender) so I only stayed for 15 minutes, and today has pretty much consisted of warm fuzzy feelings stemming from chin-up success. I wish I could say I had plans tonight or tomorrow or even Sunday (other than the gym) but honestly I don't. So I guess if you're reading this and you'd like to do just about anything let me know. I've got sports and movies and video games on the brain but I'll try anything once. Even basket weaving *shudder*.

View | POSTED BY Robert Otlowski ON November 28, 2008 @ 12:05 pm MST

The Walking City

A bit late but better than never. Last weekend I went on a road trip to Boston with an outstanding gentleman (one Mr. Wolf) and two fine young ladies (Brittany & Shay). What follows is a brief account of our trip with an emphasis on the cool things that we did and saw upon it:

There - we started off after work on Wednesday night, an ambitious move to be sure, and soon found ourselves in a Canadian immigration office. Apparently we're just as sketchy as we look. No worries though, they let us in to Canada ehventually. Mr. Wolf is a rather sleepy man, I assume he was tired from work, and I confess that I was extremely tired myself. Luckily for us the fairer sex was far more energetic (and willing to drink energy drinks) so we did actually make it to Massachusetts without having to stop and stay the night somewhere. I drove one measly hour before succumbing to low grade hallucinations and thinking better of it... Mr. Wolf did not drive at all.

Thursday - we rolled into Beantown and found the Marriott we wanted to stay at, unfortunately, our room would not be ready for a number of hours. So, we decided to go in search of food. Yeah, that was probably a mistake. Apparently there is no food in the outskirts of Boston until 11am. We hung around a mall until The Cheesecake Factory opened and had a rather lethargic lunch there. It made me especially sad because it's one of my favorite places to eat and none of my companions seemed to enjoy it very much. Nobody even had cheesecake :(. After that disgrace we went back to the hotel for some sleepy time, of which I got none. When the collective snoozing was complete we headed out to a couple of places, the first of which I don't remember well, but we met a friend's Mom who, being the amazingly awesome person that she is, gave us the key to her condo to stay at! Needless to say this was a financial boon since we would have had to pay more to stay at the Marriott again on Saturday night. Finally we shuffled over to the legendary Johnny D's that Brittany used to work at. This place is awesome... I'm actually kind of surprised that she likes it so much because it really seems more of my type of place than hers. That probably has something to do with the family like atmosphere that the people who work there seem to have with one another. We even caught part of a performance by Canadian Celtic rock band Enter the Haggis. I'm not gonna lie, I had my doubts about wanting to hear this band. But as it turns out they are kind of awesome. They kept busting cool new instruments out until I began to wonder where the fuck they were keeping all of them when they weren't on stage! After the D's we went back to the Marriott to catch some more (or in my case, some) Z's. After an excellent night / morning / afternoon's rest, at least on my part, it was a new day.

Friday - we started off a bit late but it was well worth the wait to go to The Black Rose, an amazing Irish pub if I've ever seen one. An actual Irish band was playing and though the place was really crowded it was totally worth staying there to hear some classic Irish drinking songs. By and by we headed to a slightly sketchier but no less interesting pub with a name I can't confirm since the building was not marked. I can't say that I had much fun there beyond extremely cheap beer and people watching (there were pool tables but nobody wanted to play with me and some of the locals were a bit protective) but my partners in crime seemed to enjoy it. We actually closed the place down then split up as Shay and Mr. Wolf seemed rather keen on going to some dude's house. Predictably, about 20 minutes later they ended up coming back to the condo. Unfortunately they did so with said dude in tow. Don't get me wrong, he seemed like a nice enough fellow, but Brittany and Mr. Wolf went to sleep and all he seemed interested in doing was trying to convince Shay that he had telekinetic powers. Whatever, if all we'd done was hear one good Irish drinking song it would still have been a fine evening by any measure.

Saturday - by the far the awesomest night in my book but also a little sad because in addition to Brittany getting sicker and sicker as the trip went on Shay was feeling rather under the weather from the night before. We headed out sans Shay and grabbed some food at this amazing indoor market (I had a Boston style hot pretzel and some fries), ran into a tree lighting ceremony, then went shopping at this awesome place called Newbury Comics. They have everything! Like, you know all the DVDs you have on your list to buy but never see anywhere? Yeah, they have them all. In the bargain rack no less. I picked up Army of Darkness, Brazil, and Dick Tracy. Brittany got Who Framed Roger Rabbit (I wants to watch!). From there we went back to Johnny D's for an evening of mead (well, not literally mead, but still), merriment, and a performance by legendary Blues guitarist Duke Robillard! I think I was the only one in our group into the performance but hey, it was still freakin' amazing. Kind of made me want to work at Johhny D's, or at least live in Boston, lol. We met this awesome lady named Bridget who we talked to extensively. I'm pretty sure she bought at least a round or more of drinks as well lol. After I got cut off, not from drinking but from buying other people drinks, we headed to this dude Andrew's house for what would quickly become an impromptu wine drinking dance party. Thank God there were no cameras. It was mega fun. The only downside was that we stayed the night there and the place was freezing cold.

Back - a flash and a bang and we were on our way back to Detroit. The driving schedule was far more balanced this time and we didn't get stopped by customs though I'm pretty sure the other kids in the car wish my iPod had been confiscated. All in all I'd say it was an awesome trip. I'd really like to go back sometime next year, or maybe to Chicago in June, or perhaps to New York. I don't really care for traveling but I do enjoy being with other people on trips since it really seems to give them an excuse to talk and have lots of fun. It was especially cool to get to know my three comrades better (including Mr. Wolf, who I had only met once or twice before).

View | POSTED BY Robert Otlowski ON November 27, 2008 @ 9:06 am MST

Madame Butterfly

It's Friday night (well, technically, Saturday morning) and I'm all alone at my computer so I figure why not write about the future when I'll actually have something to do?

Tonight I'm going to see Giacomo Puccini's Madame Butterfly at the Detroit Opera House with some friends. It should be fun and I'm happy to say I've been rather looking forward to it for quite some time.

Unfortunately, other than that my weekend is looking somewhat grim. I just got back from the gym so obviously I'll be lifting again on Sunday but that hardly qualifies as exciting, especially now that I don't even have a workout partner to talk to. Perhaps lady luck will strike and I'll find something to do, if not, there's always the undiscovered country.

***UPDATE***

Unsurprisingly Madame Butterfly was absolutely beautiful. I'm confident enough to admit I almost cried a couple of times despite knowing what was going to happen. Unfortunately now that it's over instead of being sad and enthralled I'm sad and bored.

View | POSTED BY Robert Otlowski ON November 15, 2008 @ 12:31 am MST

The 18th Disk

I got home from a party last night at 5pm today. I'm actually feeling kind of awesome. My biggest concerns are that it won't last and how incredibly lame the rest of the week and next weekend are going to be compared to this one.

View | POSTED BY Robert Otlowski ON October 19, 2008 @ 5:39 pm MST

Six-String Samurai

Death came 'round to meet and greet
The would be kings of sin and street
But one man stood with glasses grim
Sword in hand and black suit trim

Six strings he plucked upon the path
To Lost Vegas and its throne of ash
An umbrella tattered by the wind
Of roads long traveled by no friend

A scruffy thing he chanced to save
From a young and bloody open grave
The kid stuck with him 'til the end
Of their journey to the Land of Sin

The Reds attacked, his sword sung fast
He played and played until the last
The mound of dead was piled high
By our friend the Six-String Samurai

View | POSTED BY Robert Otlowski ON October 14, 2008 @ 6:50 pm MST